Black Swan Blues: The hard rise and brutal fall of America's first black-owned record label

Forty years before Tamla Motown, there was Black Swan.

All but forgotten now, this pioneering blues label was the first successful black-owned record company in America. Until Harry Pace launched Black Swan in 1921, the white labels’ monopoly had been broken only by Sunshine Records, a tiny Los Angeles operation, which managed to release just 12 songs before it collapsed. Black Swan racked up nearly 30 times that total, releasing some 350 tracks before it was done. It was not until Vee-Jay reached its third birthday in 1956 that another black-owned label hit those numbers, and not until Motown’s 1960s peak that one made as much impact on American life.

Like Motown’s Berry Gordy, Pace was a young black American songwriter who grew angry at the way white moguls were treating his community’s music. Like Gordy, he began by recording nothing but black artists, promoted his label with a nationwide revue tour and soon found white people were buying the records too. Like Motown, Black Swan created many new stars, only to find them poached by richer white-owned rivals. And, like Motown, Black Swan formed a crucial link in the chain that later gave us The Beatles and The Rolling Stones.

The difference is that Pace achieved all this in an era when black businessmen and performers in America faced racist persecution which Gordy’s artists could barely imagine. The Motown troupe had shots fired above their heads in 1962 Alabama, yes, but that pales beside the 1922 incident in Georgia when the corpse of a lynched young black man was flung into the lobby at a Black Swan show. In fighting for his label’s survival, Pace had to overcome not only racist white rivals conspiring to block his distribution, but also the far more deadly threat of a bomb hidden in his pressing plant’s coal supply. Fortunately, he was up to the challenge.

This is the story of a truly remarkable record label - and of the even more remarkable man who ran it.

Praise for Paul Slade's original Black Swan essay:
* “I am grateful that I finally know the secrets my family has kept buried for so long. That is why I was truly moved by your article.” – Susan Pace Hoy (Harry Pace’s grand-daughter), in a letter to the author, October 2009.
* “Fascinating stuff.” – Atsib, Mojo4music.com.
* “A wonderful article.” – Steven, Nightlines: Jazz After Dark.
* “Great stuff.” – Kenny Chaffin, Harmony Central.
* “Extremely interesting.” – Johnny Beezer, Mudcat.