Document Records

Document Records (established 1986 by Johnny Parth in Austria) is a (now) British record label that specializes in early American blues, bluegrass, gospel, spirituals jazz, and other rural American genres (collectively known as "roots" music), generally made between 1900 and 1945. Since 2000 it is owned by Gary Atkinson and based in Newton Stewart, Scotland.

In May, 1930, the great Mississippi Delta blues man Son House, walked into the Paramount recording studios in Grafton, Wisconsin and made some of the most outstanding country blues recordings ever made. In the same year, on the 11th of January, 4,000 miles away to the east, Johann Ferdinand Parth (aka Johnny) was born in a small school house in the poor district of Ottakring, situated in the Austrian capitol of Vienna. Sixty years later, both men’s names would appear on the second release of what has now become known as one of the most extraordinary and internationally acclaimed projects in the history of blues collecting and research; The Document Records Catalogue.

Music was part of Johnny’s life from the beginning. The area of his birth is renowned for being the home of the finest and most authentic Viennese folk music to be found. He remembers clearly the wandering troubadours singing in the streets where chickens would roam and the musician’s performances were rewarded by people who would drop small change down from their windows.

After studying art in Vienna, he began his profession as a portrait painter and restorer of paintings by the old masters.

During the war years Johnny was exposed to the sound of Afro American music when jazz records were played to him by his young friends who were the sons of underground anti Nazi resistance fighters. Against the austere backdrop of German occupied Austria, this free and liberated sound had a profound effect on the young Johnny Parth.

By the late forties he was completely hooked on the genre and was already in the process of amassing what was to become a huge library of jazz and blues recordings.

Like many true collectors, Johnny was eager not only to hear everything that he could get his hands on, which he did by forming an international network of like-minded collectors, but he was also keen to spread the news of his discoveries. Consequently, in the mid fifties, he created two record labels Jazz Perspective and Hot Club De Vienne. Productions on both labels were released in small quantities, sometimes as little as twenty or thirty at a time, manufactured with hand printed covers. These were sold locally to the budding fans of jazz.

The name Hot Club De Vienne was taken from a club which came under the ownership of Johnny where, like similar clubs in Britain, the exciting, syncopated, polyrhythmic sounds of jazz and blues was listened to, mainly by way of record listening sessions. Records would also be used as examples to illustrate lectures on the subject, which were given to dedicated followers of the music. The club still exists under the name of Jazz Land and is a well attended venue for a thriving Viennese blues and jazz scene.

Eventually, forty LPs were produced on the Jazz Perspective label. There was also a ten-volume box set, which illustrated the history of jazz. “We called it ‘The Coffin’” Johnny remembers “because it was a huge black box with gold lettering on it” In addition, a box set outlining blues music was also produced.

Another early landmark in Johnny’s energetic approach to the music at this time was his organising of the first Riverboat shuffle on the Danube which continues today .

He was responsible for the first ‘Catholic jazz mass’ in Europe with Johnny’s own band, known as the ‘Blue Danube Jass Band’ providing the music. The mass was well attended, even though the event left the priest with some explaining to do for the local bishop.

As a cornet player Johnny also led a brass band called ‘The First and Only Original and Superior, Alpha and Omega Brass Band Vienna’ which played for the May Day socialists marches.

During the early sixties his attention was being drawn towards the more primitive music of the blues. By then the first serious studies on the music had been published, such as ‘Shinning Trumpets’ by Rudi Blesh, ‘Blues Fell This Morning’ by Paul Oliver and ‘Country Blues’ by Sam Charters. Such books were having a profound influence on music fans and further investigations would help to quicken the pace towards the blues boom of the sixties both in America and Western Europe. In addition, at this time, the first significant re-issue albums of vintage country blues from the pre Second World War period began to appear. It was hearing Tommy Johnson and Son House on the Origin label that was a major turning point for Johnny.

Around the mid 60’s, he contacted Chris Strachwitz of Arhoolie records, Lightin’ Hopkins. During the conversation Chris told Johnny of an idea that he had of making field recordings of Austrian Folk music. A trip was organised and the two men set off to capture some of the finest recordings of their kind. On completion the recordings were released simultaneously on Arhoolie and on the 5000 series of the newly formed Roots label, headed by Johnny’s wife at the time, Evelyn who was also a keen jazz fan.

In the same initial phone call Chris suggested to Johnny the idea to use the new label to re-release vintage country blues recordings. It was shortly after this suggestion was made that Johnny produced the first country blues re-issue album under the Roots label; Blind Lemon Jefferson RL 301. Limited editions of no more than 300 copies were produced with their distinctive, mainly black and white, covers. There was only the barest of information given on the backs of the covers accompanied by the rather unlikely Austrian address of the company.

The sound of what were often extremely rare original records was transferred to LP with a minimum of artificial interference from the sound engineer. These recordings were rare and old and if a record was found in a junk store or the basement of a house in Chicago or Mississippi then what was heard on a Roots album was unashamedly close to what was found on the old, original record. To experience such finds were unknown to the majority of the world’s ever growing population of blues fans, so what the Roots label provided was the next best thing.

Johnny’s ever growing network of collectors now included the young Bernie Klatzko of Origin records who enthusiastically provided original recordings and there was also another young New York collector who provided recordings for the Roots label by the name of Nick Pearls, who later went on to create the Yazoo label.

By this time, Johnny was also assisting in the production of albums for the British based Saydisc Matchbox label.

After sixty albums were released the Roots label finally came to an end in 1970 and Johnny went back to painting. It would be another fifteen years before Johnny would return to record production. In the late 70’s he began to produce records for the Earl Archives label. First productions were of Austrian folk music, including a live album from which the profits were donated to Amnesty International . In 1980 he produced Austrian folk albums for EMI, and Columbia and by the mid 80’s he had begun producing blues albums again.

Anyone who was collecting re-issue blues albums during the sixties and seventies was, certainly by the nineteen eighties at least, encountering the frustration of only finding a limited amount of recordings by their favourite artists. Duplication of material on the limited amount of re-issue labels was inevitable. Inspired by the Black & White

Document has, among other things, the exclusive rights to a great deal of unreleased music and other audio media produced by the Edison Company between 1914 and 1929.

Artists

• Albert Ammons
• Kokomo Arnold
• Barbecue Bob
• Ed Bell
• Gladys Bentley
• Esther Bigeou
• Francis "Scrapper" Blackwell
• Ishmon Bracey
• Ada Brown
• Cleo Patra Brown
• Butterbeans and Susie
• Gus Cannon
• Leroy Carr
• Bo Carter
• Doctor Clayton
• Ida Cox
• Arthur Crudup
• Cow Cow Davenport
• Blind Gary Davis
• Walter Davis
• Sleepy John Estes
• Fisk University Jubilee Singers
• Blind Boy Fuller
• Lawrence Gellert
• Lillian Glinn
• Harlem Hamfats
• Jeff Harris
• Lucille Hegamin
• Rosa Henderson
• King Solomon Hill
• Mattie Hite
• Son House
• Rosetta Howard
• Alberta Hunter
• Mississippi John Hurt
• Skip James
• Blind Lemon Jefferson
• Monkey Joe
• Bunk Johnson
• Lonnie Johnson
• Margaret Johnson
• Curtis Jones
• Maggie Jones
• Charley Jordan
• Lottie Kimbrough
• Leadbelly
• Meade "Lux" Lewis
• Virginia Liston
• Cripple Clarence Lofton
• Daisy Martin
• Sara Martin
• Blind Willie McTell
• Memphis Minnie
• Monette Moore
• Romeo Nelson
• Paul Oliver
• Kid Ory
• Pace Jubilee Singers
• Joe Pullum
• Ma Rainey
• Clara Smith
• Laura Smith
• Mamie Smith
• Trixie Smith
• Victoria Spivey
• Roosevelt Sykes
• Hannah Sylvester
• Tampa Red
• Eva Taylor
• Johnny Temple
• Sister Rosetta Tharpe
• Hociel Thomas
• Jesse Thomas
• Ramblin' Thomas
• Bessie Tucker
• Sippie Wallace
• Washboard Sam
• Peetie Wheatstraw
• Josh White
• Ralph Willis
• Bill Wyman
• Jimmy Yancey

See also

• List of record labels

External links

• Official site