Distribution and Release
The band and its management formed their own company, Moon Records, and released the album in Canada. Only 3,500 copies of the original Moon Records LP (catalog number MN-100) were pressed. The first version of the LP has a cream-coloured label with a blue Moon Records logo and black type.
The album was soon picked up by WMMS, a radio station in Cleveland, Ohio. Donna Halper, a DJ working at the station, selected "Working Man" for her regular play list. Every time the song was played the station received phone calls asking where to buy the record. Copies of the Moon Records album were imported to the Cleveland area and quickly sold out. In the 2010 documentary film Rush: Beyond The Lighted Stage, Halper says that "Working Man" was the perfect song for the Cleveland rock audience, as it was still mostly a factory town in 1974.
The record's popularity in Cleveland quickly led to the re-release of the album by Mercury Records. The first Canadian Mercury release on the standard red Mercury label is nearly as rare as the Moon version. It also had the Moon number 'MN-100' between the run-out groves, indicating that it was pressed from the same metal parts as the Moon disc. A special thank you to Donna Halper was added to the album credits of this and all later versions.
At this point manager Ray Danniels scraped together an additional $9,000 for producer Terry Brown to professionally re-mix all of the recordings for better sound quality. This remix version was used for later releases most of which used the Mercury "skyline" record label instead of the red label.
A later Moon Records version of undetermined origin has a pink label with gray moon craters.
The original album logo was red, but a printing error made it appear more pink in colour. This is one of two Rush albums where the cover artwork had printing errors (the other album is Caress of Steel).
Read more about this topic: Rush (Rush album)
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