RCA Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Music Group, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Sony Group Corporation. It is one of Sony Music's flagship labels, alongside RCA's former longtime rival Columbia Records. The label has released multiple genres of music, including pop, classical, rock, hip hop, afrobeat, electronic, R&B, blues, jazz, and country. The label's name is derived from its defunct parent company, the Radio Corporation of America (RCA).
After the RCA Corporation was purchased by General Electric in 1986, GE sold its remaining interest in RCA Records to Bertelsmann in 1987, making it a part of Bertelsmann Music Group (BMG); following the merger of BMG and Sony in 2004, RCA Records became a label of Sony BMG Music Entertainment. In 2008, after the dissolution of Sony BMG and the restructuring of Sony Music, RCA Records became fully owned by Sony.
RCA Records is the corporate successor of the Victor Talking Machine Company.
Beginnings and history
In 1929, the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) purchased the Victor Talking Machine Company, then the world's largest manufacturer of phonographs (including the famous "Victrola") and phonograph records. The company then became the RCA Victor Division of RCA. In absorbing Victor, RCA acquired the New World rights to the famous Nipper/"His Master's Voice" trademark. In 1931, RCA Victor's British affiliate, the Gramophone Company, merged with the Columbia Graphophone Company to form EMI. This gave RCA head David Sarnoff a seat on the EMI board.
In September 1931, RCA Victor introduced the first 33 rpm records sold to the public, calling them "Program Transcription" records. These used a shallower and more closely spaced implementation of the large "standard groove" found on contemporary 78 rpm records, rather than the "microgroove" used for post-World War II 33 rpm "LP" (long play) records. The format was a commercial failure, partly because the new Victrolas with two-speed turntables designed to play these records were exorbitantly priced, the least expensive model retailing for $395.00 in the depths of the Great Depression. By 1933, the format was abandoned and two-speed turntables were no longer offered, but some Program Transcriptions lingered in the Victor record catalog until the end of the 1930s.
During the early days of the Depression, RCA Victor made a number of attempts to create a successful low-priced label to compete with "dime store labels" such as Perfect, Oriole, Banner, and Melotone. The first was the short-lived Timely Tunes label in 1931, sold exclusively by Montgomery Ward. Bluebird Records was created in 1932 as a sub-label of Victor. It was originally an 8-inch record with a dark blue label, alongside the 8-inch Electradisk label (sold by F.W. Woolworth). Neither label was a success. In 1933, RCA Victor reintroduced Bluebird and Electradisk as a standard 10-inch label (Bluebird's label was redesigned, and it became known as the 'buff' label). Another discount label, Sunrise, was produced (although it is not known for whom it was produced, as Sunrise records are exceptionally rare today). The same musical couplings were issued on all three labels and the Bluebird label is still in existence today, nine decades after Electradisk and Sunrise were discontinued.
During this time, RCA Victor also produced electrical transcriptions of music under the RCA Thesaurus label at its RCA Recorded Program Services studio in New York City. These recordings were not offered for sale to the general public and were intended solely for use in broadcasts carried over leading radio networks.The Billboard – Music-Radio – "E. T. Firms Make Comeback As Local Radio Gains Accent" 16 October 1954 p. 14 RCA Thesaurus on Google Books By 1936, RCA's extensive musical library of recordings was eventually consolidated with NBC's own transcription division.Points on the Dial: Golden Age Radio Beyond the Networks Alexander Russo. Duke University Press, London 2010. p. 112-114 RCA Theaurus and NBC on Google Books During the 1950s, it included popular music by noted musicians, such as Sammy Kaye, Freddie Martin, Lawrence Welk and John Serry Sr.The Billboard – "Speed and Quality on RCA Thesaurus" Ben Selvin 6 October 1956 p. 26 & p. 32 RCA Thesaurus Lawrence Welk on Google Books
RCA Victor Custom Record Division Besides manufacturing its own records, RCA's Custom Record Division was the leading record manufacturer for independent labels.Matrix coding – 2015 (updated June 2020) "RCA Victor Master Serial Number Codes: 1942–1980" at Discogs (thread 694503), by W.B. Retrieved December 30, 2020. RCA Victor's immense Midwestern manufacturing complex in Indianapolis, included a record pressing plant located at 501 North LaSalle Street. The Custom Division notably pressed many record compilations for The Reader's Digest Association.
EMI RCA sold its interest in EMI in 1938, but EMI (acquired by Universal Music Group) continued to distribute RCA Victor recordings in the UK and its territories on the His Master's Voice label until 1957. RCA also manufactured and distributed HMV recordings on the RCA Victor and custom HMV labels in North America.
World War II era Due to hostilities between Japan and the United States during World War II, ties between RCA Victor and its Japanese subsidiary Victor Company of Japan (Nippon Victor) were severed. JVC's (Japan Victor Company) record company is known today as Victor Entertainment and still retains the Nipper/His Master's Voice trademark for use in Japan.
From 1942 to 1944, RCA Victor was seriously impacted by the American Federation of Musicians recording ban. Virtually all union musicians in the US and Canada were forbidden from making recordings during the period. One of the few exceptions was the eventual release of recorded radio broadcast performances from the NBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Arturo Toscanini. However, RCA Victor lost the Philadelphia Orchestra during this period; the orchestra's contract with RCA Victor expired during the strike and when Columbia Records settled with the union before RCA Victor, Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphians signed a new contract with Columbia and began recording in 1944. Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra would not return to RCA until 1968.
The post-war 1940s
In the spring of 1946, "RCA Victor" replaced "Victor" on its record labels. In 1949, RCA Victor introduced the 7-inch 45 rpm micro-grooved vinylite record, marketed simply as the "45". The new format, which had been under development for over a decade, was originally intended to replace 78 rpm discs. By the time RCA Victor unveiled it, the 45 was now competing with the 10-inch and 12-inch 33 rpm microgroove vinyl "LP" (Long Play) discs introduced by arch-rival Columbia Records in the early summer of 1948. In heavy promotion, RCA Victor sold compact, inexpensive add-on and stand-alone units that played the 45 rpm format exclusively. At first, RCA Victor's 45s were issued on colored vinyl according to the musical genre: contemporary pop music on black vinyl (47-xxxx series), prestigious Broadway musicals and operettas on "midnight blue" vinyl (52-xxxx series), classical music on red vinyl (49-xxxx series), country and polka on green (48-xxxx series), children's fare on yellow (also in the 47-xxxx series), rhythm and blues on orange or cerise (50-xxxx series), and international on light blue (51-xxxx series). This array of colors complicated the production process, and the practice was soon discontinued, all records becoming black. Yellow and red Red Seal records held on until about 1952. The first 45 rpm record manufactured was "PeeWee the Piccolo" RCA Victor 47-0147 pressed December 7, 1948 at the Sherman Drive plant in Indianapolis. The use of vinyl, which was much more expensive than the gritty shellac compound normally used for 78s, was actually cheaper because of the smaller diameter and greatly reduced bulk of the new records, which required very little raw material. The smaller, lightweight discs were also more economical to store and ship.
RCA Victor marketed the 45 as a direct replacement for 10-inch and 12-inch 78 rpm records, which typically played for about three and four minutes per side respectively. The company also released some "extended play" (EP) 45s with playing times up to 7 minutes per side, primarily for vocal collections and light classical selections, as typified by an Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops Orchestra disc featuring Tchaikovsky's Marche Slave and Ketèlbey's In a Persian Market. RCA Victor issued boxed sets of four to six 45s, each set providing about the same amount of music as one LP (an extreme example of these 45 rpm boxed sets was the complete 1951 recording of the opera Carmen, featuring Risë Stevens and Jan Peerce, conducted by Fritz Reiner, which consisted of sixteen 45 rpm discs). In the case of operas, symphonies and other complete recordings of classical music, there was an interruption every four minutes as one record side ended and another side began. These disruptive "side breaks", a nuisance long familiar to listeners of album sets of classical and operatic 78 rpm records, were minimized by an extremely fast automatic record-changing mechanism that was a core feature of RCA Victor's 45 players. Thanks in large degree to RCA Victor's massive five million dollar advertising campaign, the 45 became the preferred speed for pop music singles, overtaking U.S. sales of the same material on 78s by 1954, but Columbia's LP prevailed as the favored format for classical music and convenient one-disc "album" collections of eight or more pop songs. RCA Victor finally bowed to the inevitable and announced its intention to issue LPs in January, 1950. RCA Victor Award of Merit
The RCA Victor Award of Merit was the company's top citation to its employees. It was awarded from 1945 until at least 1957, with the recipients joining the RCA Victor Award of Merit Society, which held dinners for them. A maximum of 15 employees were recipients of the award each year, with this number awarded between 1946 and 1952. A Mr Watters, who had been assistant director of personnel at Camden, won an award in 1946. In 1952, Paul Barkmeier and David Finn won awards. By 1953, around 100 employees had been recipients of the "coveted award", with only the third woman, Shirley Neuman awarded in that year, along with field engineer M. John Heffernan.
1950s Among the first RCA Victor LPs released in 1950 was Gaîté Parisienne by Jacques Offenbach, performed by Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops Orchestra, which had been recorded in Boston's Symphony Hall on June 20, 1947; the record was given the catalogue number LM-1001. Non-classical LP record albums were issued with the prefix "LPM". When RCA Victor began issuing classical LPs in stereophonic sound in 1958, the prefix "LSC" was used. Non-classical stereo LPs were issued with the prefix "LSP". RCA utilized these catalog prefixes until 1973, when they were changed to "ARL1" and "APL1" for stereo classical and stereo non-classical single LPs, respectively.
During the 1950s, RCA Victor had three subsidiary or specialty labels: Groove, Vik and "X".
The edition of Billboard magazine dated April 11, 1953, announced a new RCA Victor subsidiary label, its first to use independent distribution and was nameless when it was first revealed. For the lack of any better designation, Billboard chose to refer to the new, unnamed label in the story as Label "X"; the new label began to hire staffers and decide on a direction, and the name stuck until 1955. RCA Victor officially announced the formation of label "X" on April 20, 1953. Groove was an R&B specialty label founded in 1954 and folded into Vik in 1957; the Vik label was discontinued the following year.