Rhino Records (2)

Also appears as "Rhino" only.
Rhino Records started as a record store in 1973 in Westwood California, U.S.A., founded by Wild Man Fischer which was a small success.
Label Code: LC 02982
The early logo design had a picture of "Rocky the Rhino" (designed by William Stout) and featured mostly novelty, surf, local new wave bands, and a couple of reissues of out-of-print records from other labels. By the mid-1980s, the label was releasing a lot of reissues. Ken Perry mastered, and Gary Stewart and James Austin were doing A&R. Around the same time, the logo was redesigned to just "Rhino".

The first CD was issued in 1984. All early Rhino made-in-Japan CDs were manufactured by Sanyo (1984-85). By 1986, into 1987, it was either Japan or Switzerland (made by various manufacturers). It is believed they didn't add barcodes regularly until circa '88.

In 1985 the label made a distribution deal with Atlantic back catalog. In 1998, Time-Warner bought the remaining 50% of the label, but returned the record store back to Richard Foos.

Currently Rhino Records operates as a part of the Rhino Entertainment Company, which is a part of the Rhino Records Inc.

A note on catalog numbers:
From 1975 to 1986, Rhino used several different series of numbers for their releases, but with a few exceptions, they were all three-digit numbers with the following prefixes:

RNOR - 7"
RNTI - 12"
RNLP - LP
RNC - cassette
RNEP - EP/mini-album
RNEC - cassette EP/mini-album
RNCD - CD [also had a '5' added before the 3-digit number]
RNDF - LP (Del-Fi Records reissues and other special titles)
RNSP - LP (soundtracks and other special titles)
RNIN - LP (soundtracks and other special titles)
RNIC - cassette (soundtracks and other special titles)
RNPD - picture discs

In 1986, they started using Capitol's 5-digit numbering system (generally starting with a 7). This 5-digit series continued when Rhino was purchased by Warner in 1998. For reissues of older titles, a 70 (or for CDs, 75) was added to the beginning of the original 3-digit number.

For some early Capitol releases, several prefixes above were used with the 5-digit number. But for most of them - and for all of the Warner releases - they used following prefixes (several of which were added as new formats were created over the years):

R0 - 12"
R1 - LP
R2 - CD
R3 - VHS
R4 - Cassette
R7 - 7"
R9 - DVD

If in doubt, you can find out the five-digit number for currently in-print releases by searching on the Rhino website.