University Place

>> Today, we are pleased to introduce Dean Blackwood and Tom Caw as part of the "Rise and Fall and Rise of Paramount Records" program series sponsored by the UW Madison Center for the Humanities. The opinions expressed today are those of the presenter and are not necessarily those of the Wisconsin Historical Society or the museum's employees. Dean Blackwood was born in Memphis and grew up in Texas. He started Perfect, a 78 RPM record imprint in the early '90s while in law school at Harvard and in 1995 co-founded the record label Revenant with lead guitarist John Fahey. Revenant's latest project is a collaboration with Jack White's

Third Man Records

"The Rise and Fall of Paramount Records, 1917 through 1932". A two-volume collection of words, images and music telling the curious tale of America's greatest record label. The first volume won the 2015 Grammy for boxed set design. Tom Caw has been the music public services librarian at Mills Music Library since 2008. He is a member of the Music Library Association and the Midwest Popular Cultural Association, American Culture Association, serving as area chair for libraries, museums, and collecting since 2004. He is also a member of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music, US branch. Here today to share tales and recordings of the music made by Wisconsin musicians with Paramount Records, including musical styles "Beyond the Blues", please join me in welcoming Dean Blackwood and Tom Caw.

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Third Man Records

>> Thanks, Katie. >> Yeah, thank you very much, Katie. Dean.

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>> Thanks, everybody, for coming out. So, Tom, I wanna get out of the way as soon as possible so we can play some music. >> Yes. >> It's always nice to talk about music. Probably more fun and important to actually hear it. So I'll just spend a couple of minutes and then get out of the way. I'll maybe contextualize a little bit of this-- >> Mm-hmm. >>-- with the brief story of how Paramount came to be and came to be known for a particular type of recordings. We're gonna talk a little bit about the stuff it's maybe not known for. What it is known for mostly is being sort of the-- having sort of cradle of civilization status when it comes to blues, gospel, and jazz being made in the 1920s and the early 1930s at a time when there really wasn't another source, another enterprise capturing what America really sounded like. You know, what ordinary people in America, the types of sounds they were making on the streets, on the street corners, at fish fries, at countries suppers, in mining camps. This is what they were trying to document. Now they had no mission as preservationists. They weren't, you know, purveyors of culture. They had no delusions about their role. What they were was first. They predated the Library of Congress, you know, with its own preservationist mission by a full decade or more. The Library of Congress really didn't get its field recording operations going until the '30s. And so-- but for Paramount, you know, many of these sounds-- whole traditions would be lost to time because they simply wouldn't have appeared on record. Paramount was born in 1917. By 1922 it was pretty much going out of business. They really-- their initial business model was we don't care what we record. The people don't know from music. They just want something that they can play on these marvelous phonograph cabinets that we're producing--

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Third Man Records

-- 'cause they were a furniture company first and foremost. They were making phonograph cabinets. They were initially contracted by Thomas Edison when his plant burned down in New York to build phonograph cabinets. That's how they got into the business. They were already a chair-- they were the Wisconsin Chair Company based in Grafton with some operations in Port Washington, Wisconsin. Based on their experience with Edison they said, hey, this is a good business to be in. You can charge a lot for these polished wonders, these phonograph cabinets, and oh, by the way, we should do some records just so we can throw them in with each purchase and people will have something to play. It turned out people did care what was on the records and so, that's why by 1922 they had to do something to turn around their fortunes. That something was to get into the business that was then known as race records which was the music of black performers that intended for black audiences. Black performers had appeared on record, you know, going back decades but it had always been sort of European traditions, more refined quartet singing, university choirs, some church music, things that were intended for white audience consumption. So this was really a new strategy in the industry. It wasn't-- they weren't the first ones to come to this as a strategy. The market had been identified by the first blues recording in 1920 by Mamie Smith. It was called "Crazy Blues" and it came out on a competing label, Okeh Records, but it sold in the hundreds of thousands. So that really identified that there was a market for these recordings and Paramount was among the first to take advantage of that. So they're going out of business in 1922; they embark on this strategy. By 1926 they are, without a doubt, a juggernaut in this race records industry. And while they went out of business in 19-- they pretty much ceased operations by 1932, they were officially out of business in 1933. During the period from 1922 to 1932, you know, they created this-- unwittingly created this incredible repository of American sound, and more importantly, a representative of some of our finest when it comes to American arts and letters. This is really-- they were unintentional archivists. They weren't preservationists, as I said, but, in spite of themselves, produced this incredible-- this incredible repository of great American art. So they're mostly known for people like Blind Lemon Jefferson, Blind Blake, Ma Rainey, King Oliver, Jelly Roll Morton, young Louis Armstrong. Figures in Mississippi Delta blues like Charley Patton, Skip James, Son House, and Tommy Johnson. These were the people who preceded the best known, you know, Mississippi artist Robert Johnson by a full generation. So they were really the fathers of the form itself. That's what Paramount is known for. It's obsessively collected. We talked about on some of the panels yesterday the peculiar obsessions that drive this collecting community. The records are exceedingly rare 'cause one thing Paramount wanted to do, or really two things they wanted to do, they were-- be-- do everything cheaply and expediently. And so that meant producing records on the cheap. They were made of very poor materials in terms of what was called shellac. Those old 78 RPM records were made out of compound that had, you know, different components in it. Theirs was the poorest, lowest quality mixture, you know, so that they could make records more cheaply. They also recorded their artists very cheaply. It just happened that they were recording things that they had no business knowing would, you know, would last and be important a hundred years later where we sit today. So, again, in spite of themselves, these records are coveted, these artists are coveted, and they're also very hard to find in any playable condition. So that's what they're known for. What Tom's gonna talk about today are things that we, for the most part, didn't comprehend in our two-volume collection that was devoted to Paramount. I think, you know, there is a-- Paramount had many, many, many tens of thousands of master recordings that they produced. So even though it might seem like an exhaustive set having 1,600 recordings spanning across these two boxes, in fact, it just scratches the surface. There was many more things that they released and many more things we could have comprehended in the box and it would tell a little bit of a different story about their intentions and particularly with regard to Wisconsin bands and music outside of, as Tom said, "Beyond the Blues" category. So, with that, I'll turn it over to Tom. Hopefully I haven't gone on too long. >> Okay. Thank you very much, Dean. I appreciate that. All right, so the other sides, plural, of Paramount Records. I'm going to get right to the heart of the matter here today and give all praise to Alex van der Tuuk, a fellow who came over from the Netherlands. He became interested and then obsessed with the Paramount Record story back in the early '90s which, coincidentally, is when-- about the time I became interested in it as a younger man than I am

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Third Man Records

today through reissues of Charley Patton 78s. And Alex van der Tuuk's book,

Paramount's Rise and Fall

The Roots and History of Paramount Records, this book, which we have at the Mills Music Library, welcome to come check that out, we have Alex van der Tuuk's original-- first edition came out in 2003. We have the second expanded revised edition from 2012 and in one of the sessions that happened yesterday Dean Blackwood here was talking about how he and Jack White of Third Man Records had both been reading this book. So, stop me if I'm wrong here, Dean, but-- and they got to talking to each other and so as I was saying to folks last night at the Elvehjem building these two amazing boxed sets kind of were birthed out of this research and this work, this story, the amazing stories that Alex van der Tuuk compiled in his book. So I just wanted to give praise and acknowledgment to Alex van der Tuuk before I-- before I progress here. Dean laid out the history pretty well there for you. Now, in terms of what we have at Mills Music Library, we don't have so many of the race records, the race series. We have roughly 1,700 78s from Paramount and the other labels. A little terminology here. The New York recording laboratories, that was the subsidiary of the Wisconsin Chair Company that was started for this enterprise, as Dean said, to produce the records. And they had four, at least four-- they had other labels-- but the four main labels were Paramount, which was the premiere label; Broadway, Famous, and Puritan. So a lot of records that I might be talking about and playing for you here in a minute weren't necessarily released on Paramount, per se, but for the sake, you know, of the idea of Paramount Records being the premiere, the Paramount label, we're going to use that terminology here. So at Par-- at Mills Music Library, we do have discography of everything that we have. You may find this online. Use Google, search for it. We have-- I have to also give thanks to Steve Sundell who work for many years at the Mills Music Library and did an awful lot to establish what is the Wisconsin Music Archives. We have-- the Paramount collection that we is part of the Wisconsin Music Archives. Okay, so these box sets. You may see them; you may come up and have a closer look at the box sets once this is finished. Volume one, the wooden box, and volume two, which came out just a few months ago in the handsome machine-aged sleek aluminum case. These two are the impetus for why these events are happening. The Center for the Humanities are putting this altogether. Now, Dean and Jack White put these together and, as he said, you know, this is just a small sampling. The 800 tracks on one USB drive in volume one and the 800 tracks on a USB drive in volume two. Oh, by the way, that's Charley Patton on the photo up there. It's funny because he's the one who initially got me so interested in the Paramount story. The additional recordings that they didn't include, the other sides, so we have a lot of those reissued on CDs at the Mills Music Library as well. There are volumes of Paramount Hot Dance Obscurities.

We have a four-CD set called

"Paramount Old Time Recordings". It was part of the old-time or hillbilly series that Paramount released. I wanted to say that Dean did mention yesterday that his phrase was that this was a fairly disciplined culling of all the potential music that they could select to put into these box sets. And he said at one point last night, it had to be-- their reasoning was it had to be compelling listening, or advanced the story in some way, to be included. So, first thing I'm going to start us off with is a recording that did make the cut for volume two by the Wisconsin U Skyrockets. Now, Wisconsin U Skyrockets were a band here in Madison. Jesse Cohen, the gentleman pictured there on the cover from "Paramount Hot Dance Obscurities" volume two, he led the band. He was involved with the Harris Foot Club at the university for a number of years in the '20s and wrote a lot of the tunes for their shows. It's funny today because this is the only-- they recorded in Chicago. This was before the studio was finished in Grafton. They only made four sides and never recorded again. They're most famous, probably, for who wasn't in the band. There was a long held rumor that Bunny Berigan, the legendary Wisconsin trumpeter, had played and had been on these recording sessions but it turned out to be erroneous information, but the legend kind of persisted for a number-- 20-some years. So let's just have me stop talking and listen to "Dizzy Corners", one of the four recordings that they made in Chicago.

jazz music playing

We have a four-CD set called

You should feel free to dance if you want to get up and dance.

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jazz music playing

We have a four-CD set called

Okay, Wisconsin U Skyrockets, yeah.

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We have a four-CD set called

Feel free to clap. I'm sure their spirits are here with us.

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We have a four-CD set called

I can't move on without mentioning Bunny Berigan. We also, at the Mills Music Library, have a great Bunny Berigan collection among our other special collections. So if anyone here is curious to know more about Bunny Berigan come to Mills Music Library and we'll put you on the path. Okay, moving along. So we were just in the Madison area there with the Wisconsin U Skyrockets. Now, I mentioned that they had recorded in Chicago. That was in 1928. So in 1929, finally, the recording studio was constructed in Grafton. And I have to make mention of the fact that assistance came from the UW Madison engineering department when setting up that recording studio in Grafton. Now, of course, it's probably a cost-cutting measure by the notoriously stingy Wisconsin Chair Company, New York Recording Laboratory's brass, but I also feel like it's an example of the Wisconsin Idea at work and, you know, the fact that they called upon knowledgeable folks from the university to make the trek over to Grafton which is, you know, it's a drive. Especially it would have taken a little longer back in 1929

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We have a four-CD set called

to drive from here to Grafton. So I just wanted to mention that. Moving on here now to-- going up the road from Grafton a ways towards Manitowoc. The picture that we have here is of Paul Gosz's Orchestra. You see on the drum head there Manitowoc, Wisconsin. So, the interesting story here, before I get into playing a tune for you-- another tune, is that Paul was the father. He had all these sons. I think he had seven children and several of his sons played in the band with him. They called it an orchestra. It turned out that he eventually decided to go back-- work more at his day job at the lime kiln. And so, eventually, he turned the management, the running of the band, the orchestra, over to his son George and then in the late '20s turned it over to Roman, or Romy, as he was known. And Romy was not even quite 18 so he legally couldn't handle the business of the band. So they just maintained the name "Paul Gosz's Orchestra" even though Paul, the father, wasn't in the band anymore.

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We have a four-CD set called

And Romy had these ideas of trying to-- he didn't wanna be on the radio too much but he thought this new idea of recording might, you know, that might be okay, make a record. So they did, in 1931, pack up and go to Grafton to record and what I'm gonna play for you now is their hit tune "Pilsen Polka".

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And it was. It was quite a hit. I guess it was really well loved and well known, and they played-- they toured around and played shows in halls and this was the song that folks just initially loved. It's gonna sound rough.

polka music playing

We have a four-CD set called

Sorry to talk over the polka but I just wanted to point out that this is a bit more characteristic of the quality-- the quality control that went into the recordings. I digitized this in our sound studio at Mills Music Library. I decided to just make a straight transfer. This doesn't have the expertise of the mastering engineer Chris King who worked on all the audio files for the box sets.

polka music playing

polka music playing

We have a four-CD set called

So this was early on, was '31, and the band and Romy just continued to be more and more popular and actually, in 1945, Time magazine named Romy Gosz a polka king. Yeah.

polka music playing

We have a four-CD set called

Okay, I'm gonna-- just gonna have to cut you short, Romy Gosz. I think you got the idea there but I just wanted you to know that was a hit record in the-- and that was in, you know, that's the Depression in 1931. So, moving on now. Coming back down the highway from Manitowoc to Milwaukee. Sig Heller. Sig Heller was-- this is Sig there on the left with the saxophone. He played a couple instruments and sang. And then Sig Heller's Orchestra there on the right with what looks like a traffic pylon on top of the drum--

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We have a four-CD set called

-- but I don't believe-- I don't believe that is actually a traffic cone. Sig Heller, he was quite a character, quite a legend. And Alex van der Tuuk was able to interview him several times before Sig passed away and tells a lot of-- relays a lot of great stories from Sig Heller in his book; both Paramount the Rise and Fall and a book called Out of Anonymity about the territory bands, including more biographical information about all of these artists I'm playing for you today. For instance, Sig, he started his band, his orchestra, while he was at Riverside High School in Milwaukee and they actually gigged and played around. They actually got invited to go to Europe. And so Sig's mother went along as chaperone on the boat.

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We have a four-CD set called

And they went to Europe and toured and played and that's when he said they went from being, you know, just playing for entertainment to making money. So that's when they, you know, they got paid. And they came back and they actually all went to Marquette University together. They enrolled as a group.

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We have a four-CD set called

Everybody, we're going to Marquette.

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We have a four-CD set called

And so, they kept it going. They kept the band going. They were playing at the Eagles Club in Milwaukee one night and a gentleman named Charlie Eggert, who had connections with folks at the New York Recording Laboratory, said hey, you're pretty good, you know, you might-- you consider making a recording? And so, they went up to Grafton and it's from Sig Heller's accounts that we have, really, the only-- the best description of what the recording studio was even like in Grafton 'cause nobody thought to-- there's no existing photograph. There's no documentation of what the recording studio was like and it was built in a building that's no longer there. Anyway, he said it was a heavily draped room, 30 feet square. So let's look at this room that we're in, you know, it's not a big room. And it had a padded floor. So he recounted that it was not the sort of live-- acoustically live room that he and his group were used to playing in. So they just felt like they sounded terrible when they heard the recording but they figured oh, you know, what the heck, we'll give this a shot and, you know, make a record. Now, the track I'm going to play for you by Sig Heller and his orchestra is a tune called "Somebody Loves You", and lest you think that this was a song that Sig and his fellow bandmates just loved and couldn't wait to record, no, this was business. This was show business, the music business. There is a letter that Alex van der Tuuk reproduces in his book that Sig Heller let him see that came from the New York Recording Laboratories saying we would be interested in having you come for a recording date and these are the following songs we would be interested in recording you performing. Basically like, here, come learn these tunes and come play them. It wasn't like bring your best stuff and we'll record you. It was like here's the deal; here's what we want you to play. So I find this a very touching tune. "Somebody Loves You" and Sig is actually singing the vocal on this. Somebody loves you I want you to know, longs to be near you wherever you go, somebody loves you and right from the start, happiness flew into someone's heart. Somebody loves you each hour of the day, when you're around, dear, or when you're away, somebody loves you sweetheart can't you see, and that somebody is me.

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We have a four-CD set called

>> Hey. You can clap for Sig. He appreciates it. >> Did the-- so good. I can't get past the megaphone. It's a megaphone, right? >> Yeah. Right. Yeah. No. >> So, yeah. >> Yeah, no. For amplification. Thank you for paying attention.

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We have a four-CD set called

I appreciate that. Now, moving on. Last and certainly not least, because any one of these people I'm playing recordings from-- I could go on, I could do a whole hour or more on each one of them. Jack Penewell. Does anyone here know Jack Penewell? Yeah, right. Yeah. Well, he's no longer with us but, Jack Penewell, well, he was quite a character. Now, that's Jack there on the right in the photo taken from the collection here at the Wisconsin Historical Society. Actually, both of these images are used with the permission of the Wisconsin Historical Society. Jack Penewell came up from-- he was-- according to the "Capital Times", an article in 1963 profiling him in his later years, he was in Stoughton and he came up to Madison around 1915. He was a radio star. He toured; he did vaudeville. He developed his Twin Six Talking Steel Guitar. This is the logo on the right, this image, that he registered as that design. He had those guitars made. And-- so he could play and then also play slide, you know, in a Hawaiian slat-key style. He was still entertaining-- he moved away from Madison at a point and then he came back and I've heard stories from various folks who come to the library, or who I've talked to at events similar to this, and he was playing shows in clubs just up and down State Street in the '60s; sitting in with people. And he, by all means, by all accounts, he was quite a character. And now he's most famously associated with his Hawaiian-style of playing but he did record a couple sides that I'm going to play this-- a little bit of his "Hen House Blues". One of his original recordings. Now, I don't know if I would really call this a blues but it's included, for instance, on the four-CD set I mentioned earlier that we at Mills Music Library. "The Paramount Old Time Recordings." So here's a little bit of Jack making his guitar talk and sound like a hen. "The Hen House Blues." Whoops.

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Hold on.

blues music playing

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blues music playing

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Okay. That was a little taste of "Hen House Blues". Now, you know, obviously, there's a lot of blues feeling in that. Just, you know, the opening is what is the hook there.

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Now, this is just the curious thing, you know. I put a question mark on this slide. Aloha? Because why on Earth would a gentleman from Madison, from the Stoughton area, be playing

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We have a four-CD set called

Hawaiian songs? Well, it was a bit of a craze, you know? Check in the history of popular music; that was quite the popular style of the time. So, you know, it's show business. You know, he was a vaudevillian. He knew what-- how to give people what they wanted and he did it. Now we have, at Mills Music Library, some of his released recordings but we also have a few test pressings. And those were ones that were just made and then nothing ever happened with them. The record label didn't release them. I find this test pressing of him playing "Aloha Land" to be quite moving. I'll let you decide for yourself here. Here's "Aloha Land".

Hawaiian music playing

We have a four-CD set called

Ah.

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We have a four-CD set called

So there's a little taste of "Aloha Land", Jack Penewell. Again, like I said, I could play a lot more and there's a lot more to be listened to and discovered. You know, in conclusion, these are just a few of the other sides of Paramount Records. There are many more both in the collection at Mills Music Library and beyond. There's much work to be done in terms of preservation and access to all that we have at Mills Music Library in order to document this important part of 20th century Wisconsin history and American cultural history and we intend to do it. So, I'd be happy to take questions. Questions for Dean at this point? Thank you very much.

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