Black Patti

Black Patti Records was a short-lived American record label established in Chicago in 1927 by J. Mayo “Ink” Williams, a prominent African American record producer who had previously worked as a recording director for Paramount Records. The label was operated through the Chicago Record Company and was created to record and market African American performers during the era of “race records.”

Black Patti issued approximately 55 records during its roughly seven-month existence. Its catalog included blues, jazz, spirituals, sermons, and vaudeville performances, with most of the recordings by African American artists. Among the performers associated with the label were Willie Hightower, the Down Home Boys, the Pace Jubilee Singers, the Whitman Sisters, Trixie Williams, and Jaybird Coleman.

Williams did not operate his own recording or pressing plant. Much of the recording work was commissioned through Gennett Records, whose facilities in Richmond, Indiana, also pressed the Black Patti records. Some of the recordings were subsequently reissued on Gennett and other labels, sometimes under pseudonyms.

The label’s name honored Sissieretta Jones, the celebrated African American opera singer who was known as “Black Patti.” Black Patti ceased operations before the end of 1927, but its small catalog remains an important document of African American jazz, blues, gospel, and popular performance of the period.

Black Patti Discography