Mamie Smith
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The Golden Age of the Blues
The first true recorded blues song was "Crazy Blues,"
a Perry Bradford song recorded by the inimitable Cincinnati native
Mamie Smith and her Jazz Hounds on August 10, 1920. The story
behind this song is an interesting one. While white female singers
like Marion Harris had scored huge hits mimicking black singers,
record company officials felt the market for authentic black singers
was too small to matter.
Bradford went door to door trying to convince a record company
to take a chance on himself and Mamie Smith; he finally found
a patron in Fred Hager of Okeh Records, who braved a threatened
boycott of his label when he brought in Smith to record a couple
of ballads in February 1920. The songs did not sell as well as
Bradford had hoped, but they did warrant a return performance.
The second recording session resulted in "Crazy Blues,"
a release that sold an amazing 75,000 copies within a mere month
of its November release. It was the start of a sensation.
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