RCA Camden

RCA Camden was a budget record label of RCA Victor, created by 1953[1] to reissue recordings from earlier 78-RPM releases.

History

The label was named after Camden, New Jersey, original home to the Victor Talking Machine Company, later RCA Victor. Early RCA Camden reissues were mostly of historic classical and popular recordings from the extensive Victor Red Seal and RCA Victor catalog. The long play albums originally sold for $1.98 retail and consisted of strictly monaural recordings, mostly drawn from 78-rpm masters. Camden also issued 45-rpm "extended play" (EP) records, including contemporary performers such as Snooky Lanson and Jack Haskell, at a suggested retail price of 79 cents.

First releases

RCA Victor originally reissued its older classical symphonic recordings on the Camden label using the real names of the orchestras involved. But soon, to avoid competing with modern recordings by the same orchestras, a series of pseudonyms were used, drawn primarily from the names of nearby Philadelphia hotels. Here is a partial listing of the real orchestras and their pseudonyms:

The RCA Victor Symphony Orchestra was a New York City "pick-up" orchestra drawn from members of the NBC Symphony Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.[2] The New York City Symphony Orchestra, created by Leopold Stokowski in the 1940s, recorded for RCA Victor and some of its recordings were issued on Camden under the name "Sutton Symphony Orchestra," not to be confused with a British orchestra with the same name.

Later releases

In the mid 1950s, RCA Camden began releasing some rhythm & blues and, later, rock and roll recordings, for example, an EP of such songs by "The Honey Dreamers". In 1958, Camden released some albums in stereo and subsequently issued popular stereophonic recordings by the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, The Living Strings and Living Voices.

In Canada, in addition to handling the U.S. releases on the label for the Canadian market, the RCA Camden Imprint was also used to issue both Current and Compilation albums by RCA Victor Canada's Country Artists. There were a number of such albums issued in Canada that were never available in the United States.

From 1968 to 1975, RCA Camden issued a series of compilation albums featuring recordings by Elvis Presley, who recorded for the main RCA Victor label. These albums primarily consisted of repackagings of Presley's 1960s-era movie soundtrack recordings, however several albums, such as Elvis Sings Flaming Star also featured previously unreleased material, while another album, Let's Be Friends featured most of the soundtrack to Presley's final scripted film, Change of Habit. Two later compilations, Burning Love and Hits from His Movies, Volume 2 and Separate Ways actually featured then-current chart hits for Presley that were issued on LP on RCA Camden, instead of the usual RCA Victor label (resulting in both albums - which otherwise featured previously released and generally undistinguished movie and studio tracks - making the US charts). In 1975, RCA leased Presley reissue rights to Pickwick Records, which subsequently reissued several of the RCA Camden albums under its own branding starting in late 1975. RCA eventually regained the rights to the Pickwick-leased recordings and reissued several of them in the 1980s.

During the early- to mid-1970s, as the fame of another RCA artist, Dolly Parton, grew, the label reissued much of her earlier RCA Victor material in a series of budget compilations to capitalize on her more recent success. Just the Way I Am, Mine, Just Because I'm a Woman (not to be confused with Parton's 1968 debut solo album of the same name, issued on RCA Victor), and I Wish I Felt This Way at Home were all issued between 1972 and 1976, and were largely made up of lesser known material Parton had recorded for RCA during the late 1960s and early '70s. As with the Presley reissues, RCA also leased the reissue rights to the four Parton Camden albums to Pickwick, which rereleased the albums during the late 1970s. The Camden label continued into the compact disc era and was still active in Canada and the UK and other countries until at least the early 2000s.

Promotional material

From the liner notes of several 1957-58 Camden releases:

RCA Victor also used a modified and shorter version of this statement in the liner notes of early releases on the RCA Victrola label.

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ COLLECTIBLES, Joe Stephens for YOUR KEY TO. "CAMDEN RECORD DISCOGRAPHY SECTION". yktc.us. Retrieved 2018-05-13.
  2. ↑ Jack Gottlieb, http://www.leonardbernstein.com; Billboard 31 Mar 1956
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