Tag Archives: blues singer

Mamie Smith’s “Crazy Blues”

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Mamie Smith’s 1920 recording of “Crazy Blues” was the first successful recording of a song by a blues singer. “Crazy Blues” is an important contribution to black music, but it presents some ethical problems. Mamie Smith’s success with “Crazy Blues” came as a surprise to record labels, but they soon realized that making records of blues songs was profitable. A newspaper article by a black writer from 1921 talks about the exploitation of black musicians by phonograph companies. The companies used these musicians of color to sell blues music to black record buyers, but still excluded other musicians of color who performed different kinds of music. This picking and choosing of what music to produce and sell contributes to the problem of erasure in black music. There are certain kinds of music that are recorded and preserved, but others aren’t, even if they are equally important.

“Crazy Blues” also brings up concerns with the development of blues. According to Elijah Wald, the discovery of race records by white people led to their reinterpretations and creation of new definitions that became very different from the original source. Karl Hagstrom Miller also acknowledges the fears of some people and their worry that the success of blues that stems from commercial record businesses covers up the Southern rural roots of blues. There were other arguments against Smith that mentioned that since she was from Cincinnati, she was not connected to the blues roots and was not a real blues singer. There are also complaints of Smith’s abilities as a blues singer, criticizing that she was not any better than other white singers.

Yet, Smith has been a key contributor to the development of blues, specifically the blues that became established and accepted. Wald defines blues as whatever the mass of black record buyers called the blues. This second newspaper article from 1920 calls Mamie Smith, “the only colored girl that sings for records, which we all like to hear.” Even though Mamie Smith’s recording contributed to record companies that not only perpetuated racial inequalities, but possibly altered the advancement and preservation of blues, it doesn’t change the fact that she was popular in the black community as a blues singer and helped define the true meaning of blues.

Sources

After You’ve Gone. Recorded June 18, 2014. 2014 Railroad, 2014, Streaming Audio. Accessed October 10, 2017.

“At the Howard Theater.” Washington Bee. December 18, 1920. Accessed October 9, 2017.

Crawford, Richard. America’s Musical Life. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2001.

Gussow, Adam. “‘Shoot Myself a Cop’: Mamie Smith’s ‘Crazy Blues’ as Social Text.” Callaloo, 25, no. 1 (2002): 8–44.

“In the World of Music.” Washington Bee. February 19, 1921. Accessed October 9, 2017.

Miller, Karl Hagstrom. Segregating Sound: Inventing Folk and Pop Music in the Age of Jim Crow. Durham: Duke University Press, 2010.

Wald, Elijah. Escaping the Delta: Robert Johnson and the Invention of the Blues. New York: Harper Collins, 2004.

The good book says you’ve got to reap just what you sow

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The blues tradition started with emotion. Albert Murray, a black novelist, commented that the blues were a way for one to “[Confront, acknowledge, and contend] with the infernal absurdities and ever-impending frustrations inherent in the nature of all experience.”1 Drawing from the oral music traditions of “field hollers” and call and response, the blues had a strong presence and role of importance in black American communities starting during the Reconstruction period before segregation laws.

One of the early recordings of Alberta Hunter and Lovie Austin’s Down-hearted blues was done in 19232 (the YouTube recording below is from 1939). It follows the typical AABA structure the blues would follow and makes use of call and response primarily between the singer and a clarinet. One thing that can be noted is the inflections Hunter uses as she sings. Many of the accents and emotive inflections she uses in her phrasing would not be written down in the music––such as shortening a note at the end of a phrase, sliding into or between notes and adding accented vibrato to a sustained note.

The subject matter deals with the singer being unhappy in the romantic situation she’s in. Hunter specifically sings about “the man that wrecked her life,” but beyond the relationship, the man could be extended to representing her job or position in society (especially important given the time this piece was written in). In the first verse, Hunter sings that “the good book says you’ve got to reap just what you sow,” which is acceptance for the situation that she’s in––something she could have arguably had very much or very little control over to begin with.

 

1. Hogue, W. Lawrence. Discourse and the Other: The Production of the Afro-American Text. Durham, North Carolina, NC: Duke University Press, 1986.

2. Hunter, Alberta and Austin Love. Tennessee Ten: Down-hearted blues. Victor, 1923, audio recording, http://www.loc.gov/jukebox/recordings/detail/id/9323.