Arista album discography: 1977-83

Originally a vehicle for film soundtracks from Arista, the 9500 series quickly became the main series once Bertelsmann took over its ownership.

Dionne Warwick (or Warwicke) had many a seminal hit during the 1960s (mostly with songs from the Bacharach-David catalogue, 31 in all!) yet the next decade wasn't at all hers; her latest hit for that time, ''Then Came You'', a collaboration with the (Detroit) Spinners, had been 5 years old. Clive Davis personally signed her to Arista around 1979, saying to her: "You may be ready to give the business up, but the business is not ready to give you up". Her comeback album, Dionne, was produced by Barry Manilow, by this point Arista's signature artist, with plenty of hits to his credit. The LP produced the memorable smash hit "I'll Never Love This Way Again" (#5) and a hit with the Issac Hayes composition "Deja Vu" (#15, #1AC).

With her success, Reinhard Mohn brought another soul legend of the 1960s, Aretha Franklin, to Clive's attention. At Atlantic Records, Aretha had many a (still) celebrated LP to her credit in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s (I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You, Lady Soul, Young, Gifted & Black and Amazing Grace). However, Atlantic was pushing itself more and more toward rock music during the mid-to-late 1970s, increasingly ignoring its R&B acts, Aretha among them. With that, she was disappointed, and, after giving a Royal Command Performance at Royal Albert Hall in front of Queen Elizabeth, she opted to exit Atlantic. She chose instead to sign with Arista.

Her debut album for the label, Aretha, yielded the hit "United Together" (#3 R&B); her cover of Otis Redding's ''I Can't Turn You Loose'' was nominated for a Grammy (although it lost to the Manhattans' ''Shining Star''). During her first year at the label, the album competed hotly against a CBS compilation on her (recordings for that label), Aretha Sings the Blues. Her debut album for Arista appears to have won the competition, hitting #47 on the album charts while Aretha Sings the Blues didn't chart at all.

Her next album, Love All the Hurt Away, included her famed duet of the title track with George Benson; the B-side of the single of that name, a remake of Sam & Dave's "Hold On, I'm Comin'", was nominated for a Grammy (this time it actually won it). Her album after that Jump To It, gave Aretha her tenth #1 R&B album - at the time it was the all-time record. It enjoyed a seven-week run at #1 on Billboard's R&B albums chart and also reached #23 on Billboard's main album chart. The album was also boosted by its title track, which resumed Aretha's top-40 career (#1RB, #24pop). Her success (as well as that of Dionne Warwick) boosted Arista into the direction it was about to go: in terms of the amount of R&B records that it sold, Arista became the Motown of the '80s.

On the soft-rock front, Melbourne had a duo called Air Supply consisting of British-born singer-songwriter and guitarist Graham Russell and lead vocalist Russell Hitchcock. They had recently released an album called Life Support. Clive Davis was particularly intrigued by one of the tracks on the album, ''Lost In Love'' (#13AU). He remixed the song and released it as a single in the US early the next year; the result hit #3 on Billboard Hot 100 and No. 11 in the UK. The group went on to have 7 more Top 10 hits in America: "Every Woman in the World" (#5), "All Out of Love" (#2), "The One That You Love" (#1), "Here I Am (Just When I Thought I Was Over You)" (#5), "Sweet Dreams" (#5), "Even the Nights Are Better" (#6), and the Jim Steinman tune "Making Love Out of Nothing At All" (#2).

The normal Arista labels of the period (the first three had a black label with A and ARISTA in light blue above, while the rest all had the ''Cascading A'' label) were used for this series, but some of the albums in this series had a custom label, take for example:

AL 9500 John Williams/Close Encounters Of The Third Kind (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
AL 9501 Charles Fox/Foul Play (Original Soundtrack)
AL 9502 Marvin Hamlisch/Ice Castles (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
AL 9503 Al Stewart/Year Of The Cat
AL 9504 The Alan Parsons Project/Eve
AL 9505 Barry Manilow/One Voice
AL 9506 Melissa Manchester
AL 9507 Outlaws/In The Eye Of The Storm
AL 9508 Grateful Dead/Go To Heaven
AL 9509 Phyllis Hyman/You Know How To Love Me
AL 9510 John Williams/1941 (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
AL 9511 GQ Two
AL 9512 Dionne Warwick/Dionne
AL 9513 Eric Carmen/Tonight You're Mine
AL 9514 Gil Scott-Heron & Brian Jackson/1980
AL 9515 Ray Parker Jr. And Raydio/Two Places At The Same Time
AL 9516 The Jeff Lorber Fusion/Wizard Island
AL 9517 Graham Parker/The Up Escalator
AL 9518 The Alan Parsons Project/The Turn Of A Friendly Card
AL 9519 Chevy Chase - Send-up of the music business with spoofs of tunes by Barry White, Bob Marley, Donna Summer, and the Sugarhill Gang as well as covers of The Troggs, Tennessee Ernie Ford, Randy Newman, and the Beatles.
AL 9520 Al Stewart And Shot In The Dark/24 Carrots
AL 9521
AL 9522 Lou Reed/Growing Up In Public
AL 9523 Average White Band/Shine
AL 9524 Al Stewart/Past · Present And Future
AL 9525 Al Stewart/Modern Times
AL 9526 Dionne Warwick/No Night So Long
AL 9527 Mandrill/Getting In The Mood
AL 9528 Dixie Dregs/Dregs Of The Earth
AL 9529
AL 9530 Air Supply/Lost In Love
AL 9531 Sea Level/Ball Room
AL 9532
AL 9533 Melissa Manchester/For The Working Girl
AL 9534 Norman Connors/Take It To The Limit
AL 9535 The Allman Brothers Band Reach For The Sky
AL 9536 Monty Python's Contractual Obligation Album
AL 9537 Barry Manilow/Barry
AL 9538 Aretha Frankli/Aretha
AL 9539 Gino Vannelli/Nightwalker
AL 9540 Gil Scott-Heron/Real Eyes
AL 9541 Hiroshima/Odori
AL 9542 Outlaws/Ghost Riders
AL 9543 Ray Parker Jr. And Raydio/A Woman Needs Love
AL 9544 Phyllis Hyman/Can't We Fall In Love Again
AL 9545 Jeff Lorber Fusion/Galaxian
AL 9546 The Blues Band/Ready
AL 9547 GQ/Face To Face
AL 9548 The Dregs/Unsung Heroes
AL 9549 The Blues Band Official Bootleg Album
AL 9550 The Brecker Brothers/Straphangin'
AL 9551 Air Supply/The One That You Love
AL 9552 Aretha Franklin/Love All The Hurt Away
AL 9553 Spaces
AL 9554 The A's/A Woman's Got The Power
AL 9555 Tycoon/Turn Out The Lights
AL 9556 Krokus/Hardware
AL 9557
AL 9558 The Rods
AL 9559 Anthony Braxton/Composition No. 95 For Two Pianos
AL 9560 Best Of Jennifer Warnes
AL 9561 T. Life/Somethin' That You Do To Me
AL 9562
AL 9563 David Gates/Take Me Now - Lead singer of the group Bread.
AL 9564 The Allman Brothers Band/Brothers Of The Road
AL 9565 Madagascar/Spirit Of The Street
AL 9566 Gil Scott-Heron/Reflections
AL 9567 The Kinks/Give The People What They Want
AL 9568 Bobby & The Midnites/Bobby & The Midnites
AL 9569 The Bus Boys/American Worker - Los Angeles-based band once associated with Eddie Murphy. Their style combined Rock'n'Roll, R&B, Funk and Soul. Best known for their contribution to the soundtrack of "48 Hrs." (1982; starring Eddie Murphy & Nick Nolte).
AL 9570 Osamu Kitajima/Dragon King
AL 9571 Eric Andersen/Retrospective
AL 9572 Iggy Pop/Party
AL 9573 Barry Manilow/If I Should Love Again
AL 9574 Melissa Manchester/Hey Ricky
AL 9575 Norman Connors/Mr. C
AL 9576 Angela Bofill/Something About You
AL 9577
AL 9578 Paul Davis/Cool Night
AL 9579 Tight Fit/Back To The 60's
AL 9580 The Monty Python Instant Record Collection/The Pick Of The Best Of Some Recently Repeated Python Hits Again, Vol. II
AL 9581 Chuck Cissel/If I Had The Chance
AL 9582 Juicy - Group named for Mtume's number-one R&B hit "Juicy Fruit" (per Allmusic).
AL 9583 Jeff Lorber/It's A Fact
AL 9584 Outlaws/Los Hombres Malo
AL 9585 Dionne Warwick/Friends In Love
AL 9586
AL 9587 Air Supply/Now And Forever
AL 9588 The Dregs/Industry Standard
AL 9589 Graham Parker/Another Grey Area
AL 9590 Ray Parker Jr./The Other Woman
AL 9591 Krokus/One Vice At A Time
AL 9592
AL 9593
AL 9594 Average White Band/Cupid's In Fashion
AL 9596 Tanya Tucker/Changes
AL 9597 Krokus/Metal Rendez-vous
AL 9598 Meco/Pop Goes The Movies
AL 9599 The Alan Parsons Project/Eye In The Sky
AL 9600 Tom Snow/Hungry Nights ‎
AL 9601 The Rods/Wild Dogs
AL 9602 Aretha Franklin/Jump To It
AL 9603 Jerry Garcia/Run For The Roses
AL 9604 Sky 4 - Forthcoming
AL 9605 Meco/Swingtime's Greatest Hits
AL 9606 Gil Scott-Heron/Moving Target - Scott-Heron's last Arista LP, and his last until 1994's Spirits.
AL 9607 Haircut One Hundred/Pelican West
AL 9608 Kenny G
AL 9609 Dionne Warwick/Heartbreaker
AL 9610 Barry Manilow/Here Comes The Night
AL 9611 Melissa Manchester/Greatest Hits
AL 9612 Ray Parker Jr. Greatest Hits
AL 9613 Peter Allen/Not The Boy Next Door
AL 9614 Greatest Hits Of The Outlaws, High Tides Forever
AL 9615
AL 9616 Angela Bofill/Too Tough
AL 9617 The Kinks/State Of Confusion
AL 9618 Midnight Blue
AL 9619 Phyllis Hyman/Goddess Of Love
AL 9620 Kashif - Includes hits "I Just Got To Have You (Lover Turn Me On)", "Stone Love", "Help Yourself to My Love", and the Grammy-nominated instrumental "The Mood", the first four for the R&B titan who, sadly, passed away on September 25 of this year.
AL 9621
AL 9622 Alex Call
AL 9623 Krokus/Headhunter
AL 9624 Thompson Twins/Side Kicks
AL 9625
AL 9626
AL 9627
AL 9628 Heaven 17/The Luxury Gap ‎
AL 9629
AL 9630
AL 9631 Anthony Ventura And His Orchestra/Music For Lovers
AL 9632
AL 9633 Louise Tucker/After The Storm