From its inception in 1979 – well ahead of most of the current crop of specialist reissue labels operating throughout the world – Australia’s Raven Records flew the flag for high quality anthologies prepared by collectors for collectors.
Raven's highly acclaimed releases were sought out internationally by those who understood and appreciated packages compiled and prepared with knowledge, integrity, attention to detail, a period design empathy, a meticulous concern for sound, and an unmistakable affection.
True 'labours of love', they filled holes in many collections with flair and a rare comprehensivity, setting aside the record company politics that render so many mass-market compilations inadequate or uninspiring.
Established by Australian writer/broadcaster/music historian Glenn A. Baker, a three-time winner of the BBC's Rock Brain of the Universe title and compiler and / or annotator of almost 500 albums over the past 25 years (once described by Rolling Stone magazine Music Editor David Fricke as "Australia's top pop scholar; a world-class rock journalist who writes with the enthusiasm of a true fan").
Along with fellow enthusiast/collector friends Peter Shillito and Kevin Mueller, plus experienced Sound Engineer and mastering expert Warren Barnett, Raven established its reputation compiling vinyl albums and EPs of otherwise unobtainable classic Australian rock / pop, by the likes of The Easybeats, The Missing Links, Bobby & Laurie, The Purple Hearts, The Twilights, The Loved Ones and The Master's Apprentices.
Its Ugly Things series of downunder garage punk became an international sensation, its title becoming an almost generic term for the music.
Raven's strength, right from the beginning, was its ability to bring together a number of sources in the creation of a package, thus being able to prepare thorough career anthologies. Raven – a wholly legitimate concern – has, from its earliest days, licensed material from multi-nationals, small independent labels and, in some cases, direct from the artist.
It was with the advent of the CD era that Raven evolved into one of the world's leading labels of its kind. Using, as a matter of policy, all 78 minutes available to it on a compact disc, and seeking out rarities and curios, it began issuing anthologies that were hailed as the absolute, definitive word on an artist's career.
Expanding its embrace to take in the '70s, '80s and '90s as well as the '50s and '60s, Raven was soon compiling fantastic 'final word' packages of careers and specific periods.
Its diverse catalogue now includes such acts as The Yardbirds, The Animals, The Rascals, Mink DeVille, Gram Parsons, Love, Donovan, Gerry Rafferty, John Hiatt, Michael Martin Murphey, The Four Tops, Leslie West, Nils Lofgren, Fairport Convention, Levon Helm, New Riders of the Purple Sage, Ronnie Spector, Gene Clark, New Christy Minstrels, Jose Feliciano, Hoyt Axton, Steve Young, Alice Cooper and Joe South.
