Over the years, Roulette licensed or "traded out" thousands of songs, so the Roulette catalog has been widely available, at least for the more popular material. (It has also seen its former artists like Buddy Knox (Liberty) and Jimmy Rodgers (Dot) re-record their material for other labels.) When reissuing songs, Roulette has been quite unreliable for stereo content, with songs appearing in true stereo on one album, then rechanneled on later albums. This was most likely because stereo or first generation tape sources were not important to the company.

Beginning in the 1980s, Bob Hyde, then of Outlet Books (who owned Publisher's Central Bureau; later part of Random House), took over their small record division, and started a reissue label called Murray Hill. Hyde went to Morris Levy to ask for licensing of Roulette-owned product, since he had, as a collector, always wanted to see a complete Orioles collection done (at that time, Outlet was putting out multi-disc pop music LP sets, much like Reader's Digest). It wasn't at all clear to Hyde why Levy should license his songs to some upstart label and then give some young man access to the entire vaults, but to Bob's surprise, that's what happened. "I guess he liked me and trusted me for some reason," Hyde told me some years ago, "but it didn't translate into any monetary break for Murray Hill. The deals we struck for licensing were advantageous to Levy for sure."

What this did, however, was allow someone with music and tape savvy to go roaming freely through the Roulette archives finding long-lost tapes. At that time, most of the original master tapes had been stored in the vault since the songs were recorded, and reissues had been made only with copies. Hyde enlisted the help of Boston-based deejay/producer "Little Walter" DeVenne to go through the vaults. Murray Hill reissued several albums of Roulette/Goldner material in the 1980s.

Meanwhile, Roulette attempted to enter the compact disc market with a series of reissues of their earlier compilations and a few single-artist albums. Using many of the high-generation masters that were sent around for years in the vinyl reissue business, these CDs ranged from passable to dreadful in sound. Roulette was not the first - nor the last - record label to discover that compact disc issue was an entirely new business, and that the practices that worked for vinyl reissues just wouldn't withstand the new medium's crystal clear sound capabilities, capabilities that demanded first-generation tapes. These CDs were Roulette's last issues before the company was sold to Rhino.

When Roulette went to Rhino, so did Bob Hyde. He and independent producer DeVenne helped put together a series of high quality reissues of Roulette/Goldner material for Rhino CD release, culminating in the highly acclaimed Doo Wop Box and Doo Wop Box, Volume 2. Hyde eventually left Roulette and is now running EMI-Capitol's special markets reissue program, but the work he and Walter did with the Roulette catalog has finally restored the high quality sound that was evident with the original vinyl issues of long ago.

Below we have listed some of the related albums and compact discs that feature the Roulette catalog. We would appreciate any additions or corrections to this discography. Just send them to us via e-mail. Both Sides Now Publications is an information web page. We are not a catalog, nor can we provide the records listed below. We have no association with Roulette Records, which we believe is currently owned by Rhino and EMI. Should you want to contact Rhino or EMI, or should you be interested in acquiring albums listed in this discography (which are all out of print), we suggest you see our Frequently Asked Questions page and follow the instructions found there. This story and discography are copyright 1998, 1999 by Mike Callahan.