Editing Blues (section)

===Pre-war blues===
The American [[sheet music]] publishing industry produced a great deal of [[ragtime]] music. By 1912, the sheet music industry had published three popular blues-like compositions, precipitating the [[Tin Pan Alley]] adoption of blues elements: "Baby Seals' Blues", by [[Baby Franklin Seals]] (arranged by [[Artie Matthews]]); "Dallas Blues", by [[Hart Wand]]; and "[[The Memphis Blues]]", by [[W.C. Handy]].<ref>Garofalo, p. 27. Garofalo cited Barlow in "Handy's sudden success demonstrated [the] commercial potential of [the blues], which in turn made the genre attractive to the Tin Pan Alley hacks, who wasted little time in turning out a deluge of imitations." (Parentheticals in Garofalo.)</ref>

[[File:W. C. Handy - The "St. Louis Blues" - First page.jpg|thumb|upright=0.9|Sheet music from "[[Saint Louis Blues (song)|Saint Louis Blues]]" (1914)]]
Handy was a formally trained musician, composer, and arranger who helped to popularize the blues by transcribing and orchestrating blues in an almost symphonic style, with bands and singers. He became a popular and prolific composer, and billed himself as the "Father of the Blues"; however, his compositions can be described as a fusion of blues with ragtime and jazz, a merger facilitated using the Cuban [[habanera (music)|habanera]] rhythm that had long been a part of ragtime;<ref name="cgkmik"/><ref name="trkeja">Garofalo, p. 27</ref> Handy's signature work was the "[[Saint Louis Blues (song)|Saint Louis Blues]]".

In the 1920s, the blues became a major element of African-American and American popular music, also reaching white audiences via Handy's arrangements and the classic female blues performers.  These female performers became perhaps the first African-American "superstars", and their recording sales demonstrated "a huge appetite for records made by and for black people."<ref>{{Cite news |last=Lynskey |first=Dorian |date=2021-02-16 |title=The forgotten story of America's first black superstars |language=en |url=https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20210216-the-forgotten-story-of-americas-first-black-superstars |website=Bbc.co.uk|access-date=2022-02-22}}</ref>  The blues evolved from informal performances in bars to entertainment in theaters. Blues performances were organized by the [[Theater Owners Booking Association]] in [[nightclub]]s such as the [[Cotton Club]] and [[juke joint]]s such as the bars along [[Beale Street]] in Memphis. Several record companies, such as the [[American Record Corporation]], [[Okeh Records]], and [[Paramount Records]], began to record African-American music.

As the recording industry grew, [[country blues]] performers like [[Bo Carter]], [[Jimmie Rodgers (country singer)|Jimmie Rodgers]], [[Blind Lemon Jefferson]], [[Lonnie Johnson (musician)|Lonnie Johnson]], [[Tampa Red]], and [[Blind Blake]] became more popular in the African-American community. Kentucky-born [[Sylvester Weaver (musician)|Sylvester Weaver]] was in 1923 the first to record the [[slide guitar]] style, in which a guitar is fretted with a knife blade or the sawed-off neck of a bottle.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://members.aye.net/~kbsblues/awards.htm#Weaver|title=Kentuckiana Blues Society|website=Members.aye.net|access-date=September 26, 2008}}</ref> The slide guitar became an important part of the [[Delta blues]].<ref name="bkihns">Clarke, p. 138</ref> The first blues recordings from the 1920s are categorized as a traditional, rural country blues and a more polished city or urban blues.

Country blues performers often improvised, either without accompaniment or with only a banjo or guitar. Regional styles of country blues varied widely in the early 20th century. The (Mississippi) Delta blues was a rootsy sparse style with passionate vocals accompanied by slide guitar. The little-recorded [[Robert Johnson (musician)|Robert Johnson]]<ref>Clarke, p. 141</ref> combined elements of urban and rural blues. In addition to Robert Johnson, influential performers of this style included his predecessors [[Charley Patton]] and [[Son House]]. Singers such as [[Blind Willie McTell]] and [[Blind Boy Fuller]] performed in the southeastern "delicate and lyrical" [[Piedmont blues]] tradition, which used an elaborate ragtime-based [[fingerpicking]] guitar technique. Georgia also had an early slide tradition,<ref>Clarke, p. 139</ref> with [[Curley Weaver]], [[Tampa Red]], [[Barbecue Bob|"Barbecue Bob" Hicks]] and [[Kokomo Arnold|James "Kokomo" Arnold]] as representatives of this style.<ref>{{cite AV media notes|title=The Georgia Blues 1927–1933|last1=Calt|first1=Stephen|last2=Perls|first2=Nick|last3=Stewart|first3=Michael|publisher=[[Yazoo Records]]|id=L-1012|location=New York|type=LP back cover notes|url=http://www.wirz.de/music/yazoo/grafik/1012b4.jpg}}</ref>

The lively [[Memphis blues]] style, which developed in the 1920s and 1930s near [[Memphis, Tennessee]], was influenced by [[jug band]]s such as the [[Memphis Jug Band]] or the [[Gus Cannon|Gus Cannon's Jug Stompers]]. Performers such as [[Frank Stokes (musician)|Frank Stokes]], [[Sleepy John Estes]], [[Robert Wilkins]], [[Kansas Joe McCoy]], [[Casey Bill Weldon]], and [[Memphis Minnie]] used a variety of unusual instruments such as [[washboard (musical instrument)|washboard]], [[Musical styles (violin)#Fiddle|fiddle]], [[kazoo]] or [[mandolin]]. Memphis Minnie was famous for her [[virtuoso]] guitar style. Pianist [[Memphis Slim]] began his career in Memphis, but his distinct style was smoother and had some swing elements. Many blues musicians based in Memphis moved to Chicago in the late 1930s or early 1940s and became part of the urban blues movement.<ref>{{cite AV media notes|title=10 Years In Memphis 1927–1937|last=Kent|first=Don|author-link=Don Kent (collector)|publisher=[[Yazoo Records]]|id=L-1002|year=1968|location=New York|type=vinyl back cover|url=http://www.wirz.de/music/yazoo/grafik/1002b4.jpg}}</ref><ref>{{cite AV media notes|title=Memphis Jamboree 1927–1936|last1=Calt|first1=Stephen|last2=Perls|first2=Nick|last3=Stewart|first3=Michael|publisher=[[Yazoo Records]]|id=L-1021|year=1970|location=New York|type=vinyl back cover
|url=http://www.wirz.de/music/yazoo/grafik/1021b4.jpg}}</ref>

[[File:Bessie Smith (1936) by Carl Van Vechten.jpg|thumb|right|upright=0.8|[[Bessie Smith]], an early blues singer, known for her powerful voice]]

====Urban blues====
City or urban blues styles were more codified and elaborate, as a performer was no longer within their local, immediate community, and had to adapt to a larger, more varied audience's aesthetic.<ref name="qzdblv">Garofalo, p. 47</ref> [[classic female blues|Classic female urban]] and [[vaudeville]] blues singers were popular in the 1920s, among them "the big three"—[[Ma Rainey|Gertrude "Ma" Rainey]], [[Bessie Smith]], and [[Lucille Bogan]]. [[Mamie Smith]], more a vaudeville performer than a blues artist, was the first African American to record a blues song, in 1920; her second record, "Crazy Blues", sold 75,000 copies in its first month.<ref>{{cite web|author=Hawkeye Herman |title=Blues Foundation homepage |publisher=Blues Foundation |url=http://www.blues.org/blues/essays.php4?Id=3 |access-date=October 15, 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081210013210/http://www.blues.org/blues/essays.php4?Id=3 |archive-date=December 10, 2008 }}</ref> Ma Rainey, the "Mother of Blues", and Bessie Smith each "[sang] around center tones, perhaps in order to project her voice more easily to the back of a room". Smith would "sing a song in an unusual key, and her artistry in bending and stretching notes with her beautiful, powerful contralto to accommodate her own interpretation was unsurpassed".<ref>Clarke, p. 137</ref>

In 1920, the vaudeville singer [[Lucille Hegamin]] became the second black woman to record blues when she recorded "The Jazz Me Blues",<ref>Stewart-Baxter, Derrick (1970). ''Ma Rainey and the Classic Blues Singers''. New York: Stein & Day. p. 16</ref> and [[Victoria Spivey]], sometimes called Queen Victoria or Za Zu Girl, had a recording career that began in 1926 and spanned forty years. These recordings were typically labeled "[[race records]]" to distinguish them from records sold to white audiences. Nonetheless, the recordings of some of the classic female blues singers were purchased by white buyers as well.<ref>Steinberg, Jesse R.; Fairweather, Abrol (eds.) (2011). ''Blues: Thinking Deep About Feeling Low''. Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley. p. 159</ref> These blueswomen's contributions to the genre 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 musical]]s, [[torch song]]s of the 1930s and 1940s, [[gospel music|gospel]], [[rhythm and blues]], and eventually [[rock and roll]]."<ref>Harrison, Daphne Duval (1988). ''Black Pearls: Blues Queens of the '20s''. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press. p. 8</ref>

Urban male performers included popular black musicians of the era, such as [[Tampa Red]], [[Big Bill Broonzy]] and [[Leroy Carr]]. An important label of this era was the Chicago-based [[Bluebird Records]]. Before World War II, Tampa Red was sometimes referred to as "the Guitar Wizard". Carr accompanied himself on the piano with [[Scrapper Blackwell]] on guitar, a format that continued well into the 1950s with artists such as [[Charles Brown (musician)|Charles Brown]] and even [[Nat "King" Cole]].<ref name="bkihns"/>

[[File:Boogie-woogie-bassline.svg|thumb|upright=0.9|A typical boogie-woogie bass line {{audio|"Texarkana and Northern" Boogie-woogie bassline.mid|Play}}]]

[[boogie-woogie (music)|Boogie-woogie]] was another important style of 1930s and early 1940s urban blues. While the style is often associated with solo piano, boogie-woogie was also used to accompany singers and, as a solo part, in bands and small combos. Boogie-woogie style was characterized by a regular bass figure, an [[ostinato]] or [[riff]] and [[shift of level|shifts of level]] in the left hand, elaborating each chord and trills and decorations in the right hand. Boogie-woogie was pioneered by the Chicago-based [[Jimmy Yancey]] and the Boogie-Woogie Trio ([[Albert Ammons]], [[Pete Johnson (musician)|Pete Johnson]] and [[Meade Lux Lewis]]).<ref>{{cite AV media notes|title=Boogie Woogie Trio|last=Oliver|first=Paul|publisher=Storyville|id=SLP 184|location=Copenhagen|type=vinyl back cover}}</ref> Chicago boogie-woogie performers included [[Pinetop Smith|Clarence "Pine Top" Smith]] and [[Earl Hines]], who "linked the propulsive left-hand rhythms of the ragtime pianists with melodic figures similar to those of Armstrong's trumpet in the right hand".<ref name="qzdblv"/> The smooth Louisiana style of [[Professor Longhair]] and, more recently, [[Dr. John]] blends classic rhythm and blues with blues styles.

Another development in this period was [[big band]] blues. The "[[territory band]]s" operating out of [[Kansas City metropolitan area|Kansas City]], the [[Bennie Moten]] orchestra, [[Jay McShann]], and the [[Count Basie Orchestra]] were also concentrating on the blues, with 12-bar blues instrumentals such as Basie's "[[One O'Clock Jump]]" and "[[Jumpin' at the Woodside]]" and boisterous "[[blues shouter|blues shouting]]" by [[Jimmy Rushing]] on songs such as "Going to Chicago" and "[[Sent for You Yesterday]]". A well-known big band blues tune is [[Glenn Miller]]'s "[[In the Mood]]". In the 1940s, the [[jump blues]] style developed. Jump blues grew up from the boogie-woogie wave and was strongly influenced by big band music. It uses [[saxophone]] or other [[brass instrument]]s and the guitar in the rhythm section to create a jazzy, up-tempo sound with declamatory vocals. Jump blues tunes by [[Louis Jordan]] and [[Big Joe Turner]], based in [[Kansas City, Missouri]], influenced the development of later styles such as rock and roll and rhythm and blues.<ref>Garofalo, p. 76</ref> Dallas-born [[T-Bone Walker]], who is often associated with the [[West Coast blues|California blues]] style,<ref>Komara, p. 120</ref> performed a successful transition from the early urban blues à la [[Lonnie Johnson (musician)|Lonnie Johnson]] and Leroy Carr to the jump blues style and dominated the blues-jazz scene at Los Angeles during the 1940s.<ref>Humphrey, Mark A. In ''Nothing but the Blues''. pp. 175–177</ref>