On Nov 18th, Jack White’s Third Man Records, in partnership with John Fahey’s Revenant Records, will unlock the second and final chapter chronicling the curious tale of America’s most important record label with ‘The Rise and Fall of Paramount Records, Volume 2 (1928-1932).’ A stunning omnibus of words, music, art and design, ‘Volume 2’ picks up where the “spectacular” (New York Times) and “unprecedented” (Rolling Stone) ‘Volume 1’ left off. It documents the label’s final 5 year period between 1928-32, a stunning second act in which Paramount birthed the entire genre of Mississippi Delta blues and issued some of the most coveted recordings in the history of the medium: Skip James, Charley Patton, Son House, Tommy Johnson, Geeshie Wiley, The Mississippi Sheiks, Willie Brown, King Solomon Hill, and hundreds of others. ‘Volume 2’ contains six LPs, a sculpted metal USB drive with 800 songs and 90+ original hand-drawn ads from the Chicago Defender, a large-format hardcover book telling the label’s story via new writing and original images, and an illustrated Field Guide with biographies and recording information for each artist represented in the set. It is all housed in a streamline case of polished aluminum modeled after a portable phonograph in 1930s American “Machine Age” Art Deco style. Like ‘Volume 1′, the collection was co-produced by leading Paramount authority Alex van der Tuuk. Paramount Records’ open-door recording policy led it to the very bedrock of America’s untamed blues, jazz, gospel and folk sounds. In the process the label provided the earliest and most representative snapshot of America’s sonic landscape. ‘Volume 2’ offers a magnificent conclusion to this story of how a Wisconsin chair company, despite producing records on the cheap, changed how America thought of itself by allowing this young country to hear what it really sounded like, in all its stripes, for the very first time. ‘Rise and Fall of Paramount Records, Volume 2 (1928-1932)’ contains: MORE
RELATED: The Crumb-Zolten Blues
ALL MUSIC GUIDE: While Robert Crumb is most famous as the single most influential artist in the history of underground comics, he’s also known as a record collector and serious fan of vintage jazz and blues, freely acknowledging he has no interest in anything recorded after 1936. Jerry Zolten, a well-respected music historian and professor at Penn State University, is a fellow record collector who is friendly with Crumb, and in 2003 the artist was a guest on Zolten‘s radio show on Penn State’s radio station WPSU-FM. Chimpin’ the Blues preserves 60 minutes from Zolten‘s show, with Zolten and Crumb playing some of their favorite rare 78s from the ’20s and ’30s and discussing the music and the people who made it. MORE