The first recorded blues vocal is 100 years old today
Like London buses, you wait a million years for a blues to get recorded, then three come along at once. In blues’ case, they were three versions of the same tune. Columbia’s house band recorded the second version of “The Memphis Blues” on 24 July 1914.
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| Charles Prince’s Band, pictured here recording in 1914 with vaudevillian Ed Morton. Prince’s Band was Columbia’s house band. As you can see, they didn’t record in a studio but a laboratory. The second blues ever recorded was cut in this room by this band in July 1914. |
The second blues ever recorded, this was another brassy instrumental, like the first one, again recorded in New York by an all-white band.
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| Morton Harvey: the first blues vocalist ever recorded. |
Even the dance records of ‘The Memphis Blues’ made during that period were played as straight one-steps.
However, there were a few good old-fashioned ‘trombone smears’ in the orchestral effects of my ‘Memphis Blues’ record.” In 1916, Harvey recorded “I’ve Got the Army Blues” and “Tennessee Blues” as Gene Rogers. It wouldn’t be until 1917, that the first African Americans were recorded playing the blues – in London under the leadership of Jamaican Dan Kildare (see ‘the world’s first black bluesrecording’ post of 21 December 2013 and archives of 4 January and 14 June 2014).
And in a nod to my future, why not earn my undying gratitude by purchasing my How
Blues Evolved ebooks on the following links. As you’ll see, they’re priced intentionally
low. In fact, they’re going for a song. Perhaps I need to put the price up.
