In the early days of 78 rpm record-pressing, furniture stores would package their phonograph cabinets with recorded music to help sell the product. This led the Wisconsin Chair Company to construct a studio at this location for their Paramount Records label, near their furniture plant and record plants in Port Washington, WI.
Charley Patton recorded a number of profitable songs at here, so he was sent out to find other blues artists and bring them to Grafton. Son House, the Mississippi Sheiks, Tommy Johnson, and a number of other artists recorded here.
From Paramountshome.org:
"One fourth of the nation's 'race records' were pressed in Grafton, WI. Over 1600 songs were recorded in Grafton between 1929 and 1932. Over 60 African Americans recorded their blues, spirituals, and even sermons in a 'make-shift' studio of an old chair factory, opposite of the pressing plant."
