This & That

[jabirenbaum]

Greetings! It has been a long time since I have visited this site. I like the new look. I am still a big Herb Alpert fan. Is there anyone out there who can answer this question for me. Recently, I picked up a second copy of "South Of The Border" from a thrift shop. Upon examining it closer, I noticed that it didn't have the normal catalog number of an A&M record. In fact, on the label it said "manufactured by Capital Records, Inc." The catalog number is T90073. Was A&M at any time affiliated with Capital or is this some sort of 60's reissue? The label is also the original gold label with the white icon on the left side.

 

[Harry]

Hi there. If I remember correctly, your name is Jill, right? Anyway, welcome back.

What you've described is a Capitol Record Club re-issue of SOUTH OF THE BORDER. Back in those days, record companies would license the major record clubs with the right to manufacture their own versions of albums. Many A&M albums were issued through the Capitol Record Club, and most bore a special Capitol catalog number on the label. Typically, these are less favored among collectors since the masters sent to Capitol or any other club were likely a generation further away from the original recordings.

Some Capitol Record Club issues have a "CRC" designation on the back cover. I have a YOU SMILE-THE SONG BEGINS copy with that on it. Sonically, I don't hear any difference in this particular album from its corresponding A&M release.

Harry
NP: radio at work

 

[Rudy]

CRC, I thought, was Columbia Record Club...I've seen that on some recent CDs I'd located. In fact, my awful-sounding Coney Island pressing has a CRC on the back and, IIRC, an additional catalog number (usually one letter followed by about a half dozen numbers) stamped in very small type on the label or jacket, or both.

I have noticed on the Capitol pressings I have that the sound quality is noticeably worse than the A&M or Verve originals. (I have a couple of both, but they're all 60's releases.) I'd almost swear they were using 7-1/2 inches per second on the masters, but it's not quite THAT noisy. But two that stand out were Cal Tjader's Soul Burst and Baja Marimba Band's For Animals Only. Both were noisier than the A&Ms (increased tape hiss), and the high and low end were lacking detail. (The record labels really had no reason to send the best sounding copies to what, essentially, could be their competition!) But seeing that both albums were difficult to find in stereo, they were better than nothing. Soul Burst has since been reissued on CD, and I finally located a genuine stereo A&M pressing of For Animals Only.

Some things I've noticed with Capitol product: the jackets I've seen never had any record club indication on them. The label colors are usually slightly off--the A&M's ochre color leaned toward a slight olive green color, where the Verve black/silver scheme was rendered more as two separate shades of grey (a very dark gray, and a silver-ish grey...but both again had that odd and very slight olive green tint to them). The typefaces on the labels were usually different as well, more of a modern, squared-off font.

-= N =-
...overanalyzing a $3 LP...

 

[Harry]

CRC, I thought, was Columbia Record Club...I've seen that on some recent CDs I'd located.

OOPS, I think you're right, and I was confusing things. Capitol did have a record club, didn't they? Or am I really losing it? I know I have a copy of that GENTLE RAIN compilation album with the Capitol number on it, and the CRC on YOU SMILE means Columbia Record Club.

Harry
...obviously not thinking clearly, online...

 

[Rudy]

If I recall, Columbia used to keep the original album's catalog number intact, but added their club selection number somewhere on the packaging. Capitol used to number theirs similar to their own LPs. My Verve was SMAS-xxxx, I think. The A&M was ST-xxxxx. Aside from the odd typefaces, the different catalog numbers are what originally clued me in. I probably have one or two others, but offhand can't recall which ones they are.

I can't describe the sound of my Coney Island CRC pressing...it just sounds "odd".

-= N =-

 

[Tim Neely]

Harry, there was indeed a Capitol Record Club from 1964-1973 (roughly). And yes, they used different catalog numbers, in the 90000 series, on their non-Capitol LPs. In 1969, Capitol sold the club to the Longines Symphonette Society. Before this happened, if someone ordered a Capitol LP through the Capitol Record Club, they received a regular stock copy. After this, Capitol LPs started to have an added "8" before the number, usually with a "0" after the "8" to make the catalog number five digits.

Columbia House (CRC) usually left the numbers the same. The exceptions are Capitol, where a "5" was added to the beginning of the number, and on items it pressed exclusively such as some early 1990s vinyl, on which it used its own numbering system. Most of these have a "1P" prefix followed by a four-digit number.

RCA (later BMG) had diffferent numbers on LPs, too, sometimes along with the original number. These have the prefix "R" followed by a six-digit number. The first number always will be "1" unless it's a 2-record set, in which case it will have a "2" as the first digit.

More than you ever wanted to know, I'm sure....

 

[Rudy]

More than you ever wanted to know, I'm sure....

Well, *I* have certainly found it helpful!

I've always wanted to put together some kind of rudimentary buying guide for A&M (and other) LPs, singles and CDs but as usual, don't have a spare minute lately to do it.

I have been working on an extension to the label gallery (and have some nice scans from our own "W.B." to add to it), and am planning on expanding beyond A&M and putting up a more generic gallery of labels that I just happen to like, or that look interesting.

-= N =-

 

[W.B.]

Harry, there was indeed a Capitol Record Club from 1964-1973 (roughly). And yes, they used different catalog numbers, in the 90000 series, on their non-Capitol LPs. In 1969, Capitol sold the club to the Longines Symphonette Society. Before this happened, if someone ordered a Capitol LP through the Capitol Record Club, they received a regular stock copy. After this, Capitol LPs started to have an added "8" before the number, usually with a "0" after the "8" to make the catalog number five digits.

According to Part 1 of Bruce Spizer's The Beatles' Story on Capitol Records (to which I contributed a great deal of information about pressings, label printings, lacquer mastering characteristics, etc.), Capitol actually started its Record Club in 1958; but it was in 1964 that they started offering albums on "other" labels with their "own" designs, albeit with the aforementioned "90000" series catalogue numbers assigned by Capitol. And as for the post-1969 Longines-era Capitol product (pressed for Longines by Decca/MCA) . . . after Capitol switched to the 11000 series for its LP's in late 1971/early '72, such releases as offered by Longines' "Capitol Record Club" were designated "71000." Whether "8xxxx" or "710xx," all 1969-72 releases from the "Capitol" Record Club had a lime green label, even after the label color on Capitol's own product switched from lime green to red, this before adopting the "orange/tan" label design of 1972-78.

Columbia House (CRC) usually left the numbers the same. The exceptions are Capitol, where a "5" was added to the beginning of the number, and on items it pressed exclusively such as some early 1990s vinyl, on which it used its own numbering system. Most of these have a "1P" prefix followed by a four-digit number.

All of Columbia House's Capitol issues (Capitol was added to the CRC in 1975) had six digits, "5" of course being the first number on all of them. Sadly, no Beatles albums were ever offered by Columbia House (can you imagine, say, a copy of the Sgt. Pepper's album with a number of SMAS-502653? Or SO-500383 for Abbey Road?), and Apple was winding down operations, although still holding on, at the time Capitol joined the Columbia House stable of labels, yet no Columbia House Apple product exists.

It's regrettable that, at the time, RCA was not a CRC client (though it is today!) I've often thought that, if they had, Columbia House would've put a "CRC" designation in place of RCA's "dynaflex" logo -- but, then again, I'm only speculating.

In any case, I'd go for the "CRC" pressings, if for nothing else other than the label copy typesetting from Columbia's Pitman, N.J. pressing plant. Good ol' Pitman!

But as for today . . . after Sony ceded 1/2 control of Columbia House to Time Warner, virtually every pressing (whether CD, LP or cassette), no matter what label, would have that "different" numbering system from the original releases as you described.

RCA (later BMG) had diffferent numbers on LPs, too, sometimes along with the original number. These have the prefix "R" followed by a six-digit number. The first number always will be "1" unless it's a 2-record set, in which case it will have a "2" as the first digit.

From what I've noticed, this trend of "R 1xxxxx" or R 2xxxxx," and the designation "RCA Music Service Edition," first manifested itself in the 1970's. RCA Record Club-issue pressings (which, I believe, all emanated from their Indianapolis, IN factory) for other labels in the '60's followed the same pattern as albums put out via Columbia House (although, on RCA club issues, RCA did its own lacquer mastering for those other labels). And then, from the early-to-mid-'70's onwards, printing all labels on uncoated paper stock (actually, they used coated-1-side paper and printed the labels on the uncoated side - don't ask me why).

One oddity in my collection -- I don't know if it was an RCA club issue or not -- is a copy of Ten Years After's 1969 Ssssh LP on the Deram label (DES 18029). It could have been, as this particular pressing emanated from RCA's Indianapolis plant, and the lacquers on both sides were cut at RCA's own studios -- but the label copy artwork came straight from Columbia in Pitman, NJ! (Not that I'm complaining; I'm all for that.)