Рам Рекордс: Луизиананың музыкалық мұрасы

American record label
Ram Records the Shreveport, Louisiana label

Ram Records (Royal Audio Music) was an American, Shreveport, Louisiana, based record label, founded in 1955 by Mira Ann Smith (1924–1989). The label recorded regional rhythm and blues, rockabilly, blues and country music artists. Ram's pressings were made by RCA. Ram also issued recordings on the Clif Records and K Records labels. The label later moved to Nashville, Tennessee. Ram recorded most of its music in the mid 1950s to early 1960s, but due to a tight budget, many of their recordings remained unreleased for decades. In 1994, Ace Records released a CD set of Ram recordings, including many which had never been issued. In 2018, the Academy Award winning movie, Green Book, featured six songs from the Ram label.

Mira Ann Smith was a guitarist, pianist, and songwriter. She was also a fan of the Louisiana Hayride, a popular radio show broadcast out of Shreveport, Louisiana. She observed that many artists performing on the Hayride needed a place to record their music and saw the opportunity to open her own recording studio. In 1955, at the age of 29, Smith opened Royal Audio Music (Ram) Recording Co., located at 2439 Lakeshore Drive in Shreveport, Louisiana. Ram was the first commercial music studio in Shreveport, and Smith was one of the first women to own her own record company. Smith toured Louisiana and east Texas, seeking out skilled musicians to record in her studio. She crossed genre and racial boundaries and found artists who performed a variety of styles including rockabilly, R&B, swamp pop, and country. In 1960, the studio moved to Greenwood Drive (in Shreveport), and included a built in echo unit and separate vocal booths.

In 1957, Smith partnered with Cliff Hagin and added Clif Records as a subsidiary record label. Clif's first success was with T. V. Slim (Oscar Wills) and his song "Flatfoot Sam" (Clif #103), written by his wife, Clara Wills. Slim had connections with Leonard Chess and was able to get Checker Records to distribute the song across the nation (Checker #870). Billboard gave the song a 77 rating. The Lonesome Drifter (Thomas Johnson) and his single "Eager Boy" / "Tear Drop Valley" (1958) is considered one of the more significant recordings from this label.

In an almost exclusively male business, Smith often found it difficult to find distribution and promotion services. Her cousin, Alton Warwick, was interviewed in 1994 and commented that he believed being a woman hindered her success, because people did not always take her seriously, especially with issues like financing. Due to her tight budget, she only promoted a few singles each year and was often forced to leave quality songs in the vault. Many of Ram's recordings remained unreleased for decades. assembled the collection. The Ace release received many mentions in the press including in Billboard. In September and October 1994, NPR's Alex Chadwick ran a four part story on the Ram studio and record label.