[78-L] Article on Gennett

[David Lewis]

Harold Aherne wrote: Between this and the History Detectives episode, I hope the public doesn't getthe impression that these Klan records were Gennett's bread and butter, or thatthe company's legacy should be defined by them (is it really correct that claim that Gennett was "kept afloat by Klan money"?). 
And it's nice to see that Paramount and NYRL are so well-remembered by the article's author.
>>> Some of the Klan's discs were made in Homer Rodeheaver's Chicago studio while he was away in Japan, and he must've blown a gasket when he found out about it. I have a Vaughan disc which has a Klan song on one side and a barrelhouse piano solo on the other. The Klan side wasmade in the Rainbow studio and the barrelhouse was done at Gennett in Richmond. These matters are not so simple, and when you place them in the hands of people who are idiots when it comes to vintage records it can only lead to problems. Here's what I posted on that page: "This is a junk article pulled together from misunderstood information. Gennett's dealings with the Klan were part of a business model that employed 'special' or 'personal' recordings where you could pay them to make records for you. I know of no subsidies from the Klan to keep Gennett afloat; if you look at the ledger you will see a handful of Klan records among hundreds of discs by people you never heard of, and a great majority of these records were musicians or others hiring Gennett to make records of them. The Klan products got their own labels, just like any other Gennett personal, whereas the jazz musicians -- and Lawrence Welk -- appeared on the regular Gennett label. That Ezra Wickmeyer was a Klan member and Gennett's chief engineer wasn't unusual, as in the 1920s the Klan were a legitimate political party in Indiana and had millions of members." "There is an interesting story here, but I think you missed it. With the History Detectives piece I am worried that Gennett will get regarded as 'the Klan label' when they did so many other things so well; the Klan part of their business was relatively minor. Klan records from the 1920s are not particularly rare and record collectors have known about them forever; they are relatively humdrum and quaint compared to those made in Louisiana in the 1960s. Just because mainstream historians have figured out that they were made doesn't make them any more interesting than they really are. There is also no correlation between the decline of the Indiana Klan and Gennett; Victor was just about the only record label in the country not to go under during the depression, and that was because they merged with RCA shortly before the Wall Street Crash of '29. Gennett managed to hang on in other ways, mainly through licensing their discs to other labels, a practice which lasted until at least the 1940s."       

Uncle Dave Lewis
uncledavelewis at hotmail.com