"Crazy Blues" | |
---|---|
Single by Mamie Smith and Her Jazz Hounds | |
B-side | "It's Right Here For You (If You Don't Get It-'Taint No Fault O' Mine)" |
Released | 1920 |
Recorded | August 10, 1920 |
Genre | Blues |
Length | 3:26 |
Songwriter(s) | Perry Bradford |
Audio sample | |
"Crazy Blues" is a song, renamed from the originally titled "Harlem Blues" song of 1918, written by Perry Bradford. [1] Mamie Smith and Her Jazz Hounds recorded it on August 10, 1920, [2] which was released that year by Okeh Records (4169-A). [1] [3] The stride pianist Willie "The Lion" Smith appeared in photographs associated with the recording session, although Bradford claimed to have played piano on the recording (albeit buried in the mix). Within a month of release, it had sold 75,000 copies. [4]
Although there were many recordings made of songs with blues in the title during the previous decade, this recording is considered a landmark as the first significant hit recording in the blues genre ever issued. [5] Another claim is that it was the first recording with a blues title by a black artist. [6] The record made Smith the first African American female popular singer to lead a commercial recording. The success of "Crazy Blues" opened up the race record market, for the first time major record companies started producing records with an African American buyer in mind. [7]
"Crazy Blues" was entered into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1994, and later entered into the National Recording Registry of the United States Library of Congress by the National Recording Preservation Board in 2005. [1]
The 1920 Mamie Smith version of the song was used in episode 10 of season 1 of Boardwalk Empire in 2010. [8]
Bessie Smith was an African-American blues singer widely renowned during the Jazz Age. Nicknamed the "Empress of the Blues", she was the most popular female blues singer of the 1930s. Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1989, she is often regarded as one of the greatest singers of her era and was a major influence on fellow blues singers, as well as jazz vocalists.
The Original Dixieland Jass Band (ODJB) was a Dixieland jazz band that made the first jazz recordings in early 1917. Their "Livery Stable Blues" became the first jazz record ever issued. The group composed and recorded many jazz standards, the most famous being "Tiger Rag". In late 1917, the spelling of the band's name was changed to Original Dixieland Jazz Band.
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Mamie Smith was an American singer. As a vaudeville singer, she performed in multiple styles, including jazz and blues. In 1920, she entered blues history as the first African-American artist to make vocal blues recordings. Willie "The Lion" Smith described the background of these recordings in his autobiography Music on My Mind (1964).
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Perry Bradford was an American composer, songwriter, and vaudeville performer. His most notable songs included "Crazy Blues," "That Thing Called Love," and "You Can't Keep A Good Man Down." He was nicknamed "Mule" because of his stubbornness, and he is credited with finally persuading Okeh Records to work with Mamie Smith leading to her historic blues recording in 1920.
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