Rum Cove’s 45 RPM Label History: King Records
By Rum Cove
The 45rpm record was introduced by RCA Victor on March 31, 1949, as a competitor to Columbia Records’ new Long Player format. It was invented at their main plant in Camden, New Jersey, and its small size was designed for use in JukeBoxes. By the early 60s the record labels that released them numbered in the thousands.
This series is designed to give you a visual representation of the many labels that The Rum Cove features on his long running Soulful Situation broadcast.
King Records
For the first in the series, we present the daddy of US independent labels, Syd Nathan’s King Records, founded in 1943. The pictured design ran from 1949-1958. Because the label had production, printing, recording, pressing, and distribution all in one location, it allowed the label to change designs on a dime a release records very quickly.
