He has, though not as much on his own labels as he has licensed things out
from Paramount to others.
A few years ago -- actually maybe a decade ago -- I talked to George on the
phone about it, and he was
telling me how mad he was at the majors for making the down payment on a
master used in a compilation
only and never following up with the rest. He said, "I go back year after
year and ask 'where's the money'
and someone tells me 'I'm sorry that release didn't make enough this year
to justify a payout.'"

John Steiner reissued Paramount material on 78s via William Russell's
American Music label, and a postwar
Paramount label that also came through the same situation as AM. Plus the
Steiner-Davis label that Steiner
himself ran a bit earlier. Riverside's many releases from Paramount also
came through Steiner -- the Milestone
album "Boogie Woogie Rareities 1927-1932" was almost entirely made up of
discs that appeared on AM or the
latter-day Paramount label, sourced from the reissues and not from
originals. There are numerous store stock
copies of these releases in the Russell collection in New Orleans, and
during the ARSC Conference in New
Orleans I tried to convince the museum to contribute one to our auction,
but they wouldn't even discuss it.
Which I chalk up to "Nice try, Uncle Dave."

Concord Music Group now actually owns Gennett. However, there are
additional components to this that remain
an Ivesian "unanswered question" yet today. Of course, no one "owns"
anything if it was recorded before January 1,
1923, though it is customary to at least clear some of these things, that's
in the law, though it is not regarded as
absolute. However, Paramount is a special case in that they released
masters created through studios other than
their own exclusively through mid-1929. And we do not know where all of
these came from; some from Marsh, some
from the Rodeheaver studio, some BD&M, some NYRL and even perhaps the
Brunswick studio in Chicago and many
where we do not know where they originated at all.

If it's from Gennett, that's at least obvious. You've got the ledger and
you've got the concentric ring spiral and cursive
script mx. number at least through to 1925. But these labels traded so many
masters back and forth that it's hard to
know how to pinpoint rights administration for some records. It's a
critical aspect to my work with the Rainbow Records
label. I know of at least one disc that was recorded by Rainbow, dubbed at
Gennett and re-released, after 1924, on
Silvertone. So who owns that record? Is the original 1921 recording clear
by virtue of its date, or are one of the derivative
issues somehow protected? If the same master appears on both Paramount and
Triangle is the Paramount protected and
the rarer Triangle not so? Food for thought.

Dave Lewis
Lebanon, OH



On Sun, Nov 3, 2013 at 7:16 PM, Mark Hendrix <[log in to unmask]>wrote:

> Dave Lewis wrote, "George Buck purchased the rights to Paramount from
> Steiner."
>
> thank you, Dave.  I thought it was the folks  behind Riverside Records, But
> I guess they were the ones who purchased what was left of Genett.
>
> Did Buck, with his various label imprints, ever do anything with what he
> purchased from Steiner?  I have reissues of Paramount recordings on many
> labels, but I can't think of any that I have that put out by Buck.
>
> Best wishes, Mark
>