With the breakup of the famous comedic team of Williams & Walker, Bert Williams quickly came into his own as a solo artist. In 1910, he joined the cast of the world-famous Ziegfeld Follies. During the ensuing decade, he’d become one of Broadway’s most beloved comedians and a great hero to African Americans. Even though he still wore blackface, he was finally able to create characters with universal appeal and rarely seen humanity. His teaming with the rubber-kneed Australian comic Leon Errol had audiences rolling in the aisles, as did …

In 1893, Bert Williams and George Walker began performing together in minstrel shows. They found that by donning blackface and calling themselves “The Two Real Coons,” they could get booked into better vaudeville venues in Los Angeles, New York, London, and other major cities. Their skill at joking, singing, and cakewalking led to them starring in their own off-Broadway shows, such as The Policy Players and Sons of Ham. In 1901, they began making records for the Victor Talking Machine Co. Our previous article, Bert Williams & George Walker: The …

Although their names are seldom recognized today, Bert Williams and George Walker were the first African-American superstars. Years before blues 78s spun on wind-up Victrolas, Williams & Walker were packing theaters on Broadway, writing hit songs, making records, and cakewalking their way into American culture. Their images appeared on sheet music, cigarette ads, postcards, and in newspapers and magazines. Coverage of their 1903 command performance for England’s royal family was followed with rapt attention back home. After Walker’s death in 1911, Williams carried on alone, becoming one of the brightest …

During the early 1920s, OKeh Records called him “The Man with the Talking Guitar” and claimed “he certainly plays ’em strong on his big mean, blue guitar.” Meet Sylvester Weaver, the first blues guitarist on record. Weaver found his place in history on October 24, 1923, when he fingerpicked simple, lonesome-sounding accompaniment to vaudeville singer Sara Martin’s “Longing for Daddy Blues,” and then picked up the tempo for the descending bass runs and more ambitious chords of “I’ve Got to Go and Leave My Daddy Behind.” In the process, Weaver …

Papa Charlie Jackson was the first commercially successful male blues singer. A relaxed, confident crooner and seasoned 6-string stylist, he launched his recording career in 1924 and became one of Paramount’s more popular artists, releasing 33 discs by 1930. His classic versions of “Salty Dog,” “Shake That Thing,” “Alabama Bound,” and “Spoonful” set the template for many covers that followed. Playing fingerstyle or with a flatpick, Papa Charlie conjured a strong, staccato attack on his big guitar-banjo. His unstoppable rhythms were perfectly suited for dancing, and along with his label …

Blind Lemon Jefferson, who began recording for Paramount Records in late 1925, became the most famous bluesman of the Roaring Twenties. His 78s shattered racial barriers, becoming popular from coast to coast and influencing a generation of musicians. His best songs forged original, imagistic themes with inventive arrangements and brilliantly improvised solos. Portraits of Afro-American life during the early 1900s, his lyrics create a unique body of poetry – humorous and harrowing, jivey and risqué, a stunning view of society from the perspective of someone at the bottom. To this day, …

During the Roaring Twenties, Atlanta, Georgia, was home to a thriving community of bluesmen whose styles were as just distinctive as those of their counterparts in Texas and Mississippi, Memphis and Chicago. Peg Leg Howell and His Gang specialized in countrified juke music set to guitar and violin. Barbecue Bob, who became Columbia Records’ best-selling bluesman, framed his songs with zesty bass runs and rhythmic slide played on a 12-string guitar. His older brother Laughing Charley Lincoln was a less flashy 12-stringer whose dark personality belied the “laughing” shtick on …

Columbia Records came to Atlanta in November 1926 and recorded a variety of spiritual acts and blues guitarist Peg Leg Howell. Born in 1888 in Eatonton, Georgia, Joshua Barnes Howell was a generation older than most of the prewar Atlanta bluesmen. Like Lead Belly and old Henry Thomas in Texas, his repertoire extended to country reels, field hollers, ballads, and other pre-blues styles. He attended school through ninth grade and learned how to play guitar in 1909. In an interview with George Mitchell, the researcher who rediscovered him in 1963, …

Caveat: Several of the century-old passages quoted in this article are racially offensive. The fact that these quotes use common parlance for the era in which they were published does little to diminish their ugliness. For the sake of historical accuracy, though, I’ve kept the quotes intact. My apologies to those offended.

Why cover Polk Miller at all? Because despite the racial overtones in his music and press, the man deserves credit for his pioneering efforts to integrate American music. I’m convinced that at his core Polk Miller was motivated by …

Mamie Smith’s “Crazy Blues,” the first recording of an African-American singing the blues, revolutionized pop music. Witnesses claimed that after its release in 1920, the song could be heard coming from the open windows of virtually any black neighborhood in America. “That record turned around the recording industry,” remembered New Orleans jazzman Danny Barker. “There was a great appeal amongst black people and whites who loved this blues business to buy records and buy phonographs. Every family had a phonograph in their house, specifically behind Mamie Smith’s first record.”
While …