The Rise and Fall of Paramount Records

The Rise and Fall of Paramount Records PDF Author: Scott Blackwood
Publisher: LSU Press
ISBN: 0807179647
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 212

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Book Description
Founded in 1917, Paramount Records incongruously was one of several homegrown record labels of a Wisconsin chair-making company. The company pinned no outsized hopes on Paramount. Its founders knew nothing of the music business, and they had arrived at the scheme of producing records only to drive sales of the expensive phonograph cabinets they had recently begun manufacturing. Lacking the resources and the interest to compete for top talent, Paramount’s earliest recordings gained little foothold with the listening public. On the threshold of bankruptcy, the label embarked on a new business plan: selling the music of Black artists to Black audiences. It was a wildly successful move, with Paramount eventually garnering many of the biggest-selling titles in the “race records” era. Inadvertently, the label accomplished what others could not, making blues, jazz, and folk music performed by Black artists a popular and profitable genre. Paramount featured a deep roster of legendary performers, including Louis Armstrong, Charley Patton, Ethel Waters, Son House, Fletcher Henderson, Skip James, Alberta Hunter, Blind Blake, King Oliver, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Ma Rainey, Johnny Dodds, Papa Charlie Jackson, and Jelly Roll Morton. Scott Blackwood’s The Rise and Fall of Paramount Records is the story of happenstance. But it is also a tale about the sheer force of the Great Migration and the legacy of the music etched into the shellacked grooves of a 78 rpm record. With Paramount Records, Black America found its voice. Through creative nonfiction, Blackwood brings to life the gifted artists and record producers who used Paramount to revolutionize American music. Felled by the Great Depression, the label stopped recording in 1932, leaving a legacy of sound pressed into cheap 78s that is among the most treasured and influential in American history.

The Rise and Fall of Paramount Records

The Rise and Fall of Paramount Records PDF Author: Scott Blackwood
Publisher: LSU Press
ISBN: 0807179647
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 212

Get Book Here

Book Description
Founded in 1917, Paramount Records incongruously was one of several homegrown record labels of a Wisconsin chair-making company. The company pinned no outsized hopes on Paramount. Its founders knew nothing of the music business, and they had arrived at the scheme of producing records only to drive sales of the expensive phonograph cabinets they had recently begun manufacturing. Lacking the resources and the interest to compete for top talent, Paramount’s earliest recordings gained little foothold with the listening public. On the threshold of bankruptcy, the label embarked on a new business plan: selling the music of Black artists to Black audiences. It was a wildly successful move, with Paramount eventually garnering many of the biggest-selling titles in the “race records” era. Inadvertently, the label accomplished what others could not, making blues, jazz, and folk music performed by Black artists a popular and profitable genre. Paramount featured a deep roster of legendary performers, including Louis Armstrong, Charley Patton, Ethel Waters, Son House, Fletcher Henderson, Skip James, Alberta Hunter, Blind Blake, King Oliver, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Ma Rainey, Johnny Dodds, Papa Charlie Jackson, and Jelly Roll Morton. Scott Blackwood’s The Rise and Fall of Paramount Records is the story of happenstance. But it is also a tale about the sheer force of the Great Migration and the legacy of the music etched into the shellacked grooves of a 78 rpm record. With Paramount Records, Black America found its voice. Through creative nonfiction, Blackwood brings to life the gifted artists and record producers who used Paramount to revolutionize American music. Felled by the Great Depression, the label stopped recording in 1932, leaving a legacy of sound pressed into cheap 78s that is among the most treasured and influential in American history.

Paramount's Rise and Fall

Paramount's Rise and Fall PDF Author: Alex van der Tuuk
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
The first complete examamination of Paramount Records - the label that introduced Ma Rainey, Charley Patton, Skip James, and other blues greats to the world - and the company that produced it.

See How Small

See How Small PDF Author: Scott Blackwood
Publisher: Little, Brown
ISBN: 0316373974
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 187

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Book Description
A riveting novel about the aftermath of a brutal murder of three teenage girls, written in incantatory prose "that's as fine as any being written by an American author today" (Ben Fountain). One late autumn evening in a Texas town, two strangers walk into an ice cream shop shortly before closing time. They bind up the three teenage girls who are working the counter, set fire to the shop, and disappear. See How Small tells the stories of the survivors -- family, witnesses, and suspects -- who must endure in the wake of atrocity. Justice remains elusive in their world, human connection tenuous. Hovering above the aftermath of their deaths are the three girls. They watch over the town and make occasional visitations, trying to connect with and prod to life those they left behind. "See how small a thing it is that keeps us apart," they say. A master of compression and lyrical precision, Scott Blackwood has surpassed himself with this haunting, beautiful, and enormously powerful new novel.

The New Paramount Book of Blues. Elusive Artists on Paramount Race Records

The New Paramount Book of Blues. Elusive Artists on Paramount Race Records PDF Author: Alex van der Tuuk
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789082657067
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Fifty-eight updated biographies of Paramount blues artists with sensational new information based on years of research. Some of the artists covered by the New Paramount Book of Blues recorded prolifically during the 1920s and 1930s; others cut less than a handful of songs. Some of them recorded exclusively for Paramount; others also made records for other companies. Most of them have received less attention than the likes of Charlie Patton, Skip James and Tommy Johnson (all Paramount recording artists) or Bukka White, John Hurt and Robert Wilkins, who recorded elsewhere.00In the "rediscovery" days of the 1960s and later, some Paramount artists were not considered interesting enough to bother with; others, like Freddie Spruell, seemed to have vanished from the earth. Ike Rodgers and Bessie Mae Smith died too soon to encounter researchers; Joel Taggart, Will Ezell, Charlie McFadden, Elzadie Robinson and others were still around, but received no attention until long after their deaths. We still do not know for certain when and where Charlie Spand and Willard "Ramblin?" Thomas died.00New information is presented on all these artists, and on others, including Willie Brown, Piano Kid Edwards, Walter Hawkins, Bo Weavil Jackson and Blind Joe Reynolds. There are a few previously published biographies included, like those of Joel Taggart and the Graves Brothers, but most are being seen here for the first time.00Inevitably, first-hand information about Paramount blues artists and their lives has almost dried up with the passage of time, but the internet has made it possible to fill in many blanks, and sometimes to a surprising extent.

All the Rave

All the Rave PDF Author: Joseph Menn
Publisher: Crown Business
ISBN: 1400050065
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 340

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Book Description
At age seventeen, Shawn Fanning designed a computer program that transformed the Internet into an unlimited library of free music. Tens of millions of young people quickly signed on, Time magazine put Fanning on its cover, and his company, Napster, became a household name. It did not take long for the music industry to declare war, one that has now engulfed the biggest entertainment and technology companies on the planet. For All the Rave, top cyberculture journalist Joseph Menn gained unprecedented access to Fanning, other key Napster and music executives, reams of internal e-mails, unpublished court records, and other resources. The result is the definitive account of the Napster saga, for the first time revealing secret take-over and settlement talks, the unseen role of Shawn’s uncle in controlling Napster, and hidden agendas and infighting from Napster’s trenches to the top ranks of the German media giant Bertelsmann. All the Rave is a riveting account of genius and greed, visionary leaps and disastrous business decisions, and the clash of the hacker and investor cultures with that of the copyright establishment. Napster left a generation of music fans feeling that paying the recording industry close to twenty dollars for a CD was a foolish and unnecessary extravagance, which provoked a still-growing backlash against digital media consumers that might leave them with less control than ever. Here is the inside story of the young visionary and the company that made it happen. From the Hardcover edition.

Do Not Sell At Any Price

Do Not Sell At Any Price PDF Author: Amanda Petrusich
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 145166706X
Category : Antiques & Collectibles
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
The untold story of a quirky and important subculture: the world of 78rpm records and the insular community that celebrates them.

Great God A'Mighty! the Dixie Hummingbirds

Great God A'Mighty! the Dixie Hummingbirds PDF Author: Jerry Zolten
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190071494
Category : Gospel musicians
Languages : en
Pages : 409

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Book Description
The venerable Dixie Hummingbirds stand at the top of the black gospel music pantheon as artists who not only significantly shaped that genre but, in the process, also profoundly influenced emerging American pop music genres from Rhythm & Blues and Doo-Wop to Rock 'n' Roll, Soul, and Hip-Hop. Great God A'Mighty! The Dixie Hummingbirds shows how, in a career spanning more than nine decades, they pointed the way from pure a cappella harmony to guitar-driven soul to pop-stardom crossover, collaborating with artists like Stevie Wonder and Paul Simon along the way. Drawing on interviews with founding and quintessential members as well as many of the pop luminaries influenced by the Hummingbirds, author Jerry Zolten tells their story from rising up and out of the segregated South in the twenties and thirties to success on Philadelphia radio and the New York City stage in the forties to grueling tours in the fifties and over the long haul a brilliant recording career that carried well over into the 21st century. The story of the Dixie Hummingbirds is a tale of determined young men who navigated the troubled waters of racial division and the cutthroat business of music on the strength of raw talent, vision, character, and perseverance, and made an indelible name for themselves in American cultural history. This heavily edited 2nd edition features brand new photographs, expanded historical context, and a full new chapter on the Hummigbirds' trajectory up to the 21st century.

Have Gun Will Travel

Have Gun Will Travel PDF Author: Ronin Ro
Publisher: Main Street Books
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 400

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Book Description
Preeminent rap journalist Ronin Ro exposes Death Row Records: an empire built on greed, corruption, murder, and exploitation. 16 photos.

In Search of Buddy Bolden

In Search of Buddy Bolden PDF Author: Donald M. Marquis
Publisher: LSU Press
ISBN: 9780807130933
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
The beginnings of jazz and the story of Charles “Buddy” Bolden (1877–1931) are inextricably intertwined. Just after the turn of the century, New Orleanians could often hear Bolden’s powerful horn from the city’s parks and through dance hall windows. Despite his lack of formal training, his unique style—both musical and personal—made him the first “king” of New Orleans jazz and the inspiration for such later jazz greats as King Oliver, Kid Ory, and Louis Armstrong. For years the legend of Buddy Bolden was overshadowed by myths about his music, his reckless lifestyle, and his mental instability. In Search of Buddy Bolden overlays the myths with the substance of reality. Interviews with those who knew Bolden and an extensive array of primary sources enliven and inform Donald M. Marquis’s absorbing portrait of the brief but brilliant career of the first man of jazz. This paperback edition includes a new preface and appendix relating events and discoveries that have occurred since the book’s original publication in 1978.

Unforgivable Blackness

Unforgivable Blackness PDF Author: Geoffrey C. Ward
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307492370
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 544

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Book Description
In this vivid biography Geoffrey C. Ward brings back to life the most celebrated — and the most reviled — African American of his age. Jack Johnson battled his way out of obscurity and poverty in the Jim Crow South to win the title of heavyweight champion of the world. At a time when whites ran everything in America, he took orders from no one and resolved to live as if color did not exist. While most blacks struggled simply to exist, he reveled in his riches and his fame, sleeping with whomever he pleased, to the consternation and anger of much of white America. Because he did so the federal government set out to destroy him, and he was forced to endure prison and seven years of exile. This definitive biography portrays Jack Johnson as he really was--a battler against the bigotry of his era and the embodiment of American individualism.