D’Amato Records announced on Thursday that Freddy Abela’s ‘Taxi Mary’ has the honour of being Malta’s highest-sold record on release day.

Through a social media post, the long-standing record store said that the single released by Żejtun folk singer Fredu Abela, better known as Il-Bamboċċu, sold 751 records on its day of release, the most in Maltese history.

This is according to a diary entry by Vince Cilia which is dated 15th May 1967, with the figure of records sold being a “record (in both senses) for Malta that will never ever be matched”, D’Amato Records said.

During that week of release, William D’Amato, who managed the store at the time, “gave all staff a £1 weekly increase”.

“On the day, police had to be called in to control a large crowd outside the shop where the queue of people reached right up to St. John’s Cathedral,” D’Amato Records said.

“The record sold tens of thousands from Malta to Australia and Canada, and still sells today,” it added.

“Long live this ‘l-Art Helwa’ and its music,” the post concluded.

Famous for his spirtu pront style, or ‘impromptu singing’, Il-Bamboċċu died in 2003, yet his legacy lives on to this day with there being multiple renditions of Taxi Mary and his other folk songs.

Located right in the heart of Valletta, D’Amato Records describes itself as being ‘The World’s Oldest Record Shop’, having been established in 1885.