Delta blues

Vocal styles in Delta blues range from introspective and soulful to passionate and fiery.

The major labels produced the earliest recordings, consisting mostly of one person singing and playing an instrument.

[1] According to Dixon and Godrich (1981), Tommy Johnson and Ishmon Bracey were recorded by Victor on that company's second field trip to Memphis, in 1928.

Subsequently, the early Delta blues (as well as other genres) were extensively recorded by John Lomax and his son Alan Lomax, who crisscrossed the southern U.S. recording music played and sung by ordinary people, helping establish the canon of genres known today as American folk music.

According to Dixon and Godrich (1981) and Leadbitter and Slaven (1968), Alan Lomax and the Library of Congress researchers did not record any Delta bluesmen or blueswomen prior to 1941, when he recorded Son House and Willie Brown near Lake Cormorant, Mississippi, and Muddy Waters at Stovall, Mississippi.

[7] Memphis Minnie was a blues guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter whose recording career lasted for more than three decades.

[8] Rosa Lee Hill, daughter of Sid Hemphill, learned guitar from her father and by the time she was ten, was playing at dances with him.