Classic female blues
Classic female blues | |
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Stylistic origins |
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Cultural origins | Early 20th century, Southern U.S. |
Classic female blues was an early form of
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.[1] 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.[2][3] Rainey had heard a woman singing about the man she had lost, learned the song, and began using it as her closing number, calling it "the blues". Rainey's example was followed by other young women who followed her path in the tent show circuit, one of the few venues available to black performers. Most toured through a circuit established by the black-owned Theatre Owners Booking Association (T.O.B.A.) on the East Coast and through the South as far west as Oklahoma.
A key figure in popularizing the blues was the composer
1920s
In 1919, Handy and the
Blues recordings were marketed exclusively to African Americans,
The most popular of the classic blues singers was Tennessee-born Bessie Smith, who first recorded in 1923. Known as the "Empress of the Blues", she possessed a large voice with a "T'ain't Nobody's Bizness if I Do" attitude. Smith (who was unrelated to Mamie Smith) had toured on the T.O.B.A. circuit since 1912, originally as a chorus girl; by 1918 she was appearing in her own revue in Atlantic City, New Jersey.[13] She struggled initially to be recorded—three companies turned her down before she was signed by Columbia. She eventually became the highest-paid black artist of the 1920s and recorded over 160 songs.
Ma Rainey, whose popularity in the South was unrivaled, was little known in the cities of the North until 1923, when she made her first recordings.[14] She and Bessie Smith brought about a change in the style of the classic blues, as audiences came to prefer their rougher, earthier sound to that of the lighter-voiced, more refined blues singers who had preceded them on record.[15] Rainey recorded over 100 songs, 24 of them her own compositions. According to the jazz historian Dan Morgenstern, "Bessie Smith (and all the others who followed in time) learned their art and craft from Ma, directly or indirectly."[16]
Other classic blues singers who recorded extensively until the end of the 1920s were Ida Cox, Clara Smith, Sara Martin and Victoria Spivey and her cousin Sippie Wallace. Spivey, inspired by a Mamie Smith performance to become a blues singer, achieved overnight success in 1926, when Okeh released her first recording, her original "Black Snake Blues". In 1929 she appeared in the first all-black talking film.
Decline and revival
By 1928, the popularity of the classic blues style was waning.[17] With the success of the first commercial recordings of Blind Lemon Jefferson in 1926, a more "down-home", less urbane form of blues became popular, typically performed by men accompanying themselves on guitar or piano. The effect of the Great Depression on black vaudeville and the recording industry, and also the trend toward swing music in the 1930s, ended the careers of most of the classic blues singers.[18] Some, like Ethel Waters, adapted to changing musical styles; some, like Lucille Hegamin and Sara Martin, subsequently worked mainly outside the entertainment field; others, like Hattie McDaniel and Edith Wilson, became successful actors in film and radio. Bessie Smith died in a car crash in 1937, at the age of 41.[19] Lionel Hampton was quoted as saying, "Had she lived, Bessie would've been right up there on top with the rest of us in the Swing Era."[20]
With the downturn in the popularity of female blues singers, beginning about 1933 and 1934, some of these artists began performing and recording what became swing blues. Singers like
In the 1960s, a revival of interest in the blues brought Sippie Wallace, Alberta Hunter, Edith Wilson and Victoria Spivey back to the concert stage. In 1961, Spivey started her own record label, Spivey Records. In addition to recording herself, she recorded Lucille Hegamin, Memphis Slim, Lonnie Johnson among others.[21]
Significance
The classic female blues singers were pioneers in the
Daphne Duval Harrison wrote that the blues women's contributions included "increased improvisation on melodic lines, unusual phrasing which altered the emphasis and impact of the lyrics, and vocal dramatics using shouts, groans, moans, and wails. The blues women thus effected changes in other types of popular singing that had spin-offs in jazz, Broadway musicals, torch songs of the 1930s and 1940s, gospel, rhythm and blues, and eventually rock and roll."[22]
See also
Notes
- ^ a b Fabre and Feith 2001, p. 100.
- ^ Stewart-Baxter 1970, p. 38,
- ^ Harrison 1988, p. 34.
- ^ Randell 2003, p. 104.
- ^ Harrison 1988, p. 44. Lieb 1981, p. xi.
- ^ Harrison 1988, p. 46
- ^ a b Stewart-Baxter 1970, p. 12.
- ^ Stewart-Baxter 1970, p. 16.
- ^ Harris 1994, pp. 48, 137, 254, 484, 540, 580.
- ^ Steinberg and Fairweather 2011, p. 159.
- ^ Smith, Chris (1995). CD liner notes. Lucille Hegamin: Complete Recorded Works in Chronological Order, vol, 2: 1922–1923. Document Records DOCD-5420.
- ISBN 978-0-06-052427-2.
- ^ Harris 1994, pp. 462–463.
- ^ Harrison 1988, p. 35.
- ^ Stewart-Baxter 1970, p. 35.
- ISBN 978-1-4689-5445-6. Retrieved March 27, 2021.
- ^ Lieb 1981, p. xiv.
- ^ Harrison 1988, p. 61.
- ^ Moore, Carman (March 9, 1969). "Blues and Bessie Smith". The New York Times. pp. 262, 270. Retrieved April 27, 2020.
- ISBN 978-1-4689-5445-6. Retrieved March 27, 2021.
- ^ "Victoria Spivey". Thebluestrail.com. Retrieved November 19, 2011.
- ^ a b Harrison 1988, p. 8.
References
- ISBN 0-300-09902-9.
- ISBN 0-679-77126-3.
- Fabre, Geneviève; Feith, Michel (2001). Temples for Tomorrow: Looking Back at the Harlem Renaissance. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press.
- ISBN 0-306-80155-8.
- Harrison, Daphne Duval (1988). Black Pearls: Blues Queens of the '20s. ISBN 0-8135-1279-4.
- Lieb, Sandra (1981). Mother of the Blues: A Study of Ma Rainey. ISBN 0-87023-394-7.
- Placksin, Sally (1982). American Women in Jazz: 1900 to the Present. ISBN 0-87223-756-7.
- ISBN 0-674-01163-5.
- Steinberg, Jesse R.; Fairweather, Abrol (eds.) (2011). Blues: Thinking Deep About Feeling Low. ISBN 0-470-65680-8.
- Stewart-Baxter, Derrick (1970). Ma Rainey and the Classic Blues Singers. New York: ISBN 0-8128-1321-9.