The Rise and Fall of Black Swan Records
Radio Diaries
Radio Diaries & Radiotopia
4.6 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 15 February 2024
⏱️ 22 minutes
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Summary
In 1921, a man named Harry Pace started the first major Black-owned record company in the United States. He called it Black Swan Records.
In an era when few Black musicians were recorded, the company was revolutionary. It launched the careers of Ethel Waters, Fletcher Henderson, William Grant Still, and Alberta Hunter, artists who transformed American music.
But Black Swan’s success would be short-lived. Just a couple years after Pace founded the company, larger, wealthier, white competitors started to take an interest in the artists whose careers Pace had propelled. Then, Pace’s own life took a mysterious turn.
This episode was originally published in 2021.
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| 0:00.0 | Radiotopia. |
| 0:04.2 | From PRX. |
| 0:05.9 | From PRX's Radiotopia, this is Radio Diaries. |
| 0:08.8 | I'm Joe Richmond. |
| 0:13.2 | In June of 1921, a new voice was heard on record players around the country. |
| 0:22.6 | Ethel Waters was a young black singer who was making a name for herself in the |
| 0:26.2 | cabaret circuit during the Harlem Renaissance. |
| 0:31.6 | You may have heard of Ethel Waters, but you probably haven't heard of the man who recorded |
| 0:35.7 | her first songs and turned her into a star. |
| 0:39.2 | His name was Harry Pace, and a hundred years ago he launched the first major black-owned record company in the United States. |
| 0:46.9 | On today's show, we're telling the history of a groundbreaking company and of a black man who set out to uplift his community through music. |
| 0:55.7 | It's also the story of a mystery about Harry Pace and identity and the reasons he may have |
| 1:01.5 | been forgotten. This is the rise and fall of Black Swan Records. |
| 1:07.1 | Test, one, two. Okay. My name is Peter Pace. I'm the grandson of Harry Herbert Pace. |
| 1:18.1 | Harry Pace was a man of confidence. I mean, he had a shrewd business sense and entrepreneurial instincts. |
| 1:27.2 | He was very politically active. |
| 1:28.8 | He was the first president of the Atlanta, MAACP. |
| 1:33.8 | But he also had an artistic side, collaborated with WC Handy, |
| 1:39.8 | self-professed Father of the Blues. |
| 1:41.8 | And shortly thereafter, in 1921, Harry Pace started |
| 1:48.0 | Black Swan Records. So Harry Herbert Pace, not only had style, but a sophistication. He was an |
| 1:58.2 | extremely dapper dresser. My name is Emmett G. Price III, executive editor of the Encyclopedia of African American Music. |
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