The Rise and Fall of Paramount Records - Extra Overload Bonus

The Paramount Art Book pdf
51 MegaBytes
https://mega.co.nz/#!2cwSAIoL!Va50VDyPJBfWqis5VKtF_JctlbYMmFkDuXiJy_xWYTI

Other Resources for the Curious:

Tuuk's book:

is the definitive history of Paramount

http://www.mainspringpress.com/book_paramount.html

Alex van der Tuuk's on-line archive:

more to find out about all things Paramount

http://www.paramountshome.org/

The Rise and Fall of Paramount - Volume 2, part 3 - our final tranche

"Radio killed Paramount" 

The decline began around 1928, the year Paramount cancelled Ma Rainey’s contract in spite of her having been their biggest star before Blind Lemon.  It was indication of Vaudeville’s fading out of fashion.  But radio’s impact came on more slowly - “most of our customers of the blues were black, and didn't have money to buy radios in those days, and so it took a year or two,” said Herb Schiele, Vice Prez of Artophone, a Paramount distributor which had forsaken records for Philco radios by 1930. Paramount's previous main distributor, the E.E. Forbes Piano Company of Birmingham, had already turned to Majestic radios.

This loss of ready access into the all-important Mississippi market increased Paramount’s dependence on advertising and mail-order.  But then those mailed orders began to pile up uncollected in post offices, forcing the company to pay postage if the stock was to be reclaimed. The unsold records were taken as a sign that the "race" record business was finished. Because of the fall in mail order revenues, they cut advertising.  Their final Chicago Defender ad was April 26th, 1930.

Paramount executives were reluctant to continue the label in face of the economic collapse which had been accelerated by the stock market crash of ’29.  Their record-presses were scaled back from more than 50 to some 10, reduced to only three five-hour shifts per week and, apparently aiming to divest themselves completely of the record business, they tried to sell-off their masters and failed.

Although between 1930 and 1932, Paramount's production costs were kept so low they had amazingly still managed to break even, the industry-wide sales of $11 million in ’32 were nonetheless only a mere tenth of the figure for 1920.

1932 was when the money ran out for everything – including music.

By 1933, nearly half of U.S. banks had failed, and 30% of the workforce was unemployed – that’s almost 15 million people. Paramount added to that number by firing its lower echelon employees at their Christmas party, and then went quietly out of business, the only record company of the era to fold of its own accord, without bankruptcy or imposed receivership.

The closure decision was based on their belief that the "race" business had been killed by radio. But the real culprit was the Great Depression - which, I guess, helps explain why their passing went by so largely unnoticed. 

"You can’t sell the records if no one has money to buy them"

The Rise and Fall of Paramount Volume 2, Part 3
1.76 GigaBytes
https://mega.co.nz/#!qZ42FKaC!RnvffpwXgsHBOlLdJGO4fJYLrJnRHLY13RwgXAlUZVA

The Rise and Fall of Paramount - Volume 2, part 2 - our fifth tranche

With our final tranche - coming next - we will have the whole collection of 1600 tracks.

How do we deal with such a random avalanche of unknown treasures?

iTunes works for me – I can order and search by title, by year, or by artist as I choose.  My fondness for Big Bill Broonzy means he was one of the first whose Paramount sides were played in my kitchen.  And I could listen to them vaguely in the order they were recorded and convince myself I was studying an artist’s development. I was curious also about Perry Bradford – the hustler and producer behind Mamie Smith’s “Crazy Blues” and the birth of the race-records industry.  So I checked out his Jazz Phools.  Harry Smith’s anthology had introduced me to the charm of Dock Boggs, so I was happy to find a couple of other titles here.

Other than this purposeful strategy, I have simply resorted to good old lucky dip, and here are a few nuggets that the randomness of iTunes’ “shuffle” control brought to my attention:

Two tracks from The Famous Blue Jay Singers of Birmingham turned up at Chitlins already (one on “Great Gospel - People Get Ready”, the other on CD4 of “Goodbye Babylon”). And there are eight more tracks here on Paramount from 1931.  "Clanka-A-Lanka (Sleep on Mother)" has become a favourite.

Blind Blake is a constant wonder.  He recorded "Sun to Sun" in November 1931, but modern ears had no chance to hear it until a copy was found in a North Carolina steamer trunk by the collector Marshall Wyatt in 2007.  It’s included here alongside 42 others.

Geeshie Wiley’s "Last Kind Words Blues" features on some other collections also, and I have always dug it.  There are a three other sides on Rise and Fall: two from 1931 are with Elvie Thomas.  Check this out while we’re at it: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/04/13/magazine/blues.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&smid=tw-nytimes&_r=3

Slim Barton & Eddie Mapp – I’d never heard of ‘em, either. Guitar and harmonica duo making music for dancing and drinking (on very bad shellac), their "Wicked Treatin’ Blues" is full of sadness and despair.

Rube Lacy is another unknown to me, but then as far as anyone can tell he only recorded “Ham Hound Crave” and “Mississippi Jail House Groan”. 

There are two Ollies I stumbled into – Ollie Powers and
Ollie Hess – and the latter’s "Mammy’s Lullaby" charmed and disarmed me. 

Just one track from a pianist called George Hamilton - "Chimes Blues" – but it’s a delight; Brother Fullbosom’s "A Sermon on a Silver Dollar" was my introduction to an unexpected genre of preaching; Elder J.J. Hadley on parts 1 & 2 of “Prayer of Death“ is really Charlie Patton. 

Part 2 of Volume 2 - our fifth and penultimate tranche of Paramount

1.75 GigaBytes

https://mega.co.nz/#!zZZC2LAB!YvK1HJBB-n932pICGyMUa7gSk8y1d9tBUpkr5xm8p7k

The Rise and Fall of Paramount - a third tranche

In 1922, Paramount evaded bankruptcy by embracing the race-records market which had been discovered and established after Mamie Smith's huge 1920 success with "Crazy Blues" for the Okeh label.

In 1923, they bought up the Black Swan label and began using the services of Mayo Williams, a graduate of Brown University who had specialised in football and philosophy, and had become a black Chicago south-side bootlegger with important connections.

Paramount's treasure-laden five-years from '23 to '27 were defined by Williams - whose nickname of "Ink" was derived from his ability to get big names to sign on the dotted line..

He established Ma Rainey as the biggest blues star in the country after Bessie Smith, enjoyed several hits with Ida Cox and Alberta Hunter, found and recorded both Big Bill Broonzy and Blind Blake in Chicago, and managed and produced Blind Lemon Jefferson.


Record sales had been taking a hit from the rise of radio as the new technology replaced the wind-up Victrola as the source of home entertainment. But few places in the countryside were yet wired for electricity.  So labels turned their attention to rural markets and rushed to find blues music from the south that would sell to country audiences.

Paramount struck gold with Blind Lemon Jefferson - the first and most successful country blues star of the '20s, whose work would define and refine the down-home sound for all those who followed.

Mayo Williams, having identified a future for himself in the worlds of copyright and publishing, withdrew from the company in 1927.

His departure marked the end of an era alright.

But the biggest shadow yet to come was the one cast by the fat lady hanging just around the next corner.

Here's the Paramount Field Manual for Volume 1
327 MegaBytes
https://mega.co.nz/#!PBgB2ZbB!o9-BaUWJmh4qxEYWp7p2tcp4b1VUemnDarUYwRBKRuM
And here's our third and final tranche of tracks from Volume 1
159 GigaBytes
https://mega.co.nz/#!GZYA1JYB!5_h9cn90ZQDsZD1IOcdqyyfth4i8BWPGzGdOd7ep1y4

The Rise and Fall of Paramount - a second tranche

Serendipity.

The Wisconsin Chair Company only stumbled into the phonograph-cabinet business after fire destroyed the Edison Phonograph Works in New York, and they got the sub-contract. Somehow as part of the deal they were also outfitted with disc manufacturing equipment.  The phonograph furniture they were now making was pretty expensive. They saw making records as a novelty device for driving cabinet sales.  That’s all.

Paramount Records and New York Recording Laboratories were incorporated by the parent furniture company in 1917.  But quality was never a prime consideration. The priority instead was low cost.  Their cheap shellac used filler materials such as pipe-clay, crushed limestone, silica, cotton flock, lamp black and various odds and ends.   These records weren't made to last.  Not like their furniture. They became notorious for poor sound and a sad lack of durability.

Those first five years of not really knowing what they were doing, and not really caring much about it, brought Paramount to the brink of bankruptcy.

Their second five years, 1923-27, is the period for which Paramount seems most remembered. Here's where they constructed the country blues and made "the Delta" into its heartland.

Of course, they had no idea at the time just how significant their catalogue would become to us guys inhabiting the future.  If they had, perhaps their legacy would have been preserved on better quality shellac.

Here's our second part of Volume 1.
1.79 MegaBytes
https://mega.co.nz/#!TUIz3Jhb!e4DwBeAdem6Cavmu5zDIreBuxRNbIzPbbhwRH438Qp0
The Paramount Track List Vol 1.pdf:
https://mega.co.nz/#!TNY2BSYJ!bxTm_WSSyiaIfVwzCnUbvgmNNczSZ_cBbKVlAEByQas

The Rise and Fall of Paramount Records

Paramount’s founders were owners of a Wisconsin furniture company who knew absolutely nothing about the record business.  Their big idea was to do everything as cheaply as possible.  And somehow, with great luck and a fair wind, they evaded impending bankruptcy to become the most important label in the race-records marketplace.

Cheapo-cheapo production principles had led them to use the least costly and most crappy crumbling shellac they could lay hands on.  So overcoming the extreme challenges of preservation and restoration is a great triumph. And the compilation, design and production of this two-volume archival history, by Jack White’s Third Man Records in partnership with Dean Blackwood & John Fahey’s Revenant Records, is a real labour of love.

Volume 1 covers the decade 1917-27.

Volume 2 covers the company’s final 5 years between '28 and '32.

There are 1600 tracks in total.

Of which this is the first tranche.

(Maybe the next ones should be smaller.)

Volume 1 - part 1   1.71 GigaBytes
https://mega.co.nz/#!TUYRwJzJ!h-WvdwmKZ9gMvn04OGObLKCwfH-SJvm4WsGFCTvHaLg

Blind Lemon Jefferson

Born on September 24, 1893, in Coutchman, Texas, singer and guitarist Blind Lemon Jefferson was one of the most influential blues performers of the early 20th century. He is considered one of the founders of Texas blues and a leading figure in country blues. According to allmusic.com, Jefferson was born blind and was one of seven children. His parents were sharecroppers.

In his teens, Jefferson began performing in Dallas. There he met another future blues legend, Huddie Ledbetter, better known as Lead Belly. The pair worked together for a short time. In the 1920s, Jefferson married Robert Ransom, according to the Texas State Historical Association.

Discovered by a talent scout in 1925, Jefferson soon went to Chicago to launch his recording career. He put down more than 90 tracks, mostly for the Paramount label. Jefferson helped popularized blues across the country with such songs as "See That My Grave Is Kept Clean," "Black Snake Moan" and "Matchbox Blues."

In addition to blues, Jefferson also recorded several gospel tunes, such as "I Want to Be Like Jesus in My Heart," under the name Deacon L. J. Bates. He toured extensively as well, playing gigs in his native Texas and other parts of the South.

Jefferson died on December 19, 1929, in Chicago, Illinois. His exact cause of death is unknown. Reports vary from him suffering a heart attack during a snowstorm to being in a car accident. His body was returned to Texas, where he was buried in an unmarked grave in Wortham. It wasn't until 1967 that Jefferson's grave site received a proper memorial.

Although his career was brief, Jefferson has served an important influence on a range of performers, including B. B. King, Lightin' Hopkins and Bob Dylan. His songs have been covered by the likes of the Beatles and Carl Perkins. Jefferson was inducted into the Blues Foundation Hall of Fame in 1980.

Blind Blake - All The Published Sides

In the course of this blog, there have been quite a few artists whom I had been unfamiliar with and was subsequently blown away by; Blind Blake certainly fits that bill for me. I find the way he manages to mimic ragtime piano on an acoustic guitar to be jaw-dropping. I was already pretty hip to Lonnie Johnson and many of the other guys, but this was new territory. I called Cliff and asked "Geeze, how is this guy not worshiped as one of the Gods of guitar?" His response was that it was most likely a combined product of the horrible condition of most Paramount 78's and the fact that he didn't spawn a school of disciples to carry on his style. My response to that last part would be that it is unlikely that many could even attempt to copy him given the unique pianistic approach he brought to the instrument. Between 1926 and 1932 he recorded an astonishing 110 tracks for Paramount in both Chicago and Milwaukee. To me that would seem a titanic output for the time.

Until quite recently there wasn't much information known about this genius and the much of what was printed was based on stories from other blues-men which turned out to be false. He was thought to be from Jacksonville, Fl, but his alleged use of Geechee dialect in a song (He refers to Geechie several times in Southern Rag but never changes dialect) also spoke to the south Georgia Sea Islands. Families have been found in both areas that appear to have some connection with him. He was known to have lived part time in Chicago in the late 20's by direct reports of his landlady, he reportedly spent the winters in Jacksonville. The date of his birth and even his real name were all in debate, not to mention the date, place and cause of his death. It seems clear that he drank heavily and enjoyed getting into periodic fights as a result. Different stories had him dying a violent death in the streets of 5 or 6 different places or being run over by a streetcar in one of two. The time span was 8 or 9 years, the locations usually from New York to Jacksonville and points between with little to no attention paid early on to Milwaukee. (Cliff points out that any credible genealogist would have had last known place of employment high on the list of search parameters)

 In 2011 a group of researchers finally put some pieces together when someone found a newspaper obituary, which led to a death certificate, and then to a coroners report. They even found the holy grail, the grave site. Those documents gave us quite a bit of solid information about the man including his true name (Arthur Blake), the year and place of his birth (1896 in Newport News, Va!), his parents names (Winter and Alice), the wife's name (Beatrice McGee Blake), and of course the date and cause of his death and his last address.

When their black artists came to record in Milwaukee for Paramount, they usually stayed in an boarding house where the studio had made long term arrangements with the landlord. Blind Blake died about a block from that place (Brewer Hill area) some 3 years after his last Paramount sessions (and the immediately subsequent bankruptcy of the label). He had been married in 1931 to Beatrice McGee and was still with her at the time of his death due to pulmonary tuberculosis on December 5th, 1934 at the age of 38. The obituary referred to him as "Arthur Blake, an old timer in Milwaukee". (Old Timer at 38!?) The coroners report indicates he had been unemployed and ill for most of the previous 3 years and had died in an ambulance on the way to the hospital in the wee hours of the night while coughing up blood. He had been hospitalized earlier in the year with Pneumonia.

The article ends here for now, but the researchers, Alex van der Tuuk, Bob Eagle, Rob Ford, Eric LeBlanc and Angela Mack, are now followings the leads of the parents names and the Newport News birth place to flush out the story. They finish with a promise that they have already picked up the trail there. The article also attempted to trace Beatrice and to find a marriage certificate. No certificate was found, but she does show up in the city directories as the widow of Arthur from 1935 to 1949. (Cliff points out that if Beatrice did indeed get the parents' names and birthplace correct, it speaks to a longer relationship than just the 2+ years they were married.)

I'm left with some questions and speculations and I really hope to someday see more of this story told. Did Blake meet and marry Beatrice in Wisconsin or did she come there with him? (that she stayed on in Milwaukee may indicate she had family there, but her intimate knowledge of his parents and birth contradicts that) Were there any children? Why would a man whose history shows a clear distaste for northern winters settle in frigid Milwaukee where the very strict local musicians union's records indicate there was no work for him? Is it possible he was stranded there due to the collapse of Paramount? Did his family work their way down the coast to Jacksonville and at some point stay in the Georgia Sea Islands area or is the reference to Geechie in Southern Rag merely a sort of musical travelog? (that would be MY guess) His style speaks much more to a structured larger band background than an itinerant solo bluesman, but no record exists to support that. The number of songs seems to indicate he was quite popular for the 6 years or so of his recordings, Paramount would certainly not have pressed so many sides if they didn't sell, and yet he couldn't get ANY work despite being a remarkable guitar player....WHY??