A Story is a Deal

Various Artists - No More Doggin': The RPM Records Story Volume 1, 1950-1953 (2014) {2CD Set, Ace Records CDTOP2 1406}
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© 1950-53, 2014 RPM Records / Ace Records | CDTOP2 1406
Blues / Rhythm & Blues

This time last year Ace released its first comprehensive overview of one of the many subsidiaries of the Bihari brothers’ Modern Music Company. Having dealt with the R&B releases on Flair, we now turn our attention to other labels within the Modern family – starting with RPM, the longest-running of the subsidiaries. It wasn’t possible to present a comprehensive overview of the label’s activities within the confines of one 2CD set. Thus we end this volume at the end of 1953 – roughly the halfway point in the label’s life. It’s a convenient point at which to make a break because, with the exception of B.B. King, none of the artists featured here continued their association with RPM beyond that time.

This set was compiled from the British labels Pye, Piccadilly, Transatlantic and Immediate, so is necessarily restricted in what it includes, yet such is the abundance of Beatles covers that there is plenty to enjoy in this eclectic compilation. The covers are presented in Beatles date order, although it does not follow that the actual covers were recorded in that order. The tracks from Let it be precede those from Abbey road. There are also a few songs that the Beatles wrote but did not record themselves, one of these being Step inside love, a UK top ten hit for Cilla Black, but here covered by Nina Baden-Semper, an actress best known for her role in the seventies TV series Love thy neighbour.