The Blues & Rhythm feature I was banging on about as being due for publication in the August issue eventually saw light of day in the Xmas one (225). Better late than never here it is:
DOCUMENTING THE BLUES AND THE GOSPEL
By Bob Groom
The Document Records CD series celebrated its twentieth Anniversary in August and its formidable catalogue continues to grow, with excursions into other areas of music such as jazz, boogie woogie and vintage country music. But the original and principal task of Document Records was and remains the enormous task of reissuing the whole of the contents of the standard discography Blues and Gospel Records 1890 - 1943, with the exception of certain artists completely and responsibly reissued elsewhere, thereby complementing the main thrust of Document.
Paul Oliver had been writing sleeve notes for some of Johnny Parth?s vinyl compilations and when in 1990 the Document CD series was initiated, other commitments meant that he felt unable to devote time to writing notes for it, although he did do the notes for the very first issue in the main series DOCD-5001: Tommy Johnson. He, therefore, approached a number of writers, including myself, to take on the work of providing insert notes for the series. I wrote notes for DOCD-5002 ?Son House And The Delta Blues? (and many subsequent CDs including the complete Charlie Patton and complete Blind Lemon Jefferson). Chris Smith did DOCD-5003 ?The Greatest Songsters 1927-1929?, DOCD-5004 ?Furry Lewis 1927-1929? and DOCD-5005 ?Skip James 1931?. Alan Balfour did DOCD-5006/7/8 Volumes 1, 2, & 3 of ?Blind Willie McTell: Complete Recorded Works in Chronological Order?. Chris, Alan and I did many other insert notes and several additional writers were soon added to the team.
Chris did in fact stay the course, although others understandably fell by the wayside. Johnny produced so many CDs with very tight deadlines that it became extremely difficult for the booklet writers to keep up with his demands. Eventually no fewer than 68 authors were recruited to the team!
Paul has remained a staunch supporter of the Document philosophy. A contrary view was adopted by certain American collectors, who felt that the best available sound, the strongest titles and superior production were preferable to completeness.
The fact remains that only Document offer access to the most obscure pre-war records. Albums devoted to early black vocal groups (e.g. the Norfolk Jazz & Jubilee Quartets), gospel preachers and Library of Congress Field Recordings are clearly unlikely to be fast sellers but of crucial value to anyone interested in or researching early musical forms.
Paul Oliver explored in a series of programmes for BBC Radio 3 (see ?Broadcasting The Blues?, Paul Oliver, Routledge, 2006), entitled ?Documenting the Blues?, the ethos of the then Austrian based reissue series and the avenues of research it suggested. In the first programme, broadcast on the 12th May 1997, Paul linked the Norfolk Quartet?s ?Jelly Roll Blues? with Peg Leg Howell?s ?New Jelly Roll Blues? and Jelly Roll Morton?s own ?Jelly Roll Blues?.
In the same programme Paul interviewed Howard Rye, Johnny Parth himself and the late Robert Macleod. With Howard he discussed the recently published 4th Edition of the standard discography Blues and Gospel Records. ( The First edition had been published as far back as 1964). Howard referred to the innovations it included such as a Title index and very early recordings of mostly non-blues black music.. There was some discussion of the difficulty of assigning borderline blues/jazz artists to one category or the other.
One such decision had been to include Josephine Baker on the basis of recordings such as ?Skeedle Um?. Understandably, his biggest regret was the loss of company files, notably Paramount. (The availability of so many newly found recordings on Document had contributed to the necessity to update Blues and Gospel Records. There may well now be a need for a 5th edition but unfortunately I doubt whether this will prove to be financially and logistically a possibility.)
Paul discussed with Johnny how and why he had embarked on his extraordinary project. In the 1960s, Johnny and his then wife, Evelyn, were involved in a clutch of labels, particularly their own Roots Records, re-issuing pre-war black music records and a variety of other musical genres, such as flamenco and Austrian folk music. They parted company around 1970 and the Roots operation ceased. For some years Johnny went back to his first love, painting and drawing, but in 1982 returned to record production with a vengeance. He ran or compiled for no less than 15 different labels, producing several hundred LPs . One of these labels he named Document Records.
By the time Paul interviewed him he had also produced, in seven years, some 700 CDs on a reinvigorated Document series. It should be noted that ?Blues and Gospel Records? lists approximately 20,000 titles of which about 16,000 had been made available on Document and certain other labels. Apart from Paul?s enthusiasm for the project Johnny had been supported by Chris Strachwitz , head of the very successful Arhoolie Records, noted Dutch researcher and collector, Guido van Rijn ,and Ken Romanowski in Canada, amongst others.
Johnny?s desire to see everything in B&GR re-issued led him to sometimes use inferior tape dubbings of scarce records, upgrading the title when another company put out the record in better sound. This was mitigated to some extent by the ceaseless efforts of Roger Misiewicz and other contributors to locate rare original discs, negotiate with the collectors who owned them and insure the best possible sound.
Johnny himself has never been a collector of rare 78s (although he has sometimes given the impression that he was), rather he amassed a huge collection of vinyl records and tapes, a major resource for the Document project. It may be thought that Johnny did the graphics design for his CDs but in fact it was Kurt Hriczuczah, uncredited, who was responsible for the iconic look of Document.
In 1997 Johnny felt that his goal had been achieved (at this point he had produced close to 900 CDs), although recognizing that unheard discs and test pressings would still turn up from time to time (as they most certainly have), and approaching age 70 it was time to gracefully retire from the scene.
In May 1998 Johnny and second wife Riki celebrated the completion of the task with a musical gathering of contributors in Vienna. It was dubbed ?The End of the Project?. Amongst those attending were Paul Oliver, Chris Strachwitz, Larry Cohn, Tony Russell and regular note writers B&R reviews editor the late Keith Brigg, Chris Smith, Paul Swinton and Gary Atkinson, who had only recently joined the team . When Johnny put his operation up for sale he made an approach to Gary. He and his wife Gillian felt that the torch had passed to them and they eagerly purchased Document Records, lock, stock and barrel.
Johnny had already rejected two other potential purchasers had already been rejected by Johnny as he feared that the catalogue would be broken up and cherry picked. In 1999 a deal was struck and shortly afterwards the label, along with a stock of 175,000 CDs found its way to a new home in the UK.
Feeling that new initiatives were needed, rather than just warehousing the stock and letting the CDs sell themselves (and many were, inevitably, rather slow sellers) repressing as and when necessary, Gary launched a colorful series of the cream of the major artists plus new anthologies, including one compiled by John Mayall and book tie-ins with Bill Wyman and Paul Oliver, as well as re-issuing a lot of post-war blues and gospel.
At considerable expense he produced a glossy, illustrated, loose-leaf catalogue listing all issues to that date (2002 ) and also including articles and other background information and label photographs. The intention was to issue regular updates for insertion into the ring file. Sadly this and other projects were forestalled by the Recession and banking crisis that hit so many countries in 2008/9. The future of the company hung by a thread as one of the big bad banks withdrew their credit facilities.
Document briefly went into suspended animation while Gary fought to keep the business going and with the help of a smaller, much friendlier bank, he has now rescued Document from the abyss and he and Gillian are working hard to make up the lost ground.
They have issued a CD entitled ?The Bankers Blues ? A Study In Fiscal Mischief? in ?tribute? to the greed of the big financial institutions. Fortunately Document?s distributors and customers stood by the label and internet downloading provided much needed income.
Long ago Paul Oliver pointed up the huge importance of the Document series for collectors. We may have come to take it for granted but recent events have shown how precarious such resources are in times of financial stringency. With many labels and record shops closing down.
If you were hesitating about ordering that Document CD you fancied, don?t delay, order today as the option may not always be there! (Blues & Rhythm 255, December 2010)
