Arthur Charles Laibly (April 17, 1894 – October 30, 1971) was an American

record producer A record producer is a recording project's creative and technical leader, commanding studio time and coaching artists, and in popular genres typically creates the song's very sound and structure.Virgil Moorefield"Introduction" ''The Producer as ...

and sales manager. He was the first to make commercial recordings of

Blind Lemon Jefferson Lemon Henry "Blind Lemon" Jefferson (September 24, 1893 – December 19, 1929)Some sources indicate Jefferson was born on October 26, 1894. was an American blues and gospel singer-songwriter and musician. He was one of the most popular blues sing ...

and

Skip James Nehemiah Curtis "Skip" James (June 9, 1902October 3, 1969) was an American Delta blues singer, guitarist, pianist and songwriter. AllMusic stated: "This emotional, lyrical performer was a talented blues guitarist and arranger with an impressive ...

, and also recorded many other notable

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...

performers including Charley Patton and Son House, for

Paramount Records Paramount Records was an American record label known for its recordings of jazz and blues in the 1920s and early 1930s, including such artists as Ma Rainey, Tommy Johnson and Blind Lemon Jefferson. Early years Paramount Records was formed in 19 ...

in the 1920s and early 1930s. He was born in

Cincinnati, Ohio Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wit ...

, moving with his parents to Covington, Kentucky as a child. He played violin in local

dance bands (; "dance band"), or in Norwegian and Danish, is a Swedish term for a band that plays ("dance band music"). ' is often danced to in pairs. Jitterbug and foxtrot music are often included in this category. The music is primarily inspired by ...

, and later worked for a lumber company, before becoming a sales manager for the Wisconsin Chair Company, the parent company of Paramount Records, in Port Washington, Wisconsin. In 1925 he was appointed as Sales Manager and Recording Director at Paramount, with authority over

J. Mayo Williams Jay Mayo "Ink" Williams (September 25, 1894 – January 2, 1980) was a pioneering African-American producer of recorded blues music. Some historians have claimed that Ink Williams earned his nickname by his ability to get the signatures of t ...

. In late 1925,

Dallas Dallas () is the List of municipalities in Texas, third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of metropolitan statistical areas, fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 ...

record salesman R. T. Ashford wrote suggesting that Laibly record the then-unknown Blind Lemon Jefferson. He did so, in early 1926 in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

, and Jefferson's records became highly successful. Laibly also started recording further blues musicians, including

Bo Weavil Jackson Bo Weavil Jackson (dates and places of birth and death unknown) was an American blues singer and guitarist. He was one of the first country bluesmen to be recorded, in 1926, for Paramount Records and Vocalion Records. On the latter label he was ...

, Lucille Bogan, Charley Patton, Son House, and Skip James, who were recommended to him by talent agents in the

southern States Southern States may refer to: *The independent states of the Southern hemisphere United States * Southern United States, or the American South * Southern States Cooperative, an American farmer-owned agricultural supply cooperative * Southern Stat ...

such as

H. C. Speir H. C. Speir (October 6, 1895 – April 22, 1972) was an American "talent broker" and record store owner from Jackson, Mississippi. He was responsible for launching the recording careers of most of the greatest Mississippi blues musicians in th ...

. Laibly reportedly had little regard for the qualities of the music he was recording. He accepted recommendations from agents without auditioning the musicians, and his approach to recording was described as "whimsical"; when recording Son House in Grafton, Wisconsin, in 1930, for instance, Laibly would listen to a single verse of each song before deciding whether or not to record it. Stephen Calt, Gayle Dean Wardlow, "Paramount's Decline and Fall (part 5)"
''ParamountsHome.org''. Retrieved 19 September 2016. Laibly was dismissed by Paramount in 1931, partly as a result of the decline in record sales with the development of

radio Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmit ...

. He later worked as a salesman of other products, and as an

insurance agent Insurance is a means of protection from financial loss in which, in exchange for a fee, a party agrees to compensate another party in the event of a certain loss, damage, or injury. It is a form of risk management, primarily used to hedge ...

. He died in 1971.

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Laibly, Art 1894 births 1971 deaths American music industry executives Record producers from Ohio Record producers from Kentucky