THERE ARE SPECIAL RECORDS issued in 1955–1956 that command big bucks from Elvis collectors, such as SPD-15. Each title in RCA Victor’s SPD series is a special record or set of records. Some titles were made for special retail sales events while others were made for promotional purposes, such as giveaways at special social events.
But first, some background. After buying Elvis Presley’s contract from Sun Records on November 20, 1955, they signed the artist to an exclusive recording contract. RCA Victor paid a then-astronomical $40,000 to acquire an artist who was unproven outside of the country & western market.
This article is one in a series about collecting Elvis records from 1955 and early ’56.
Their first act was to take over the manufacturing and distribution of Presley’s latest record, Sun 223, I Forgot To Remember To Forget / Mystery Train. They reissued it as both a 78 rpm single (20–6357) and a 45 rpm single (47–6357) in a few weeks.
They also pushed their new artist to radio stations around the country. Aside from memos and word-of-mouth, RCA manufactured several promotional records and began shipping them to radio stations in the last weeks of 1955.
They also included a few Presley sides on a few special record sets that were used to sell the RCA line of record players. Many of these records were handled by RCA Victor’s Special Products Division and carried the three-letter prefix “SPD.”
This two-page spread appeared in various magazines in the summer of 1954 in the hopes of getting parents to buy an RCA record player and turn their kids on to the joys of classical music via 45 rpm records.
The SPD series
RCA Victor’s SPD series was launched in June 1954 with SPD‑1, a boxed set titled THE RCA VICTOR LISTENER’S DIGEST. This consisted of ten seven-inch, extended-play records that played at 45 rpm and featured two tracks on each side. SPD‑1 was a bonus given to customers who bought a new RCA Victrola phonograph for as little as $39.95.
According to an article titled “Victor’s ‘Listener’s Digest’ Bow to Tie-in 45’s, Phonos” in the June 26, 1954, issue of Billboard:
“RCA Victor next week will unveil its Listeners Digest, an ambitious promotion aimed at furthering the acceptance of classical music and enlarging the market for 45 rpm records by at least 500,000 new consumers before the end of the year.
Deliveries to retailers will begin late in July, with national consumer promotion to begin in mid-August. The latter drive will kick off with a double-page spread in The Saturday Evening Post, issue dated August 18, with similar ads scheduled to run in Life, Parents Magazine, and other mass circulation media.
Altho the current pitch is to sell both machine and disks as a unit, some quantity of the library in special de luxe packages will be made available, but at a cost of $39.95, which is the exact cost of the cheapest combination offer.”
Whether or not the 500,000 mark was met is unknown but this set was successful enough that Victor followed up with more than two dozen other titles in this series. Five of these titles contain at least one Elvis recording.
This two-page spread appeared in the July 24, 1954, issue of Billboard.
SPD records with Elvis
During 1956, RCA Victor released five sets of seven-inch, 45 rpm records with an SPD prefix that featured at least one track by Elvis Presley:
SPD-15
SPD-15 is a set of ten EP records, each featuring four tracks by one of ten of RCA Victor’s country artists. One record features four tracks by Elvis. The set is referred to as the “Country & Western Jukebox Promotion Kit” due to a box purportedly belonging to the ten records.
For more information on this record, refer to the Postscriptually section below.
SPD-19
SPD-19 is a boxed set of eight records by twenty RCA artists and is titled THE SOUND OF LEADERSHIP and subtitled Souvenir Of The Miami Meeting June, 1956 on the box. One record features one Elvis track.
For more information on this record, refer to the Postscriptually section below.
SPD-22
SPD-22 is a two-record EP album titled ELVIS PRESLEY on the jacket. It features eight tracks from LPM-1254, Presley’s self-titled first LP album.
For more information on this record, refer to the Postscriptually section below.
SPD-23
SPD-23 is a three-record EP album titled ELVIS PRESLEY on the jacket. It features all twelve tracks from LPM-1254, Presley’s self-titled first LP album.
For more information on this record, refer to the Postscriptually section below.
SPD-26
SPD-26 is a boxed set of ten EP records by various RCA artists and is titled GREAT COUNTRY/WESTERN HITS on the box. One record features four tracks by Elvis.
For more information on this record, refer to the Postscriptually section below.
The first title in the SPD series was The RCA Victor Listener’s Digest (SPD‑1), which was released in 1954. The final entry in the series was Kleenex Tissues Presents Perry Como Highlighter (SPD-28), which was released in 1957.
The final SPD entry
RCA continued to release titles in the SPD series for three years. All of the titles were special-purpose sets: Some were given away with a purchase of an RCA product at retail stores around the country. Others were manufactured for a specific event and given away at the event.
For example, the final entry in the series was SPD-28 from 1957. This EP had the ungainly title of “Kleenex Tissue Presents Perry Como Highlighter” and featured selections from six of Como’s LP albums.
In 1954, RCA Victor made up “Music America Loves Best,” a boxed set of six commercially released EP records from six of Victor’s more successful pop artists. This box was used for promotional purposes.
Music America loves best!
Intrepid internet spelunker Frank Daniels investigated the SPD series both online and via old issues of Billboard and Cash Box magazines. His results can be found on his Friktech website as “The SPD- Series of Promotional Records from RCA Victor.”
Frank was able to identify twenty-one of the twenty-nine titles in this series (including the un-numbered first release, Music America Loves Best).
To read Frank’s article, click here.
FEATURED IMAGE: The image at the top of this page was cropped from the double-full-page advertisement for LISTENER’S DIGEST that RCA Victor ran in the September 13, 1954, issue of Life magazine. The main photo depicts what advertising people around the country apparently believed a typical white American family looked like at the time.
Dad is relaxing in a white shirt and tie, holding his Dunhill pipe and favorite tobacco (Captain Black? Borkum Riff?) while Mom is in an evening gown with a pearl choker. They gaze at their son with love. The son (Bobby? Junior? The Beaver?) appears to be listening rapturously to his brand new copy of SPD‑1 on his brand new RCA Victrola Automatic 45 record player. He is, no doubt, envisioning the music being performed by his favorite symphonic orchestra.
But what was really happening in thousands of households around the country was that Junior wasn’t really listening to this boring stuff. No, he was actually thinking, “Hold it—that don’t move me. Let’s get real, real gone for a change!” He was actually wishing that Mom and Dad would buy him some records by the Platters and Fats Domino and Bill Haley & His Comets and maybe even that new singer with the funny name—Elvis something.
Postscriptually
The first fourteen articles in this series are almost completed and listed below with links to each. Should you access one of these articles and receive an Error Page, try back a week or two later.
01 RCA Victor’s “SPD” Series of Specialty Records
02 What Was the First Elvis Record That RCA Victor Released?
03 The Biggest Country & Western Record News of 1955
04 The First RCA Elvis Record Was “I Forgot to Remember to Forget”
05 The RCA Victor Cartoon Picture Sleeves of the ’50s
06 The Elvis “This Is His Life” Cartoon Picture Sleeve
07 RCA Victor 47–6357 Bootleg Picture Sleeves
08 The “Record Bulletin” Picture Sleeve for RCA’s First Elvis Record Is a Fake
09 Did RCA Release Other Versions of Elvis’ Songs to Compete With Elvis’ Records?
10 A New Kind of Hit Re-run With Elvis Presley
11 Was “E‑Z Pop Programming 5” the First LP to Feature an Elvis Track?
12 Was “E‑Z Country Programming 2” the First LP to Feature an Elvis Track?
13 Was SPD-15 the First EP to Feature an Elvis Track?
14 Is the Country & Western Jukebox Promotion Kit a Fake?
More articles addressing the early RCA Victor releases are planned. Each will contain the blockquote, “This article is one in a series about collecting Elvis records from late 1955 and early ’56,” like the one at the beginning of this article.
To find all the articles in the series, copy the blockquote, paste it into the Find option (the magnifying glass in the navigation bar at the top of each page), and then press Return or Enter on your keyboard.
Thanks to the following for their input in some or all of these articles:
Paul Combs (Elvis Records)
Frank Daniels (Friktech)
Dave Reynolds (Elvis Rare Records)
Joe Spera (Elvis Presley Tapes)
Rockahula, baby!

Mystically liberal Virgo enjoys long walks alone in the city at night in the rain with an umbrella and a flask of 10-year-old Laphroaig who strives to live by the maxim, “It ain’t what you know that gets you into trouble; it’s what you know that just ain’t so.
I’ve been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate, a poet, a pawn, and a college dropout (twice!). Occupationally, I have been a bartender, jewelry engraver, bouncer, landscape artist, and FEMA crew chief following the Great Flood of ’72 (and that was a job that I should never, ever have left).
I am also the final author of the original O’Sullivan Woodside price guides for record collectors and the original author of the Goldmine price guides for record collectors. As such, I was often referred to as the Price Guide Guru, and—as everyone should know—it behooves one to heed the words of a guru. (Unless, of course, you’re the Beatles.)