Throughout the 1920s, the Manhattan studio saw artists such as Bailey's Lucky Seven, the Original Memphis Five under the pseudonym Ladd's Black Aces, and in November 1924, Louis Armstrong and the Red Onion Jazz Babies.

[10][9] Gennett was one of the few companies to have a recording facility outside of New York, a move which allowed the label to capture Midwestern and Southern artists.

[2] Their locality also led to their recordings being appealing to Black individuals and other rural peoples who were largely neglected by the leading New York labels.

"[12] Gennett recorded early jazz musicians Jelly Roll Morton, Bix Beiderbecke, The New Orleans Rhythm Kings,[4] King Oliver's band with Louis Armstrong, Lois Deppe's Serenaders with Earl Hines,[13] Hoagy Carmichael, Duke Ellington, The Red Onion Jazz Babies, The State Street Ramblers, Zack Whyte and his Chocolate Beau Brummels, Alphonse Trent and his Orchestra and many others.

Many of these jazz artists, such as Morton, the Rhythm Kings, and Oliver's band were popular at the Lincoln Gardens and the Friar's Inn nightclubs and had been sent by train to rural Richmond by Chicago, Illinois Starr Piano store manager and talent scout Fred Wiggins.

[14][8][15][16] Gennett notably was among the first to record people of color and racially integrated sessions,[3][16] despite over twenty percent of Wayne County's white male population being members of the Ku Klux Klan.

[17] Throughout the 1920s, Gennett pressed vanity records for the Ku Klux Klan with red labels and gold KKK lettering, often listing performers such as the "100 percent Americans."

Blues artists from Chicago, such as Georgia Tom Dorsey, Big Bill Broonzy, and Scrapper Blackwell, recorded in Richmond.

[22] The Birmingham, Alabama store, in July and August 1927 under the direction of recording engineer Gordon Soule, which attracted many Southern country blues artists such as Jaybird Coleman and Johnny Watson under the name Daddy Stove Pipe.

[11] From September to November 1927, portable sound equipment was set up in the Hotel Lowry in St. Paul, Minnesota where primarily Swedish, German, and Polish folk music was recorded.

[24] Many of the recording artists used pseudonyms, such as the Seven Champions for Bailey's Lucky Seven, Skillet Dick and His Frying Pans for Syd Valentine and His Patent Leather Kids - a Black Indiana jazz trio, and the Hill Top Inn Orchestra for Guy Lombardo and His Royal Canadians.

In 1923, orator and statesman William Jennings Bryan traveled to Richmond to record portions of his 1896 Cross of Gold speech, which was released in 1924.

[28] Throughout the 1930s, Fred Wiggins sold thousands of metal discs, which would be worth millions after Gennett's rise to fame, for scrap money, likely to make payroll for Starr Piano employess.

Kapp attempted to revive the Gennett and Champion labels between 1935 and 1937 specializing in bargain pressings of race and old-time music with but little success.

[27] The Starr record plant soldiered on under the supervision of Harry Gennett through the remainder of the decade by offering contract pressing services.

[30] Joe Davis purchased the Gennett shellac allocation, some of which he used for his own labels, and some of which he sold to the newly formed Capitol Records.

Gennett sold decreasing numbers of special purpose records (mostly sound effects, skating rink, and church tower chimes) until 1947 or 1948, and the business then faded away.