Drugstore Records

Drugstore records or budget records were cheap LP albums records often sold in metal racks similar to the racks used for paperback books in drugstores or dimestores in the 1960s for prices from half to a quarter of regular LP albums. Some went for as low as 99 cents U.S.

Definition

Drugstore records mostly comprised popular music played or sung by unknown orchestras or singers, or conversely, once famous singers or orchestras playing music or songs that were relatively unknown. In most cases the record album would have only one cover version of a famous song or tune but exciting album cover artwork and the low price would attract customers. The album would usually be filled out with music in the public domain or obscure music never recorded by anyone else. Sometimes the "orchestras" comprised very few musicians, were performed by background music companies, or were recorded outside the United States by orchestras credited under different names.

History and labels

Drugstore records originated with Pickwick International, founded by Cy Leslie. Leslie's first business was a prerecorded greeting card service that turned into children's records label Voco Records in 1946. In 1950 Leslie founded Pickwick Records and by 1953 Pickwick entered the LP market providing lower priced records. [Hoffmann, Frank Editor & Ferstler, Howard Technical Editor "Encyclopedia of Recorded Sound" Routledge (2005)]

In 1954 Pickwick entered into a licensing arrangement with Capitol Records giving Pickwick the rights to press and distribute Capitol's secondary and noncurrent titles on their label. Pickwick's records were mostly sold in stores other than record shops such as department stores, dimestores, drugstores, and supermarkets. [ibid] Pickwick later had several subsidiaries such as Bravo, Design, International Award, Hurrah, Grand Prix, and Hallmark Records in the U.K.

RCA Records soon came out with RCA Camden Records to do the same for their company.

Based on the impressive sales of these cheap items, some major labels brought out their own budget records.
*Cameo-Parkway created Wyncote Records
*MGM Records released Metro Records
*Liberty Records budget label was Sunset Records
*United Artists Records produced Unart Records

These mainstream offshoots often were older albums once released by the main company but due to the length of the album (on a cheaper and more brittle plastic than more expensive LP's) could only include 5 tracks on each side rather than 6.

Other budget record labels were Budget Sound, Inc with its labels being Somerset, Stereo Fidelity, Alshire, Audi Spectrum, Peter Rabbit (children's records) and Azteca, [Pavlakis, Christopher "the American Music Handbook" Collier-Macmillan (2005)] Music for Pleasure a subsidiary of EMI, Score Records a subsidiary of Aladdin Records, Crown Records a subsidiary of Modern Records, Custom, and Diplomat Records (budget) a product of the Synthetic Plastics Company who made Peter Pan Records and Ambassador Records.

Collectibles

Initially drugstore records may have been a source of disappointment when a well meaning parent or relative purchased a $1 budget record with a similar theme to the one the person actually wanted. However with many of the major artists being reissued in CD, the appearance and sometimes the camp (style) sound of the drugstore record is an unusual change of pace.

Some artists such as Sun Ra and Al Kooper performed on drugstore records under various names such as "Dan & Dale".

See List of record labels

References