A single Black Swan record, the company’s sixth release, paired “Nobody Knows de Trouble I’ve Seen,” the well known Negro spiritual, with “By the Waters of Minnetonka,” a formal ballad inspired by a Sioux love song, both performed in a “concertized” manner (according to written arrangements, orchestrated for voice and piano, with the vocal embellishments familiar in European concert singing). A concert vocalist from Denver, C. Carroll Clark began his recording career in 1908 for Columbia, but according to the Chicago Defender (May 7, 1921), that company refused Clark’s request to have his photograph published in association with his recordings but would only do so with popular ballads and “coon songs.” He recorded six titles for Black Swan.

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