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I can't hear it. The guitar sounds like a voice, though.

angmack

I put it up to my ear AND HEARD IT! It sounds like a woman's voice to me.

That is REALLY strange.....that it's just in that one spot. Looks like he recorded it in Richmond, Indiana.

angmack

Before the studio in Grafton, the company used recording studios to record such as in Chicago, New York, and Richmond, Indiana. They had to transport the wax recordings to the Grafton pressing plant to be made into records. As you can imagine, the wax was very temperamental and the slightest change in temperature could alter the sound. Not to mention, this got to be expensive. So they decided to make a studio in Grafton in 1929. That way, the wax recordings could be taken over to the pressing plant across a viaduct.

Check out this photo:

http://www.paramountshome.org/index.php?mo...album/index.php
The recording studio was on the 2nd floor of the building on the right. The building on the left was the pressing plant.

By the way, if you click on the picture, it will get larger. And who is that guy standing in the doorway of the building on the right? Dressed in a vest with a brown hat on? And who is that peaking through the window of the viaduct?

Hmmm..............I have the original photo so it is much clearer.

angmack

Alex emailed me this:

"I have looked at the amount of different songs (excluding extra takes of the same song; I have included Part 1 and Part 2 songs). I thus come up with the following:

Blind Blake total 83 (16 in Grafton)

Son House total 9 (all in Grafton)

Skip James total 18 (all in Grafton)

Blind Lemon Jefferson total 101 (none in Grafton)

Charley Patton 42 (29 in Grafton)

Ma Rainey total 96 (none in Grafton)

Over 60 African Americans recorded in Grafton. Here are some on the list:
Others who recorded here were Bessie Mae Smith, Irene and Arnold Wiley, Charley Spand, Blind Joel Taggart, George Thomas, Henry Sims, Smoky Harrison, James Wiggins, Blind Willie Davis, Rev. Emmit Dickenson, Washboard Walter and John Byrd, Blind Joe Reynolds, Mae Belle Miller, Charlie McFadden, George Allison and Willie Smith, Alice Moore, Mary Johnson, Henry Brown and Ike Rodgers, Robert Peeples, Wesley Long, Six Cylinder Smith (thought to be a pseudonym), Rev. T. T. Rose, Delta Big Four, Rudy Foster, Alma Lillie Hubbard, Marie Griffin, Bee Turner, Dobby Bragg (a pseudonym, most likely for Roosevelt Sykes), Clara Burston, Tommy Sttlers, Rob Robinson and Meade Lux Lewis, Anna Belle Coleman, Hattie Buleston, Kingfish Bill Tomlin, Piano Kid Edwards, Black Billy Sunday, The Harum Scarums, Ruth Johnson, Laura Rucker, Red Mike Bailey, Mae Belle Lee and George Ramsey, Brother Fullbosom, Famous Blue Jay Singers Of Birmingham, Ben Curry, Marshall Owens, King Solomon Hill, and Henry Townsend. Townsend, born in 1909, is the last living blues artist who recorded in Grafton in September 1930.

This made a difficult in naming the first giants to be in the Paramount Walk of Fame in Grafton. We had to look through all of this and try to dig up information.

I know that the Delta Big Four also recorded here. Over 1600 songs were recorded in Grafton.

angmack

Roi, keep in mind that all of the Paramount records regardless of where they were recorded were made here in Grafton. Blind Lemon Jefferson's photo was taken at a portrait studio in Grafton I am sure. He also would visit the area and was privileged to stay with one of the employees Otto Moeser.

angmack

I tried to describe it in an earlier post in this thread but thanks for asking.

The artists sang into a large cone shaped microphone. The vibrations were sent through a needle that was attached with a string. These vibrations etched grooves onto a spinning round piece of wax the size of a record. This wax would have to be shipped to Grafton where they were converted into metal molds at the pressing plant. Then, they would go through a process of several different "baths" in chemicals. The end product was a shellac record with bits of clay and even small pebbles in some of them! Shipping these wax records to Grafton from other places was costly as well as the wax being temperamental.

Paramount (more technically "New York Recording Laboratories" was in existence since 1917. During that time, people like Louis Armstrong, Ma Rainey, Blind Lemon Jefferson, and MANY MANY more were recording their music in Chicago, New York, and Richmond.
Their wax recordings had to be taken to the record factory here in Grafton.
The Grafton recording studio was made in 1929 to save on costs, etc.....

I know. When I first got into this I was highly confused. Still am about a lot of things. Here we have this company called the New York Recording Laboratories that is a subsidiary of the Wisconsin Chair Company. Under the New York Recording Laboratories were the Paramount, Puritan, Famous, Broadway, and other labels.

I think the confusion is one reason why this history has been forgotten locally.

You know that the only known found photo of Charley Patton was taken in Grafton as well as Blind Blake and Blind Lemon Jefferson.

angmack

They recorded on wax in the beginning and then moved toward electrical recording. Guess how they got the wax record to spin? They dropped a large weight from the ceiling. As the weight lowered, the wax spun. Once that weight dropped to the floor, that was it for the musician!!! His song was over whether he liked it or not!

I have tried to dig up information on where all of this equipment went but haven't found much. No known photo exists of the recording studio in Grafton. Based on Alex's research and some of my own, I had a local man draw a rendition of what it probably looked like. The artist is an electrical engineer who is in his 80s so he added some of his knowledge to the picture.

I have been part of a project to rebuild another recording studio in Grafton. In fact, I have to take some of my equipment over there this week. As of right now, I am the recording engineer of this new studio. How fun is that?

angmack