RCA
RECORDS

RCA Victor was responsible for the development of the 45rpm vinyl record, in 1948; for which alone it deserves several hearty cheers.   The roots of the company lie in the formation of the Consolidated Talking Machine Company, of Philadelphia, Pa., by Eldridge R. Johnson.  To begin with, Johnson issued records on his 'Improved Gram-O-Phone Record' label.  After a court battle with a rival, from which he emerged successful, he incorporated the company as 'Victor'; this was in 1901.  He joined forces with Emile Berliner, and in 1902 their new Victor label acquired its now-famous 'His Master's Voice' trademark - the one with the dog looking down the horn of one of Berliner's gramophones.  Victor gained a reputation for quality, both of the music which it recorded and the way in which it recorded it.  The company was sold to bankers Seligman & Speyer in 1926; in 1929 it was sold again, this time to the Radio Corporation of America. In Britain in 1931, RCA's British branch, the Gramophone Company (HMV), merged with Parlophone and Columbia to form Electrical and Musical Industries.  RCA sold its shares in the new company in 1935, but its products continued to appear on the HMV label over here until 1957, when RCA launched its own label.  RCA Victor moved to Decca in the '60s before setting up its own distribution network, and adopting its familiar orange label in 1967 - the printing in the centre was only done on a handful of labels.  Pressing was done by CBS until the spring of 1975, when RCA started pressing its own records, there is a difference in size between the dinking perforations of the two companies, CBSes being wider.  The orange label remained, occasionally in injection-moulded form until the summer of 1979, when it was replaced by a silver-on-black design which no longer had the word 'Victor' on it.  RCA flourished in the '70s, with the likes of Elvis Presley and David Bowie shifting records by the ton; it played its part in the Glam Rock saga, with Sweet repeatedly hitting the Top 10, and registered a number of one-off hits during the Disco boom.  It also had some of the big names in the Country & Western and Easy listening fields on its books - Dolly Parton, Perry Como, etc.   The company handled a number of other labels, including Soul Train, Solar, Windsong, Grunt and New York International.  it also had a dedicated Classical label, RCA Red Seal.  and, from 1968-69, a label for Children's records, RCA Bluebird.  Twice in the '70s RCA issued EPs of million-selling tracks from their back-catalogue under the 'MaxiMillion' banner; these had a special label and sleeve.  The sleeves from 1971 and 1975 had different designs.  Late in the decade - or possibly in the early '80s - promotional singles had a special sleeve. RCA's numerical system seems to have been something of a mish-mosh: after decades of a straightforward RCA-1000 series, things started getting complicated at the start of 1974.  The main series was joined by two others: APB0-0000 and LPB0-5000 - the prefixes are explained in the note below.  The APB0s lasted for just over a year and were dedicated to music that originated in America; the LPB0-5000s, which featured music originating in Great Britain, expired after a mere six months or so.  The situation was complicated by the existence of an even shorter-lived LPB0-7500 series, which seems to have consisted of records by American artists - were they recorded over here?  Happily RCA's experiment with descriptive prefixes didn't last long, and by the middle of 1975 the main RCA-1000 series, which had continued alongside the APB0s and LPB0s, took over from them both and became the only series for singles.   This state of affairs continued until January 1977, when the RCA-1000s were replaced by three parallel PB series: PB-0000 (mainly American), PB-5000 (mainly British), and PB-9000 (again mainly American).  Was one set of American numbers for home-made product and the other for licensed material?  Be that as it may, there were several minor variations on the PB theme.  1978 saw the appearance of an occasional XB prefix, which was mainly used by records on the TK label.  In 1980 the PBs disappeared and the RCA prefix made a comeback, with numbers starting at RCA-1.   RCA issued hundreds of singles in the '70s; RCA Victor is still in operation today, as part of BMG. Thanks to Robert Lyons for the info.

  
  
  
 
  
A FULL DISCOGRAPHY OF RCA RCA 1000 SERIES 1957-1970 CAN BE FOUND HERE
  
A FULL DISCOGRAPHY OF RCA RCX 100 EP SERIES 1957-1962 CAN BE FOUND HERE

A FULL DISCOGRAPHY OF RCA RCX 1000 EP SERIES 1958-1961 CAN BE FOUND HERE

A FULL DISCOGRAPHY OF RCA RCX 7100 EP SERIES 1962-1965 CAN BE FOUND HERE

59	Jerome Hines	The Holy City	RCA	RSX	15001
58	Bill Carle	Bill Carle - Gospel Singer	RCA	RSX	15002
59	Various Artists	Best Love Secred Songs	RCA	RSX	15003
59	The Robert Shaw Chorale	Sing To The Lord	RCA	RSX	15004
59	George Beverly Shea	George Beverly Shea	RCA	RSX	15005
59	George Beverly Shea	The Love Of God	RCA	RSX	15006

58	Band Of The Coldstream Guards	National Emblem	RCA	SRC	7001
58	Boston Pops Orchestra	Boston Tea Party	RCA	SRC	7002
58	Not Traced		RCA	SRC	7003
58	Perez Prado Prez	Living Stereo	RCA	SRC	7004
58	Not Traced		RCA	SRC	7005
58	Not Traced		RCA	SRC	7006
58	Abbe Lane	Be Mine Tonight	RCA	SRC	7007
58	Perro Como	We Get Postcards	RCA	SRC	7008
58	Eartha Kitt With Shorty Rogers And His Orchestra	St. Louis Blues	RCA	SRC	7009
58	Harry Belafonte	Belafonte Sings The Blues	RCA	SRC	7010
58	Ray Martin	The Swingin' Marchin' Band	RCA	SRC	7011
58	Not Traced		RCA	SRC	7012
58	Bing Crosby & Rosemary Clooney	Going Places	RCA	SRC	7013
58	Perro Como	Evening Reverie	RCA	SRC	7014
58	Eartha Kitt	That Blue Eartha	RCA	SRC	7015
58	Various Artists	Soundtrack Highlights From South Pacific	RCA	SRC	7016
58	London Symphony Orchestra Conducted By Arthur Bliss	Pomp And Circumstance March No.1 In D Major	RCA	SRC	7017
58	Gibson	Witches Brew	RCA	SRC	7018
58	Not Traced		RCA	SRC	7019
58	Not Traced		RCA	SRC	7020
58	Not Traced		RCA	SRC	7021
58	The Black Watch (Royal Highland Regiment)	Highland Pageantry	RCA	SRC	7022
58	Esquivel And His Orchestra	Other Worlds Other Sounds	RCA	SRC	7023
58	(Band Of) Coldstream Guards	Band Coldstream Guards 2	RCA	SRC	7024
59	Sir Arthur Bliss	Bliss Suite Fronthings To Come	RCA	SRC	7025
59	Schubert Rosamunde	Monteux	RCA	SRC	7026
59	Cavalleria Rusticana	Excerpts	RCA	SRC	7027
59	Not Traced		RCA	SRC	7028
59	Boston Pops Orchestra	España Rhapsody	RCA	SRC	7029
59	Not Traced		RCA	SRC	7030
59	Jussi Bjoerling	Recital	RCA	SRC	7031
59	Billy Mure	Supersonics In Flight	RCA	SRC	7032
59	Harry Belafonte	Belafonte At Christmastide	RCA	SRC	7033

68	Auntie Kathy & Uncle Bruce	Sing And Play Songs	RCA BLUEBIRD	BB	1
68	Auntie Kathy & Uncle Bruce	The Pied Piper	RCA BLUEBIRD	BB	2
68	Auntie Kathy & Uncle Bruce	Little Miss Muffet	RCA BLUEBIRD	BB	3
68	Auntie Kathy & Uncle Bruce	Rapunzel	RCA BLUEBIRD	BB	4
68	Auntie Kathy & Uncle Bruce	Goldilocks And The Three Bears	RCA BLUEBIRD	BB	5
68	Auntie Kathy & Uncle Bruce	King Midas	RCA BLUEBIRD	BB	6
68	Auntie Kathy & Uncle Bruce	London Bridge Is Falling Down And Other Favourites	RCA BLUEBIRD	BB	7
68	Auntie Kathy & Uncle Bruce	Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs	RCA BLUEBIRD	BB	8
68	Auntie Kathy & Uncle Bruce	Tom Thumb	RCA BLUEBIRD	BB	9
68	Auntie Kathy & Uncle Bruce	Old Mother Hubbard	RCA BLUEBIRD	BB	10
69	Auntie Kathy & Uncle Bruce	Humpty Dumpty	RCA BLUEBIRD	BB	11
69	Auntie Kathy & Uncle Bruce	Sing A Song Of Sixpence	RCA BLUEBIRD	BB	12
69	Auntie Kathy & Uncle Bruce	Cinderella	RCA BLUEBIRD	BB	13
69	Auntie Kathy & Uncle Bruce	The Frog Prince	RCA BLUEBIRD	BB	14
69	Auntie Kathy & Uncle Bruce	The Brave Little Taylor	RCA BLUEBIRD	BB	15
69	Auntie Kathy & Uncle Bruce	The Bremen Town Musicians	RCA BLUEBIRD	BB	16
69	Auntie Kathy & Uncle Bruce	The Willow Pattern Story	RCA BLUEBIRD	BB	17
69	Auntie Kathy & Uncle Bruce	The Brave Tin Solider	RCA BLUEBIRD	BB	18
69	Auntie Kathy & Uncle Bruce	Sinbad The Sailor	RCA BLUEBIRD	BB	19
69	Auntie Kathy & Uncle Bruce	Aladdin And His Wonderful Lamp	RCA BLUEBIRD	BB	20
69	Auntie Kathy & Uncle Bruce	All Things Bright And Beautiful	RCA BLUEBIRD	BB	21

  

THE RCA NUMBERING SYSTEM OF THE MID / LATE '70s
For those among you who are interested in the vagaries of the 1974-76 RCA numbering system, Music Master states that the first letter denoted the place of origin (A = America, F = France, J = Japan, K = Canada, L = London, I = Italy); the second letter indicated the label type (B = Grunt, F = LSA series, H = LSB series, P = Victor, R = Red Seal, V = Victrola); the third showed the product type (B = single, D = quadrophonic disc, K = Cassette, L = LP, S = Cartridge, T = quadrophonic tape); and the figure referred to the number of units in the set (0 = 45 rpm single, 1 = one LP / cassette / cartridge, 2 = double LP / cassette / cartridge, 3 = triple LP / cassette / cartridge).  Thus it can be seen that the APB0 numbers mentioned above belonged to American Victor singles playing at 45 rpm; while the LPB0s were London Victor singles playing at 45 rpm.  Anything prefixed JRD3 would be a quadraphonic Red Seal triple-album set originating in Japan; etc, ad infinitem.