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January 10, 1949…RCA Introduces The 45 RPM Record

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Eyes Of A Generation.com


January 10, 1949…RCA Introduces The 45 RPM Record

I was 8 when I got my first record player, and the first two 45s I ever had were Bobby Day’s “Rock’n Robbin” and Andy Griffith’s “What It Was, Was Football”. Do you remember your first 45s?

Here is Charles Osgood’s story on the debut from last year, and a 1949 RCA demonstration record that was part of a display in dealer show rooms. -Bobby Ellerbee

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKlIwvKYIzI Charles Osgood
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebRx7FN6vlc RCA Demo

The 45 RPM Record was introduced by RCA Victor on January 10, 1949. This “Almanac” feature from CBS’ Sunday Morning is worth 2 minutes and 45 seconds of your…

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22 responses to “January 10, 1949…RCA Introduces The 45 RPM Record”

  1. Alaire St. David

    45’s. Those first home party dances in the den with … GIRLS – and a sanctioned opportunity to feel just what they felt like! 😉 “If I fell in luv with you would you promise to be true …!” | Thanks for posting.

  2. Chris Babbitt

    I still have my 45 of “What it Was Was Football.”

  3. Jeff Jeffares

    There’s a great story (at least the way I heard it) about the changeover from the old 78s to the newer formats. Young upstart William Paley was so excited about CBS’s (Columbia Records) development of the new 33 1/3 rpm record that he brought it to David Sarnoff at NBC to show it off. Sarnoff was so pissed that after Paley left his office Sarnoff called in his minions and demanded that they come up with a different plan. Thus NBC (RCA Records) developed the 45 rpm record and the cute little RCA record player that many teenager came to own. As a side note the 78 and 45 could only fit about 3 minutes of material on those records and that is why radio stations would only play songs that were 3 minutes or less for many years until the FM radio stations and rock music changed that tune!

  4. Steven Bradford

    Interesting that a still of a car player is shown… the only car player I knew of was the one Goldmark at CBS labs designed for Chrysler, that played 16 rpm discs…. but I guess RCA made a much cheaper but no more succesful one. Still it got a decent review from Consumer Reports! http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/news/2014/04/record-players-were-the-infotainment-systems-of-the-1950s-and-60s/index.htm

  5. Sandra Nazarian Hersh

    My first 45 was Purple People Eater. I still have it and the plastic dohickey thing for the center of the record.

  6. Patrick Coller

    ‘Sweet Talkin’ Woman’ by ELO, in ’77.

  7. Paul Benjamin Mills

    Wasn’t it Goldmark at CBS that Licensed the 33 format?

  8. Paul Benjamin Mills

    My first pop 45 was MTA by The Kingston Trio. I went to the record store and listened to a couple of records in a sound booth. I had several records before that but they were children’s records like Peter And The Wolf. Most of those were 33.3 but were the smaller size with the small hole.

  9. Tom Williamson

    I had the Andy Griffith record, too along with 16 Tons by Tennessee Ernie Ford.

    The first 1949 players had such a rapid change cycle that they were rough on the records.

    I still have an R C A player from 1956 Which is the model I wanted when I was in the sixth grade and my dad wouldn’t buy for me.

  10. Jeff Kreines

    My first two 45:

    Conway Twitty’s Danny Boy

    Johnny Bond’s Hot Rod Lincoln.

    When I brought them to Kindergarten show-and-tell I was told not to bring records any more. I lived in suburban Chicago, this was 1959, but my favorite radio station was WJJD, which played rockabilly. Go figure.

  11. Bill Dodd

    “The Thing” Phil Harris— came in a new phonograph for Christmas. I’ll never forget it.

  12. David Breneman

    I’m afraid to listen to it. Does he say 45 was selected by subtracting 33 from 78? I’ll go postal if he says that.

  13. Stephen Paley

    Here is my 20/20 piece done a LONG time ago. Enjoy! https://vimeo.com/67743774

  14. Robert Barker

    My mother didn’t want me to play with her stereo so she gave me her old player, similar to this. It came with some records, like Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini (backed with Don’t Dilly Dally Sally), and Bobby Darin’s Mack the Knife. I think the first 45 I got on my own was A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You, by the Monkees.

  15. Gene Allen

    I like Charles’ kicker: “What goes around comes around”

  16. Rob Balton

    I was six… my sister took me into Alexander’s at the Roosevelt Field Mall… it may have been the first thing that I ever bought with “my own money”… Ernie… singing Rubber Duckie!

  17. Jeff Jeffares

    “Hound Dog” by Elvis. Still have it!

  18. Jay Phelps

    The first non-Disney kiddie record I bought was Paul McCartney and Wings “Jet.”

  19. Jim Grey

    First 45 I purchased myself might have been “Take It Away” by Paul McCartney. I was in middle school.

  20. Dexter Lovrien

    “Anchors Aweigh” & “The Navy Hymn” from Dad when he returned from service after Korean War.

  21. Jane Marino

    I was two and my first 45 was “Wake Up Little Suzy” by The Everly Brothers. I would sit for hours and watch the records spin. Perhaps it was a sign that I was destined to become a sound engineer!

  22. Gary Walters

    Oh wow! The first 45 I had was Be-Bop-Baby, by Ricky Nelson.

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