The History of Black Swan Records
A forgotten piece of history, the first Black only owned record label
In 1921, Harry Pace began a business venture the likes of which had never been seen before. Acknowledging a gap in the music industry market, and also the lack of availability for black Americans to record and seriously distribute their music in a white-dominated society, Pace opened Black Swan Records — the first record company that gave black musicians a platform to record and distribute their music.
Beginnings
Pace, born in Georgia in 1884, worked in finance and insurance but had always had a keen interest in music. He finally left his job in insurance in 1907, moving to Memphis to enter the music industry, and began working as a songwriter and publisher. His involvement in music publishing exposed him to the inner workings of the industry and gave him an understanding of what sold (and what didn’t), what the public enjoyed, (and what they didn’t), what was prominent, and — importantly — what was missing.
Understanding first hand the racial prejudice that gripped the United States in the early twentieth century (an obvious example of this being the release of the first-ever feature film Birth of a Nation in 1915 that focussed on the
Ku Klux Klan, having terrible societal consequences for the black community), Pace intended for the company to not only focus its attention on recording Black musicians but that all stakeholders and employees were Black. The company as a whole was aimed at the Black community. This idea was born from the desire to bring attention to Black prejudice and attempt to close the racial divides. The record label began releasing music in 1921 under the name ‘Black Swan’, named for a nineteenth century singer.
Smith notes that although it may be commonplace for many today to assume that Black music in the 1920s was essentially blues music, this was not the case. The diversity of the music recorded by Black Swan spanned the genres of ‘ballads, blues, classical music, dance tunes, jazz, operatic arias, and spirituals’. Black Swan was, however, reliant on its blues performers as this was the genre that appealed to the largest demographic of music listeners and the label continued to expand its appeal. The Chicago Defender advertised the label in 1923 thus:
“…the only bonafide Racial company making talking machine records. All stockholders are coloured, all artists were coloured and all employees are coloured. Only company using Racial Artists in recording high class song records.”
Many of the artists were successful amongst the Black community, attracting many attendees to live performances across the United States where Pace funded the tours for his artists. This was revolutionary for the time and seemed to be a growing success.
The End
Unfortunately, the label didn’t last long — only two years. Financing the tours put a great strain on the business, leading to its bankruptcy in 1923 as a result of the lack of customers and importantly, the dominance of white owned record businesses at the time who were consistently outselling them. Despite the popularity of the tours and relative success of the musicians, there simply wasn’t enough demand.
Additionally, it was difficult for Pace to sell the records as the large record advertisements placed Black Swans music under ‘Race Records’, a specific subcategory. This hindered the appeal of the music as it was not presented as serious, mainstream competition for the larger white record labels. Paramount eventually bought out Black Swan Records in 1924, ending Harry Pace’s work and involvement in the business completely. He went back to his work in insurance and has been somewhat forgotten, despite the importance of his work in opening and releasing records under the world's first Black owned record label. He died in Chicago in 1943.
Bibliography
- Rothfeld, A, Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance, (Routledge, 2004)
- Sampson, H.T, Blacks in Blackface: A Sourcebook on Early Black Musical Shows (Scarecrow Press, 2014)
- Smith, J.C, Encyclopedia of African American Business, (Greenwood Press, 2006)
