RM was the label of Derek Glenister's 'Record Mart' shop in Southend-on-Sea. It dealt in reissues of obscure Rockabilly / Rock 'n' Roll records. Its singles were all pressed in the USA, which gave them an authentic period look; several early singles were manufactured by Monarch and have 'MR' in a circle in the run-offs. RM's dates of operation were 1975-c.81; for a time, beginning in 1978, its records were given national distribution by Lightning. Many of the singles had no date on the label; if dates were given they've been included in the discography below.
Catalogue numbers, which were in an RMA-1000 series, reached at least RMA-1045, but some of them may not have been used. There seems to have been a 'DeLuxe' series of singles planned, with numbers in the RMDL-2000s, but only one record appears to have been released in it. One label design was used throughout, with minor variations; at least five of the first seven releases can be found with either red (1) or black printing, while from RMA-0007 onwards the print is in black (2) - it may be that black-printed versions of the early singles are re-pressings. From RMA-1038 onwards two horizontal black bars were added to the labels; some earlier singles can be found with these bars, presumably as a result of re-pressings. On occasions Record Mart had re-pressings made by the American companies which were responsible for the original recordings; these were pressed with the labels of those companies but with a credit to Record Mart - see Glee, Antler, Doré, Yucca and Olympic (OR prefix).
Copyright 2006 Robert Lyons.