Trash or Treasure? A Picker's Guide to 78 RPM Records on the Black Swan Label

By Jon R Warren

History of Black Swan Records

Black Swan's parent company, Pace Phonograph Corporation, was founded in March 1921 by Harry Pace and was based in Harlem. The new production company was formed after Pace's music publishing partnership with W.C. Handy, Pace & Handy, had dissolved. (Some historians have thought W.C. Handy had a stake in Pace's new business, but Handy's own words contradict this.

Popular entertainer and pioneering black recording artist Bert Williams was an early investor in Pace Phonograph. Williams also promised to record for the company once his exclusive contract with Columbia Records ended, but he died before that could occur.

Pace Phonograph Corporation was renamed Black Swan Phonograph Company in the fall of 1922. Both the record label and production company were named after 19th century opera star Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield, who was known as the Black Swan.

Noted author, activist, and academic W.E.B. Du Bois was a stockholder and member of the Board of Directors of Black Swan. Ads for Black Swan often ran in The Crisis, the magazine of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, which Du Bois edited.

The production company declared bankruptcy in December 1923; and in March 1924 Paramount Records bought the Black Swan label. The Chicago Defender reported the event by noting important accomplishments of Black Swan in a short career span, including: pointed out—to the major, all white-owned, record companies—the significant market demand for black artists; prompted several major companies to begin publishing music by these performers. In addition, the Defender credited Pace with showing the majors how to target black audiences and to advertise in black newspapers. Paramount discontinued the Black Swan label a short time later.

Kattie Crippen on Black Swan 78 RPM
Alberta Hunter on Black Swan 78 RPM
Ethel Waters on Black Swan 78 RPM
James P. Johnson on Black Swan 78 RPM
Lucille Hegamin on Black Swan 78 RPM
Trixie Smith on Black Swan 78 RPM

Jon Warren of iCollectRecords.com is one of the top buyers of rare blues records. He can be reached at 1-800-428-6580 or by visiting his website.

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