Grafton’s Mississippi Blues Trail Marker To Be Erected
When people think of country blues, aka prewar blues - roughly the late 19th century to shortly before World War II - music, their thoughts drift to the hot, languid days of the Mississippi Delta, including Arkansas. After all, isn’t that area always touted as the birthplace of the blues?
There’s a strong showing from Texas, too. And how ‘bout the Piedmont, the foothills of the Appalachians, which extend from Virginia all the way to Georgia and Alabama? All these areas have strong showings in blues and roots music.
When people think of Wisconsin, on the other hand, what comes to mind? First thought: cold. Second thought: snow, ass-deep on a ten-foot Indian. Third thought: cheese. Fourth thought: cheeseheads. Fifth: flyover country. Sixth and seventh thoughts: Lawrence Welk and Liberace. But the vast majority of people, even blues aficionados, don’t connect Wisconsin with the blues. So when the Grafton community decided to host a Paramount Blues Festival in 2006, people were confused. Wisconsin? Blues?
What most people don’t realize is that the original Paramount company - not the one that wears the name today, by the way - was formed in a humble chair company in an out-of-the-way small town not far from Lake Michigan, roughly 20 miles north of Milwaukee. The Wisconsin Chair Company was the progenitor of the original Paramount company, the same one that produced records and the same one that recorded roughly a quarter of the most important, and most expensive today, blues records in the world.
They include records by Charley Patton, Son House, Henry Townsend, Ma Rainey, Alberta Hunter, Skip James, the Reverend Thomas Dorsey, considered by most to be the founder of Gospel recording in this country, and many others. Also, there’s Blind Lemon Jefferson, whose name was the model for Blind Melon Chitlin, Cheech and Chong’s infamous comedy skit character.
Two of these people, James and House, were products of the successful quest of the early-1960s "blues hunters" who flourished briefly then, people who went out looking for these "race records" greats. They recorded in the late 1920s and very early 1930s, until the Great Depression blew holes in many businesses. And they hadn’t been heard of since.
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