RESOUND A QUARTERLY OF THE

Archives of Traditional Music Volume V, Number 4

From the Director

Friends of the Archives

For four years I have been soliciting funds for the Friends of the Archives of Traditional Music. A few have given large amounts, and many have donated what are to them very significant amounts, and are to us important tokens of their support.

What have we used these funds for? The largest expense is the publication of this quarterly, which is entirely self-supporting. When that has been guaranteed, we use the rest for things we have no other funds for. For example:

We defrayed some expenses of an audio technician who visited the Archives at no charge to help us plan our new laboratories; we defrayed the travel costs of a trip to Michigan to pick up a collection of four thousand jazz records donated to the Archives; we purchased a small collection of commercial recordings from Nepal; we paid the registration fees of our librarian at a professional conference at which she was presenting a paper; we bought concert tickets for a person who has donated hundreds of hours of volunteer time to Archives projects. Most recently we rented a trailer to pick up a jukebox for the Hoagy Carmichael suite, and made some special purchases to finish the decoration of the room, which will be used for receptions, concerts, and meetings.

N one of these expenses could be covered by our University budget. The monetary amounts in each case were relatively small, but they allowed us to realize projects of tremendous importance.

There is an old adage about a battle being lost because of a missing horseshoe nail. As an administrator I have found it sometimes harder to raise small amounts of money (the equivalent of horseshoe nails) from the University than to raise large ones; I might have lost a collection, or not received needed advice without the help and support the Friends of the Archives of Traditional Music have provided.

October is the month we solicit your donations. If you donated last year, we are counting on your continued support. If you did not make a donation last year, I hope you will do so this year. In many ways the Archives has been transformed over the past few years-new facilities,

October 1986

modern equipment, improved climate control and fire protection-but your support is as important now as it was four years ago.

Money is not only a medium of exchange, it is a symbol of support that can be demonstrated to administrators and granting agencies when they ask whether we have any public support for our bizarre mission of collecting and preserving music and oral data from around the world. When you contribute, we can point to your contributions and your numbers and say, "See, people out there care about these materials, and about us. You should too." In a satisfying number of cases they are convinced. Please help. A special form has been included for your donation. If there is none in your issue, write directly to the editor.

The Gennett Record Company Sally Childs-Helton

Indiana Historical Society Library

Many of the old jazz recordings held by the Archives of Traditional Music were recorded right here in Indiana. This may come as a surprise to some jazz buffs, ethnomusicologists, and those interested in the history of recorded sound. Many of the great early jazz artists recorded at the Gennett Record Company studio in Richmond, and even though jazz discs made up much of the company's catalog, it also recorded "old time," ethnic, classical, blues, and spoken word discs. Gennett recorded under its own labels, and its master discs were released under more than seventy labels in the United States and overseas.

This important recording company began in 1872 when a number of prominent Richmond businessmen, headed by James M. Starr, organized a company to manufacture pianos. The Starr Piano Company, as it came to be known, was the first piano company west of the Allegheny Mountains. The company grew steadily and was incorporated in 1893 under the direction of Benjamin

Starr, John Lumsden, and Lumsden's son-in-law, Henry increased to an annual production of fifteen thousand Gennett. Gennett served as president of the company, pianos, thrity-five thousand spring-driven phonographs, and over the years his three sons were officers: Harry as and three million records. vice-president and general manager, Fred as secretary, The Gennett Record Company is acknowledged as a and Clarence as treasurer. pioneer and leader in supplying records to chain stores

By 1912, the company was said to be the largest and mail order houses. Sears and Roebuck carried the manufacturer of pianos in the world. With all factory Silvertone, Supertone, Conqueror and Challenge labels, facilities in Richmond, outlet stores were located in and Gennett supplied the Montgomery Ward chain as Birmingham, Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, well. Gennett masters were released under more than Detroit, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Los Angeles, seventy labels, including Bell, Black Patti, Champion, Nashville, New York, Portland, and San Francisco. The Decca, Gold Seal, Herwin, QRS, and Varsity. In 1916, factory's floor space covered more than twelve acres and Harry Gennett's business trip to England resulted in its six hundred employees built an average of forty pianos Gennett masters appearing on many English labels, per day. All parts and cases were manufactured in-house including Winner, Guardsman, Coliseum, and Vocalion; for grand, upright and player pianos, and the instruments Australian labels used Gennett masters as well. Gennett received numerous awards for tone quality, case design, masters also were leased or sold to Paramount, Vocalion, and construction. and OKeh.

In 1915, Starr entered the recording field with obsolete The company entered the jazz market largely due to recording equipment and old master discs from a the efforts of Fred Wiggins, the manager of a Starr music bankrupt firm in Boston. From 1915 to 1918, records were store in Chicago. He scouted for artists to record for issued under the Starr label, but the company found that Gennett, "discovering" musicians like Gene Autry and some independent dealers refused to carry the records the New Orleans Rhythm Kings. In 1923, jazz pioneers, because the name Starr was already strongly associated including the New Orleans Rhythm Kings, King Oliver with pianos and phonographs. The label name was and his Creole Band, and Jelly Roll Morton came to changed to Gennett in 1918 at the suggestion of Fred Richmond to record, and helped to establish Gennett as a Gennett. major jazz label. Younger, and at that time less

The following year was the most profitable in the established, jazz artists who made acoustical recordings history of the Starr Piano Company and its subsidiary, at the Richmond studio included Bix Beiderbecke, Tommy the Gennett Record Company. The Gennett catalog was Dorsey, and Hoagy Carmichael. Louis Armstrong and the expanded in both classical and popular music discs, and Red Onion Jazz Babies, recorded in the New York Studio, Fred Gennett signed recording contracts with concert along with other popular dance bands of the day and "3.rtists, -speakers and-pGpular figures. These-earL ______ numerous blues musician£. acoustically recorded discs contained items as diverse as speeches by William Jennings Bryan and members of the Ku Klux Klan; symphonic, band and sacred music; and physical culture exercises.

By 1921, the company had recording studios in Richmond and New York City, and pressings were done at the Richmond plant and by H.5. Berliner in Montreal. During the early 1920s the entire line of Starr products

Resound A Quarterly of the

Archives of Traditional Music Marilyn B. Graf, Editor

Resound is issued in January, April, July, and October. Comments, letters, and items of interest are welcome and

may be addressed to the editor.

Archives of Traditional Music Morrison Hall

Indiana University Bloomington, IN 47405

(812) 335-8632

Anthony Seeger, Director Dorothy S. Lee, Associate Director Mary E. Russell, Librarian Karen A. Hohne, Secretary

ISSN 0749-2472 A Hopi Indian recorded for Gennett by J. W. Fewkes at the Grand Canyon in 1926. Indiana Historical Society

Gennett was possibly the first commercial record company to release ethnic music discs. In 1926, Fred Gennett arranged with resort chain owner Fred Harvey to make records of the Hopi Indians for the tourist trade. Gennett arranged for Dr. J. Walter Fewkes to record the Hopi discs at the EI Tovar Hotel at the Grand Canyon, where elders of the tribe were invited to come record their traditional songs. Fewkes, Chief of the Bureau of Ethnology of the Smithsonian, was the first ethnologist to make recordings in the field when he made cylinder recordings of the music of the Passamaquody Indians in 1889. Even though the Hopi discs were not commercially successful, the recordings did preserve valuable and rare music; they were the last known acoustic recordings made by the company. After the company switched to electrical recording techniques, Gennett maintained its interest in ethnic recordings, as shown by its Maloof (Middle-Eastern) and Rayo Electrico (Hispanic) labels, as well as discs in Hebrew.

In 1926, all the major phonograph producers, including Starr, introduced a new line with improved speakers and electric motors; improvements in sound recording soon followed. Microphones, invented by Emile Berliner, replaced the old acoustic horns. Gennett's first electrically processed record was released early in 1926, and a few months later the Electrobeam label was introduced. Most jazz Electrobeams were recorded at the Richmond studio, as was Gennett's "Race Series," which drew black musicians from the Chicago area. Very little jazz and very few black artists were recorded at the New York City studio after 1926.

The infamous rear of the Gennett studio in Richmond. Many a take was ruined by passing trains.

Indiana Historical Society

Gennett's acoustic (left) and electric (right) labels. Indiana Historical Society

The Gennett "Maloof" label. Indiana Historical Society

Gennett's portable recording studio. Indiana Historical Society

Gennett Electrobeams were also recorded in Chicago, Birmingham, and St. Paul. Birmingham's Starr music store housed a temporary recording studio in August and September of 1927, where Southern blues and jazz musicians were recorded. Swedish, German and Polish folk music was recorded in St. Paul from September through November of the same year. Two recording trips also were made to Chicago in November and December, 1927, and from February through April, 1928.

Even though Gennett released an extensive and varied catalog of musical genres on a variety of labels, its sales declined from 1926 on. The Starr Piano Company operated the Gennett Record Company at a loss for a number of years. In December, 1930, the Gennett Electrobeam label was withdrawn due to the financial pressures of the Depression. However, the Champion and Superior labels were continued. These were made from Gennett masters with pseudonyms replacing the artists' names, and were sold at three for a dollar in chain stores. In 1932, Starr was forced to drop the Superior label, with the Champion label continuing until 1934, its catalog largely made up of hillbilly, old time, and Tin Pan Alley tunes. In 1935, Starr sold the Champion trademark to Decca, and terminated its active studio recording. Decca continued to press the old Champion masters, selling them in the U.S., and in England on the Brunswick label.

Even though the Gennett company had left the recording field, it continued to press records through the late 1940s. Joe Davis attempted to revive the Gennett label in 1944, but failed financially due to the poor quality of jazz that was released.

In 1928, the company entered the sound effects field; it proved to be its longest-lived line of recordings. Recorded on the Gennett, Speedy Q and Syncro labels, the sound effects discs were first purchased by the Hollywood film industry for the early non-synchronous "talking" pictures. When the film industry moved to synchronous sound on film, Gennett survived many of its rival sound effects companies by supplying sound effects for radio. Fred and Harry Gennett recorded many of the effects themselves, and Harry Jr. was still conducting a mail order sound effects business in 1952. Along with sound effects, Gennett produced specialized discs for skating rinks, and the Chapel series for funeral homes.

In 1952 the long association between the Gennett family and the Starr Piano Company came to an end. The pressing equipment was sold to Decca, and continued to be used for a number of years by Decca and Mercury. Harry Gennett, Sr., for many years the president and general manager, died in 1952, as did Clarence, the treasurer. In 1981, many of the Starr and Gennett buildings were either torn down or gutted. Jazz buffs still visit the site, and a brick from the building where many early jazz greats recorded is highly prized.

The Gennett Record Company is important in the history of recorded sound in that many early jazz records were made by the company. Gennett was among the first to actively seek out and record black musicians and groups at a time when most studios still had a policy of "whites only," and to record "hillbilly" and "old time" music. The company is also important in the variety of genres it recorded and pressed, including j2 : ~, blues, gospel, "ola time," "hillbilly," "race,'~thnic, classical, band, comedy, spoken word, skating and funeral music, and sound effects.

REFERENCES

Biographical and Genealogical History of Wayne, Fayette, Union and Franklin Counties, Indiana. Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Company, 1899.

Fox, Henry Clay, Ed. Memoirs of Wayne County and the City of Richmond, Indiana, Vols. 1 and 2. Madison, WI: Western Historical Association, 1912.

Joslin, Gene(?). "Gennett Records: Two Impressions." Joslin's Jazz Journal, February 1982: 2; 8.

Kay, George W. "Those Fabulous Gennetts! The Life Story of a Remarkable Label." The Record Changer, June 1953: 4-13.

Kennedy, Rick. "Memories Fade as Starr Goes Down." Joslin's Jazz Journal, November 1984: 4.

John K. MacKenzie Collection, 1896-1976. Indiana Historical Society Library, M 428.

Much of the information for this article was taken from the John K. MacKenzie collection (M 428), held by the Indiana Historical Society Library. The collection reflects MacKenzie's interests as a jazz collector and represents his years of research on the Gennett Record Company. The items in the collection date from 1887 to 1976, and include information about the Gennett Record Company and its more than seventy affiliated labels.

Record making apparatus used by Gennett. Indiana Historical Society

For more information about the collection, contact Eric Pumroy, Head, Manuscripts Department, Indiana Historical Society Library, 315 West Ohio Street, Indianapolis, IN 46202 (317) 232-1879.

GENNETT RECORDS IN THE ARCHIVES OF TRADITIONAL

MUSIC

The Archives of Traditional Music holds a number of Gennett records, the majority of which are found in collections donated to the Archives by the individuals whose names appear below. Although most 78 RPM records are not individually cataloged, the staff will do its best to assist patrons in locating desired discs and providing listening copies of them upon request. The Archives is now planning to catalog its several thousand 78s on an in-house database which will provide easy access to record companies, performers' names, and song titles.

54-257-C 71-429-C 73-101-C 73-103-C 74-079-C 76-019-C

84-884/885 85-491-C

86-005-C 86-208, 234, 238, 403/ 408-C

Hopi Indians, recorded by J.W. Fewkes Helen Ball Collection William Wade Collection Les Zacheis Collection John Steiner Collection Curtis Hitch Collection (tape copies of original discs) Charles 1. Alexander Collection Hal Hustedt Collection (tape copies of original discs) Mr. and Mrs . Robert O. George Collection Hoagland H. Carmichael Collection