Huge music anthologies have been big for the last couple years, and much of it is thanks to people like Jack White. The White Stripes guitarist and his record label, Third Man Records, is a major force in restoring and rereleasing classic American records. Third Man teamed with Revenant Records, the label of fingerstyle legend John Fahey, to release "The Rise and Fall of Paramount Records, Volume One (1917-27)."
The set will feature exactly 800 tracks. Yeah, 800.
Third Man and White are the biggest proponents of keeping vinyl alive, so of course the set will include six "chestnut-colored" 180-gram LPs. Those 12-inch discs will only feature 87 of the 800 songs, and no Mr. vinyl-purist, they won't be 78 rpm as the originals were. The compilation will also include 200 restored versions of original advertisements, two books detailing the artists and the label's history, plus an additional USB of music and images. That's a lot of content, so it'll come packaged in a handcrafted oak case, just like a new phonograph would have 100 years ago.
The artists featured will include legends such as Louis Armstrong, Fletcher Henderson, King Oliver, Jelly Roll Morton and Blind Lemon Jefferson.
Although 800 might seem like an end-all, "Volume 2" will come out November 2014. Still, Revenant cofounder Dean Blackwood thinks it's less than half of the total catalog of Paramount Records. The label had no interest in cataloguing all it produced, but rather turning out records at a high demand to keep profits coming in. The thought that an obscure B-side might be of interest 100 years later wasn't part of the equation.
Blackwood said that some of the artists were less than one-hit wonders.
"They're one or two recording wonders," he described.
There hasn't been a price given yet, but Nirvana's recent "In Utero" 20th Anniversary edition sold for $125, and that was just four CDs.
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