Airdates from Thursday  2/25/09 – Thursday  3/4/09

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BLACK HISTORY FACT IN MUSIC

February 2009

Black Swan Records was a United States record label in the 1920s; it was the first to be owned and operated by, and marketed to, African Americans.

The name was briefly revived in the early 1970s for some reggae records, and since the 1990s for compact disc reissue of historic jazz and blues recordings.

Black Swan was founded in May of 1921 by Harry Pace and was based in Harlem. The parent company of the record label was originally named the Pace Phonograph Company. The company was formed after the prior partnership with W.C. Handy, the Pace-Handy Music Publishing Company, dissolved. Some historians previously thought W.C. Handy had a stake in the business, but Handy's own words contradict their assumptions: "To add to my woes, my partner withdrew from the business. He disagreed with some of my business methods, but no harsh words were involved. He simply chose this time to sever connection with our firm in order that he might organized Pace Phonograph Company, issuing Black Swan Records and making a serious bid for the Negro market. ... With Pace went a large number of our employees. ... Still more confusion and anguish grew out of the fact that people did not generally know that I had no stake in the Black Swan Record Company."

Originally the company producing Black Swan was called the Pace Phonograph Corporation, but in 1923 it was renamed the Black Swan Company. The firm was named after 19th century opera star Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield, who was known as the Black Swan.

Artists recorded

    * C. Carroll Clark, baritone, made the label's first record.
    * Four Harmony Kings, vocal quartet
    * Henry Creamer and J. Turner Layton, vaudeville duo
    * Katie Crippen, vaudeville singer
    * Kemper Harreld, violinist
    * Revella Hughes, soprano
    * Alberta Hunter, blues singer
    * "Mamie Jones" was actually a pseudonym on Black Swan for singer Aileen Stanley, perhaps the only Caucasian artist to record for the label (she was "passing for colored" on these records).
    * Trixie Smith, blues singer, was second only to Ethel Waters in Black Swan sales.
    * Florence Cole Talbert soprano
    * Eva Taylor, singer
    * Ethel Waters, blues and pop song singer. She had the label's first commercially successful records, and remained their best seller.
    * Essie Whitman, vaudeville singer