Classic female blues
Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, Ethel Waters, and the other singers in this genre were instrumental in spreading the popularity of the blues.
[2][3] Rainey had heard a woman singing about the man she had lost, learned the song, and began using it as her closing number, calling it "the blues".
Bradford's persistence led the General Phonograph Company to record the New York cabaret singer Mamie Smith in its Okeh studio on February 14, 1920.
[8] Ethel Waters, Alberta Hunter, Mary Stafford, Katie Crippen, Edith Wilson, and Esther Bigeou, among others, made their first recordings before the end of 1921.
According to the jazz historian Dan Morgenstern, "Bessie Smith (and all the others who followed in time) learned their art and craft from Ma, directly or indirectly.
"[16] Other classic blues singers who recorded extensively until the end of the 1920s were Ida Cox, Clara Smith, Sara Martin and Victoria Spivey and her cousin Sippie Wallace.
[17] With the success of the first commercial recordings of Blind Lemon Jefferson in 1926, a more "down-home", less urbane form of blues became popular, typically performed by men accompanying themselves on guitar or piano.
The effect of the Great Depression on black vaudeville and the recording industry, and also the trend toward swing music in the 1930s, ended the careers of most of the classic blues singers.
[18] Some, like Ethel Waters, adapted to changing musical styles; some, like Lucille Hegamin and Sara Martin, subsequently worked mainly outside the entertainment field; others, like Hattie McDaniel and Edith Wilson, became successful actors in film and radio.
In the 1960s, a revival of interest in the blues brought Sippie Wallace, Alberta Hunter, Edith Wilson and Victoria Spivey back to the concert stage.
[22] Daphne Duval Harrison wrote that the blues women's contributions included "increased improvisation on melodic lines, unusual phrasing which altered the emphasis and impact of the lyrics, and vocal dramatics using shouts, groans, moans, and wails.
