Paramount Records
Paramount Records was an American record label, which existed from 1918 to 1932 and was particularly known for his shots from the field of jazz and blues. The company is not to be confused with the film production company Paramount Pictures to which they had no relationship period of its existence.
History
Foundation
Paramount Records was founded as a subsidiary of a furniture company, the Wisconsin Chair Company of Grafton. This had made some Grammophonschränkchen for Edison Records and then founded as United Phonograph Corporation own gramophone brand called Vista to life. To complement this, in 1918, Paramount was founded. As a recording studio and pressing plant served a separate subsidiary of the Wisconsin Chair Company, the New York Recording Laboratories, Incorporated, which in the factory complex of the parent company in Wisconsin was also a resident regardless of their name. The misleading name should probably suggest proximity to the music metropolis of New York and thus bring market advantages, there is in displaying the sentence: " Paramount are recorded in our own New York laboratory ", in German about " Paramount ( plates) are in our own New York (-er ) was added lab. "
During their early years, the company was not particularly successful. Outstanding performers were missing, the recording and pressing quality was so below average that the company in 1926 when she landed with Blind Lemon Jefferson's Got the Blues / Long Lonesome Blues a hit, Jefferson had to re-record the songs in a better studio, replaced the new version then the old comment.
Rise
Even at the beginning of the 1920s, the company remained in deficit, the pressing plant was then leased to the competitors Black Swan Records. After the bankruptcy, the company began with the production of "Race Music", ie recordings of African- American musicians, specifically aimed at an African-American audience. With this decision, the economically and artistically successful phase of the company began. Because of the company, the market was foreign to the content itself, led talent scout as Mayo Williams or HC Speir Paramount promising artists too, including some of the most famous names of the blues as Ma Rainey, Charley Patton and Blind Lemon Jefferson. Around a quarter of all known blues records of the time were released by Paramount.
End
However, the flowering phase of Paramount lasted only a short time, with the world economic crisis of 1929 in particular, the impoverished underclass extreme, to the African-American audience almost entirely belonged, luxury goods such as records were therefore almost unsaleable. By price reductions Paramount tried to counter this loss, the cost was lower then for example for pressing the plates used extremely poor material. Despite these and other measures did not succeed Paramount to survive in the long term, in the summer of 1932 the entire company was closed.
1942 John Steiner acquired the company, he published the old recordings again, but the catalog also added to new entries. 1970 George H. Buck, in turn, acquired the company that sold the naming rights to Paramount Pictures and integrated Paramount catalog in his label Jazzology Records.
Supposedly, the master were thrown together with numerous ( like new ) plates 1932 for disposal in the Milwaukee River, in fact, most masters are not obtained. For re-releases of Paramount plates therefore now have to rely on the published plates, resulting in high -quality losses due to the mentioned bad press material and the decades-long use of the phonograms.