1971-1976. Used with the orange label.
Monument Records was founded in 1958 by Fred Foster and Bob Moore in the Nashville suburb of Hendersonville, Tennessee. At the beginning, Monument was distributed by London Records, but by 1960 Monument was an independent label. It was the signing of the former Sun Records singer, Roy Orbison, that brought phenomenal success, starting with the 1960 hit, ONLY THE LONELY.
With the loss of Monument's key business partner, Bob Moore, followed by the loss of Orbison to MGM Records in 1965, the company fell into a slow decline. These circumstances, combined with a series of bad investments in the 1980s, led to difficulties that saw Foster lose the company to bankruptcy. CBS Records acquired the Monument catalog.