RCA Camden was a budget record label of recordings, first introduced by RCA Victor.
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The label was named after Camden, New Jersey, original home to the Victor Talking Machine Company, later RCA Records. It specialized in reissuing historic classical and popular recordings from the RCA catalog. The long play albums originally sold for $1.98 retail and consisted of strictly monaural recordings, often drawn from 78-rpm discs. The label also issued 45-rpm "extended play" (EP) records, including contemporary singers such as Snooky Lanson and Jack Haskell, at a suggested retail price of 79 cents.
RCA Camden originally issued its classical recordings using the real names of the orchestras involved. But soon, to avoid competing with modern recordings by the same orchestras, they adopted a series of pseudonyms. 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.[1] 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.
In the early 1950s, RCA Camden began dabbling in rhythm & blues (Little Richard - 1951) and, later, rock and roll releases, issuing, for example, an EP of such songs by "The Honey Dreamers". About 1958, Camden began releasing stereo albums and subsequently issued popular recordings by the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, The Living Strings and Living Voices.
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. This output 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 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 to album on RCA Camden instead of the expected RCA Victor. In 1975, RCA leased Presley reissue rights to Pickwick Records, which subsequently reissued most of the RCA Camden catalog under its branding starting in late 1975. RCA eventually regained the rights to its 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 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 for RCA 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 or RCA during the late 1960s and early '70s. As with the Presley reissues, RCA Camden also leased the reissue rights to the four Parton albums to Pickwick, which rereleased the albums during the late 1970s.
The label continued onto compact discs in the 1980s and the 1990s, focusing more on popular and country music. With the 2004 merger of BMG (RCA Victor's parent company) and Sony (Columbia Records' parent company), the Camden label, as well as the RCA Victrola and Gold Seal labels, were absorbed into RCA Red Seal Records. As of 2008, SONY MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT, the partnership owner of RCA Label has re-registered CAMDEN as music entertainment trademark at the USPTO.
From the liner notes of several 1957-58 Camden releases:
| “ | How This Record Bargain Is Possible
There are certain similarities between RCA Camden Records and paperback reprints of great books. In both instances works of merit are reissued in lower priced editions. There are also many differences between the two: a paperback book is printed in smaller, less readable type on paper inferior to that used in the original. In the case of RCA Camden the sound characteristics are vastly improved over the original RCA Victor edition. Instead of using inferior material RCA Camden uses the very same compound used in present-day RCA Victor "Red Seal" Records. Where, then, is the economy? The highest cost in the production of a record is the recording cost- the cost of paying the musicians, arrangers, etc. In the case of RCA Camden Records this cost has been liquidated due to the successful sale of the record on the RCA Victor label. Mr. G{eorge}. R. Marek [Vice-President and General Manager of RCA Victor Records at the time], in his statement on this jacket, points out another economy: artists' willingness to accept a lower royalty rate so that their works may reach a wider audience. Other things make RCA Camden Records a bargain. The same engineers, the same skilled factory technicians, the same Artists and Repertoire experts who produce records by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Perry Como, Harry Belafonte and Elvis Presley employ their skills and experience in the production of RCA Camden Records. At the David Sarnoff Research Center in Princeton, New Jersey, a program of research into techniques to improve the sound of all RCA records is continually in progress. RCA Camden has the fruits of this research at its disposal. This is an advantage that few high-priced and no other low-priced records can offer. |
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RCA Victor also used a modified and shorter version of this statement in the liner notes of early releases on the RCA Victrola label.