Raven Records

A label created by collectors
Raven Records emerged from the growing interest in Australian rock music of the 1960s. By the end of the 1970s, many important recordings from the beat, garage-rock and psychedelic eras had been deleted for years. Some had never appeared on an album, while others survived only on scarce singles and extended-play records. The major record companies generally saw little commercial value in returning such specialised material to circulation.

Glenn A. Baker, Kevin Mueller and Peter Shillito recognised that a small but enthusiastic market existed for carefully selected archival releases. Unlike most independent labels established during the period, Raven’s principal purpose was not to discover and develop contemporary performers. It was created to recover recordings from the past, place them in their proper historical context and make them available to a new generation of listeners and collectors.

The three founders brought complementary skills to the operation. Glenn’s extensive knowledge of popular music, industry contacts and experience as a journalist were central to the label’s editorial direction. Kevin and Peter were closely involved in the conception, compilation and production of releases throughout Raven’s history. Album credits frequently identify one or more of the three as compilers, researchers, producers or annotators.

Mastering was undertaken principally by engineer Warren Barnett, whose long working relationship with Glenn became another important part of Raven’s production process. At Warren’s latest count, the pair had worked together on more than 600 titles—an extraordinary collaboration that extended across much of the label’s catalogue.

Raven promoted its releases as being prepared by collectors for collectors. This philosophy was evident not only in the choice and mastering of the recordings, but also in the sequencing, packaging, photographs, discographical information and detailed liner notes accompanying them. At a time when many reissues were assembled with little historical explanation, Raven treated the accompanying documentation as an important part of the release.

Recovering Australia’s rock history
The label’s first release was The Easybeats’ six-track extended-play record Mean Old Lovin’, issued in November 1979. Limited to 1,000 individually numbered copies, it gathered previously unreleased recordings made during 1965. Its appearance demonstrated both the depth of material still resting in record-company archives and the existence of a collector market willing to support its release.

Other early EPs recovered rare recordings by The Purple Hearts, The Throb, The Wild Cherries, The Pink Finks and The Groop. Raven also returned to The Easybeats’ archives for Son of Easyfever! in 1980 and Son of Son of Easyfever! in 1982. The use of the EP format was particularly appropriate: it recalled the way much Australian beat music had originally been marketed while providing collectors with concentrated collections of otherwise inaccessible material.

In 1980, Raven extended the concept to the long-playing record with Ugly Things: Australian Rock Archives Volume One. Its twenty tracks, recorded between 1965 and 1967, included performances by The Missing Links, Black Diamonds, Elois, Moods, Easybeats, Atlantics, Wild Colonials, Vince Maloney Sect and other Australian groups. The album helped establish the term “ugly things” as shorthand for the rawer edge of Australian 1960s beat and garage rock and became one of Raven’s defining early releases.

Further volumes of Ugly Things appeared during the 1980s, alongside collections devoted to performers such as The Masters Apprentices, The Loved Ones, Lynne Randell, The Atlantics, The Easybeats, The Saints, Buffalo and The Coloured Balls. These albums preserved recordings that were poorly represented—or entirely unavailable—in the catalogues of their original record companies.

Raven was not exclusively a reissue label. It occasionally released more recent or previously unissued material, including Missin’ Your Kissin’ by The Sports in 1987. Nevertheless, archival work remained the company’s defining activity.

Licensing the archives
Raven did not generally own the original recordings it released. Its catalogue was built through licensing agreements negotiated with the companies or artists controlling the material.

Within Australia, Raven licensed recordings from Festival Records, EMI, CBS, PolyGram, RCA, Albert Productions and W&G Records. These agreements provided access to a large proportion of Australia’s post-war popular-music archive. Raven also approached artists directly to secure privately held demos, live performances, radio recordings and other previously unreleased material of particular historical interest.

The label’s ambitions soon extended beyond Australian music. Raven obtained material from international companies and labels including Capitol, Mercury, Pye, Impact, United Artists, Audio Fidelity and Decca. Its catalogue consequently grew to encompass American and British rock and roll, garage rock, rhythm and blues, soul, country, folk rock, psychedelia and singer-songwriters.

In this respect Raven occupied a similar position to Rhino Records in the United States, Charly and Edsel in Britain and Line Records in Germany. Each recognised that popular music possessed a history worth preserving and that recordings did not cease to have cultural or commercial value merely because their original release had been deleted.

From vinyl to compact disc
During its first decade, Raven’s catalogue consisted principally of vinyl EPs and LPs. Many releases were aimed squarely at specialist collectors, with coloured vinyl, limited pressings, unusual sleeve designs and extensive annotations adding to their appeal.

Raven entered the compact disc market in 1988 with Sixties Downunder. The longer playing time of the new format gave the label greater freedom to compile substantial anthologies, combine two original albums on one disc and supplement them with non-album singles, B-sides and previously unreleased recordings.

The change to compact disc transformed Raven from a comparatively small Australian vinyl label into an internationally recognised reissue company. Its releases became increasingly broad in scope, covering Australian artists as well as performers from the United States, Britain, Canada and New Zealand. Later compilations featured artists as varied as The Animals, Roy Orbison, Gene Clark, The Byrds, The Spencer Davis Group, Sandie Shaw, The Church, Australian Crawl and James Reyne, Emmylou Harris, Linda Ronstadt, Bobby Bare, George Jones and Loretta Lynn.

Raven’s compact discs were particularly valued for their generous programming. A typical release might contain two complete albums, associated singles and several bonus tracks, supported by a substantial booklet containing photographs, recording details and newly commissioned liner notes. This combination of repertoire, documentation and value became the label’s international trademark.

By the 1990s and 2000s, Raven releases were being distributed beyond Australia and reviewed by overseas specialist publications. The company operated during its later years from East Ivanhoe, Victoria, with Australian distribution handled for a period through Shock Records. Although relatively small beside the multinational record companies from which it licensed much of its repertoire, Raven developed a catalogue and reputation extending well beyond the Australian market.

The Beatles Talk Downunder
One of Raven’s earliest LP releases was The Beatles Talk Downunder, issued in mono in November 1981. Rather than containing Beatles music, the album assembled interviews, press conferences and spoken messages recorded during the group’s June 1964 tour of Australia and New Zealand.

The record traced the tour through Darwin, Sydney, Adelaide, Melbourne and centres in New Zealand. It included material from the period in which drummer Jimmy Nicol temporarily replaced the hospitalised Ringo Starr, as well as coverage following Ringo’s return to the group in Melbourne.

The LP was conceived as the audio accompaniment to Glenn A. Baker’s illustrated book The Beatles Down Under, published in Sydney by Wild & Woolley. Photographs associated with the book were reproduced on the record sleeve, linking Raven’s documentary approach to Glenn’s work as a music historian and author.

Talk Downunder was subsequently released overseas, including a Japanese edition issued by Trio Records on translucent green vinyl in May 1982. Raven returned to the subject in 1984 with The Beatles Talk Downunder (And All Over) Vol 2. The second album extended the story beyond the 1964 Australasian tour with interviews and press conferences recorded in Australia, Britain, Europe and the United States. The National Film and Sound Archive now preserves material associated with the second volume in its collection.

These releases were characteristic of Raven’s approach. They did not attempt to compete with the Beatles’ official musical catalogue; instead, they recovered documentary material that illuminated the group’s history and was unlikely to have interested a major record company as a conventional commercial release.

A lasting contribution
Raven Records remained active into the twenty-first century, continuing to issue extensively researched anthologies, expanded albums and two-albums-on-one-CD packages. Its later catalogue moved well beyond the Australian beat music with which it had begun, but its underlying philosophy remained largely unchanged.

The label ceased operations in April 2017, thirty-eight years after its establishment. Its closure came as the international market for physical reissues was contracting and the cost and complexity of licensing archival recordings were increasing.

Raven’s importance cannot be measured simply by the number of records and compact discs it released. The company helped establish that Australian popular music deserved to be researched, documented and preserved with the same seriousness accorded to overseas performers. It restored obscure recordings to circulation, encouraged renewed interest in neglected artists and demonstrated that specialist releases could find an audience far beyond their country of origin.

At its best, a Raven release was more than a collection of old recordings. It was a carefully researched piece of musical history—selected, annotated and presented by people who understood why the material mattered. That commitment made Raven one of Australia’s longest-running and most highly regarded independent reissue labels.