Elvis Presley left the Sun record label because RCA bought his contract from Sam Phillips about a year later, in 1955. So when I met Elvis in 1957 the old hound dog was already on a great big label, RCA.
Elvis is still on RCA!
We're linking to the RCA site!
In the 1920's RCA (Radio Corporation of America), which manufactured radios - the way most Americans first heard a record, purchased Victor and the label became RCA Victor. In the early 1950's RCA Victor was one of the big five. The others were Capitol, Mercury, Columbia, and Decca. EMI, the biggest label in the United Kingdom bought Capitol in 1955.
The big labels had the money to market, and marketing was an important part of moving a record into stores quickly so that sales could move it up the chart.
The smaller labels didn't have much of a marketing budget so it was up to the entertainer to promote. Sometimes playing a song on radio or TV sent fans into the record stores where there were few to no records to buy. They bought something else, something available.
By the late 1950's, the smaller independent labels that had been pioneers in releasing Rock and Roll records began to loose sales to the great big labels.
Thursday, August 25, 2011
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