Genre Various Official website www.oldies.com | Country of origin U.S. Founded 1981 | |
Founder Jerry Greene
Nina Greene Location West Conshohocken, Pennsylvania Artists Johnny Maestro & the Brook, Little Eva, Percy Sledge, Ambrosia, The Shadows of Knight Albums Ghostbusters, Dreamboat Annie, Blue Moon, The Psychedelic Sounds o, Duty Now for the Future | ||
Collectables is a reissue record label founded in 1980 by Jerry Greene. Greene was previously associated with New York City's Times Square Record Shop, Philadelphia's Record Museum retail chain, and the Lost Nite and Crimson record labels.
Contents
Collectables is the largest independently owned (and family-operated) reissue label in the United States. It maintains a catalogue of over 3,400 active titles on compact disc, with thousands of additional titles available on vinyl. It has released hundreds of recordings from the vaults of major labels such as Columbia, Atlantic, RCA, Capitol, Vee-Jay and others, making many available on CD for the first time. Genres found on Collectables include nearly every style of rock music, plus jazz, comedy, blues, doo-wop, funk, and many others.
Collectables publishes the Priceless Collection series of budget compilations. Many of the label's other releases combine the contents of two original LPs on a single CD.
The company also manufactures multi-CD compilation box sets sold exclusively through retailers such as QVC, Costco and Sam's Club.
Collectables is one of a group of companies, including Alpha Video, Gotham Distributing Corporation and the e-commerce website OLDIES.com, owned and operated by Jerry Greene and the Greene family.
Criticism of audio quality
The recording quality of early Collectables' releases is often criticized by audiophiles. Early LPs and CDs were often dubbed from scratchy records. Both Sides Now publisher Mike Callahan (in his book of CD reviews, Oldies on CD), regularly gave early Collectables' CDs low scores based on sound quality. Over the years, the sound quality has improved greatly on Collectables' releases. Since the mid-1990s, Little Walter DeVenne has remastered many of the label's reissues, and the company has also made extensive use of the in-house mastering and restoration services of the major labels from whom they license material.
Artists
The following artists have had at least one recording re-issued on the Collectables label.