Mamie Smith Paved the Way

Up until 1920, African-American singers had recorded commercial music, certainly, but not blues music. That changed in 1920, when successful vaudeville performer Mamie Smith (not related to either Trixie or Bessie Smith, by the way) the first commercial blues record. OKeh Records produced the recording, and the record was a complete and immediate success. "Crazy Blues" was the A side song, and on the B side, "It's Right Here for You"—and anecdotal accounts suggest over a million copies sold in the first six months alone. It was a radically new style of music to most of the record-buying public, and the sound of American music was forever altered. Mamie Smith blazed the path that Bessie Smith and Billie Holiday would follow, later. Mamie Smith and her Jazz Hounds

According to some accounts, Mamie Smith's manager, songwriter Perry Bradford, was convinced that Blues music would find an audience, if only he could sell the record companies on the idea. Mamie had been singing popular music, jazz, and some blues, in Harlem at popular venues for several years already, so she was a natural to cut that first blues record for OKeh. However, other accounts suggest that Mamie Smith recording that first Blues record was actually serendipity—that "Last of the Red Hot Mamas" Sophie Tucker was supposed to be the voice on "Crazy Blues" but Mamie Smith got called to sing, when Sophie Tucker couldn't make the session. Mamie Smith stepping up to that microphone opened up an entire industry for Black women singing the Blues, and the rest is history.

Born Mamie Robinson on May 26, 1883 in Cincinnati, Ohio, Mamie wasn't precisely a "classic" blues singer. Her career began when she started touring with "the Four Dancing Mitchells" as a singer and dancer, when she was about ten years old. In 1913, she was touring with a show called "The Smart Set" when it went to New York. She quit the show, but stayed in New York. She performed in popular Harlem nightclubs like Banks' Place, Leroy's, the Little Savoy Club, and Percy Brown's. By the time she sang "Crazy Blues" for OKeh Records and personified the changes coming in a new century of music, Mamie had successfully worked as a vaudeville entertainer for much of her life, Mamie Smith

Already popular as a vaudeville and musical review singer and dancer, and Harlem hot-spot entertainer, the success of that record led to Mamie Smith's increased visibility and she recorded several more successful records for OKeh, throughout the 20s and 30s. She performed on stage, toured the United States and Europe, and appeared in several movies during those peak years of her career, as well. Mamie recorded over a hundred songs for OKeh and Victor.

Mamie Smith died in 1946 in New York City, where she'd lived and performed for so much of her career. As successful and wildly popular as she was, her story is all too typical of many early 20th century American performers; she died poor, and in relatively obscurity.

Mamie Smith changed American music forever, though, and paved the way for a century of talented women influenced by those early recordings. That's a tremendous legacy.