American Indian Soundchiefs

Also known as American Indian Soundchief. Founded in 1948 by by Rev. Linn D. Pauahty, this was the second Native American-owned record company. Pauahty was a Kiowa Indian Methodist minister who began collecting songs of the Plains tribes in 1943, when the church assigned him to record the tribes comprising the Indian missions for use in the film Great Spirit of the Plains. He formed the American Indian Soundchiefs Corporation with radio host Don Whistler and began marketing 78-rpm pressings in 1949. LPs were introduced in the early 1950s. Pauahty maintained a professionally equipped recording studio in his living room. He amassed a collection of four-thousand recordings before his death in 1989. These recordings were purchased by Tony Isaacs (2), who has reissued many of them on CDs on his Indian House label.