THE RISE AND FALL OF PARAMOUNT RECORDS:
A listening session and roundtable discussion featuring:
Jack White (Third Man Records, Lazaretto)
Greil Marcus (Rolling Stone, The Believer, The History of Rock ‘n Roll in Ten Songs)
Dean Blackwood (Revenant Records)
Scott Blackwood (Revenant Records)
Adia Victoria (Musician, “Stuck in the South”)
Daphne Brooks (Professor, African American Studies & Theater, Yale University)
Paramount Records was founded on a modest proposition: produce records as cheaply as possible, recording whatever talent was available. Over its lifetime, the label would become a “race records” powerhouse, its sound and fortunes directly linked to the Great Migration.
By the time Paramount ceased operations in 1932, it had compiled a dizzying array of performers still unrivaled to this day, spanning early jazz titans (Louis Armstrong, King Oliver, Jelly Roll Morton, Fats Waller), blues masters (Charley Patton, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Son House, Skip James), American divas (Ma Rainey, Alberta Hunter, Ethel Waters), gospel (Norfolk Jubilee Quartette), vaudeville (Papa Charlie Jackson), and the indefinable “other” (Geeshie Wiley, Elvie Thomas). Paramount would also directly influence the style of Robert Crumb and countless other 20th century artists and illustrators, through a series of hand-drawn ads promoting its releases in the pages of the Chicago Defender.
About the Paramount Records “Wonder Cabinet” Archive:
The Rise and Fall of Paramount Records, 1917-1932 is a game-changing archival collection that is no doubt well on its way to transforming histories of American music cultures. With its thrillingly expansive array of landmark and rare recordings, exquisite visual material and vinyl, meticulous encyclopedic information, and rich, rigorous critical and historical essays that contextualize the music, Third Man & Revenant Records’ Cabinet O’ Wonders provides us with a bold, sonic panorama of America in all of its daring heterogeneity. An indispensable resource for scholars and students of popular music studies, American Studies, African American Studies and beyond. The Rise and Fall Wonder-Cabinet gives equal status to page-turning narrative and new scholarship; original and newly created graphic art; industrial design; and compelling analog and digital music experiences.