RCA Camden was a
budget
A budget is a calculation plan, usually but not always financial plan, financial, for a defined accounting period, period, often one year or a month. A budget may include anticipated sales volumes and revenues, resource quantities including tim ...
record label
"Big Three" music labels
A record label or record company is a brand or trademark of Sound recording and reproduction, music recordings and music videos, or the company that owns it. Sometimes, a record label is also a Music publisher, ...
of
RCA Victor
RCA Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Group Corporation. It is one of Sony Music's four flagship labels, alongside Columbia Records (its former longtime rival), Arista Records and Epic ...
, originally created in 1953 to reissue recordings from earlier 78rpm releases. The label was named "Camden", after
Camden, New Jersey
Camden is a City (New Jersey), city in Camden County, New Jersey, Camden County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It is part of the Delaware Valley metropolitan region. The city was incorporated on February 13, 1828.Snyder, John P''The Story of ...
where the offices, factories and studios of RCA Victor and its predecessor, the
Victor Talking Machine Company
The Victor Talking Machine Company was an American recording company and phonograph manufacturer, incorporated in 1901. Victor was an independent enterprise until 1929 when it was purchased by the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) and became ...
had been located since 1901.
History
RCA Victor originally created the Camden label to reissue select older 78rpm
Red Seal recordings of classical symphonic music on
LP records. In the mid 1950s, RCA Camden began releasing some
rhythm & blues and, later, pop, country and
rock and roll
Rock and roll (often written as rock & roll, rock-n-roll, and rock 'n' roll) is a Genre (music), genre of popular music that evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s. It Origins of rock and roll, originated from African ...
recordings. For example, in 1956, Camden issued an album of the very first recordings made by
Little Richard
Richard Wayne Penniman (December 5, 1932 – May 9, 2020), known professionally as Little Richard, was an American singer, pianist, and songwriter. He was an influential figure in popular music and culture for seven decades. Described as the "Ar ...
for RCA Victor in 1951 and 1952, expanded with four tracks by
Buck Ram and his Rock n' Ram Orchestra. In 1958, Camden released some albums in RCA Victor's new
Living Stereo format and subsequently issued popular stereo recordings by the
Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra,
The Living Strings and
Living Voices. Camden also produced a "Designed for Dancing" series, with titles by
Xavier Cugat and
Perez Prado, and others.
Beginning in the late 1950s, the RCA Camden label was headed by long-time RCA Victor record producer
Ethel Gabriel. Gabriel was soon earning producer credits, Which she continued to do for the rest of her career at RCA Victor.
In 1959, Gabriel began the popular “Living Strings” series of easy-listening albums, consisting of orchestral renditions of pop and classical tunes (“Living Strings Play Music of the Sea,” “Living Strings Play Music for Romance” and many more), most of which were released on the Camden label. The line soon branched out into “Living Voices,” “Living Guitars” and other subsets and became a big profit-generator for RCA Victor — which was not, Ms. Gabriel later said, what the boss expected when he put her in charge of Camden, a struggling label at the time. New York Times
"Ethel Gabriel, a Rare Woman in the Record World, Dies at 99"Neil Genzlinger, April 9, 2021.
“I’m sure he thought it was a way to get rid of me,” she told The Express-Times of Easton, Pa., in 1992 (too diplomatic to name the boss). “Well, I made a multimillion-dollar line out of it, conceived, programmed and produced the entire thing.�
First releases
RCA Victor originally reissued its older 78rpm
Red Seal classical symphonic recordings on the Camden label using the actual names of the symphony orchestras involved; but soon, to avoid competing with recent full-priced recordings by the same orchestras, a series of pseudonyms were used, drawn primarily from the names of hotels in nearby Philadelphia, across the Delaware River from RCA Victor's headquarters in Camden. Here is a partial listing of the real orchestras and their pseudonyms:
*
BBC Symphony Orchestra
The BBC Symphony Orchestra (BBC SO) is a British orchestra based in London. Founded in 1930, it was the first permanent salaried orchestra in London, and is the only one of the city's five major symphony orchestras not to be self-governing. The ...
- Thames Symphony Orchestra
*
Boston Pops Orchestra - Festival Concert Orchestra
*
Boston Symphony Orchestra
The Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) is an American orchestra based in Boston. It is the second-oldest of the five major American symphony orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five (orchestras), Big Five". Founded by Henry Lee Higginson in ...
- Centennial Symphony Orchestra
* Charlie Lemon and his Orchestra - Golden Sound Jazz Orchestra
*
Chicago Symphony Orchestra
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO) is an American symphony orchestra based in Chicago, Illinois. Founded by Theodore Thomas in 1891, the ensemble has been based in the Symphony Center since 1904 and plays a summer season at the Ravinia F ...
- Century Symphony Orchestra
*
Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra - Cromwell Symphony Orchestra
*
Henri Rene and his Orchestra - Cosmopolitan Orchestra
*
Hollywood Bowl Symphony Orchestra - Star Symphony Orchestra
*
Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra
The Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra (ISO) is a major American orchestra based in Indianapolis, Indiana. The largest performing arts organization in Indiana, the orchestra was founded in 1930 and is based at the Hilbert Circle Theatre in downtown ...
- Sussex Symphony Orchestra
*
London Philharmonic Orchestra
The London Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO) is a British orchestra based in London. One of five permanent symphony orchestras in London, the LPO was founded by the conductors Thomas Beecham, Sir Thomas Beecham and Malcolm Sargent in 1932 as a riv ...
- Stratford Symphony Orchestra
*
London Symphony Orchestra
The London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) is a British symphony orchestra based in London. Founded in 1904, the LSO is the oldest of London's orchestras, symphony orchestras. The LSO was created by a group of players who left Henry Wood's Queen's ...
- Jewel Symphony Orchestra
*
Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra - Marlborough Symphony Orchestra
*
National Symphony Orchestra
The National Symphony Orchestra (NSO) is an American symphony orchestra based in Washington, D.C. Founded in 1930 by cellist Hans Kindler, its principal performing venue is the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
The NSO regularly ...
- Globe Symphony Orchestra
*
Paris Conservatory Orchestra - Seine Symphony Orchestra
*
Philadelphia Orchestra - Warwick Symphony Orchestra
*
RCA Victor Symphony Orchestra
The RCA Victor Symphony Orchestra, sometimes also known as the Victor Symphony Orchestra, the RCA Victor Salon Orchestra, the RCA Victor Orchestra or the RCA Orchestra, was an American studio orchestra founded in 1940 by the RCA Victor record label ...
- Regent Symphony Orchestra or Golden Symphony Orchestra
*
Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra - Savoy Symphony or Schuyler Symphony Orchestra
*
San Francisco Symphony Orchestra
The San Francisco Symphony, founded in 1911, is an American orchestra based in San Francisco, California. Since 1980 the orchestra has been resident at the Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall in the city's Hayes Valley neighborhood. The San Franci ...
- World Wide Symphony
*
Toronto Symphony Orchestra - Dominion Symphony Orchestra
*
Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra
Vienna Philharmonic (VPO; ) is an orchestra that was founded in 1842 and is considered to be one of the finest in the world.
The Vienna Philharmonic is based at the Musikverein in Vienna, Austria. Its members are selected from the orchestra of ...
- Danube Symphony Orchestra
The RCA Victor Symphony Orchestra was assembled for recording sessions mostly during the 1940s and '50s; It primarily consisted of members from the
NBC Symphony Orchestra, the
New York Philharmonic
The New York Philharmonic is an American symphony orchestra based in New York City. Known officially as the ''Philharmonic-Symphony Society of New York, Inc.'', and globally known as the ''New York Philharmonic Orchestra'' (NYPO) or the ''New Yo ...
and the
Metropolitan Opera Orchestra.
[Jack Gottlieb, http://www.leonardbernstein.com]
Billboard 31 Mar 1956
/ref> The New York City Symphony Orchestra, created by Leopold Stokowski in the 1940s, recorded for RCA Victor and some of its recordings were reissued on Camden LPs under the name "Sutton Symphony Orchestra," not to be confused with a British orchestra with the same name.
Later releases
In 1960, RCA Victor launched the RCA Victrola budget label to reissue lower priced classical and operatic recordings drawn from the Red Seal catalog. With a few exceptions, RCA Camden ceased reissuing former Red Seal titles and began offering many more albums by RCA Victor's pop and country music artists.
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. Country music sold extremely well in Canada and RCA Camden issued a number of albums unique to Canada that were never released in the United States.
From 1968 to 1975, RCA Camden issued a series of compilation albums featuring recordings by Elvis Presley
Elvis Aaron Presley (January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977) was an American singer and actor. Referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll", he is regarded as Cultural impact of Elvis Presley, one of the most significant cultural figures of the ...
, who recorded for the main RCA Victor label. These albums primarily consisted of repackagings of some of Presley's less popular 1960s-era movie soundtrack recordings; some 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'' (1969). Two later compilations, '' Burning Love and Hits from His Movies, Volume 2'' and '' Separate Ways'' actually featured then-current chart hits for Presley, originally issued as singles on the RCA Victor label. The inclusion of these recent hit singles resulted in both Camden albums - which otherwise contained previously released and generally undistinguished movie and studio tracks - making the US charts. In 1975, RCA leased the reissue rights of several different Camden albums, including Presley's, to Pickwick Records
Pickwick Records was an American record label and British record distributor known for its budget album releases of sound-alike recordings, bargain bin reissues and repackagings under the brands Design, Bravo (later changing its name to Internati ...
, which subsequently reissued several of them under its own branding. After Presley's unexpected death in August, 1977, demand for his recordings skyrocketed; RCA soon terminated the reissue agreement with Pickwick primarily to regain the rights to the Pickwick leased Presley titles and began reissuing and repackaging several of them.
During the early- to mid-1970s, as the popularity of RCA country artist Dolly Parton
Dolly Rebecca Parton (born January 19, 1946) is an American singer, songwriter, musician, actress, and philanthropist, known primarily as a country music, country musician. After achieving success as a songwriter for others, Parton's debut album ...
, rapidly grew, RCA reissued much of her earlier material in a series of compilations on the Camden label 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 RCA Victor solo album of the same name), 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 Victor during the late 1960s and early '70s. As with the Presley titles, RCA also leased the reissue rights to Parton's Camden albums to Pickwick, which reissued the albums on their own label during the late 1970s.
The RCA Camden label continued well into the compact disc era, and was still active in the UK, Canada, Australia and several other countries until at least the early 2000s. Beginning in the late 1980s, RCA/BMG of Canada reissued several Camden albums on CD in the "RCA Camden Classics" series. Sony Music Entertainment
Sony Music Entertainment (SME), commonly known as Sony Music, is an American multinational music company owned by Japanese conglomerate Sony Group Corporation. It is the recording division of Sony Music Group, with the other half being the ...
, the current owner of the RCA Victor archives, continues to reissue recordings originally issued on the RCA Camden label.
See also
* RCA Camden discography
* List of record labels
File:Alvinoreyguitarboogie.jpg
File:AmMusicBunk78.jpg
File:Bingola1011b.jpg
Lists of record labels cover record labels, brands or trademarks associated with marketing of music recordings and music videos. The lists are organized alphabetically, ...
Notes
External links
RCA Camden Discography
{{Authority control
Classical music record labels
American jazz record labels
Record labels established in 1953
Record labels disestablished in 2004
Reissue record labels
RCA Records
1953 establishments in New Jersey
Entertainment companies based in California
Companies based in San Francisco
American companies established in 1953