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Period: to
Evolution of Blues music
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Period: to
W.C. Handy travels with various shows as a musician & director
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"Maple Leaf Rag" Published
Scott Joplin publishes “Maple Leaf Rag”, making ragtime main influence on the Piedmont style of blues. -
Black Music First Recorded
Victor Records issues the first known recording of black music, "Camp Meeting Shouts." -
Bluesman Discovered
The musician W.C. Handy sees a bluesman playing guitar with a knife at a train station in Mississippi. -
Blues Songs First Recorded
The first blues songs, including W.C. Handy's "Memphis Blues", are published as sheet music. -
Mamie Smith
Mamie Smith records for Okeh Records. Her "Crazy Blues" becomes the first blues hit, beginning the business of "race" recording. -
Folk Blues Debuts
Ralph Peer makes his first field recordings in Atlanta, Georgia, marking the recording debut of both the folk blues and what will later be called country music. -
Blind Lemon Jefferson
Blind Lemon Jefferson is first recorded. He will become the dominant blues figure of the late 1920s and the first star of the folk blues. -
Great Depression
The Wall Street Crash of 1929 begins on Black Thursday, signaling the beginning of the Great Depression in the United States. Amid widespread economic ruin, sales of records and phonographs plummet, crippling the recording industry. -
Electric Guitar
Eddie Durham records the first music featuring the electric guitar. The modern instrument, first developed by musician George Beauchamp and engineer Adolph Rickenbacher in the early 1930s, will help to transform the sound of the blues. -
Muddy Waters Recorded
Alan Lomax records McKinley Morganfield, better known as Muddy Waters, for the Library of Congress at Stovall's Farm in Mississippi. -
Muddy Waters and Chicago Blues
Muddy Waters makes his first Chicago recordings, beginning his tenure as the dominant figure in the Chicago blues and a key link between the Mississippi Delta and the urban styles. -
"Rhythm and Blues" is Born
Jerry Wexler, an editor at Billboard magazine, substitutes the term "rhythm and blues" for the older "race" records. -
B.B. King
B.B. King has his first major rhythm and blues hit with a version of "Three O'Clock Blues." -
Elvis Debuts
Elvis Presley makes his recording debut on Sun Records with a version of Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup's "That's All Right." -
The Country Blues
Samuel Charters publishes The Country Blues, fueling the blues element of the folk music revival. -
British Invasion
The first U.S. tour by the Rolling Stones marks the invasion of British blues rock bands. -
White Fan Base
Muddy Waters and B.B. King perform at the Fillmore East, a concert venue in the East Village region of New York City, to a predominantly white audience. -
"Year of the Blues"
Congress declares 2003 the "Year of the Blues," commemorating the 100th anniversary of W.C. Handy's encounter with an unknown early bluesman at a train station in Mississippi.
