Fascinating! As I had already guessed, this stash must have come from the Nashville label Mega's vaults. Pillow, Cargill and Jack & Misty all had country chart hits for the label during 1971-72, the time frame of this music. Curiously, though, while most of the tracks on their respective Q8's did appear on the only Mega Lp's each artist had, they are not straight reissues of those albums. They do have *most* of the album's tracks in common, but in each instance, a few are missing while a few that never made it to Lp are included, so obviously whoever assembled these went right to the session tapes and pulled the songs, and didn't bother referencing the album masters. Same with the Bill Black album: it has most of the tracks from their lone Mega Lp, but not all, and a few tracks I don't think I have even on 45.
Since you haven't stated these are in any way 'faux quad' I'll assume the quad's for real, which makes their release even more curious, since these got limited distribution at best (I never saw them in New England, and I traveled a lot in those days, not likely I'd have missed Q8's like these) at a time when Mega itself was on its way out.
Another interesting aspect is that Mega's best selling act turned out to be Sammi ("Help Me Make it Through the Night") Smith, but she didn't get a quad, while some who sold far less did. Go figure.
Stan Hitchcock? During this time he recorded for GRT (the tape manufacturer's label) and Cinnamon, a short-lived indie. I would guess whatever's on that Q8 has to be from one or both labels.
ED
Since you haven't stated these are in any way 'faux quad' I'll assume the quad's for real, which makes their release even more curious, since these got limited distribution at best (I never saw them in New England, and I traveled a lot in those days, not likely I'd have missed Q8's like these) at a time when Mega itself was on its way out.
Another interesting aspect is that Mega's best selling act turned out to be Sammi ("Help Me Make it Through the Night") Smith, but she didn't get a quad, while some who sold far less did. Go figure.
Stan Hitchcock? During this time he recorded for GRT (the tape manufacturer's label) and Cinnamon, a short-lived indie. I would guess whatever's on that Q8 has to be from one or both labels.
ED