Charly Records was founded in France in 1974. Jean-Luc Young, who had been a promoter of teen concerts, founded it in his native country, but moved operations to England in 1975, where it became better known. Although Charly's output over the years has included jazz (through its Affinity label) and other modern oddities such as the Bullocks Brothers, it is mainly known as an album-oriented "retro" label. Charly mostly specializes in reissuing old music, notably the Sun Records catalog, the Vee-Jay catalog, and some of the other small US-based r&b catalogs.

Stereo-wise, although they have had their moments (the first time stereo version of Chris Kenner's "I Like It Like That," for example), the albums tended toward mono or rechanneled stereo. Rarely was there any stereo to be mined here. When the label began issuing CDs in the mid-1980s, they were typically of poor-to-fair quality with a lot of surface noise. More recent CD issues have had improvement in sound quality, but not in stereo content.

Nevertheless, the mere volume of the Charly label's output over the years, including a lot of rare and sought-after collectors' items, is almost astonishing. If we think of Rhino as today's top reissue label, Charly was doing it years before Rhino.

We have listed the Charly vinyl through 1985, then sporadically after that. The last part of this discography is a listing of the Charly CDs released as of about 1990.More recently, Charly Records has been distributed by Snapper Records in the UK.

We would appreciate any additions or corrections to this discography. Just send them to us via e-mail. Both Sides Now Publications is an information web page. We are not a catalog, nor can we provide the records listed below. We have no association with Charly Records. Should you be interested in acquiring albums listed in this discography (which are all out of print except some of the CDs), we suggest you see our Frequently Asked Questions page and Follow the instructions found there. This story and discography are copyright 1998, 1999, 2005 by Mike Callahan.