Synthetic Plastics Company

Synthetics Plastics Company or SPC of Newark, New Jersey was formed by Daniel Kasen in the late 1920's as a plastic manufacturer for the garments industry. After World War II, Daniel and his brother Louis Kasen founded Peter Pan Records, in 1949, operating the label under SPC from then until 1970. Irving Kasen owned subsidiaries Ambassador Records, Parade, Prom, Promenade, Pirouette, Guest Star, Power Records and Diplomat Records whose motto was "Fine records need not be expensive". Diplomat Records had its own children's label "Rocking Horse Series". In the 60's SPC ventured into the Southern Gospel Music arena when it hired former Oak Ridge Quartet member Ron Page to solicit groups to record for its Scripture label. Most of the Scripture sessions were done in Nashville, with the musicians under the direction of pianist/composer David Reece. Groups recording for Scripture included The Sego Brothers & Naomi, The Rangers Trio (featuring Reece and Page), Wendy Bagwell & the Sunliters, and The Goss Brothers.

One of the most interesting and successful records released under the SPC banner was "My Son, The President", a hilarious comedy spotlighting former president skewering then-president John F. Kennedy, his wife, Jacqueline Kennedy and their daughter, Caroline -- that followed in the footsteps of Vaughn Meader's "The First Family" series of comedy records. "My Son, The President" (the "My Son" part of the title itself borrows from Allan Sherman's series of comedy albums) was released on the Clan subsidiary of SPC in 1963. They were very active in what might be called the fake artists business. For instance, they would find a singer that sounded like a big named artist, like Mario Lanza or Perry Como and record this sound alike and issue the record with a facsimile of the name artist on the cover. The cover would say in big letters, A Tribute To Mario Lanza, while in very small print, it would say "Sung by Enzo Stuarti". Eventually, when Stuarti became a "name" artist, the exact same record was issued as "Enzo Stuarti Sings". Some of the record pressings were horrible, as they were created from inferior grade vinyl, and often sounded very noisy (similar to "frying bacon").

References

• Diplomat Records Discography