Embedded Files
Dixon, R. M. W. & Godrich, J. (1970). Recording the blues. Stein and Day.
This book tells the history of the blues recording industry beginning with the birth of “The New Market” of “race records” in the early 1920s after the release of Mamie Smith’s Crazy Blues, to the classic blues and urban blues eras, to the birth of a new era of blues recording in the 1940s.
Oliver, P. (2009). Barrelhouse blues: Location recording and the early traditions of the blues. BasicCivitas Books.
Blues historian Paul Oliver tells the story of what he calls southern “proto-blues;” tracing the history and contexts of these early blues recordings. The chapter titled “Women’s trouble blues” provides extensive discussion of Memphis Minnie and other early blues women and is particularly relevant to this project.
Oliver, P. (2006). Broadcasting the blues: black blues in the segregation era. Routledge.
"Broadcasting the Blues: Black Blues in the Segregation Era is based on Paul Oliver's award-winning radio broadcasts from the BBC that were created over several decades. It traces the social history of the blues in America, from its birth in the rural South through the heyday of sound recordings." [From the Publisher]
Slade, P. (2021). Black swan blues (Expanded 2021). Amazon.com
Black Swan Blues tells the history of the rise and fall of America’s first successful Black-owned record company. Founded by a Black songwriter named Harry Pace in the 1920s, the Black Swan blues label was an important catalyst for major labels opting to record Black artists who now constituted a new and profitable “race market.”
Thygesen, H., Berresford, M. & Shor, R. (1996). Black swan: The record label of the Harlem renaissance. VJM Publications.
Annotation
This book provides a brief history of the Black Swan record label and includes an extensive discography for Black Swan and Olympic Records. Harry Pace, founder of the Black Swan blues label, teamed up with white business entrepreneur John Fletcher to buy the Olympic Record’s pressing plant in 1922 after the labeled failed. This history of Black Swan is an important part of the race records recording area and provides historical context for the development of blues.
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