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; that single had a label in a different design, so I've given it its own page. One label design was used throughout for standard RM singles, but it had 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.