Labels

What is a “Race Label” recording?

- It‘s performers and popular singers who had records issued in a predominantly blues and gospel series, so-called “Race series”.

Race recording did not properly begin until about 1921. The year in which record sales in America first hit the one hundred million mark.

Victor and Bluebird

Victor did a little blues recording in mid-1923. After a gap of almost three years, they commenced serious race recordings in July 1926. The first of their field trips to the South that involved blues and gospel was in early 1927.

The Radio Corporation of America, who had taken over the original Victor company in January 1929, began a cheaper label, Bluebird, in January 1933.

Victor maintained studios at various times in New York, Camden, N.J., Chicago and Aurora Ill. Race recordings made outside these centres constituted a series of field trips.

Columbia and Okeh

Columbia’s first race issues were in 1921 and 1923, in their popular series. In autumn of 1923 they decided to market their growing blues, gospel and jazz output through a special “race series”.

The earliest race series, beginning about 1921, was Okeh’s special race series, containing a few gospel and semi-blues items.

After the Columbia-Okeh merger the two companies continued for a time to run fairly independently of each other; until the middle of 1929 quite separate sets of field trips were made for the two labels. After this time, however, a single field unit was employed. This would make recordings for issuance on both labels. Each recording was earmarked for issue on either the Columbia or Okeh label as soon as it was made.

The Columbia field trips prior to October 1929 that involved recording of blues and gospel material started in January 1925.

Brunswick and Vocalion 1000

The Brunswick-Balke-Collender company had been issuing some race records on their Vocalion popular label since 1923. In March 1927 a special race series was begun.: the Vocalion 1000s. Brunswick-Balke-Collender was taken over by Warner Brothers Pictures in April 1930 and a new popular label, Melatone, was begun in that November. The first five hundred issues on Melatone contain a scattering of about a dozen race issues.

Finally, Consolidated Film Industries, who had bought the American Record Company in October 1930, purchased the Brunswick, Vocalion and Melatone labels in December 1931 and handled them through a newly formed subsidiary, the Brunswick Record Corporation

The majority of Brunswick-Balke-Collender’s blues and gospel material was recorded in their Chicago studio..

The first field trips bye Brunswick-Balke-Collender’s mobile recording unit started in March 1928.

A.R.C. Labels

The American Record Company was formed in August 1929 by merger of three small companies :

a) Plaza Music Company, with labels Jewel, Domino, Oriole, Banner and Regal.

b) Pathe Phonograph and Radio Corporation, with Pathe, Actuelle and Perfect.

c) Cameo Record Corporation, with Cameo, Romeo and Variety.

Plaza, Pathe and Cameo had all been active, in a small way, in the field of blues and gospel recording in the twenties.

ARC’s earliest race materiel was recorded in New York and begun on 5 September 1930. Chicago studios were opened in January 1933.

Field location visited by their mobile unit began in February 1934.

Gennett and Champion

The Gennett label, owned by the Starr Company of Richmond, Indiana, began blues recording in May and June of 1933. In common with the larger record companies, Gennett began by issuing race records through their general series.

Many of the blues and gospel titles on Gennett were also issued, under pseudonyms, on Starr’s cheaper Champion label.

Gennett recorded most of their blues and gospel at their Richmond, Indiana and New York studios. A small number were made in Chicago, Cincinnati, Ohio and St. Paul Minnesota.

They made a single group of recordings in the South, in July – August 1937.

Paramount

The Paramount label was initiated about 1916 or 1917 by the New York Recording Laboratories of Port Washington, Wisconsin, a subsidiary of the Wisconsin Chair Company of New York and Port Washington.

This label contained a huge amount of blues and gospel material. Unfortunately no files appear to survive and less is known of the operations of Paramount than of any other race label.

In July 1922 Paramount began their race series, which ran until mid-1932.

Paramount had a number of subsidiary labels : Famous, an early Bluebird label, a National label, one of the six Puritan labels and Broadway.

Many other labels were associated with Paramount. These included those of the Bridgeport Die and Machine Company : Triangle, Hudson, and so on.

Paramount appears to have done no recording in the South, preferring to summon artists to their northern studios.

QRS

QRS – nobody has yet discovered what these initials stand for – began a special race series in late 1928.

No company files exist, but all recordings are believed to have been recorded at Long Island City.

Ajax

Although ninety per cent of the records on Ajax label were black artists, it was in fact operated from Canada by the Combo Company of Lachine, Quebec. Combo’s blues were specially recorded for them in New York and the records marketed through a subsidiary, the Ajax Record Company of Chicago.

Ajax records were issued in the summer of 1925.

Decca

Decca begun in 1934 as an offshoot of the English Decca Company and soon launched a race series. The last record in this series was in 1944. On 28 June 1935 Decca bought the Champion trademark and rights to certain Gennett material. Late in 1935 they produced a second race series, titles that earlier appeared on Paramount and on the Gennett Champion label.

It appears that Decca had a permanent studio in Chicago from about August 1934 to May 1937. After this date they seem to have just visited Chicago once or twice a year for a few days of intensive recording activity.

Decca did field trips to the South, mainly to record white country singers. At least some blues and gospel artists are believed to have been recorded in the field.

Varsity

This small label was started in 1939 by Eli Oberstein, intended as a small price competitor to the big three labels, Victor, Decca and Columbia. Nice try, but the label series ended in late 1940.

Library of Congress Archive

The Archive of ( American ) Folk Song was instituted in 1928 and almost from its inception became a focus for U.S. folk-song research.

- The serious collection of black folk-songs recordings are now an extensive and especially important documentation, which can be found in Library Of Congress Archive ; Thanks to the field trips by John A Lomax and his son Alan did in the nineteen thirties. A cultural treasure of American Folk Music !