He was one of the most popular blues singers of the 1920s, and has been titled " Father of the Texas Blues ".

His full-color, pen & ink portraits of 36 early great blues singers and musicians is entitled " Heroes of the Blues Trading Cards ".

The best example is " Soul Man ", more remembered as a hit by The Blues Brothers rather than by the original singers, Sam & Dave.

Blues became a part of American popular music in the 1920s, when classic female blues singers like Bessie Smith grew popular.

Blues music was relatively well known to British Jazz musicians and fans, particularly in the works of figures like female singers Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith and the blues influenced Boogie Woogie of Jelly Roll Morton and Fats Waller.

While commonly lumped together with Delta Blues singers, McDowell actually may be considered the first of the bluesmen from the ' North Mississippi ' region-parallel to, but somewhat east of the Delta region-to achieve widespread recognition for his work.

The album featured her revisiting songs from her old repertoire, including " Wild Women Don't Have the Blues ", which found a new audience, including such singers as Nancy Harrow and Barbara Dane, who recorded their own versions.

During the 1920s, classic female blues singers like Mamie Smith (" Crazy Blues ") dominated the genre's sound.

Category: Blues singers by nationality

Blues singers

This came in the 1920s, when classic female blues singers like Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith and Mamie Smith grew very popular ; the first hit of this field was Mamie Smith's " Crazy Blues ".

* " See See Rider Blues " by Ma Rainey

Blues music increased in popularity and Ma Rainey became well known.

In 1981 Sandra Lieb wrote the first full-length book about Rainey, titled Mother of the Blues: a Study of Ma Rainey.

* American Book Award Before Columbus Foundation: Angela Davis, Blues Legacies and Black Feminism: Gertrude " Ma " Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday, and ( separately ) Allison Hedge Coke, Dog Road Woman

Popular examples include " Louisiana Hoodoo Blues " by Ma Rainey, " Hoodoo Lady Blues " by Arthur Crudup, and " Hoodoo Man Blues " by Junior Wells.

*" See See Rider Blues " ( Paramount, 1925 ) performed by Ma Rainey

The term appears in the famous " See See Rider Blues " song recorded by Ma Rainey in 1925.

Over the years, the festival has hosted such luminaries as Louis Armstrong, Joan Baez, Anita Baker, The Ballet Russe, The Beach Boys, Tony Bennett, George Benson, Luciano Berio, Leonard Bernstein, Lucrezia Bori, Dave Brubeck, Sandip Burman, Montserrat Caballé, Glen Campbell, Pablo Casals, Chicago, Van Cliburn, Joe Cocker, Judy Collins, Barbara Cook, Aaron Copland, Bill Cosby, Elvis Costello, Deep Purple, Placido Domingo, Doobie Brothers, Jackie Evancho, Horacio Gutierrez, Crosby, Stills, & Nash, Dorothy Dandridge, Duran Duran, Bob Dylan, Duke Ellington, Roberta Flack, Ella Fitzgerald, Renée Fleming, Aretha Franklin, George Gershwin, Jose Greco, Buddy Guy, Hall & Oates, Marvin Hamlisch, Herbie Hancock, Isaac Hayes, Jascha Heifetz, John Houseman, Jennifer Hudson, Janis Joplin, The Judds, Gladys Knight, Diana Krall, Chaka Khan, Lyle Lovett, Patti LuPone, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Yo-Yo Ma, Maroon 5, Sarah McLachlan, Idina Menzel, Joni Mitchell, Moody Blues, Willie Nelson, Aaron Neville, Mandy Patinkin, Luciano Pavarotti, Itzhak Perlman, Peter, Paul & Mary, Robert Plant, Bernadette Peters, Oscar Peterson, Bonnie Raitt, David Sanborn, Beverly Sills, Stephen Sondheim, Isaac Stern, Sting, Elaine Stritch, Donna Summer, James Taylor, Carrie Underwood, Sarah Vaughan, Rufus Wainwright, Clara Ward, Orson Welles, Frank Zappa and Denis Matsuev.

Freeman played Sister Mary Stigmata ( referred to as The Penguin ) in John Landis ' The Blues Brothers and Blues Brothers 2000, had cameos in Joe Dante's Innerspace and Gremlins 2: The New Batch ( as tipsy cooking host Microwave Marge in 2 ), and a Ma Barker type gangster mother in Naked Gun 33⅓: The Final Insult.

Although Blind Lemon Jefferson was the first to record " Match Box Blues " under that title in 1927, Ma Rainey had earlier recorded the famous line in her March 1924 recording of " Lost Wandering Blues " in Chicago, which was released as a Paramount 78 single, 12098, in 1924:

Blind Lemon Jefferson first recorded the song " Match Box Blues " on March 14, 1927 for Okeh in Atlanta, Georgia, three years after Ma Rainey's recording of " Lost Wandering Blues ".

The songs recorded on that occasion were " Deep Water Blues " ( 9519-A Okeh 8297 ), " Lonesome Hours " ( 9522-A Okeh 8297 ), " Listen To Ma ( 9521-A Okeh 8346 ), and " G ' wan, I Told You " ( 9520-A Okeh 8346 ).

" In the Pines ," converted into the Cajun French language and sung under the titles " Pine Grove Blues " or " Ma Negresse ," became one of the landmark songs of Cajun music.

Wolcott ’ s Rabbit Foot Minstrels and later formed their own group called Rainey and Rainey, Assassinators of the Blues.

From 1914, the Raineys were billed as Rainey and Rainey, Assassinators of the Blues.

In 1983, Rainey was inducted into the Blues Foundation's Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990.

Cabrel cites the artist as one of a number of blues influences, including Charley Patton, Son House, Blind Lemon, Robert Johnson, Howlin ' Wolf, Blind Blake, Willie Dixon, and Blues Boy Willie, whose father toured with Rainey.

American singer / songwriter Bob Dylan refers to Rainey in the song " Tombstone Blues " on his 1965 album, Highway 61 Revisited.

Magherafelt has several sporting teams, consisting of O ' Donovan Rossa Magherafelt GAC, the Rainey Old Boys Rugby Club, Magherafelt Sky Blues F. C.

In " Screening the Blues ," Paul Oliver stated that both Rainey and Jefferson " may have absorbed line from traditional usage.

His work, The Devil's Music: The Life and Blues of Bessie Smith, with music on the life of Bessie Smith, was named " one of the top-10 Off-Broadway experiences of 2001 " by the New York Daily News, " Best Solo Show " by Florida's Broward / Palm Beach New Times, and won a second NYFA Playwriting Fellowship ( 2000 ).

Blues singer Bessie Smith appeared in a two-reel short film called St. Louis Blues ( 1929 ) featuring a dramatized performance of the hit song.

The song uses Bessie Smith's " St. Louis Blues " by repeatedly playing the verse, " My man's got a heart like a rock cast in the sea.

*" Back Water Blues " by Bessie Smith

*" St. Louis Blues " by Bessie Smith

*" Down Hearted Blues " by Bessie Smith

** Chris Albertson ( notes writer ) for The World's Greatest Blues Singer performed by Bessie Smith

Blues singer Bessie Smith

In 1925, along with fellow composer Henry Troy, he wrote " Gin House Blues ", recorded by Bessie Smith and Nina Simone amongst others.

Other popular compositions included the jazz standard " Eccentric " (" That Eccentric Rag " from 1912 ), " Jazzola " ( 1919 ), " I Got a New Deal in Love ", " Swing, Mr. Charlie ", " Sapho Rag ", " Two Time Dan ", " Mary Jane " with Andy Razaf, " Beale Street Mama ", " I'll Be in My Dixie Home Again Tomorrow ", " Aggravatin ' Papa ", recorded in 1923 by Bessie Smith and Alberta Hunter with the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra, Florence Mills, Pearl Bailey, and Sophie Tucker, " Palesteena ", the classic " Margie ", " Mary Lou ", " Singin ' the Blues ", " Meet Me in No Special Place ( And I'll Be There at No Particular Time )", recorded by Nat King Cole, and the title song for the movie Portrait of Jennie ( 1948 ).

This billing of Mamie Smith was soon one-upped by Bessie Smith, who called herself " The Empress of the Blues.

* The label image is used to represent a single, " St. Louis Blues ", recorded by a well-known musician, Bessie Smith

One of the first mentions of the area is in the opening lines of Bessie Smith's " Atlanta Blues " which documents its importance as an entertainment district:

Mamie Smith was billed as the " Queen of the Blues "; Bessie Smith outdid her with the billing " Empress of the Blues ".

Blues singer Bessie Smith

She later graduated to the Monty Sunshine jazz band, where she covered Bessie Smith (" Young Woman's Blues ", " Gimme a Pigfoot ( And a Bottle of Beer )") and long-term favourite " Coney Island Washboard Blues ", which demonstrated her washboard technique.

# Bessie Smith, " St. Louis Blues "