Paramount Records

Paramount Records was founded in 1918 by United Phonographs, a subsidiary of the Wisconsin Chair Company, which trademarked its record brand from Port Washington and began issuing records the following year on the Puritan and Paramount labels. Puritan lasted only until 1927, but Paramount, based in the factory of its parent company in Grafton, Wisconsin, published some of the nation's most important early blues recordings between 1929 and 1932.{{cite news|last1=Rohter|first1=Larry|title=Jack White Explores History of Paramount Records|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/27/arts/music/jack-white-explores-history-of-paramount-records.html?pagewanted=all|newspaper=The New York Times|access-date=July 4, 2016|date=October 25, 2013|archive-date=October 8, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161008041311/http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/27/arts/music/jack-white-explores-history-of-paramount-records.html?pagewanted=all|url-status=live}} The label's offices were located in Port Washington, Wisconsin and the pressing plant was located at 1819 S. Green Bay Road in Grafton. The label was managed by Fred Dennett Key.{{cite book|last1=Barlow|first1=William|title=Looking Up at Down: The Emergence of Blues Culture|url=https://archive.org/details/lookingupatdowne0000barl|url-access=registration|date=1989|publisher=Temple University Press|location=Philadelphia|isbn=0-87722-583-4|page=[https://archive.org/details/lookingupatdowne0000barl/page/131 131]}} Recordings often occurred at studios in Chicago.

The Wisconsin Chair Company made wooden phonograph cabinets for Edison Records. In 1915 it started making its own phonographs in the name of its subsidiary, the United Phonograph Corporation. It made phonographs under multiple brand names through the end of the decade; the brands failed commercially.

In 1918, a line of records debuted on the Paramount label. They were recorded and pressed by a Chair Company subsidiary, the New York Recording Laboratories, Inc. which, despite its name, was located in the same Wisconsin factory in Port Washington. Advertisements, however, stated: "Paramounts are recorded in our own New York laboratory".

In its early years, the Paramount label fared only slightly better than the Vista phonograph line. The product had little to distinguish itself. Paramount released pop recordings with average audio quality pressed on average quality shellac. With the coming of electric recording, both the audio fidelity and the shellac quality declined to well below average, although some Paramount records were well pressed on better shellac and have become collectible.

Image:Paramountad.JPG

In the early 1920s, Paramount was accumulating debt while producing no profit. Paramount began offering to press records for other companies on a contract basis at low prices.

Paramount was contracted to press discs for Black Swan Records. When the Black Swan company later floundered, Paramount bought out Black Swan and made records by and for African Americans. These so-called race music records became Paramount's most famous and lucrative business, especially its 12000 series. It is estimated that a quarter of all "race records" released between 1922 and 1932 were on the Paramount label.{{Cite journal|last=Calt|first=Stephen|date=1988|title=The Anatomy Of A "Race" Label -- Part One|journal=78 Quarterly|volume= One, Number 3|pages=10–23}} The company relied on offices and agents in nearby Chicago to find and record artists for its blues and jazz offerings.{{Cite news |date=2013-04-17 |title=Of Paramount's importance |language=en-US |work=Chicago Reader |url=http://chicagoreader.com/music/of-paramounts-importance/ |access-date=2022-03-20 |archive-date=2022-01-21 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220121140338/https://chicagoreader.com/music/of-paramounts-importance/ |url-status=live }}

Paramount's race record series was launched in 1922 with vaudeville blues songs by Lucille Hegamin and Alberta Hunter.{{cite book|first=Tony|last=Russell|year=1997|title=The Blues: From Robert Johnson to Robert Cray|publisher=Carlton Books|location=Dubai|page=12|isbn=1-85868-255-X}} The company had a large mail-order operation which was a key to its early success.

Most of Paramount's race music recordings were arranged by black entrepreneur J. Mayo Williams. "Ink" Williams, as he was known, had no official position with Paramount, but he was given wide latitude to bring African American talent to the Paramount recording studios and to market Paramount records to African American consumers. Williams did not know at the time that the "race market" had become Paramount's prime business and that he was keeping the label afloat.

Problems with low fidelity and poor pressings continued. Blind Lemon Jefferson's 1926 hits, "Got the Blues" and "Long Lonesome Blues", were quickly rerecorded in the superior facilities of Marsh Laboratories, and subsequent releases used the rerecorded version. Both versions were released on compilation albums.

In 1927, Ink Williams moved to competitor Okeh, taking Blind Lemon Jefferson with him for just one recording, "Matchbox Blues". Paramount's recording of the same song can be compared with Okeh's on compilation albums. In 1929, Paramount was building a new studio in Grafton, so it sent Charley Patton —"sent up" by Jackson, Mississippi, storeowner H. C. Speir —to the studio of Gennett Records in Richmond, Indiana, where on June 14 he cut 14 famous sides,{{cite book|title=Deep Blues|author=Robert Palmer|year=1981|author-link=Robert Palmer (American writer)|publisher=Penguin Books|page=[https://archive.org/details/deepblues00palm/page/77 77]|isbn=978-0-14-006223-6|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/deepblues00palm/page/77}} which led many to consider him the "Father of the Delta Blues".{{cite book|last1=Grossman|first1=Stefan|title=Stefan Grossman's Early Masters of American Blues Guitar: Delta Blues Guitar|date=2007|publisher=Alfred Publishing|page=41}}

After Williams left Paramount, he placed the business in the hands of his secretary, Aletha Dickerson, who had not been informed that her former employer had quit. Dickerson continued working for Paramount, and eventually moved to the company's new headquarters in Grafton. In 1931, she quit when the management, facing hard times, cut her wages.{{cite web|last1=van der Tuuk|first1=Alex|title=Aletha Dickerson: Paramount's reluctant recording manager|url=http://www.vjm.biz/new_page_18.htm|access-date=May 25, 2018|archive-date=January 21, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180121054121/http://www.vjm.biz/new_page_18.htm|url-status=live}}

The Great Depression drove many record companies out of business. Paramount stopped recording in 1932 and closed in 1935.

Like other record companies during the Great Depression, Paramount sold most of its master recordings as scrap metal. Some of the company's recordings were said to have been thrown into the Milwaukee River by disgruntled employees when the company was closing in the mid-1930s.Petrusich, Amanda. Do Not Sell At Any Price. Scribner, 2014, p. 78. A 2006 episode of the PBS television show History Detectives showed divers searching the river for Paramount masters and unsold 78s, but they were unsuccessful.{{cite web|last1=Sussman|first1=Lawrence|title=PBS Investigates Grafton Legend|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=vZYxAAAAIBAJ&pg=6405%2C6317264|website=Google/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel|date=9 June 2006}} Author Amanda Petrusich also dived in the river looking for records for her 2014 book Do Not Sell At Any Price, but did not find any.Petrusich, pg. 111.

When Riverside re-released the original recordings, they used records from the collection of John Hammond.{{cite web|last1=Chinen|first1=Nate|title=Orrin Keepnews, Record Executive and Producer of Jazz Classics, Dies at 91|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/02/arts/music/orrin-keepnews-jazz-producer-and-record-executive-is-dead-at-91.html?_r=0|website=The New York Times|date=1 March 2015|access-date=28 February 2017|archive-date=18 August 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170818215725/https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/02/arts/music/orrin-keepnews-jazz-producer-and-record-executive-is-dead-at-91.html?_r=0|url-status=live}}

John Fahey's Revenant Records and Jack White's Third Man Records issued two volumes of remastered tracks from Paramount's catalog, The Rise and Fall of Paramount Records, Volume One (1917–27) and The Rise and Fall of Paramount Records, Volume Two (1928–32), on vinyl records with a USB drive for digital access.{{cite web |url=http://exclaim.ca/News/third_man_chronicles_paramount_records_with_massive_box_set_housed_in_wonder-cabinet |title=Jack White's Third Man Chronicles Paramount Records with Massive Box Set Housed in "Wonder-Cabinet" |last1=Hudson |first1=Alex |date=September 24, 2013 |publisher=Exclaim.ca |access-date=October 30, 2013 |archive-date=September 26, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130926205442/http://exclaim.ca/News/third_man_chronicles_paramount_records_with_massive_box_set_housed_in_wonder-cabinet |url-status=live }} Each volume features 800 songs, contemporary ads and images (200 in volume one and 90 in volume 2), two books (a history of Paramount and a guide to the artists and recordings) and six 180-gram vinyl LPs, packaged in a hand-crafted oak case modeled after those that carried phonographs in the 1920s.{{cite web |last=Blistein |first=Jon |url=https://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/jack-whites-third-man-records-to-co-release-paramount-records-set-20130924#ixzz37U3n0SYP |title=Jack White's Third Man Records to Co-Release Paramount Records Set |publisher=Rolling Stone |date=2013-09-24 |access-date=2015-03-12 |archive-date=2015-02-23 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150223015145/http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/jack-whites-third-man-records-to-co-release-paramount-records-set-20130924#ixzz37U3n0SYP |url-status=live }}

• List of record labels
• Paramount Records (1969)
• Puritan Records

{{Reflist}}

• [https://web.archive.org/web/20160317000406/http://www.paramountshome.org/articles/1924ParamountCatalog.pdf 1924 Paramount catalog]
• [http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/paramount Online Discography, University of Wisconsin-Madison]
• [https://www.npr.org/2015/01/31/382701847/in-a-few-fateful-years-one-record-label-blew-open-the-blues "In A Few Fateful Years, One Record Label Blew Open The Blues"]. Tom Cole, NPR Weekend Edition, January 31, 2015.
• [http://www.wpr.org/paramount-records "Paramount Records"]. Interview with author Amanda Petrusich on Central Time show on Wisconsin Public Radio, April 22, 2015.
• [https://archive.org/details/georgeblood?and%5B%5D=publisher:paramount%20NOT%20abc Paramount Records] on the Internet Archive's [http://great78.archive.org/ Great 78 Project]
• [https://content.wisconsinhistory.org/digital/collection/wmh/id/48588 Filzen, Sarah (1998). "The Rise and Fall of Paramount Records", Wisconsin Magazine of History.]
• [https://lsupress.org/books/detail/rise-and-fall-of-paramount-records/ Blackwood, Scott (2023) "The Rise and Fall of Paramount Records: A Great Migration Story, 1917–1932", LSU Press.]

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Category:Record labels established in 1918

Category:Record labels disestablished in 1935

Category:Record labels established in 1948

Category:Re-established companies

Category:Vertical cut record labels

Category:American jazz record labels

Category:Blues record labels

Category:Defunct companies based in Wisconsin

Category:History of Wisconsin

Category:Ozaukee County, Wisconsin