Chapter 5: St. Louis Blues”: Race Records and Hillbilly Music, 1920s and 1930s—through The Country Blues, Charley Patton, Popular Music and the Great Depression

2. “St. Louis Blues”
Race Records and Hillbilly Music, 1920s and 1930s

3. Targeting Specific New Audiences
• Recorded and disseminated types of music that
had previously been ignored
• Race and hillbilly: terms used by the American
music industry from the early 1920s to the late
1940s to classify and advertise southern music
– “race records”- recordings of performances by African
American musicians produced mainly for sale to
African American listeners
– “hillbilly” or “old-time”- performed by and mainly
intended for sale to southern whites

4. Race Records
• Recorded performances by African American artists in the
first two decades of the 20th century and were basically in
Tin Pan Alley mold; ragtime and jazz-tinged dance music,
“coon songs” aimed at white market
• 1920s- recording material closer to African American
traditions and selling to African American audience
• Mamie Smith (1883-1946): black vaudeville performer
• “race music”- promotional catchphrase applied by Ralph
Peer
– Ralph Peer (1892-1960) was a Missouri-born talent scout for
Okeh Records who worked as an assistant on Mamie Smith’s
first recording sessions; sent mobile recording units into the
South, seeking out and recording local talent

5. The “Father of the Blues”: W. C. Handy
• William Christopher Handy (1873-
1958) was Alabama born, son of a
conservative pastor, became a cornet
player after being forbidden to play
the guitar
• 1908: co-founded the first African
American owned music publishing
house with Harry Pace
• “Memphis Blues” (1912): first sheet
music hit
• “St. Louis Blues” (1914): went on to
become one of the most frequently
recorded American songs of all time
• Regarded by many white Americans as
the originator of the blues, christened
himself “Father of the Blues” in his
autobiography

6. Classic Blues
• Blues: musical genre that emerged in black communities of the
Deep South around the end of the 19th century
• First blues records not the country blues performed by
sharecroppers and laborers in the Mississippi Delta and East Texas
• Blues songs (sometimes called classic blues) were written by
professional songwriters eager to cash in on the national fascination
with “authentic Negro music”
• Classic blues songs performed by nightclub singers:
– Alberta Hunter (1895-1984)- billed as the “Marian Anderson of the
blues”
– Ethel Waters (1896-1977)- entertained growing African American
middle class in New York, Chicago, and other northern cities
– Gertrude “Ma” Rainey (1886-1939)- popularly known as “Mother of
the Blues”
– Bessie Smith (1894-1937)- “Empress of the blues”

7. Listening Guide: “St. Louis Blues”
• Music and Lyrics by W. C. Handy; published 1914; performed by
Bessie Smith, accompanied by Louis Armstrong, cornet, and Fred
Longshaw, reed organ; recorded 1925
• Twelve-bar blues—formal concept referring to particular sequence
of chords heard within a rhythmic pattern of 12 four-beat measures
• The Song
– Strophic folk blues
– Sets up for a repetitive structure and then deviates from our
expectations
• The Recording
– Notation—limitations of European-based system of notation
• Blue notes—“bent” or “flattened” notes that lie outside traditional European-
based scale structures and reflect particular African American melodic
characteristics

8. Understanding Twelve-Bar Blues
• Bar or measure: rhythmic unit of music, consisting of one
accented beat followed by one or more unaccented beats
– Beats: equal measures of musical time
• Twelve-bar blues: arrangement of four-beat bars, grouped
into fours, each group of four bars corresponds to a unit-
line or phrase in the lyrics, and also associated with
characteristic chord chances
– Three-line poetic stanza—second line a repetition of the first
(common in 12-bar blues)
– Harmony: progression of chords not systematic or consistent
but marked by specific chord changes at particular points in the
pattern
• Tonic- “home” chord

9. The Country Blues
• W. C. Handy—encounter of music at a train station in the
Mississippi Delta
– Country blues: rural musicians played in a style closer to the
roots of the tradition not recorded until the mid-1920s
• Folk blues first emerged in the Mississippi Delta
• Sharecroppers- tied to land owned by white farmers and living in
conditions of extreme poverty
• Basic features of classic blues form
– Twelve-bar structure made up of three phrases of four bars each
– Basic three-chord pattern
– Three-line AAB text
– Much wider range of forms—8-bar and 16-bar
– Distinctive regional styles

10. Charley Patton
• Charley Patton (ca. 1881-1934) was one of the
earliest known pioneers of the Mississippi
Delta blues style
– Techniques included rapping on the body of his
guitar and throwing it into the air
– Powerful, rasping voice, strong, danceable
rhythms, broad range of styles

11. Listening Guide: “Tom Rushen Blues”
• Written and performed by Charley Patton;
recorded 1929
• 12-bar form, three chords, AAB text
• Rough, heavy voice of Delta blues
• Lyrics—overnight incarceration
– Use of encoded, hidden meanings- critique of
white privilege

12. Blind Lemon Jefferson:
The First Country Blues Star
• Blind Lemon Jefferson (1897-
1929) was the first recording star
of the country blues
• Born blind, adopted the life of a
traveling street musician
• 1926: first records released after
enthusiastic market for blues
established
– Songs advertised “real old-
fashioned blues by a real old-
fashioned blues singer”
• East Texas style: vocal quality
more nasal and clear, guitar
accompaniment is sparser in
texture and less rhythmically
steady

13. Listening: “That Black Snake Moan”
• Written and performed by Blind Lemon Jefferson;
recorded 1926
• Voice has a moaning quality, sliding among pitches and
sometimes sounding closer to speaking than singing
• Melodic character of vocal part restricted to brief,
repeated ideas
• Rhythmic feeling—unpredictable, individual phrases
lasting shorter or longer than expected
• Repetitive textual and melodic structures—builds a
largely improvised performance of risky and striking
immediacy

14. Robert Johnson: Standing at the Crossroad
• Robert Johnson (1911-1938) was a great influence on
later generations of blues and rock musicians,
especially Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones and Eric
Clapton
• Posthumous reputation—reissue of recordings in 1990
sold well
• Brief life shrouded in mystery and legend
• Guitar playing remarkable and idiosyncratic—stories
that Johnson sold his soul to the devil to play that way
– Turned to conceal his hands from the audience so they
couldn’t see what he was doing

15. Listening Guide: “Cross Road Blues”
• Written and Performed by Robert Johnson; recorded
1936
– Representative of Mississippi Delta Blues
• Uses guitar as principally chordal instrument—rapid
strumming of chords—anticipates electric guitar styles
of rock music
– “bottleneck” technique: guitarist slips sawed-off neck of a
glass bottle over a finger on his left hand, allowing him to
glide smoothly between individual pitches
• Can be used to imitate the sound of the human voice
• Creative use of guitar timbres mirrored in his singing

16. Early Country Music: Hillbilly Records
• Hillbilly music: later rechristened “country and western music” or “country” music, developed out
of the folk songs, ballads, and dance music of immigrants from the British Isles
– Influence of minstrelsy, vaudeville, circuses, medicine shows
• Race record market led to first country music recordings
• First commercially successful hillbilly record: Fiddlin’ John Carson, Okeh Records 1923
• Radio was crucial to the rapid growth of hillbilly music
– Farmers and working-class people who could not afford a phonograph were able to purchase
a radio on a monthly installment plan and gain access to a wide range of programming
– “Barn dance” format featured a variety of musical performers as well as comedians
specializing in cornball humor that relied on stereotypes of rural “hicks,” rubes,” and
“rednecks”
• String bands, solo and duet singers, white gospel singers, Hawaiian guitar bands,
harmonica players, saw players, whistlers, and yodelers
– Majority of country music performers were not full-time musicians—textile mill workers, coal
miners, farmers, railroad men, cowboys, carpenters, wagoners, painters, common laborers,
and occasionally lawyers, doctors, preachers
• Vernon Dalhart (1883-1948) was a Texas-born light-opera singer who recorded the first big country music hit

17. Solo Women’s Voices in Country Music
• First major country hit by female solo artist: “I Want to Be a
Cowboy’s Sweetheart” (1935), written and sung by Patsy Montana
(1908-1996)
• First all-female country string band: Coon Creek Girls, featuring
vocals by Lily May Ledford
– “Pretty Polly”: 1938 recording
• Source: British broadside ballads; basic structure
• Variation: Three-line stanzas, first line repeated each time (a-a-b), drawn from
African American blues
• Most popular female country music performer: Lulu Belle (1913-
1999), star of radio’s National Barn Dance
– Performed with Scott Wiseman, who became her husband
– 1940 record: “Remember Me”
– 1944 film: National Barn Dance

18. Pioneers of Country Music:
The Carter Family and Jimmie Rogers
• Country music: relationship between the country and the city, home and
migration, the past and the present
• Carter Family: born in the isolated foothills of the Clinch Mountains of VA;
regarded as one of the most important groups in the history of country
music
– A. P. “Doc” Carter (1891-1960): leader of the trio, collected and arranged the
folk songs that formed the inspiration for much of the group’s repertoire; bass
– Sara Carter (1899-1979): wife to “Doc,” sang most of the lead vocal parts and
played guitar and autoharp
– Maybelle Carter (1909-1978): sister-in-law, sang harmony, played guitar and
autoharp, and developed an influential guitar style that involved playing the
melody on the bass strings while brushing the upper strings on the offbeats
for rhythm
– Repertoire: adaptations of old songs from Anglo American folk music, old
hymns, sentimental songs reminiscent of turn of the century Tin Pan Alley hits
• Jimmie Rodgers (1897-1933): most versatile, progressive, and widely
influential of all the early country recording artists; early country music’s
biggest recording star

19. Listening Guide:
The Recordings of Jimmie Rogers
• “Blue Yodel No. 2,” written and performed by Jimmie Rodgers;
recorded 1929
– Receptivity to African American influences—ability to reflect those
influences in original compositions and performances appealing to
substantial white audience
– Yodeling— “high, lonesome sound” —used vocal effect on a large
number of his recordings
• “Waiting for a Train,” written and performed by Jimmie Rodgers;
recorded 1928
– Hobo song; dark feel, reinforced by lonesome yodel
– Steel guitar; progressive touch
• “Dreaming with Tears in My Eyes,” written by Jimmie Rodgers and
Waldo L. O’Neal; performed by Jimmie Rodgers; recorded 1933

20. Listening Guide:
Southern Gospel Music, Black and White
• “Gospel Ship,” written by A.P. Carter; performed by the Carter
Family; recorded 1935
– Carter Family: first prominent “group” act in country music
– Rural music heard and nurtured in informal family settings
– No firm separation between secular and religious music; recorded
both types
– Straightforward, unadorned style—aesthetic of plainness
• “The Sun Didn’t Shine,” written by Roosevelt Fennoy; performed by
the Golden Gate Quartet; recorded 1941
– Black religious music; exclusively in church
– Gospel groups: separate from white religious traditions and from other
musical traditions in the black community itself
– Tends to favor extroversion and intense expressivity; highly ornate;
emphasizes personal and ecstatic aspects of religious experience

21. Popular Music and the Great Depression
• Great Depression (1929-ca. 1939) threw millions of Americans out of work
– Major impact on the music industry
• People did not have spare income to spend on records—network radio
became more influential
• Race record market was crushed by economic downturn
• Hillbilly record sales were affected by Depression but not as severely
• Sales declined, but hillbilly music increased its overall market share during
the economic downturn
• Popular music tended to avoid any mention of social problems
– Hillbilly and blues singers injected note of social realism into popular music
– Chronicled the suffering of the homeless and unemployed
• Woodrow Wilson “Woody” Guthrie (1912-1967) composed songs that
were more overtly political in nature; after 1940 known primarily as a
protest singer

22. Key Terms
Bar (measure)
Blue notes
Blues
Classic blues
Country blues
Hillbilly music
Race music
Tonic
Twelve-bar blues

23. Key People
Alberta Hunter
Bessie Smith
Blind Lemon
Jefferson
Carter Family
Charley Patton
Ethel Waters
Gertrude “Ma”
Rainey
Jimmie Rodgers
Mamie Smith
Ralph Peer
Robert Johnson
Vernon Dalhart
William
Christopher Handy
Woodrow Wilson
“Woody” Guthrie