Wynonie Harris was an American blues shouter best remembered as a singer of upbeat songs, featuring humorous, often ribald lyrics. He had fifteen Top 10 hits between 1946 and 1952. Harris is attributed by many music scholars to be one of the founding fathers of rock and roll. His "Good Rocking Tonight" is mentioned at least as a precursor to rock and roll.
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).
Lucius Venable "Lucky" Millinder was an American swing and rhythm-and-blues bandleader. Although he could not read or write music, did not play an instrument and rarely sang, his showmanship and musical taste made his bands successful. His group was said to have been the greatest big band to play rhythm and blues, and gave work to a number of musicians who later became influential at the dawn of the rock and roll era. He was inducted into the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame in 1986.
Trixie Smith, was an American blues singer and film actress. She made four dozen recordings and appeared in five films.
Claude Driskett Hopkins was an American jazz stride pianist and bandleader.
Classic female blues was an early form of blues music, popular in the 1920s. An amalgam of traditional folk blues and urban theater music, the style is also known as vaudeville blues. Classic blues were performed by female singers accompanied by pianists or small jazz ensembles and were the first blues to be recorded. Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, Ethel Waters, and the other singers in this genre were instrumental in spreading the popularity of the blues.
Juanita Hall was an American musical theatre and film actress. She is remembered for her roles in the original stage and screen versions of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals South Pacific as Bloody Mary – a role that garnered her the Tony Award – and Flower Drum Song as Madame Liang.
That's Black Entertainment is a 1989 documentary film starring African-American performers and featuring clips from black films from 1929–1957, narrated and directed by William Greaves. The clips are from the Black Cinema Collection of the Southwest Film/Video Archives at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. It is 60 minutes long and was distributed by Video Communications of Tulsa, Oklahoma.
The Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame (AJHF) is an organization and museum in Birmingham, Alabama, United States. It was founded in 1978, and opened as museum on September 18, 1993, with a mission "to foster, encourage, educate, and cultivate a general appreciation of the medium of jazz music as a legitimate, original and distinctive art form indigenous to America. Its mission is also to preserve a continued and sustained program of illuminating the contribution of the State of Alabama through its citizens, environment, demographics and lore, and perpetuating the heritage of jazz music."
The Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame, Inc. (BFHFI), was founded in 1974, in Oakland, California. It supported and promoted black filmmaking, and preserved the contributions by African-American artists both before and behind the camera. It also sponsored advance screenings of films by and about people of African descent and hosted the Oscar Micheaux Awards Ceremony, held each February, from 1974 to 1993, in Oakland.
Edna Mae Harris, sometimes credited as Edna May Harris was an American actress and singer. Harris, an African–American, was film actress in the late 1930s and early 1940s, appearing in films featuring mostly African–American casts.
George James was an American jazz saxophonist, clarinetist, and flautist.
Francine Everett was an American actress and singer.
Murder on Lenox Avenue is a 1941 American race film directed by Arthur Dreifuss.
"Crazy Blues" is a song, renamed from the originally titled "Harlem Blues" song of 1918, written by Perry Bradford. Mamie Smith and Her Jazz Hounds recorded it on August 10, 1920, which was released that year by Okeh Records (4169-A). 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. Within a month of release, it had sold 75,000 copies.
Porter Grainger was an American pianist, songwriter, playwright, and music publisher.
Boarding House Blues is a 1948 American musical race film directed by Josh Binney which featured the first starring film role by Moms Mabley. It was the penultimate feature film of All-American News, a company that made newsreels for black Americans.
Sunday Sinners is a 1940 drama, comedy, musical and religious race film directed by and co-produced by Arthur Dreifuss and Jack Goldberg starring his wife Mamie Smith, Norman Astwood, Edna Mae Harris and Earl Sydnor.
