ARTIST	SONG	ALBUM
Louise Johnson	Long Ways From Home	Juke Joint Saturday Night
Blind Blake	Diddie Wa Diddie No. 2	The Best of Blind Blake
Robert Peeples	Fat Greasy Baby	Twenty First St. Stomp
Tommy Johnson	Lonesome Home Blues	Blues Images Vol. 8
Little Brother Montgomery	Vicksburg Blues	Little Brother Montgomery 1930-1936
Little Brother Montgomery	No Special Rider Blues	Juke Joint Saturday Night
Louise Johnson	On The Wall	Juke Joint Saturday Night
Son House	Preachin' the Blues Pt. 1 & 2	Masters of the Delta Blues: Friends of Charlie Patton
Charlie Patton	Moon Going Down	The Best Of
Edward Thompson	Showers Of Rain	Essential Alabama Blues 1926-195
Charlie Spand	Soon This Morning #2	Dreaming The Blues
Irene Scruggs	Must Get Mine in Front	Complete Irene Scruggs
Charlie Patton	Some Happy Day	Primeval Blues, Rags, and Gospel Songs
Son House	My Black Mama, Pt. 1 & 2	American Epic: The Best Of Blues
Jaydee Short	Lonesome Swamp Rattlesnake	Blues Images Vol. 2
Skip James	Hard Time Killin' Floor Blues	Times Ain't Like They Used To Be Vol. 5
Skip James	22-20 Blues	Juke Joint Saturday Night
Skip James	If You Haven't Any Hay, Get On Down The Road	Juke Joint Saturday Night
Charlie Patton	Bird Nest Bound	The Best Of
Charlie Patton	Jim Lee - Part 1	The Best Of
Geechie Wiley & Elvie Thomas	Pick Poor Robin Clean	I Can't Be Satisfied Vol. 1
Skip James	Devil Got My Woman	1931 Sessions
Blind Joel Taggart	Satan Your Kingdom Must Come Down	Guitar Evangelists Vol.2
Big Bill Broonzy	How You Want It Done	Blues From The Vocalion Vaults
Willie Brown	Future Blues	American Epic: The Best Of Blues
Willie Brown	M & O Blues	Blues Images Vol. 3
Son House	Mississippi County Farm Blues	Blues Images Vol. 4
Skip James	I’m So Glad	1931 Sessions
Skip James	Drunken Spree	Blues Images Vol. 3
King Solomon Hill	Down On My Bended Knee	The Paramount Masters
King Solomon Hill	Times Has Done Got Hard	Blues Images Vol. 1
King Solomon Hill	Gone Dead Train	Blues Images Vol. 3
Jabo Williams	Fat Mama Blues	Piano Blues Vol. 20: The Barrelhouse Years
Jabo Williams	Pratt City Blues	The Piano Blues Vol. 17: Paramount Vol. 2
Mississippi Sheiks	He Calls That Religion	Blues Images Vol. 3
Mississippi Sheiks	She's Crazy About Her Lovin'	Stop and Listen

Show Notes: 

Paramount Records recorded some of the greatest blues artists of the 20’s and early 30’s. Today’s show is the third program inspired by the new discography book The Paramount 12000/13000 Series Second, revised edition by Max Vreede and Guido van Rijn. As Guido wrote in the preface : “In 1971, Storyville Publications published a groundbreaking discography of the Paramount label’s famous 12000-13000 “’Race’ series by pioneering researcher and collector Max E. Vreede (1927-1991). It featured contemporary advertisements on the left-hand pages, while the right-hand pages listed issues (about ten to a page) in numerical order. Long sold-out, the book has become a cherished collector’s item and an indispensable tool for the serious blues and gospel music enthusiast. In the more than fifty years since publication, a great many records that Max had never seen have been discovered, and the time is ripe for a second edition. Like the original, it features relevant advertisements on the left-hand pages, along with other ephemera; advances in editing and printing techniques have enabled their presentation in greatly improved quality.”

Paramount’s “”race record” series was launched in 1922 with its 1200 “race” series exclusively devoted to black music. The 1300 series operated between 1931 and 1932. A large mail-order operation and weekly advertisements in black owned newspapers like the Chicago Defender were keys to the label’s early success. The label’s successful recordings by Blind Lemon Jefferson and Blind Blake shifted the focus from women singers to male. The label went on to record some of the era’s most celebrated male blues artists such as delta legends Charlie Patton, skip James, Tommy Johnson, Son House, Willie Brown plus diverse artists such as Buddy Boy Hawkins, the Mississippi Sheiks, Charlie Spand, Papa Charlie Jackson among many others. The onset of the depression crippled the recording industry and Paramount was eventually discontinued in 1932. The show’s title, “Greatest Hits”, is of course a bit of a joke but the records selected are personal favorites with some hard choices being made on what to omit. We start with the Paramount 12500 series which covers 1927 to 1930 and today work our way through the 1300 series. Below you will find some background on some of today’s artists.

J. Mayo “Ink” Williams 1924 he joined Paramount Records, which had recently begun to produce and market “race” records. Williams became a talent scout and supervisor of recording sessions in the Chicago area, becoming the most successful blues producer of his time. Upon joining Paramount, Williams became the first African American to hold an executive position in a white-owned recording company. One of his duties was to arrange to have songs scored for publication in order to register them with the copyright division of the Library of Congress. Williams drew no salary but received a royalty from sessions he produced.[3] Two of his biggest discoveries as recording artists were the singer Ma Rainey – already a popular live performer – and Papa Charlie Jackson. A new biography on Williams titled Ink: The Indelible J. Mayo Williams lays out his remarkable career in music and as a football star.

Blind Lemon Jefferson and Blind Blake were the two major male stars of the label. In 1925 Jefferson was discovered by a Paramount recording scout and taken to Chicago to make his first records either in December 1925 or January 1926. Though he was not the first country blues singer/guitarist, or the first to make commercial recordings, Jefferson was the first to attain a national audience. His extremely successful recording career continued until 1929 when he died under mysterious circumstances. He recorded 110 sides. He was the most heavily advertised blues artist, just behind Lonnie Johnson and Bessie Smith, with forty-four ads appearing in the Chicago Defender between 1926 and 19

Besides his music and session details, not much is known of Blind Blake. Despite his popularity and much investigation, he remains a shadowy figure. On his death certificate, which turned up in 2011, Blake’s place of birth was listed as Newport News, Virginia, and 1896 was entered as his date of birth. Blake made his first records for Paramount during the summer of 1926, playing solo guitar behind Leola B. Wilson. He made his debut under his own name a few months late with “Early Morning Blues b/w West Coast Blues.”  Like Blind Lemon, Blake too was advertised heavily with twenty-four ads in the Chicago Defender. And as Tony Russell sums up: “Blind Blake’s most remarkable achievement as a recording artist was that in a career lasting almost six years, in which he made about 80 sides, he was never reduced, whether by slipping skill, waning inspiration or the single-mindedness of record company executives, from a multifaceted musician to a formulaic blues player.” After Paramount folded in 1932, Blake never recorded again. His death certificate lists his profession as “unemployed musician,” and his date of death was entered as December 1, 1934. The cause was Pulmonary tuberculosis.

Charley Patton was another popular male artists for the label who’s popularity seems to have been more regional. Born in 1891, Patton was older than the other Delta musicians who recorded during the golden age of the 1920s and 1930s, and he seems to have developed many of the themes that are now considered basic to the Delta blues repertoire. Paramount asked Gennett to record 14 tunes by Patton at their Richmond, Indiana studio in June 1929. “Pony Blues” b/w “Banty Rooster Blues” was the first issued. The coupling was a hit and Paramount labeled his second release, “Screamin’ And Hollerin’ The Blues”, as by The Masked Marvel. The advert bore a drawing of a blindfolded singer and the clue that this was an exclusive paramount artists. Anyone guessing his identity would get a free Paramount record of their choice.  In all, Patton recorded 38 numbers for Paramount in 1929, some issued the following year, with two gospel songs issued under the pseudonym Elder J.J. Hadley.

In 1930, Arthur Laibley who had produced Charley Patton’s last session for Paramount, stopped in Lula to arrange another session with Patton. Patton told Laibley about Son House and about two other musicians Willie Brown and Louise Johnson, setting the stage for one of the blues most legendary recording sessions. The group headed to the Paramount studios in Grafton, WI, where House recorded six songs at the session: three of which were long enough to fill both sides of a 78: “Dry Spell Blues,” “Preachin’ The Blues,” and “My Black Mama.”

Tommy Johnson’s records may not have been widely popular but he was certainly influential. His influence was unusually vast and long lasting; after all his recorded output only consists of six issued sides for Victor in 1928 and six issued sides for Paramount in 1929. A welcome surprise in recent years has been the discovery of several recordings of unissued material.  It was Johnson’s Victor sides that were the most influential and oft covered: “Cool Drink of Water Blues”, “Big Road Blues”, “Bye-Bye Blues”, “Maggie Campbell Blues”, “Canned Heat Blues” and “Big Fat Mama.” Unlike the Paramount records these sold fairly well and were apparently the songs Johnson sang most often in person. As David Evans wrote: “For about thirty years Tommy Johnson was perhaps the most important and influential blues singer in the state of Mississippi.”

Paramount had some strong female sellers such as Ida Cox and Ma Rainey. Rainey waxed a remarkable body of songs between 1923 and 1938, more than 100 during that period. Many of the early woman blues singers had a strong vaudevillian streak but Rainey’s output is dominated by the blues, something by her own account she added to her act in 1902. Her records were advertised often in the Chicago Defender between 1925 and 1929.

Many iconic blues artists recorded for the label who’s records weren’t necessarily big sellers but are highly prized among collectors. Those in that category featured on these shows include artists such as Buddy Boy Hawkins, Ramblin’ Thomas, Rube Lacey, Ed Bell, Gus Cannon, Clifford Gibson, Frank Stokes, Jaybird Coleman, Blind Joe Reynolds, Geeshie Wiley and Ishman Bracey. Buddy Boy Hawkins recorded a dozen tracks for Paramount Records between 1927 and 1929.

In 1914, Gus Cannon began work with a succession of medicine shows that would continue into the 1940’s. His recording career began with Paramount sessions in 1927 cut under the name Banjo Joe and also made sides with Blind Blake. In 1928 he began recording as Cannon’s Jug Stompers, cutting over two-dozen sides with the group through 1930 for Victor. He returned in 1956 to make a few recordings for Folkways Records and made some college and coffee house appearances with Furry Lewis and Bukka White. In 1963 the Rooftop Singers had a hit with “Walk Right In” and in the wake of that recorded an album for Stax Records in 1963. He cut a few other scattered sides before his death in 1979.

Perhaps at the behest of Blind Lemon Jefferson, who had a session around the same time, Dallas music seller R.T. Ashford arranged for Ramblin’ Thomas venture to Chicago, Illinois, in February of 1928 for a session with Paramount Records, netting a total of eight titles of which all were released.  He returned to Chicago that November for another session.   Finally, he made four recordings for Victor in their field trip to Dallas in February of 1932.

In 1926, Jaybird Coleman began his recording career by making four sides for the Starr Piano Company (Gennett) which were not issued at the time. In 1927 Gennett issue several sides by Coleman with some sides withheld.  Some of the Gennett recordings were later reissued on subsidiary labels like Challenge, Champion, Conqueror, Silvertone, Superior, Supertone, Bell and Buddy – often using a pseudonym like Rabbits Foot Williams or George Alexander, for the artist or group to avoid paying the musicians royalties. A 1929 record under the name Frank Palmes is likely Coleman. On June 15, 1930 Jaybird made his last solo record for Columbia: “Man Trouble Blues, and “Coffee Grinder Blues.” The latter record was advertised in the Chicago Defender.

In November 1929 at the Paramount Recording Studios in Grafton, Wisconsin, four songs were recorded by a Louisiana street musician named Joe Sheppard who, on the run from the law, used the name Blind Joe Reynolds. Within a year, the four songs were released on two records. Neither record sold well, but almost 40 years later, one of the two attracted the attention of Eric Clapton who heard the song “Outside Woman Blues” on a reissue album. In 1967, Clapton and his Cream band mates Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce recorded a more modern day version of “Outside Woman Blues” on their classic Disraeli Gears. “Ninety Nine Blues b/w Cold Woman Blues” was thought to be lost until 2000 when a copy surfaced.

Ishman Bracey learned guitar from locals Louis Cooper and Lee Jones and moved to Jackson in the late 1920s after encountering Tommy Johnson. Bracey’s music came to broader attention after he auditioned for recording agent H. C. Speir, who operated a furniture store on North Farish Street. Speir arranged for Bracey and Tommy Johnson to make their debut recordings at a session for Victor in Memphis in February of 1928. At that session and another for Victor later that year, Bracey was accompanied on guitar and mandolin by Charlie McCoy. Bracey recorded again in 1929 and early 1930 for the Paramount label.

Paramount also recorded some terrific piano records by artists like Moanin’ Bernice Edwards, Charlie Spand, Cow Cow Davenport, Cow Cow Davenport, Will Ezell,  Blind Leroy Garnett, Charles Avery, Charley Taylor and several others. Spand was the most prolific but remains a shadowy figure despite numerous attempts to uncover his story. Spand’s recording career started for Paramount on 6th June, 1929; during the next two years he recorded 24 songs. By 1929 Spand had moved to Chicago, and recorded “45th Street Blues” at Grafton in 1930, the title being an indication of his recent Chicago address. In September 1930 Spand traveled to Grafton to record some more titles for Paramount, six in total. Spand’s last session for the Paramount label was recorded in Grafton, Wisconsin in July 1931, by which time the company was on its last legs.