As well as celebrating Kingston upon Thames’s rich musical history, Kingston RPM also captured a flavour of its musical culture today. The Kingston RPM Project Album includes a range of especially recorded tracks from the project’s very own Gig Day and the Kingston Music Service’s Festival of School Choirs. These musical numbers are complemented by snippets from the 15 oral histories captured for Kingston RPM.
Here you can listen to a snippets from workers on the Decca pressing plant factory floor, Ethel Oakley and John Barnes. These are complemented by original recordings captured as part of the Kingston RPM project from Kingston Music Service’s Festival of School Choirs and John Coghlan’s Quo, who headlined the Kingston RPM Gig Day.
Beneath this the Kingston RPM: Get Out Those Old Records (Decca Records) Spotify playlist features a range of tracks once released under the Decca Records label. The playlist is divided between artists who were signed to the UK label (many of whom were sent across the Atlantic to tour as part of the ‘Brit Invasion’), and those signed in the US – although both retained the Decca name, the two entities split in 1942 before merging once again in 1998.
As well as being produced by the Decca label, several tracks connect to Kingston RPM’s research in other ways. Oral testimony interviewee Ethel Oakley recalled Ireland’s The Bachelors visiting the New Malden factory site while she worked there, while The Rolling Stones and the Animals are among the many high profile names that played gigs in the Kingston borough.
Hear more from Ethel and John
Listen to/download the album in full