Harry Pace started the first major Black-owned record label in the U.S., but his achievements went mostly unnoticed until recently, when his descendants uncovered his secret history."
A century ago, around the dawn of the Harlem Renaissance, New York City was brimming with music. Black artists like Eubie Blake, Florence Mills and Fats Waller were performing in dance halls and nightclubs including Edmond's Cellar and The Lincoln Theatre.
On the next Coffee Conversations with Greg J, We’re talking to Bill Doggett renowned
Back arts historian about this fascinating story Bill Doggett is one of 4 African American members of The Association For Recorded Sound Collections, an organization compromised of the leading institutions, universities and libraries with notable dedicated Sound and Music Archives such as The Library of Congress, The Smithsonian, Yale, Rutgers, Stanford, UCLA and Manhattan’s Rodgers and Hammerstein Archive.
Doggett’s Early Sound recordings Archive includes many Edison cylinders from the 1890s which were re licensed as flat disc recordings by Columbia and Victor Records. Notably, The Archive includes the only two recordings by the first African American to make a sound recording in 1900, George W Johnson.
These recordings are sampled in live demos in his lectures and multi media presentations played on a 1922 Acoustic Senior table top Victrola. ( a suitcase Victrola)
The story of early American popular music is incomplete without the story of Black Swan Records and Harry Pace - the first record label owned by African Americans. So many artists of the late 1800's and early 1900's were published by this label and the story of Harry Pace is interesting, compelling and full of surprises.