Recording the blues / Robert M. W. Dixon and John Godrich.

This text includes black and white portraits of the musicians profiled in the work, and also includes images of contemporary advertisements, record sleeves, and relevant maps.

Includes bibliographical references (page 108) and index.

Birth of an industry -- The new market: 1920-1922 -- The classic blues: 1923-1926 -- Into the field: 1927-1930 -- Hard times: 1931-1934 -- Urban blues: 1934 -1940 -- End of an era: 1941-1945 --

"The Blues series examines important blues singers and musicians, local styles and traditions, subjects and themes, and the history and influence of this living music. The books are written by acknowledged authorities in the field and are of importance to enthusiasts of modern musical idioms, sociologists and folklorists, and students of the popular arts. Each book in the series is extensively illustrated with historic and recent photographs and printed ephemera, many previously unpublished, supported by maps, discographies, and bibliographies." -- From the book jacket.

"Early in 1920 the General Phonograph Corporation issued, for the first time, popular songs performed by a black girl. The success of this record made the industry aware of a vast, untapped market black Americans were eager to buy records by artists of their own race. Two or three record companies immediately began systematic recording of blues singers, gospel quartets, and the like, numbering the discs in special series that came to be called 'Race Series.' They sold so well that other companies entered the field and soon every blues singer who had ever appeared on a singer stage had also made her contribution in the recording studios. The companies began to look further afield . Many made field trips to the south, recording itinerant rural blues singers, guitar evangelists and shouting black preachers. By the later twenties these 'Race Records' - which sold to an entirely black market - were about as far removed as is possible from white America's popular music of the day. ... Pop music has drawn on blues material, on tunes and styles that were featured in the race series. In this book we examine the content of the race series during the period 1920-1945; the ways in which the companies discovered talent, how they recorded the singers and how they marketed the records" -- From the forward.