78 QUARTERLY NO.4 ROBERT JOHNSON-CRUMB COVER-PARAMOUNT RECORDS
$
37
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Description
Clean copy of volume 4 of "78 Quarterly." Cover is a little scuffed but it isn't distracting. Top right corner has a little bump. Clean pages.
Stephen Calt continues his history of the legendary Paramount record label with "The Anatomy of a 'Race' Label Part II." Highlights include details about producer Mayo Williams (who, the author points out, was "the first black to hold an executive position in a white recording company"), Paramount's shift to specializing in African American music, and commentary on their early roster which included Alberta Hunter, Ethel Waters, Ida Cox, Trixie Smith, Ma Rainey, and - most notably - Papa Charlie Jackson, the first self-accompanied male blues singer to be recorded. Editor Pete Whelan contributes an excellent interview with groundbreaking early jazz scholar Frederic Ramsey. Considering all of the attention that Robert Johnson has received during the last 20 years, one would be tempted to think that Calt and Gayle Dean Wardlow's article on the most famous of prewar blues guitarists would simply duplicate already well-known information. Not so. Instead of the overly-reverential treatment that the musician has been given by other writers, there is more emphasis on biographical details from Johnson's contemporaries instead of meaningless conjecture on bunk like the location of the apocryphal crossroads where hopeless blues romantics believe he had sold his soul to the devil. Calt also includes a detailed etymology of the slang and metaphors utilized by the singer in his song's lyrics. Moreover, this issue of 78 Quarterly includes the debut appearance of Johnson's "suit and tie" photograph, which was a really big deal at the time.
"Remembering Big Joe" is Henry Renard's engaging reminiscence of the Jazz Record Center, Joe Clauberg's storied secondhand music establishment in New York City and an important meeting spot for many of the earliest 78 collectors. Believe it or not, prewar blues records were sold in Japan during the 1930s! Read the fascinating story in "Back in Nagasaki with Lucky" by Russ Shor. "Paramounts in the Belfry..." is Bob Hilbert's account of the discovery of numerous Paramount test pressings in a suburban Chicago-area house. This cache included previously unknown recordings by Charlie Patton, Tommy Johnson, and Ishmon Bracey, among others.
Tom Tsotsi continues his feature on Gennett, another important prewar label with an extensive race record catalog, and Steve LaVere supplies a short story on white pianist Glenn Hardman. Issue No. 4 concludes with listings of the rarest 78s (C through D), a postscript to the James McKune piece featured in No. 3, and a review of Calt and Wardlow's thought-provoking King of the Delta Blues: The Life and Music of Charlie Patton.
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