In August, 1920, Crazy Blues sung by Mamie Smith and composed by Perry Bradford was recorded on the Okeh label. 

This is the first blues record which was played by African-American musicians. 

The Okeh label promoted black American records as “Race Records”. 

Crazy Blues sold about 75,000 copies a month.

Inspired by that success, other record companies also started recording nonwhite entertainers’ songs.

 

These records were scored by professional composers.

The first orthodox blues were recorded in February 1923, when Bessie Smith, known as the Empress of the Blues, recorded Downhearted Blues. 

Including other Jazz-Blues style singers, such as Ma Rainey who recorded on Paramount in the same year, the early 1920’s female blues were called “Classic Blues”. 

These Classic Blues divas sang normalized blues backed by jazz bands consisting of piano, horns and drums.

Most Classic Blues singers played on the second company of the African-American minstrel shows for training. 

The minstrel show was a discriminatory entertainment in which a white comedian in black face rolled his eyes and sang a song while strumming a banjo.

 

After the Civil War, minstrels consisting only of black people had appeared.

 As further information, the “Jim Crow laws” which were established after the Civil War were named after the 1828 minstrel tune, Jump Jim Crow.

From the end of the 19th century, music called “jag band”, in which a group of people played instruments made of washboards and tin cans, had existed in Southern cities and the countryside.  

Jag band had taken root in Southern towns especially in Louisville, Kentucky, and later jag bands in Louisville formed a knot of jazz bands. 

To Be Continued