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Record companies targeted new audiences between World War I and
World War II (1918–40).
Recorded music derived from the folk traditions of the American South
– Migration of millions of people from rural communities to cities such as New York,
Chicago, Detroit, Atlanta, and Nashville in the years following World War I

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Terms used by the American music industry to classify and advertise southern music.
Race Records
– Recordings of performances by African American musicians produced mainly for sale to African
American listeners
Hillbilly or Old-Time
– Music performed by and intended for sale to southern whites

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Known as the “Queen of the Blues”
Pioneer blues singer, pianist, and black vaudeville performer
In 1920, she recorded the bestsellers “Crazy
Blues” and “It's Right Here For You, If You Don't
Get It, 'Tain't No Fault of Mine.”
Mamie Smith’s success as a recording artist opened up the record industry to recordings by and for African Americans.

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The term was first applied by Ralph Peer
(1892–1960).
– A Missouri-born talent scout for Okeh
Records
– Had worked as an assistant on Mamie
Smith’s first recording sessions

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The performances released on race records included a variety of musical styles:
– Blues
– Jazz
– Gospel choirs
– Vocal quartets
– String bands
– Jug-and-washboard bands
Verbal performances
– Sermons
– Stories
– Comic routines

Definitions:
1. Describes a feeling—“I’ve got the blues”
2. Refers to the blues style of singing or playing
– blues vocals—like intensified speech
– narrow range; rough, highly inflected timbre
3. Indicates a musical form—twelve-bar chorus, AAB text

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A standard rhythmic harmonic structure in which a twelve-bar chord progression is tied to the AAB text in three four-bar phrases.
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It is also called “twelve-bar blues.”

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Rhymed couplet—each chorus of a blues song contains two lines of text with the first line repeated. The text is AAB:
–
–
–
I hate to see the eve-nin’ sun go down
I hate to see the eve-nin’ sun go down
It makes me think I’m on my last go-round

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Melodic form—each line is sung to its own melodic idea.
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Rhythmic form—each phrase of a standard blues chorus lasts four bars. One chorus of a blues song is twelve measures long
(3x4).
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Harmonic form—the harmony of a blues song is I, IV, and V chords.

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I
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
IV I V IV I

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Classic blues songs were performed by high-class nightclub singers.
 Alberta Hunter (1895–1984)
– Billed as the “Marian Anderson of the Blues”
 Ethel Waters (1896–1977)
– Entertained the growing African American middle class in New York, Chicago, and other northern cities

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Singers who performed in a somewhat rougher style
 Gertrude “Ma” Rainey (1886–1939)
– Popularly known as the “Mother of the Blues”
 Bessie Smith (1894–1937)
– “Empress of the Blues”
Rainey and Smith developed their singing styles in the rough-and-tumble black vaudeville and tent shows.

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The “Empress of the Blues”
The most important and influential of the woman blues singers from the early twentieth century.
Born in Chattanooga, Tennessee; began recording in 1923
Stylistically a blues singer even when performing novelty and vaudeville numbers; had a majestic voice
The centerpiece of Columbia’s race record labels

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The “Father of the Blues”
– The most influential of the classic blues composers
– Son of a conservative pastor who forbade him from playing the guitar
 Learned to play the cornet instead
– Went on to college, received a degree, and became a schoolteacher
Handy cofounded the first African American–owned publishing house.
His music owed much to Tin Pan Alley as well as
African American folk traditions.
His biggest hit was “St. Louis Blues,” written in 1914.

Listening: “St. Louis Blues,” by W. C. Handy, sung by Bessie Smith (1925)
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This was the type of recording that introduced much of white America to the blues.
A hybrid approach to the blues
– Removed from the “down-home” interpretation by country blues performers and composers such as Charley Patton and
Blind Lemon Jefferson.

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Listening: “St. Louis Blues,” by W. C. Handy, sung by Bessie Smith (1925)
Accompaniment
— reed organ and cornet
– Louis Armstrong on cornet
– Fred Longshaw on reed organ
Call and response between cornet and Smith
Form
– Based on the AABA model commonly seen in Tin
Pan Alley songs
– The final section is really a “C,” having a new melody but relating to the earlier “A” section of chords.
– The “A” and “C” sections represent the twelve-bar blues.

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A
– a. I hate to see the eve-nin’ sun go down
– a. I hate to see the eve-nin’ sun go down
– b. It makes me think I’m on my last go-round
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A
– a. Feelin’ tomorrow like I do today
– a. Feelin’ tomorrow like I do today

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B
 a.
 b.
 a.
 b.
St. Louis woman…
Pulls my man around…
Wasn’t for powder…
The man I love…
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C
I got them St. Louis blues…