Race Records and
Hillbilly Music
Musical Diversification
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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
Race Records and Hillbilly Music
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Terms used by the American music industry to
classify and advertise southern music.
Race Records
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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
Mamie Smith (1883–1946)
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.

Race Music

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
Race Records

The performances released on race records
included a variety of musical styles:
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Blues
Jazz
Gospel choirs
Vocal quartets
String bands
Jug-and-washboard bands
Verbal performances
– Sermons
– Stories
– Comic routines
The Blues
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
Blues Form
A standard rhythmic harmonic structure in
which a twelve-bar chord progression is
tied to the AAB text in three four-bar
phrases.
 It is also called “twelve-bar blues.”

Text of a Blues Song

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
Form of a Blues Song
Melodic form—each line is sung to its own
melodic idea.
 Rhythmic form—each phrase of a standard
blues chorus lasts four bars. One chorus of
a blues song is twelve measures long
(3x4).
 Harmonic form—the harmony of a blues
song is I, IV, and V chords.

Twelve-Bar Blues

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
I
IV
I
V IV
I
Classic Blues

Classic blues songs were performed by
high-class nightclub singers.
Alberta Hunter (1895–1984)
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Billed as the “Marian Anderson of the Blues”
Ethel Waters (1896–1977)

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Entertained the growing African American middle class
in New York, Chicago, and other northern cities
Classic Blues

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.
Bessie Smith (1894–1937)
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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
W. C. Handy (1873–1958)
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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.
Listening: “St. Louis Blues,” by W. C. Handy,
sung by Bessie Smith (1925)
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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.
Listening: “St. Louis Blues,” by W. C.
Handy, sung by Bessie Smith (1925)

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

A
– a. Feelin’ tomorrow like I do today
– a. Feelin’ tomorrow like I do today
Listening: “St. Louis Blues,” by W. C.
Handy, sung by Bessie Smith (1925)

B
 a.
 b.
 a.
 b.
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St. Louis woman…
Pulls my man around…
Wasn’t for powder…
The man I love…
C
I got them St. Louis blues…