The empty tower that looms over Whitewater Gorge in Richmond, Indiana is the last vestige of what was once a highly influential American recording label.  While never very profitable, Gennett Records holds a number of distinctions important to the development of American music.  It was here, in Richmond, that some of the first jazz recordings were made, and a series of other important performers, from Wilbur Sweatman to Guy Lombardo to Gene Autry, waxed their music in the cramped, overheated studio built just off the railroad tracks. Gennett Records was founded in 1917 and named after Henry Gennett, then the president of the Starr Piano Company.  In 1915, Starr Piano started building phonograph machines to compete with models such as … Continued