Paramount's Rise and Fall: The Roots and History of Paramount Records

Paramount's Rise and Fall: The Roots and History of Paramount Records, 2nd edition. By Alex van der Tuuk. Denver, CO: Mainspring Press, 2012. ISBN 0-98520-042-8 (paperback). $39 While reviewing the hardcover first edition of Alex van der Tuuk's Paramount's Rise and Fall: A History of the Wisconsin Chair Company and its Recording Activities for the ARSC Journal eight years ago (2005;36(1):100-102), I thought it was remarkable because it told the story of Paramount Records from the perspective of its parent company the New York Recorded Laboratories, and its grandparent company the Wisconsin Chair Company. Previous writers, who I will mention later, had focused on the recording producers, scouts, and artists. For his revised, expanded, and newly subtitled edition, van der Tuuk has reinforced his distinctive perspective on this firm by adding new information about Wisconsin Chair. Paramount collectors will want to buy this new version, while the fans of pre-1942 blues who had missed out on the first edition should take their opportunities to buy this one. (For its 2004 Awards, ARSC recognized the first edition as a nominee in the category of Best Research in Record Labels or Manufacturers.) Throughout its 15-year activity Paramount Records was a crass operation. In the eyes of grandparent company Wisconsin Chair, 78-rpm records ranked no higher than its other subsidiary companies in real estate, mining, oil, and natural gas. In the overall business scheme, the records were loss-leaders, serving as incentives for customers to buy the phonographs housed in cabinets built by Wisconsin Chair. Yet at the height of Paramount's sales during the 1920s, more money was made from the records than from the cabinets. What distinguished Paramount from the other record labels of the 1920s were its rosters of blues and black sacred musicians. Through the mid-1920s, the African American scout and producer Mayo Williams shepherded to Paramount the cream of musicians playing in Chicago, whether on the T.O.B.A. circuit, or in local venues like the Monogram Theater. Among the very best of this period were Ethel Waters, Alberta Hunter, Ma Rainey, Joe Oliver with Louis Armstrong, and Lovie Austin and her Blues Serenaders. Wisconsin Chair also maintained offices for its New York Recording Laboratories in New York, Port Washington WI, and Washington DC, and it made frequent use of the Gennett recording facility in Richmond, Indiana. By and in 1929, Paramount's circumstances were changing drastically: Williams left, his work taken over by Arthur Laibley; male rural singers like Blind Lemon Jefferson were outselling the female urban singers; and Wisconsin Chair opened its own recording studio on its Grafton, WI premises. While legendary now among record collectors and blues fans, the last 3 years of recording (1930-1932) were at the time the most desperate for Paramount, who was trying to see if the names of southern artists like Geechie Wiley and King Solomon Hill sounded exotic enough to the public to generate one more hit. …

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