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Various Artists:
Paramount Old Time Recordings |
| Formats and Pricing |
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| Description |
Paramount discs are perhaps the most sought-after by collectors of 78 rpm records. One reason for their collectability is the admirable 12000 series that provided some of the finest blues recordings ever made – most notably by such great names as Skip James, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Charley Patton, Ma Rainey and many others. As if the blues roster wasn’t enough, the company recorded a number of jazz luminaries from the world of jazz. On occasion the likes of Jelly Roll Morton, King Oliver, Johnny Dodds and Fletcher Henderson would grace the Paramount studios.
The company was also ready to record ‘rural’ performances of hillbilly or old time music (otm) - an area rather neglected when it comes to re-issues. To be fair, there was a fine LP issued on the J.E.M.F. label in the 1970s, devoted to otm artists who cut sides for Paramount, and a number of tracks on anthologies, but this is therefore perhaps the first time a more in-depth collection or assessment has appeared.
Once again, courtesy of Joe Bussard, the man who has preserved so much classic American roots music, JSP are proud to present 100 tracks of Paramount old time music.
Irrespective of what some historians say, there is no denying the importance of some of the musicians and singers featured on this anthology. Some may have possibly been overlooked because interested parties have concentrated on the works of, for example, the better-known musicians such as Fiddlin’ John Carson, Gid Tanner and his Skillet Lickers or Charlie Poole. It is therefore pleasing to be able to give a ‘new’ audience a taste of such underrated names like Emry Arthur, Frank Welling & John Mc Ghee and Hugh Gibbs’s String Band.
But back to Paramount. The label was established by the Wisconsin Chair Company, which by 1914, among other things, was manufacturing the playback mechanisms for phonographs. Four years later the company decided to share in the money being made by record companies by establishing their own - the New York Recording Laboratories. Material was first issued on the Puritan label, Paramount’s predecessor. Evidently the idea of the Paramount label was that the company could give away discs when a phonograph was sold. The label’s most enduring success was in the recording of black artists/artistes from 1922 until 1932. Their 12000/13000 series would feature many fine recordings.
The company first seems to have recorded white country musicians in 1924. The results were issued on the 33000 series, which continued until 1926. Early the following year, the company replaced the 33000 series with the 3000 series which was designated solely for ‘Olde Time Tunes’. This series appears ran until late 1932, by which time the label as a whole was foundering. Material issued in the 3000 catalogue would often appear on the Broadway label, although for this purpose the artists were given pseudonyms.
The first otm artist to record for Paramount was harmonica and guitar player, Walter C. Peterson in c. April/May 1924, but the earliest items on this anthology come from Arthur Tanner; backed by among others the great Earl Johnson. Included here are seven items he made c. June 1925.
The Fruit Jar Guzzlers were probably from West Virginia - their music is certainly in the style of string bands from that area. The one session they cut for Paramount was circa March 1928 and produced fifteen sides, all of which were issued. The five included here are fine examples of string band music at its best. The same comments apply to the pieces by Wilmer Watts and the Lonely Eagles.
Wilmer Watts was born at Mount Tabor, now Tabor City, Columbus County, NC, his year of birth either 1896 or 1898. At a young age he played a number of musical instruments, although on record he is heard playing banjo. Following the 1914-1918 War he moved to Belmont. where he found work in the local mills. There he met singer and guitarist Frank Wilson with whom he cut one unissued side. Around this time he fell in with another mill worker, Charles Freshour, who played guitar. Freshour and Wilson (on steel guitar) backed Watts on his first 1927 session for Paramount - which produced seven sides. Five tracks are featured here.
Banjo Sam was the final offering from Watt. Following this he continued millwork and also his musical career, occasionally playing as a one-man band, using five instruments! Later in the 1930s he and his daughters would appear as the Watts Singers.
Wilmer Watts died in August 1943.
Arthur Tanner was the brother of Gid Tanner, noted for his recordings with his Skillet Lickers. Arthur did not have his brother's enduring success but the recordings featured here are of special interest due to the presence of the great fiddle player Earl Johnson. Johnson, with his groups the Dixie Entertainers and the Clodhoppers cut some essential pieces of otm between 1927 and 1931. The Red Brush Rowdies was essentially an aggregation that had the under-rated duo of Frank Welling and John McGhee as its core. Once again the items produced are fine pieces of otm.
Some Welling & Mc Ghee tracks were issued as by The Martin Brothers, probably due to the sensitivity of the material. Steel guitar picker Frank Welling was born 16th February 1900 in Lawrence County, OH. His father was an old-time fiddler. Around 1912 the family moved to Huntingdon, WV, and around this time Frank took up guitar. While playing with Domingo’s Filipino Serenaders (c.1919-1920) he took up the steel guitar. Sometime in the 1920s, Frank Welling teamed-up with John Mc Ghee, a fine bass singer and guitarist who was from Griffithsville, West Virginia. They made their first records together for Gennett in 1927 - the start of a prolific recording career. Welling & McGhee recorded for a number of labels including ARC and Brunswick/Vocalion. The pair also backed other performers, for example Frank Welling appeared on four sides by Richard Cox. Welling and Mc Ghee also backed ‘The Blind Soldier’, David Miller, though he was masquerading under the pseudonym Owen Mills.
Born in Miller, Lawrence County, OH on 4th May 1893, David Miller’s early life was spent working on a fruit farm. In 1917 he joined the army but soon after reporting for duty he contracted granulated eyelids and was told he was going blind. The army refused him a pension, which was presumably the reason for his taking up music - he had to earn a living. He married in 1919, and in the 1920s he and his wife moved to Guyandotte, a suburb of Huntington, WV. With his sidekick, banjo player Cecil ‘Cob’ Adkins, Miller broadcast on radio station WSAZ, Huntington - their career there seems to have lasted from 1927 to 1933. David Miller first recorded in 1924 and of two numbers made only one was issued. In 1927 he cut nine sides for Gennett. The next year he recorded for Paramount with the assistance of Welling & Mc Ghee. David Miller’s recording career ended in 1931 although he continued to play as a member of a band called the West Virginia Mockingbirds. Later, he could be found playing theatres in Guyandotte on shows which included country performers such as Patsy Cline, T. Texas Tyler and Hawkshaw Hawkins. David Miller died on 1st November 1959 in Huntington.
Jack Penewell does not feature in otm discographies as his work is considered to be outside its realms. However, two tracks are included - as they are relevant to the recordings of Lemuel Turner who does get to be listed in the discographies. So, judge for yourself.
It appears that John McGhee not only performed and recorded but also acted as a scout for recording companies. According to one account, Mc Ghee would organise sessions for gospel groups, pay them a flat fee and have the royalties signed over to himself. It seems that twice a year, he would gather a group of artists, book their hotel accommodation and pay them perhaps ten dollars each.
Two feature Frank Welling and William Shannon. Born in 1900 Shannon was from Louisa, KY. He was not at home in the recording studios and made just one session, which produced five sides. Billed as Welling & Shannon Successors to Welling & McGhee, the contemporary listener might be forgiven for thinking that as a duo the last named had split up. In fact they were back in the Paramount studios recording together in February 1929.
The Kentucky Thorobreds, who appeared as The Quadrillers on some record labels, were essentially built around the fine fiddle player Doc Roberts. Roberts had an extensive solo recording career between 1925 and 1934, the bulk of which was with the Gennett company. It was the popularity of Roberts' Gennett recordings that persuaded Paramount to contact him. His Paramount work included string band recordings and some of the fiddle/guitar duets for which Roberts was best known.
Doc Roberts was born 26th April 1897, Madison County, KY. The man who delivered the baby was a Doctor Phillips, known as Doc Phillips. As a form of thanks the family christened the new arrival Dock Phil Roberts. It's hardly surprising that when Roberts started to record, the companies somehow couldn’t get to grips with Dock, even though Roberts signed correspondence and contracts with that name. The record men seemed to prefer to think of him as some kind of a doctor and eventually Roberts decided he had no option other than to accept the title Doc. Roberts said that, influenced by older brother Leibert, he began to play fiddle at the age of seven. While Doc learnt from other local musicians he also got ideas from records. At about 16 he got married and began sharecropping for his mother who had a sizeable farm. Dennis Taylor, the next-door farmer, couldn’t play a note of music but was good at spotting musical talent. Like John McGhee, Taylor seems to have worked by paying a flat fee to artists and pocketing any royalties. He also acted as a Gennett talent scout, and seems to have got a contract for a local string . Thus, through Taylor, Roberts would make his first recordings in 1925.
In 1927, Roberts, with Ted Chestnut and Dick Parham cut two sessions for Paramount. With Clayton Mc Michen and Fiddlin’ Arthur Smith, Doc Roberts is considered to have beenj one of the most influential fiddlers of the 1925-1935 period. Unlike McMichen or Smith, Roberts had little commercial success perhaps because theythey toured widely and made numerous radio and personal appearances. Roberts on the other hand left the music business just when otm artists were finding that country music could provide a full-time living. Doc concentrated on his family and farm, but seems to have continued to play at local square dances. In later years he would make the odd radio appearance quitting - he thought - finally in 1963. A few years later Norm Cohen and Archie Green rediscovered him. The interest engendered led to Doc taking up his fiddle again and playing some concerts at Berea College, along with the original members of his trio. Bad health prevented him from making many further appearances in public.
Doc Roberts died in 1978.
Sid Harkreader was probably better known as Fiddlin’ Sid Harkreader. He was born 26th February 1898, near Gladeville, Wilson County, TN and seems to have learnt to play fiddle from a neighbour and also an elderly worker on his father’s farm. Sid met up with Uncle Dave Macon in 1923 and first recorded with him in 1924. As well as accompanying Uncle Dave, Harkreader had his own solo recording career between 1925 and 1928, two of the sessions being for Paramount. On the tracks featured here, multi-instrumentalist Grady Moore can be heard backing. Fiddlin’ Sid continued to back Uncle Dave at public appearances until the early 1930s; he also played for forty years on the Grand Ole Opry.
It is assumed that the Kentucky Ramblers are really an incarnation of the Bird Family, a group led by Elmer Bird. Bird and various associates cut records for four companies, although many of the sides were unissued. The Ramblers sole session for Paramount produced fourteen sides, of which twelve were issued. As can be heard from the eight tracks included, the musicianship and performances make them well worth hearing.
Leo Soileau and Moise Robin are no strangers to JSP issues - two of their other Paramount tracks appear on Cajun Early Recordings, JSP 7726. Moise Robin had been chosen by Soileau to take the place of his murdered former partner, Mayeus La Fleur. Robin was the ideal choice as he had been inspired by La Fleur’s accordion playing. So, in July 1929, through the auspices of Frank Dietlin a local jeweller from Opelusas who sold records in his store, Soileau and Robin travelled to Richmond, IN to record. Travelling with them was singer/guitarist Roy Gonzales, whose two tracks, recorded on the same day also feature here.
John H. Bertrand was born at Prairie Ronde, a small district near Opelousas, in 1891. He worked primarily as a blacksmith. He taught himself the accordion while in his teens. After a spell away from the Opelousas area he and his family returned in 1924 and settled in a small community, L’Ans Aux Pailles. The young Milton Pitre lived next door, and he would back Bertrand at his first session for Paramount in what is thought to have been January 1929. At the time, Pitre would have been around twenty. In a macabre echo of the murder of Mayeus La Fleur, just a few weeks after this recording debut, Pitre was shot dead in an argument over a woman.
In March or April 1929 Bertrand was invited back for another Paramount session. With the death of Pitre, he appointed Roy Gonzales as back-up guitarist. How the two came to work together is unclear but from the two numbers included here, the partnership appears to have worked well.
Led by Hugh Gibbs, his String Band had one recording date, with Paramount in 1927. Eight sides were cut and virtually all were familiar pieces - as demonstrated by the six numbers included on this collection. Given the standard of their performances, it is surprising that the group did not record again. However, the three Gibbs Brothers, augmented by Claude Davis did return to the studios in 1930 for a session that produced six sides for Vocalion.
Finally, the Blue Ridge Highballers. The bulk of their complete issued Columbia recordings can be found on Worried Blues – JSP 7743. Those cuts were made in 1926 and a year later, they graced the Paramount studios. The personnel had altered slightly with Lige Hardy replacing Arthur Wells on banjo, and there was the addition of a second fiddle player in the form of John Thomasson. What of Paramount itself? As mentioned earlier, the company continued to record rural artists on a fairly regular basis. But, as with all other record companies, the Great Depression decimated record sales and restricted the recording of new material. In 1932 the old time catalogue was ended, blues soon following. The Wisconsin Chair Company, did cling onto the record business by making records for Montgomery Ward. However, RCA Victor, similarly hit by a fall in takings, chased the Montgomery Ward account and won it, probably in 1933. Discographic information on Paramount recordings is sparse. Few ledgers, files contracts or catalogues are known to survive. Just as bad, no definitive list of Paramount's issued recordings has yet been assembled. So, no apology for saying once again that it is due to Joe Bussard that we are able to hear much of the fine old time music recorded by the Paramount label. |
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Track Listing
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Disc 1FRUIT JAR GUZZLERS
C & O Whistle
Fox In The Mountains
Old Joe Clark
Kentucky Bootleggers
Cackling Hen
WILMER WATTS & THE LONELY EAGLES
Cotton Mill Blues
Say Darling Won’t You Love Me
Banjo Sam
Knocking Down Casey Jones
Been On The Job Too Long
DIXIE CRACKERS
The Old Bell Cow
Bile Them Cabbage Down
McCLUNG BROTHERS & CLEVE CHAFFIN
Alabama Jubilee
Trail Blazer’s Favourite
ARTHUR TANNER
Chickens Don’t Roost Too High For Me
Soldier’s Joy
Show Me The Way To Go Home
Whoa Mule Whoa
When I Was Single My Pockets Did Jingle
Little Old Log Cabin In The Lane
The Knoxville Girl
RED BRUSH ROWDIES
Hatfield McCoy Feud
Tuck Me In
Harbour Of Home Sweet Home
Midnight Serenade
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Disc 2 WELLING & McGHEE
The Marion Massacre
The North Carolina Textile Strike
Busted Bank Blues
Picture On The Wall
EMRY ARTHUR
Got Drunk And Got Married
I Tickled Her Under The Chin
The Married Man
The Bluefield Murder
George Collins
ROY GONZALES
Choctaw Beer Blues
Anuiant Et Bleu
GENTRY BROTHERS
Sara Jane
I Was Born 4000 Years Ago
OWEN MILLS (DAVID MILLER)
It’s Hard To Be Shut Up In Prison
BROCK SISTERS
Broadway Blues
CHEZZ CHASE
Log Cabin Blues
RUFUS K. STANLEY
Down In Arkansas
When The Whipoorwill Is Whispering Goodnight
Only A Tramp
Six Feet Of Earth
FAY & THE JAY WALKERS
Those Dark Eyes I Love So Well
Longing For Home
REX KELLY
Down By The Railroad Track
JACK PENEWELL
Hen House Blues
Memphis Blues
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Disc 3 WELLING & McGHEE
Are You Washed In The Blood
What A Friend We Have In Jesus
When The Roll Is Called Up Yonder
My Mother’s Bible
WELLING & SHANNON
Brighten The Corner Where You Are
I’m A Child Of The King
EMRY ARTHUR
There’s A Treasure Up In Heaven
KENTUCKY THOROBREDS
Room For Jesus
This World Is Not My Home
‘Til We Meet Again
He Cometh
CHRISTIAN HARMONY SINGERS
The Model Church - Pt 1
The Model Church - Pt 2
JOE REED FAMILY
Little David Play On Your Harp
Jesus Is Getting Us Ready
I Will Tell A Wondrous Story
Two Little Children
DAVIS & NELSON
I Shall Not Be Moved
Death Is No More Than A Dream
SID HARKREADER
Will There Be Any Stars In My Crown
The Land Where We Never Grow Old
The Old Rugged Cross
In The Sweet Bye And Bye
KENTUCKY RAMBLERS
Glory, Glory, Glory, Glory To The Lamb
Give Me That Old Time Religion
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Disc 4 KENTUCKY RAMBLERS
Good Cocaine (Mama Don’t Allow It)
A Pretty White Rose
The Prisoners Sweetheart
Little Mamie
The Unfortunate Breakman
Some Mother’s Boy
GEORGE WASHINGTON WHITE
Idaho Joe
Gambler’s Blues
SOILEAU & ROBIN
La Valse De La Ru Canal
Ma Mauvais Fille
BERTRAND & PITRE
Cousinne Lilly
Miserable
Valse De Gueydan
Upstairs
BERTRAND & GONZALES
La Delaisser
Le Pond De Nante
GIBB’S STRING BAND
I’m Going Crazy
Swinging In The Lane
Chicken Reel
Double Eagle March
My Little Girl
In The Good Old Summertime
BLUE RIDGE HIGHBALLERS
Are You Angry With Me Darling
Julie Girl
Red Wing
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| Reviews |
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| Label |
JSP |
| Number |
7774 |
| Subsidiary Artists: |
Fruit Jar Guzzlers
Wilmer Watts & The Lonely Eagles
Dixie Crackers
Mcclung Brothers & Cleve Chaffin
Arthur Tanner
Red Brush Rowdies
Welling & Mcghee
Emry Arthur
Roy Gonzales
Gentry Brothers
Owen Mills (David Miller)
Brock Sisters
Chezz Chase
Rufus K. Stanley
Fay & The Jay Walkers
Rex Kelly
Jack Penewell
Welling & Shannon
Kentucky Thorobreds
Christian Harmony Singers
Joe Reed Family
Davis & Nelson
Sid Harkreader
Kentucky Ramblers
George Washington White
Soileau & Robin
Bertrand & Pitre
Bertrand & Gonzales
Gibb’s String Band
Blue Ridge Highballers |
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