Obit Times Online

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00268/leslie_185x185_268506a.jpg

Seymour Marvin "Cy" Leslie was the founder of Pickwick Records has died on January 6, 2008.

Pickwick’s good run ended when big labels realised they could lease the original hits to labels such as K-Tel which squashed ten to a side.

I didn't realize until later why cut-rate compilers like K-Tel used to say "By the original artists" on their jackets...then I learned about this guy!  Sometimes you'll find Pickwick records in the two-for-a-buck bins at flea markets.  No matter how many millions were sold, they just weren't very durable--the cheap vinyl warped easily and the jackets disintegrated quickly--and nobody particularly valued them.  Like the obit said, Leslie capitalized on the "impulse buy" at the supermarket rather than discriminating tastes at the record shop.  Print a photo of a hot chick on something--anything--it'll sell!

As above, even though K-Tel used the original artists, 10 songs on one side meant low quality pressings of truncated songs.  A 3:30 song was widdled to 2:55 usually with a ham-fisted fade-in/fade-out technique!
::)