Radiolab - The Vanishing of Harry Pace: Episode 1

Episode Date: June 18, 2021

The Rise and Fall of Black Swan.  It was Motown before Motown, FUBU before FUBU: Black Swan Records, the record company founded by Harry Pace. The Vanishing of Harry Pace was created and produced by Shima Oliaee and Jad Abumrad.  Harry Pace founded Black Swan Records exactly 100 years ago. Pace launched the career of Ethel Waters, inadvertently invented the term rock n roll, played an important role in W.C. Handy becoming "Father of the Blues," inspired Ebony and Jet magazines, and helped desegregate the South Side of Chicago in an epic Supreme Court battle. Then, he disappeared.  The Vanishing of Harry Pace is a series about the phenomenal but forgotten man who changed the American music scene. It's a story about betrayal, family, hidden identities, and a time like no other. This series was produced in collaboration with author Kiese Laymon, scholar Imani Perry, screenwriter Cord Jefferson, and WQXR’s Terrance McKnight. Jami Floyd is our consulting producer; our fact checker is Natalie Meade. Peter Pace lent his voice for our readings. Based on the book Black Swan Blues: the Hard Rise and Brutal Fall of America’s First Black Owned Record Label by Paul Slade. The series features interviews with Pace's descendants and over forty musicians, historians, writers, and musicologists, all of whom grapple with Pace’s enduring legacy. This series is also a partnership with Radio Diaries.  

Before we start today's show, just want to let you know this episode contains a few moments of content and language that might be Setting for sensitive listeners or young kids Wait, you're listening Listening to radio lab radio from W and Y from WNYC. Hey, this is Radio Lab. I'm Chad Abumrod. Really excited to bring you a project I've been working on with. Seemooly Eye. That's me. Yeah. A co-creator of Dally Parence America with me. I jumped in too quick. I jumped in too quick. Perfect timing. No. This project runs for about a month and...

Yes. Really excited. Let's do it. Yes, start us off. Okay, so every family has a secret. But some family secrets are bigger than others. We'll start with Eric Pace, the great grandson. My sister had gotten me a job at this YMCA camp.

YMCA camp. I said you spent my whole day here. This 2006. And we got a message from my dad saying, we have a mandatory family meeting. You guys need to leave work to come and talk to us. Did he tell you what was up? He didn't give us any other information. He said, no, you gotta come to the family meeting

and I'll tell you everything. We thought like, okay, this has gotta be divorce. We told everybody at the job and they're like, there's like good luck with the meeting, you know, this just sounds really heavy, really serious. So, heinous sister hop in the car. Kind of just like trying to hurry up and get there so we could see what this is all about.

Three hours later, they walk into their childhood home in Reading, California, and the whole family is there, like eight of them. My dad tells us to go sit in the living room, and we're not a very formal kind of family, and so that was strange. We're like, okay, this is getting weirder and weirder, and then he holds up a picture that had been on our wall, our whole lives. It was a really old picture.

It's kind of the sepia tone. Guy in a pinstripe suit, really good looking, but kind of a weary look on his face, like he's being told to smile, but he doesn't really want to smile. And he says, do you all know who this man is? And we said, yeah, that's your grandfather, Harry Pace. Mm.

What did you know about Harry Pace at that point? I mean, not much. This is Susan Pace, granddaughter. Well, he was a lawyer. He was a lawyer. We knew that. Peter Pace, grandson. We knew he lived in Chicago and he lived in New York. He's the one who called the meeting.

And I was told he was like Italian. Somehow the notion was presented that Pace was an anglicization of Pache. Pache. Pache. Italian name. They told me it means peace. And so I was like, ah, like peace.

Cool. You know, we grew up thinking maybe we're Italian. You put together Italian and lawyer. So we thought, oh, well, maybe he's a lawyer for the mom. We just kind of made this stuff up. In any case, at the meeting, a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a- interesting information about it. Then he handed us the packet. It was about 10 pages long. And so we started reading and within like about 30 seconds, I was just like, oh my god. Oh my god. It was mind blowing. Oh my god. This is crazy. I can't believe this has been kept from us.

It was, it was really... You know, it was just so shocking. Wow. How could it even have been a consideration that I wouldn't need to know this? What they discovered is that this man, Harry Pace, whose picture had been hanging on their wall their whole lives. Well, first of all, he was an Italian. It turns out that he was African American.

He was black. That's how he identified that's how he was seen. And he was someone who literally changed America. In like 19 different ways. Music, culture, theater, housing, law. He proceeded to fight the case all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States. The decision opened 500 new properties to black residents. He desegregated whole neighborhoods, laid the groundwork for so much music. Like without him. We'd have no Robert Johnson. Please allow me to introduce myself.

No rolling stones and no air at clubs. Even had a hand in coining the term rock and roll. I mean, this dude's... Good God. Why do we have like three movies about this dude, right? And I love rock and roll! He even had a hand in coining the term rock and roll. I mean, this dude's... Good God, why do we have like three movies about this dude, right? I mean, you know, hello, Eva, Differne, right? Good God, I mean, this dude is like... He's like the vocational Maghiver.

But then somehow... Right at the peak of his power. It's like... Tooth! He vanishes. So completely that none of us know his story, not even his own family. Wow. So you're telling me we're related to this this unsung hero and you want me to just sit here and laugh about it, I gotta go understand this. For the next three episodes we're going to dig into some of these questions. Who was he? Why did he disappear?

And why did America let him? This is the vanishing of Harry Pace, a mini-series on Radio Lab. Now this was a tricky story to report and tell. Where did you all get all this about him? He can be hard to research. Is there a book about him? There's a single book. There's not a lot out there about Harry. He's a hard guy to know We don't have his voice. We barely have his words. So to try to help us make sense of all this We assembled an amazing team of collaborators. I'm Jamie Floyd. I'm Terrence McNagg. He money, Perry, just, layman. Cord Jefferson. You'll hear all of them along the way. And I'll just say, full disclosure, one of the things that drew us to Harry's story

is that he's a guy who just didn't fit the categories that the world offered him. And it slips between the cracks. Yeah. And in a very different way, I say this cautiously. I feel like as Middle Eastern people That experience there's something about it that makes sense sometimes it feels like people don't Know how to see you. I think a lot of people have this experience in all kinds of ways my parents say for example Cord filmmaker Cord Jefferson one of our collaborators. My parents tell tell a story about They'll make her court Jefferson one of our collaborators. My parents tell a story about when I was about two,

putting me in front of a mirror with them and just sort of letting me take in the differences in all of us and the fact that I neither looked entirely like my mother nor entirely like my father because they said that I asked, what am I? What am I? I cannot remember a time when I was not aware of being different

from everybody else I know. This is journalist Jamie Floyd, another of our collaborators. She runs WN West East Race and Justice Unit. I mean, everybody I knew was either white or black. There was nobody else who was kind of coffee colored with an afro like me. And I mean coffee with some milk in it. This day I feel a lot blacker than I really am.

Like in my mind I am really black. That doesn't mean my black friends and colleagues always see me as black. And so it is complicated. Then when you step into the multiracial. Okay, so we'll get back to Jamie and Cored and the family soon-ish, but we'll add a ground to cover. So first, we're going to take you on an audio roller coaster through what they discovered in those pages. Chapter one, The Rise. Okay, let's go.

He was born in 1884. 1884 in Covington, Georgia. Scholars David Sussman and Emmett Price. Which is about 32 miles east of Atlanta. A very picturesque place that's been used for a lot of movies and TV shows like the dukes of hazard were shot there in the heat of the night and other films and TV shows that needed a good anti-bellum background. Now remember, Staller Willie Ruff? Eric Pace was born just a few years after emancipation.

About 30 years after the emancipation proclamation. His parents were slaves. Grandparents, actually. One of the things we know about Harry, or we think we know, is that his grandfather owned a plantation, raped one of his slaves. She had a child, and that child was Harry's grandfather. Which helps to tell us why Harry himself was so fast-skinned, which played quite a role throughout his life.

This is journalist Paul Slade, to our knowledge, he has written the only book that's out there about Harry. What do we know about Harry's father and mother? So we know that his father was named Charles. Charles is a blacksmith. We know that his dad died when he was really young. Five or six. Dad's gone.

Mother is Nancy Francis' place, and we think that Harry's mother was a laundress. So... If that is true... Then we do know that the type of folks whose laundries she would be doing would be of significant means. She was a single mom, so no doubt she took Harry around town with her as she was picking up laundry and dropping it off.

And so he was able to see a huge swath of people that most average kids wouldn't have access to. It was probably pretty eye-opening for him at a young age. Court Jefferson again? I have no idea, but I just think that he probably saw people treat his mother pretty horribly as a servant, as somebody who you give your dirty under things to. My grandmother and grandfather were domestic servants at a rich white man's estate in Ohio. If you see yourself as being part of the underclass,

I think that there's some anger that develops with that. class, I think that there's some anger that develops with that. One of the things we do know about Harry is that later in his life, he would write a brutal revenge story. Through all these years, he had held this bitterness, this desire for revenge against those of his own blood who had cheated him out of the heritage and the life that properly belonged to him. About a young mixed race kid like him who tracks down his white ancestors and kills them. He thought of himself as being a special Avenger of God, an instrument to be used in bringing about punishment. So yeah, there might have been some anger there.

In any case, by the time he's 10, 11, Harry clearly excelled in Latin, in Greek. He played music, he sang. I think even at that point, it must have been pretty clear that Harry was a phenomenally bright kid. And at the age of 12, he is sent to Atlanta University. Who paid for it, by the way? From the brochures of the school that I went through from that time, they had donations. So he basically got his scholarship?

Yes. I mean, Atlanta University was the spot. It was the intellectual mecca for black folks. I think the motto of Atlanta University is, I'll find a way or make one. How boss is that? What? I'll find a way or make one. How boss is that? What? I'll find a way or make one. Watch me. Professor Charles McKinney.

Okay, so take us back to Harry. Like, what do we know about his life on campus? We know that when he gets to school, this cat was well dressed, this dude. He's a handsome man. There's one picture you can find in these about 17. Dark jacket, starched white collar. Closely cropped hair, wavy. He's a handsome man. There's one picture you can find where he's about 17 dark jacket Starched white collar closely cropped hair. Waity slight smirk. It seems I would say please do it myself

All of the black young black women would have felt for this dude. Thrider Kasey layman by the way He couldn't be the country boy that he was from Covington his first few years. He sings a capella in the choir Coveington his first few years he sings a capella in the choir So into debate team writes for the school newspaper he works his way through school working as a printer He was what was known as a printer's devil Which is some kind of print shop job a printer's devil yeah a young boy At or below the level of apprentice in a printing establishment. Are you just getting that from the internet just now? Just looked it up.

While he's at Atlanta University, he finds out that the white printer's devil is making more money than him. What does he do? He quits. He says enough of this. I refuse to be treated in this manner. Okay, so he's printing, he's singing, he's learning to advocate for himself. All that's just warm up because by far, the most important thing that happens to him at Lannion University.

Well, the most significant thing that happens to him there is that he makes WWE be Du Bois. William Edward Burgard Du Bois. One of the greatest thinkers America has ever produced. In 1897, I went to Atlanta University and stayed there 13 years, making a systematic study of the American Negro. It's fair to say that for the next 25 years, there wasn't a book published on the Negro problem that didn't have to depend upon what we were

doing at the Lansing University. Well, with the boys, I mean, you know, he's sort of who all of us black studies academics are chasing because he's the ultimate like Renaissance intellectuals. This is scholarly money, Perry. You know, he's the father of American sociology. He's a novelist. He's, you know, one of the founders of the NAACP also. In 1903 he writes the souls of black folks. It is a peculiar sensation, this double consciousness.

We get his phrase of double consciousness. The sense of always looking at oneself through the eyes of others, of measuring one's soul by the tape of a world that looks on and amused contempt and pity. Which is deep one feels as tunas. The is the most critical work for black people still. Still. I mean, he's like, I've probably seen 1903. Many of us, even if we have very different politics, we're all chasing to boys.

He goes had to have some voice in their government and trained men to lead them. On that point of who would lead Black America, it's exactly when Harry steps foot on campus that Du Bois writes the following phrase. The Negro race like all races is going to be saved by its exceptional men. The problem of education then among Negroes must first

of all deal with the talented 10th. WBD boys coins and brings to life this idea of the talented 10th. Scholar Bill Dogget. African-America's Negroes only 35 years earlier slaves could improve its law in America by investing in the town to 10th, the brightest, the most intellectual of the race.

Certainly, um, Ingevois was an elitist. But his idea was, I want to find people who can accomplish things that are so great that even the most bigoted white person can't deny it. And Harry was almost a personification of that, I think. In the talented 10th pace is number one. Okay, if we were to imagine then, Harry has just started there. Like, what would have been the first interaction like? Harry pace would have heard about him.

But then when he sees him, the boys is like him. So you could only imagine Harry pace following following this guy around trying to figure out what makes him tick. He's the do imagine that one day after class he's like, excuse me Mr. DeBoys, I have a question. And who? I mean, you see this barn that's there. I mean, if we think about Star Wars, Harry paces the pedal one, you know, through the Jedi Master, the boy.

Yes, the Jedi String flows from the Force. WWE be the boy, it's more or less a dot, Harry. He recruits Harry to help him with some of his own research projects. He, I think, gives Harry the father figure that his fatherless kid has never had. And he also gives Harry a whole outlook for to be a race man driven by a sense of service to black people. The talented tenth that it's up to him to lift up the race, double consciousness. It's up to him to see himself through the hostile white gaze and manipulate that gaze for his own benefit.

In fact, later in his life, he would give speeches about how important it is to use public opinion to make a quality happen. The question was, how do you do that? How do you show white America what black America is capable of? That's after the break. How do you show white America what black America is capable of? That's after the break. This is Angela Babbiars from San Jose, California. Radio Lab is supported in part by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, enhancing public understanding of science and technology in the modern world.

More information about Sloan at www.Sloan.org. Science reporting on Radio Lab is supported in part by Science Sandbox. A Simons Foundation initiative dedicated to engaging everyone with the process of science. Okay, this is the Vanishing of Harry Pays, the miniseries on Radio Lab episode one. That's Jada Bumrod. I am Jada, you are. I'm Shima Oliye. And we are here.

Yeah, we're two people making a podcast. Let's do this. So get us back to the story. Okay, so Harry Pace, talented 10thrd, Du Boise and Raceman that wants to uplift as he climbs. The question is, how? How are you going to do it? And the answer he comes up with through a roundabout series of events ends up creating this amazing thing that we're celebrating the 100th anniversary of.

Pretty much right now, but it begins at a bank. So 1907. Harry is working at Solven Bank on Bill Street in Memphis. He taught Latin in Greek for a while. He tried to start a magazine and now he was working at a bank. Harry's there at Solvent Bank. Sitting at his desk. And a man who turns out to be WC handy moves in. Now handy. Father of the Blues. Who we now know as the father of the blues. When it didn't love you. W.C. Handle, we now know as the father of the blues, the man who really introduced blues music to America and to the world.

It is my good fortune. This is handy from an oral history. To live for two years in the state of Mississippi, and to hear the crude singing. E-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O- singing of the Negro down there. Harry would have known who W.C. Handy was. Obviously first of all they have to talk about the mortgage business. Mr. Andy please sign this form and that form. As the meeting draws towards an end all the mortgage business is completed.

I imagine Harry hesitating for a moment and wondering, do I do this, he might not like it, what's he gonna say? Should I show him my lyrics? Turns out Harry had been writing some song lyrics that he probably had in the top drawer of his desk. The way I imagine it, he gets up his nerve, he takes a deep breath, he does show handy his lyrics, and lo and behold, handy rather likes them. Shortly after that meeting, they get together and start writing songs. The first song he collaborated on Harry with was called In the Cotton Fields of Dixie. One of the most exciting moments in this series was I finally found the sheet music for

the song after much hunting and Chad Jamie Floyd and I ended up visiting John McWater at his home in Queens. John McWater and I teach linguistics and some other things at Columbia University and in my off time such as it is I am a great lover of music. Right now I'm in a room where I believe there are 850 Broadway cast albums and I'm straight. He agreed to site read the song for us. Can you sing it a little bit so we can hear it? I'm not a tenor on the baritone. That's where it's written. So there's not a good song, but that's what he did. You know, it's better than I thought.

It's better than I thought. It's better than I thought. It's better than I thought. It's better than I thought. It's better than I thought. It's better than I thought. It's better than I thought. It's better than I thought. that's where it's written.

So there's not a good song, but that's what he did. You know, it's better than I thought it was gonna be. It grows on you, doesn't it, dammit. I thought it grows on you. I thought it grows on you. If you swing your ears and don't listen to the words, think about what it's about. You know, we are struggling to understand what are they trying to accomplish.

Are they trying to advance a people? Oh, they wanted to make some money. The day in this case was probably more handy than pace. Of the two of them, he was far more famous and far less political. And he knew that these plantation songs they sold. There wasn't a market for conscious sheet music back then. But John, who are they writing this song for? Good white people who want to hear about that wonderful period when everybody was so happy in the south. And you would bring, you know, Trixie and Rebecca and Uncle Bill around the piano and everybody would sing along to it and then they laugh and clap and then, you know, die of typhus or whatever. Bill, I can play this, will you sing along with me? Oh sure honey. And so in the cotton fields of Dixie is a dear old southern home where the mocking birds oh get that flossy.

And moonlight love to sing. Okay, Will work and you come to Harmony with me? Well I guess I could. Okay. So just a lonely cabin, it is mind a far roam in the one where caught in his king. That's what this was for. And then on match would bring some lemonade. Here y'all go.

Because this is their form of entertainment. That's all there was. This particular song they wrote it paid a guy 50 bucks to publish it and he ran off with their money. Which is, karmically, something, I don't know. Then they make another song called Beale Street Blues, it sells pretty well, and then suddenly they move from Memphis, New York City. When they moved to New York,

their goal is to set up shop in and amongst all of the other 10 Pan Ali houses. So all white. Which are all white, oh. We're gonna compete with everybody else. Show them we have just as good if not better material. Problem is, unsurprisingly. just as good if not better material.

Problem is, unsurprisingly. They run into a lot of racism. There are accounts of white music publishers literally costing them in the street. Now, at this point, the way that things worked was the sheet music was sold in dime stores, and most of those stores were white owned. So what Payson and Handy decided to do is they hired white piano players, songpluggers as they were called to go into those dime stores and demonstrate their music. So this would be the thing when you'd walk into a place and you'd grab a sheet music and be like,

oh, I wonder what this sounds like. Mr. Demonstrator, can you play this for me? Right. Then they'd key it out. Or Ms. Demonstrator, they were often women. Oh, they were women. Yeah, some of them. It's so interesting to think about the sheet music passing for black or white.

Just like, you know, like a person. Right. This is historian Elliot Hurwitt. He says the strategy worked. You know, they're making all this money. I mentioned 1918, 1920. Evil grumbles open in quarry. Yellow dog blues, people love it. It sells huge numbers of recordings. And then...

The big one. St. Louis Blues. Maybe the most popular song of the 20th century, it's recorded over 2000 times. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. They're St. Louis Blues recordings by Stevie Wonder. That can call Louis Armstrong.

The Beatles. Herbie Hancock. People will be recording that for another hundred years. So the product that these guys produced was immensely important and spread all over the world and really helped American folklore and American styles and ways of thinking. It's through these two men, primarily, through Pace and Handy, that this pervades and permeates mainstream American society. So white people in Ohio have their sheet music on the piano and they're playing it at parties. People are buying recordings of their records in Australia, in England, eventually in Korea and in Russia.

This is how America really invades the world. So paste in hand here, killing it. Absolutely killing it. Absolutely killing it. But at the height of their success, there is this sharp division. Handy is really stuck on sheet music. The old world of sheet music sales. You know, he was 11 years older than Harry.

He liked how things were going. That Harry, that's not what we wanted. He believed that records are the big new thing. Now records at this point. We're just a few decades in, but people were just starting to get into them. Pace was like, let's do it. Handy said no. So right at the peak of their popularity, with barely any notice?

He quit. He rolled out. He was like, enough. I'm done. Harry Pace bailed out of Pace and Handy. Harry also poached a good number of Pace and Handy staff. Oh. Right the way from the post room to the accounts department.

Most of the people in there are 20s. Do we have any idea how handy, how this hit him? Oh yeah. What does he say? It says all in, down and out. He talks about I was broken the bank and blind. And you know, blind. How could paste do this to me kind of thing?

But for Harry, this was about more than just music. Remember, pace is a race man. He's got a mission. He's a race man. The same way that Du Bois is a race man. Harry Pace is all about black people. Of how do I uplift, right? While I climb.

And in the record industry, there was a lot more uplifting to do there than in sheet music. Because basically you had three main white record companies, and what they were releasing was almost entirely these really demeaning mid-stral songs. All cool, look alike to me. Like all cool to look alike to me and the chronologist. Bill Dugget again, he says it is impossible to overstate just how massive minstrelsy was at this point in time. The minstrel show is the behemoth of American entertainment at the turn of the century. It is based on the demonization of blackness. You had white bands dressing up in blackface, singing outrageously racist songs based on

overblown stereotypes. The watermelon, the fried chicken, the big lips. And he told us about a songwriter, Bob Cole, black man, who Harry definitely would have known about. What makes it even worse is when a song like this is good. John Wortham actually played us one of Bob Cole's songs. This is Robert Cole. And so, if you like a me, like I like a you,

and you like me just the same, and then they're under the bamboo tree, and it's about a jungle person from Mata Bulu, and it's in this dialect, and Jesus Christ, the song is very catchy. Bob Cole had an issue with the Cone song, all of the extremes. He had a lot of trouble with that. And so all of a sudden, one day I believe is 19, 10 or 1911, he made a decision.

I don't know if he was drunk or what. He walked into a lake and drowned. Wow. Here is the most successful black writer of his time period. I don't know if it was drunk or what, he walked into a lake and drowned. Wow. Here is the most successful black writer of his time period. Wow. I don't think it's an accidental drowning. So the idea that Harry would want to move on from sheet music, this was the contacts,

right? The white companies were releasing these minstrel songs. That's all they were doing. They were putting out circular platters of white supremacy, and destroying lives in the process. And Harry wanted to change that. And if Handy didn't want to be involved with that, their partnership was over.

Harry Pays obviously saw the need. He, I can't, I mean, this is performer, Rianne and Giddens. Why are, why are we neglecting all of this talent? You know, I mean, that's the kind of, it's so rage to be honest, like, I mean, I can't speak for the man because I, you know, he's obviously dead, but I can only imagine that it would be rage inducing. You know, to put it mildly.

So I can only imagine, you know, to put it mildly. So I can only imagine, you know, that that all got funneled into, you know, let's do this ourselves. He understood that who makes records under what conditions and to what effects really matters. He understands that those are political issues. To him, this is not going to be a regular business. No, no, no. Pace definitely saw as a social movement as much as a purely commercial one. But peace being the businessman he was went out and got funding for it. He got a board of directors

with the boys and others on the board. Media historian Tim Brooks. How old is he? Harry would have been 36 at the time. The first question he had to consider. What to call it? Well, he wanted to call it something that spoke of Black pride. Do you know who named it? I do. For several months at the end of 1920, Harry was writing letters to WBDoo Boys. The idea of calling the label Black Swan actually came from Doois. He told Harry, before you were born, there used to be this singer. She was, she's soprano. So Black Swan, the name itself, you know, was named after an opera singer. Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield, and that was her moniker, she was known as the Black Swan.

The first concerts were 1851, 1852. She made her debut in New York City, curator Dwandal and Reese. She was brought out in stage and there was laughter. Audiences were jarred and laughed at her. They couldn't make sense out of what they were hearing out of that body. She had a magnificent voice. Looking back, it's a smagical moment, even in slavery days when a black woman could command this kind of attention.

So that was very much in the air. So in May of 1921, almost exactly a hundred years ago, Harry Pace launches Black Swan. When he launches the company, it is held in the Black Press. Chicago Defender, May 7, 1921. News of the completion of the first list of Black Swan records, which are now ready for delivery, will be received with great interest and enthusiasm by our people all over the United States. When the announcement was made that a company had been formed to manufacture phonograph records by our artists, a great uproar was caused among white phonograph record companies who resent

the idea of having a race company enter what they felt was an exclusive field. They could see what a huge deal it was. I've got one of their first press ads here from May 1921. Asker dealer for Black Swan Records, the only phonograph company owned and controlled by colored people using exclusively Negro voices and musicians. Yeah, it said the only records using exclusively Negro voices and musicians. Yes, that was a slogan.

And if that, you remember, Fubu. Fubu runs the fashion world. Fubu, Fubu, Klo. Fubu, Klo. Right. Fubu, Klo. For us by us. This was the 1920s version.

I'm just keeping the breath. All stockholders are colored. All artists are colored. all employees are colored. And what a day to release, what was their first record? There was adorning by Rebecca LaHuees. Okay. For all eternity by a carol club. It's more opera ease than I expected.

Well, this is classic talented-tenth stuff. Uplift the race by trying to encourage people to listen to better music, quality music. A lot of the Black Swan material is boring and to be honest, because it's just this 20, 20 white, light classical crap.

But I get why he recorded it, because the idea is to show that that Black people could do that too. So Acton in comes out and Harry releases a couple other classical records. How did these do? Did anyone buy them? Yeah, I mean... They sell only $674.64 worth of records. So at that sort of level, they're not going to survive too long. And so, now he has to figure out what is he going to do?

This is one of the many moments we wish we could get in Harry Pace's head, but we can't. There are no journal entries, there's no letters to go to. But we can't say that Probably hit him pretty hard like we know he had a stubborn will But we also know that when he met failure at other times in his life it really rocked him There's a short account from a writer named Merrass Stewart who apparently new pace personally, and he describes a moment after Atlanta University of Win. Harry was working on Beel Street trying to start a magazine with WB Du Bois, it failed,

and as he describes it, Harry looked out the window and quote, there was the Mississippi River swift and deep at the foot of Beel Street. And according to this writer, pace very seriously considered throwing himself in and committing suicide. And maybe that's how he felt at this point. But then a very lucky break that would change him and American music forever. Can you describe the moment where all of the fortune changes? So, Harry Pace trying to figure out what they're doing is 1921.

Harry walks into a bar called Edmund Seller in Harlem. It's the spot. This place is small. Seats may be 150, 175 on a good day. But on that night, these folks are jammed in, elbow to elbow. They'd all come to see this one hot shot 21-year-old. And you imagine just a very tiny spotlight on her. Down in Georgia, got a dance that's new,

ain't nothing to it, it's easy to do call Shakespeare's way. And she is amazing. So full of life. Some artists, you listen to them, you can have light conversation, and they're the backdrop.

But when Applewater seems, she is the oxygen in the room. What the old folks learned the young ones What you do about Shakespeare? Harry? A spellbound. I come along in that era. I was working in nightclubs. That laugh of hers.

Well, Willy Ruff got a chance to interview Ethel Waters about those early days. I can't tell you what a thrill it is for me these 45 years later to hear her voice. They call me then sweet mama string beans. Sweet mama string beans. That's because I was so thin. And you got it before you started in Chobhizan? Yeah, but I was awfully thin. That was one of the things that Lord stopped me from grieving over because I was always a tall child. She was tall, elegant, pretty.

I got rhythm. She could dance. I got music. She was a good dancer. She did the shimmy. Buzzard Lo, the Charles, and of course. You know that song, back that thing up. She knew how to back that thing up.

Ethel Waters is like one of those entertainers I wish I would have been alive to see her on stage. She can get something across. I could sing dance talking whistle I make you laugh and I make you cry. Make you laugh and I can make you cry. To me baby I got to tell the story. When I say a thing, I'm envisioning a picture. And I'm trying to paint that picture for you to see. I want you to see what I see. Now, in terms of what did Harry see when he walked into Edmunds and saw her, it's interesting to imagine, because on the one hand,

Ethel Waters is as unpatient as he gets. She says, look, you know, I grew up by four. I knew how to curse like I say. I knew junkies, I knew sex workers. I knew. Authorandal jokes. She's a woman of the streets, so to speak. But perhaps he also saw something in her that was in him.

It is a peculiar sensation, this double consciousness, the sense of always looking at oneself through the eyes of others. So she understood the use of masks. This is writer Margot Jefferson. The love of and the absolute immersion as if it was her birthright in masquerade and disguise. Ethel was a chameleon. She played with styles, doing what you might call vocal blackface and vocal whiteface. Can you give us an example of that? What does that mean?

Well, you can hear that. It's a good question in the, for example. I can't give you anything but love. The first verse she sings with what we might call white face dust. I can't give you. I can't. And you can just hear her having a wonderful, abused time with. I can't give you anything but love. Then.

The second verse, she drops her voice. I can't give you anything but love. The second verse, she drops her voice. She finds bestie'sness. You know how much though she does that and then? The little grace note start going into blue note. The phrasing, can you? So you can absolutely hear the two. Oh my god, when Harry saw it at the bar,

it must have been like, oh, you're the person I've been looking to do it all. You got it all. So in between sets, Harry or maybe one of his associates, Elbow's his way to the front of the room, where Ethel is lounging by the piano. He said, well, will you do me a favor? This man, I can't think of his name.

He was a very nice man, a very intelligent man, colored man. And he said, there's a colored company. And he said, the black swan records. He said, why? The black swan is starting out. And that was paste in hand. It was actually just paste. And I knew both of them.

I knew Mr. Paste from Memphis, Tennessee Tennessee when he was in the insurance business. And I knew Handy when they, and they was in the music published in business because you had to get permission from him to sing to St. Louis Blues. But I knew it. And they had this little office on 139th Street down in the basement. So he said, just go there and talk. So I go, I make a poem to go with him down in this basement to where this office was very nice place and very dignified because I was from the outside of Tracksky. But it was

our college, it was us. But we still had lines of distinction still do. So Mr. Pace was at the office at the time, very nice friendly man. Anyhow, the result was, they said, would I be interested in making a test recording? So we went to a place in Jersey. That was when they were singing through horns. This was before the invention of the microphone. You and I are talking with good microphones. They had to do that in the recording studio with a megaphone. They'd have these horns drop down, tubas, and bass horns and things like that, you know,

and that dominated. As the story goes, Harry Ethel and Harry's a Ranger, Fletcher Henderson, get into a discussion about what Ethel's gonna sing. Do we do more classical concert, you know, elevating elite kind of music, or do we go popular? No doubt Harry was like, can you do some opera? But it seems like what happened as Ethel said, no, we're gonna do popular, and you're gonna pay me $100, which was three times what she was making at Edmonds.

And so, I went in this little hot studio. It was a little hot room, and I sang down home blues. Walk up this morning, the day was done. My loving daddy was not a fan, and he's got that love in. That always makes me. So when they put it out, it was an instant sensation in New York. An absolutely massive hit.

He wore it all, he've now. It was a big hit, and he got patient of the black swan reckons off the hill. She says that recording got them off the hill. You know, put them on the mountain. Oh, make me glad. Down home blues just completely transformed. Fortunately, it was nice and day.

Hey. Marzai has been cut me. That don't mean I can't be had. The success of the Down Home Blues was so big. It kept on going back to the press again and again. Some because I'm snapping. Some call me honey. Quite a few big dogs got one.

Harry always used to claim he sold 500,000 copies of Downhorn blues in six months. Probably a bit of an exaggeration. Harry is hyping it up for all his work when he gives that figure. But it's hard to appreciate, you know, music of the past can sometimes sound really far away. It's hard to appreciate what an atomic bomb Ethel was. You could argue that from this moment forward, she became the first crossover artist in American history.

She was Beyonce before Beyonce, right? I mean, she was, she was on stage, she was in the movies, she was a recording star, so she's a superstar. As soon as Ethel hit, Harry basically does a 180 from opera to blues. And he starts spitting out press releases full of lies just to stoke the hype. So this was dated December 24th, Christmas Eve, 1921, in my newspaper, the Chicago Defender. How I love that paper. Ethel must not marry, sign contract for big salary, providing she does not marry within a year. This is the contract. Ethel Waters has signed a unique contract with Harry H. Pace,

which stipulates that she is not to marry for at least a year and that during this period she is to devote her time largely to singing for Black Swan records. It was due to numerous offers of marriage. Many of her students suggesting that she give up her professional life at once for domesticity that Mr. Pace was prompted to make this step. Side note, Ethel Waters was openly in a relationship with a woman.

Harry would have known this. She was dating another woman named Ethel, a dancer, and they were famous in Harlem for getting into screaming matches in the streets. New York age, on must not marry contract. But keep played along. Upon receipt of these documents, Miss Waters is reported to have smiled and prominently attached her signature to the contract,

which was returned to New York without delay. Miss Waters contract makes her now the highest salaried colored star in the country. There is no diminution in the number of perspectives. Swains. I can't imagine. I'm sorry. Swans is a word that we should bring back.

Information is to the effect that there is no diminution in the number of perspectives swans, however, and that each city visited adds, it's quoted to the list of victims. This is an amazing sentence. I mean, what a beautiful, she must have felt amazing. This is in the newspaper. Oh my God, yeah. It's just like everybody's famously aroused by you. In any case, only a few months after that big hit,

after Ethel signs of contract. Harry was getting the tour underway. They start touring! As Black Swan records. I mean, we'll later see Motown Records do this, Stacks Records do this. You know, Bad Boy Records do this. All of the record labels that come later in terms of Black Own for Blackfold State, they take the same model. The tour actually kicked off in Washington, D.C. November the 17th, 1921. Paul spent months scouring old newspapers to put together the only full account that we

know of of this tour. Paul started in Washington then Philadelphia and played New York, a little later it was Baltimore, spent a long time touring around small towns in Ohio. Paul says at first they played little Nickelodeons in Black Run theaters. Since Anati they played Little Rock. Ethel would always headline. Walk up this morning. She was the big star. Lower down the bill, maybe a comedian.

In one case, I had some acrobats. In all along the way, it's like one of those adventure movies where superheroes just keep making cameos. Like, that just keeps happening. For example, in New Orleans. That's where Fledjia Henderson let Louis Armstrong on this tour on this first tour and it ultimately that's the meeting that led to Louis Armstrong joining Flajia Anderson's band and you know inventing swing music

Oh my god. Louis Armstrong was an unknown young Doctor of the time so there was Louis also and a few of the early days Jack Johnson one of the greatest fighting machines in the history of boxing. Jack Johnson was the first heavyweight boxing champion in America, maybe the most famous person in the country at that point. And he was the reason for that phrase, great white hope. White people hated that he was so good kept throwing up challenger after challenger. He always beat them.

Johnson rushes in, lands in uppercut, three left hooks, but to a tremendous barrage of punches. Apparently on the tour he do little comedy skits. I have been requested to tell just how I knocked out so many of my old opponents. And he would tell stories. He put the moves on Ethel at one point that she brushed him off. Speaking of Ethel. Ha! You really are proud to have with us tonight a ton of lady, Miss Ethel Waters! Thank you, Arnie, and hello, man. It's a privilege to be here. Another thing that happens is that Ethel Waters appears on this new thing called the radio.

Here I go again. Things a few songs. Just here in Trump trumpets blow again So that makes her the first black woman to ever sing on US radio I was the first and I was the first country person to present Having that voice transmitted across the airwaves was extremely significant But let me get back on track. As the tour gathers false, Ethel was determined that they should play dates in the South.

Because her argument was that all the records that have sold for Black Swan, all that music originates from the South, hmm, we have a responsibility to let the people they hear us play it. As soon as she suggests this. Four members of the band, They quit! They weren't going down south. You got lynching going on. You got clear Jim and Jane Crow going on. But Ethel said she wouldn't perform unless they did. They went south January February 1922. This was the second leg of the tour, since the Nazi

Memphis Pinebuff Little Rock Arkansas. And so many ways, Nashville, Chattanooga, Ethel Warners and the folks who were on this tour, Savannah, South Carolina. These artists felt that they were active. Paris, Texas, Fort Worth, Texas, Waco, Texas, Dallas, Texas. Black people not only can't excel, but we actually come in peace. Black people not only can't excel, but we actually come in peace. We literally come in peace. But that's not always what they found. For example, Maken Georgia. Moments before they show up to perform at the Douglas Theatre.

There's a white race riot essentially in Maycon. A young black man had been accused of attacking a white race riot essentially in Maycon. A young black man had been accused of attacking a white police officer. A white mob then invaded the Black section of town, searched homes, trash businesses, eventually they found the man, shot him hundreds of times, tied him to a tree,

and then lit a fire at his feet. They then take the body, they throw it into the back of a truck, and they drive it into the center of Maycon's black neighborhood, which is where this theatre, the Douglas Theatre, is. And they, depending on which account you believe, they either throw the body actually into the lobby at the Mekon or they throw it up against its main entrance. I play Mekon Georgia. Here's Ethel remembering that moment

many years later. And I got there just a few, oh they had just removed say about a half hour. Before I got there, the remains of a person that had been lynched, a man that had been lynched. And you never sensed the Paul that comes over. It was, it was, it just, you could feel that you didn't see that. But... Ten years later, when Irving Berlin writes the song Sopatine,

Poor Ethel, which is an anti-lynching song, that's the incident that Ethel thinks of to fuel her performance. When Mr. Berlin was telling me about how to per day, I only had to remember. Somehow I made a fool cause that man of mine ain't coming home no more. The grief and the fear. In any case, I gotta say the fact that this tour even happened is kind of a miracle. Yeah, absolutely. As the troubidors tore through the south, something surprising happened.

Black Swan became quite a chic thing for people right at the top of white society. He says newvo-rich white people started giving each other black swan records as wedding gifts. In Harry, started adding shows to the tour. What would often happen is that they'd organize what they called a midnight frolic. After the main show on a Friday or a Saturday night, it would start about 11 o'clock at night. And it would run probably to the about two or three in the morning. And this would be a white-sownly show. Is this just like the equivalent of Brooklyn hipsters coming in and slumbering. Yeah, I think that's probably right.

One of the strangest, most amazing details of the tour is that at a few of these midnight shows, for Ethel Waters' big entrance, the electrician would... Kill the lights. The stage would suddenly be plunged into complete darkness. Ethel would then walk on to stage, holding a giant Japanese fan that covered her entire body, and behind the fan was for dress made of a 100%. Radium.

But you mean radium like the element? Yeah, absolutely. So the whole building is pitch black, and all you can see is Ethel on stage. She then snapshut her fan and what the crowd suddenly sees is this woman. Illuminated by the light of this radiant dress. And you know, you imagine the whole house just going crazy. Wow! This is 1922! It's no good!

No one would have seen anything like that. There is so, that is crazy on so many levels. It was Black Swan Records, most incandescent moment. But ultimately... That was the beginning of the end. Almost, yeah, I mean, it's like a wave, cresting and breaking. Everything was brilliant, it looked as if, you know, the company's good luck would never end and then suddenly the wave... crashed...

and everything just went to f***. Chapter 2. The Fall. Now it went to f***ing stages. When Harry got back from tour, things were going great. I've got an extra here for one of his letters to Du Bois. We were selling around 7,000 records a day and had only three presses in the factory, which could make 6,000 records daily. Oh, dang.

Oh, dang. Literally, he is selling records past him that he can make them. Death's Protective Up, he buys an entire record pressing plant in Long Island. And then the white response. plant in Long Island. And then the white response. That backlash. The white record owners got pretty pissed. September 1st, 1922, you've got workers at the plant that are shoveling coal into the furnace

which powers the plants. And one of them discovers a three-inch shell in the coal. They discover a bomb. Chicago Defender September 16th, 1922. At the Black Swan Plant. How is the Plums? And one of them discovers a three-inch shell in the Co. They discover a bomb. Chicago Defender, September 16th, 1922. At the Black Swan Plant. Just where the bomb came from, could not be ascertain. The officials of the company were alarmed at first,

lest it were the work of white competitors. The Daily News carried a picture of the bomb, which was of an usually large size. And if that shell had gone into the furnace, it would have blown the whole place up. Yeah, I have in my hand your letter from Harry Pace to the board of directors of Black Swan Records. During the past few months, we have been the target of attack from our competitors. The desire seems to be that we must be put out of business by any means fair or foul.

The white labels had woken up and they were coming after Harry. The white labels had woken up, and they were coming after Harry. The white backlash. It was clear then that there was profit to be made, producing and distributing music for black people. Harry's success had proven to the white companies. Oh, there's a market here. There are over 12 million colored people in the United States. There are millions of people who have money

and don't want to buy menstrual songs. So all of a sudden, in the space of just a few months. Just about every record label, every white-owned record label launches its own specialist race records imprint. My dear Dr. DeBoys, the summer has been very dull for us. The white companies have every one of them gone in for colored business teeth and toenail. Paramount comes along in August 1922, launches

its own race label. Columbia, this early is February 1923, and the really big one was Victor. August 1923. It's caused a serious slump in our sales. That's like Subneed Discovery and Google or Facebook have decided to operate against you. Another phase of oppression from which we are suffering is the attempt that is going on to wean away our singers from us. And so the poaching begins. Trixie Smith gets pulled away. Trixie Smith gets pulled away. My man rocks me with one steady roll. Trixie Smith, we haven't talked about her yet.

She was a black swan artist, coined the term, Rock and Roll. On this black swan release, she gets poached. They also... Hoached Carol Clark, who recorded spirituals for black swan. She gets boached. They also... ...hoached carol clock. Who recorded the Spirituals for Black Swan. And of course Harry hit the roof. There's a very good news report from the Chicago Defender.

It says, Mr. Pace is advised by his attorneys that another company has bribed certain dealers to damage their Black Swan records before selling them to consumers. With a view of making the consumer feel that the race product was sent out in that condition, to damage their black swan records before selling them to consumers. With a view of making the consumer feel that the race product was sent out in that condition and to cause him to cease buying them.

Oh man, if I'm hairy at this point, I'm hiring some thugs. I mean, that is low. Harry's a gentleman, Chad. He's a gentleman. He's not going to do that. He's scratching his records. Making things even worse in the middle of all this. You get Ethel Waters.

Am I blue? Am I blue? Who gets pulled away? Ethel. Ethel No. Ethel's Aeolian, sides start appearing in 1923. This feels like the end of like Scarface. Like Harry in a room alone with a bunch of cocaine and some like big guns. I love to my little friend!

Ah! And it's just not gonna. It's just, Harry Pace, like Tony Montanya and Scarface, he goes down ugly. First thing he does is he starts running ads in newspapers saying, Don't be deceived. Don't be deceived. Don't be deceived. Passing for colored has become popular since we established Black Swan records.

The only genuine colored records. Harry would accuse white companies of passing for black. Every white photograph company is now issuing a Jim Crow catalog of records. He says they're operating a Jim Crow annex. Whoa. And I've saved the best of last. Oh no. Oh, it gets worse.

This is desperate measures for desperate times. Harry, at this point, isn't a bind. What he desperately needs to do is to get some kind of black swan product out there on the market. To fight back. But the white companies had stolen all his stars. What is he going to do? So he decides what he does is he does the exact opposite of what he's known for. As he accuses the white labels of passing, he himself gets his hands on a bunch of unreleased music by white bands, gets him through a white lawyer,

by the way, and he changes the names, not the music, just the names. He takes white artists, recordings, and he passes them off as black. Many Jones, for example. She was really a white singer called Aileen Stanley. Henderson's dance orchestra, that would have been either the Mary Melody Men or Lannins Roseland Orchestra, Rudy Weedoff's Californians, that's a German name Weedoff. They became Haynes Harlem syncopators. Yeah. I have to say, I'm really on the fence

about the morality of this move. Is this a badass move or is this just like the opposite? What it is is a premonition of things to come. Make a long story short, just a few months after Ethel Waters records down home blues and literally lights up the night in a radium dress. Harry is basically broke. We are crap now, very seriously for cash. We are cutting down to the bone in every way, although I have personally put in large amounts of money and have used my personal credit to borrow more.

Harry was forced to cut the price of Black Swan's discs. They'd started off at a dollar. He had to cut them first to $0.85, and then to $0.75. Eventually, he's selling a whole bundle of discs. And he's throwing in a free 10 cent pack of needles. What? Phone graph needles.

Oh, yeah. So, you know, a price is like that. There's just not much room for profit. Harry holds out for as long as he can. But then, ultimately, Chicago Defender April 19th, 1924. He sells Black Swan to Paramount Records, a white company. White combinations of white businesses are frequent.

It does not often occur where there is a combination of a white and a racial business. It is of more than local interest, therefore, to note the recent consolidation of the phonograph record business of the Paramount, a white organization, and the Black Swan. Black Swan records came and went in just two years. But if you think about it, if you think about what came before and what came after, Black Swan. Black Swan records came and went in just two years. But if you think about it, if you think about what came before and what came after, it was a pretty gigantic domino to fall. Black Swan really hastened the process of the white labels giving Black artists a chance.

And it only needs to be a couple of years for Robert Johnson to have died before he ever recorded a note. That process had been delayed by just a couple of years. We'd have no Robert Johnson and with no Robert Johnson. Oh my god. You got no rolling stones and no Eric Clapton. You're it. Oh my god. That's weird to imagine. Once you take that brick out, you know, the whole tower starts to look pretty shaky. I mean, it's all historical speculation, really. Here's what we'll say. Everything that we just told you about Black Swan

and Ethel and all the stuff, that's just the first part of Harry's story. This guy lived five lifetimes in one. And the craziest part is yet to come. There is a conspiracy. There is like a gay threatened my family. They threatened Harry Jr. Your father. They threatened Josephine.

It's like, poof, that s**t haunted. In the next episode Harry's record roulette starts to spin out of control. You know, so after, basically, after 60 years of, of, of battle, you know, how many more years did he owe you? Right? How many more years did he owe? That's on the next episode of The Vanishing of Harry Pace. The Vanishing of Harry Pace was created by a Jedi boomerang and Shima Oliai and is presented as a collaboration between Awesome Audio, Radio Lab and Radio Diaries. The series is based on the

book Black Swan Blues, the hard-rised and brutal fall of America's first Black-owned record label by Paul Slade. We had original music from musician Hania Rainey, her song Buka off the album Esca. Our editorial advisors are Kyecee Laman, Imani Perry, Kour Jefferson and Terence McKnight. Jimmy Floyd is our consulting producer. Our fact checker is Natalie Mead. Series Art Work was created by Katya Herrera and special thanks to Nelly Giles, Ben Shapiro and Joe Richmond. Next episode is right on the heels of this one. Thank you for listening!

Radio Lab was created by Jed, a boom rod and is edited by Soren Wheeler. Lulu Miller and Latif Nasir are our co-host. Suzy Electrenberg is our executive producer. Dueling Keef is our director of sound design. Our staff includes Simon Adler, Jeremy Bloom, Becca Bressler, Rachel Kiesik, David Gable, Maria Paz Gutierrez, Sindo Nyanasambandam, Met Kilti, Annie McEwen, Alex Niesen, Sara Kari, Aryan Wack, Pat Walters, and Molly Webster, with help from Sarah Sandbach, Karine Lyong, and Candice Wong. Our fact checkers are Diane Kelly and Emily Krieger.