Red Leaf Records was founded in January 1965 by independent Canadian record producers Duff Roman and Danny Mostoway (Roman Records), Art Snider and David Pears (Chateau, Canatal, ACT) and Stan Klees (Tamarac, Bigland),. Believing that radio stations, record dealers and consumers had become confused by the profusion of small labels whose releases were far and few between and scantily promoted and advertised, Red Leaf's founders retired their own labels to join forces in a national super-independent Each unit operated independent of each other, but capitalized on the identity of a larger, cohesive organization. The next year (1966) the label won the Juno Gold Leaf award for "Canadian Content Company".