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Classic Female Blues
Classic female blues was an early form of blues music, popular in the 1920s. An amalgam of traditional folk blues and urban theater music, the style is also known as vaudeville blues. Classic blues were performed by female singers accompanied by pianists or small jazz ensembles and were the first blues to be recorded. Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, Ethel Waters, and the other singers in this genre were instrumental in spreading the popularity of the blues. History Origin Blues, a type of black folk music originating in the American South, were mainly in the form of work songs until about 1900.Fabre and Feith 2001, p. 100. Gertrude “Ma” Rainey (1886–1939), known as "The Mother of the Blues”, is credited as the first to perform the blues on stage as popular entertainment when she began incorporating blues into her act of show songs and comedy around 1902. Rainey had heard a woman singing about the man she had lost, learned the song, and began using it as her closing number, calli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
American Folk Music
The term American folk music encompasses numerous music genres, variously known as ''traditional music'', ''traditional folk music'', ''contemporary folk music'', ''vernacular music,'' or ''roots music''. Many traditional songs have been sung within the same family or folk group for generations, and sometimes trace back to such origins as the British Isles, Mainland Europe, or Africa. Musician Mike Seeger once famously commented that the definition of American folk music is "...all the music that fits between the cracks." American folk music is a broad category of music including bluegrass, gospel, old time music, jug bands, Appalachian folk, blues, Cajun and Native American music. The music is considered American either because it is native to the United States or because it developed there, out of foreign origins, to such a degree that it struck musicologists as something distinctly new. It is considered "roots music" because it served as the basis of music later develope ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Okeh
Okeh Records () is an American record label founded by the Otto Heinemann Phonograph Corporation, a phonograph supplier established in 1916, which branched out into phonograph records in 1918. The name was spelled "OkeH" from the initials of Otto K. E. Heinemann but later changed to "OKeh". Since 1926, Okeh has been a subsidiary of Columbia Records, a subsidiary of Sony Music. Okeh is a jazz imprint, distributed by Sony Masterworks, a specialty label of Columbia. Early history Okeh was founded by Otto (Jehuda) Karl Erich Heinemann (Lüneburg, Germany, 20 December 1876 - New York, USA, 13 September 1965) a German-American manager for the U.S. branch of Odeon Records, which was owned by Carl Lindstrom. In 1916, Heinemann incorporated the Otto Heinemann Phonograph Corporation, set up a recording studio and pressing plant in New York City, and started the label in 1918. The first discs were vertical cut, but later the more common lateral-cut method was used. The label's parent ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Beale Street Blues
"Beale Street Blues" is a song by American composer and lyricist W.C. Handy. It was named after Beale Street, a center of African-American music in Memphis, Tennessee, and was published in 1917. Background The title refers to Beale Street in Memphis, Tennessee, an entertainment district for the city's African-American population in the early part of the 20th century. Accounts of Handy's inspiration vary: one is that he observed a pianist playing in a cafe on that street; another credits a barber commenting on closing early because no one had been murdered on the street that day. Composition and lyrics "Beale Street Blues" "juxtaposes the 12-bar blues form with an 8-bar counter-theme". The song was published in 1917. Difficulty in securing a good publishing deal meant that Handy published it himself. Early versions The publication of the song coincided with the beginning of jazz recordings. An early version by Earl Fuller's Famous Jazz Band earned Handy's firm $2,857 in royalties ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Saint Louis Blues (song)
"The Saint Louis Blues" (or "St. Louis Blues") is a popular American song composed by W. C. Handy in the blues style and published in September 1914. It was one of the first blues songs to succeed as a pop song and remains a fundamental part of jazz musicians' repertoire. Benny Goodman, Louis Armstrong, Cab Calloway, Bing Crosby, Bessie Smith, Count Basie, Glenn Miller, Guy Lombardo, Peanuts Hucko, and the Boston Pops Orchestra (under the directions of both Arthur Fiedler and Keith Lockhart) are among the artists who have recorded it. The song has been called "the jazzman's ''Hamlet''". Composer William Grant Still arranged a version of the song in 1916 while working with Handy. The 1925 version sung by Bessie Smith, with Louis Armstrong on cornet, was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1993. The 1929 version by Louis Armstrong & His Orchestra (with Red Allen) was inducted in 2008. History Handy said he had been inspired by a chance meeting with a woman on the streets of S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marion Harris
Marion Harris (born Mary Ellen Harrison; April 4, 1896 – April 23, 1944) was an American popular singer who was most successful in the late 1910s and the 1920s. She was the first widely known white singer to sing jazz and blues songs.Ward, Elijah (2005). ''Escaping the Delta''. . Early life She was born Mary Ellen Harrison on April 4, 1896, probably in Indiana. She sang in vaudeville and movie theaters in Chicago around 1914. The dancer Vernon Castle introduced her to the theater community in New York City, where she debuted in the Irving Berlin revue ''Stop! Look! Listen!'' in 1915. Recordings In 1916, she began recording for Victor Records, singing a variety of songs, such as "Everybody's Crazy 'bout the Doggone Blues, but I'm Happy", " After You've Gone", "A Good Man Is Hard to Find", "When I Hear That Jazz Band Play" and her biggest success, "I Ain't Got Nobody" (originally titled "I Ain't Got Nobody Much"). In 1920, after Victor prevented her from recording W.C. Handy's " ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paramount Records
Paramount Records was an American record label known for its recordings of jazz and blues in the 1920s and early 1930s, including such artists as Ma Rainey, Tommy Johnson and Blind Lemon Jefferson. Early years Paramount Records was formed in 1918 by United Phonographs, a subsidiary of the Wisconsin Chair Company, which trademarked its record brand from Port Washington and began issuing records the following year on the Puritan and Paramount labels. Puritan lasted only until 1927, but Paramount, based in the factory of its parent company in Grafton, Wisconsin, published some of the nation's most important early blues recordings between 1929 and 1932. The label's offices were located in Port Washington, Wisconsin and the pressing plant was located at 1819 S. Green Bay Road in Grafton. The label was managed by Fred Dennett Key. The Wisconsin Chair Company made wooden phonograph cabinets for Edison Records. In 1915 it started making its own phonographs in the name of its subsidiary ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Race Records
Race records were 78 rpm, 78-rpm phonograph records marketed to African Americans between the 1920s and 1940s.Oliver, Paul. "Race record." Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. 13 Feb. 2015. They primarily contained race music, comprising various African-American musical genres, blues, jazz, and gospel music, Rhythm and blues and also comedy. These records were, at the time, the majority of commercial recordings of African American artists in the U.S., and few African American artists were marketed to white audiences. Race records were marketed by Okeh Records, Emerson Records, Vocalion Records, Victor Talking Machine Company, Paramount Records, and several other companies. History Before the rise of the record industry in America, the cost of phonographs prevented most African Americans from listening to recorded music. At the turn of the twentieth century, the cost of listening to music went down, providing a majority of Americans with the ability to afford records. The pri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pittsburgh Courier
The ''Pittsburgh Courier'' was an African-American weekly newspaper published in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, from 1907 until October 22, 1966. By the 1930s, the ''Courier'' was one of the leading black newspapers in the United States. It was acquired in 1965 by John H. Sengstacke, a major black publisher and owner of the ''Chicago Defender''. He re-opened the paper in 1967 as the '' New Pittsburgh Courier'', making it one of his four newspapers for the African-American audience. Creation and incorporation The paper was founded by Edwin Nathaniel Harleston, who worked as a guard at the H. J. Heinz Company food packing plant in Pittsburgh. Harleston, a self-published poet, began printing the paper at his own expense in 1907. Generally about two pages, it was primarily a vehicle for Harleston's work. He printed around ten copies, which he sold for five cents apiece.Buni, p. 42. In 1909, Edward Penman, Hepburn Carter, Scott Wood Jr., and Harvey Tanner joined Harleston to run the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Chicago Defender
''The Chicago Defender'' is a Chicago-based online African-American newspaper. It was founded in 1905 by Robert S. Abbott and was once considered the "most important" newspaper of its kind. Abbott's newspaper reported and campaigned against Jim Crow-era violence and urged black people in the American South to settle in the north in what became the Great Migration. Abbott worked out an informal distribution system with Pullman porters who surreptitiously (and sometimes against southern state laws and mores) took his paper by rail far beyond Chicago, especially to African American readers in the southern United States. Under his nephew and chosen successor, John H. Sengstacke, the paper dealt with racial segregation in the United States, especially in the U.S. military, during World War II. Copies of the paper were passed along in communities, and it is estimated that at its most successful, each copy was read by four to five people. In 1919–1922, the ''Defender'' attracted t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Esther Bigeou
Esther Bigeou (1892 – November 15, 1936) was an American vaudeville and blues singer. Billed as "The Girl with the Million Dollar Smile", she was one of the classic female blues singers popular in the 1920s. Biography She was born in New Orleans, Louisiana in about 1892. Several members of her extended family were musicians; the drummer Paul Barbarin was her cousin. Harris, Sheldon (1994). ''Blues Who's Who''. (Rev. ed.). New York: Da Capo Press. p. 48. . In 1913 she began touring in vaudeville with the performer and playwright Irvin C. Miller; they later married. In 1917 Bigeou appeared as a singer, dancer, and recitalist in the revue ''Broadway Rastus'', written by Miller, at the Standard Theater in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the Lafayette Theater in New York City, and the Orpheum Theater in Baltimore, Maryland. She recorded for OKeh Records in 1921 and 1923 and toured the Theater Owners Booking Association vaudeville circuit with the Billy King Company in 1923. From 1923 to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edith Wilson (singer)
Edith Wilson ( Goodall; September 2, 1896 – March 31, 1981) was a blues singer, vaudeville performer, and actress from Louisville, Kentucky, US. An African-American who performed and recorded in the classic female blues style in the 1920s, Wilson worked in vaudeville and stage productions, first in Louisville and later throughout the US and abroad. From the 1930s onward, she acted in radio plays and television, and from 1948 to 1966 represented the Aunt Jemima brand for Quaker Oats in personal appearances and on television. She remained an active performer until 1980. Biography She was born Edith Goodall on September 2, 1896, in Louisville, Kentucky, to Susan Jones and Hundley Goodall. (Her birthdate is often stated as ten years later, but this was due to vanity.) Her first professional experience came in 1919 in Louisville's Park Theater. The singer Lena Wilson and her brother, Danny, performed in Louisville; she joined their act. Edith was married to Danny Wilson fro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Katie Crippen
Catherine "Katie" Crippen (November 17, 1895 – November 25, 1929), also billed as Little Katie Crippen or Ella White, was an American entertainer and singer. Career Crippen was born in Philadelphia to an African-American family. She performed at Edmond's Cellar in New York City about 1920.Harris 1994, p. 137. In 1921, she recorded four sides for Black Swan Records in the classic female blues style under her name and one under the pseudonym of Ella White, accompanied by Fletcher Henderson's Orchestra.Allen 1973, pp. 18, 576. She toured in 1922–23 as the star of a revue, "Liza and Her Shuffling Sextet", which included Fats Waller. She subsequently formed a revue, "Katie Crippen and Her Kids", in which she was accompanied by a teenaged Count Basie. She was managed by her husband and musician Lou Henry."Allen" 1973, p. 576 In the later 1920s she appeared in revues at the Lafayette Theater in New York City and toured the RKO theater circuit with Dewey Brown as Crippen & Brown. A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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