The history of black music is the history of American music. AEWorks Blues Alley Podcast takes you on a remarkable odyssey of struggle, intrigue, business, crime, & music, all spanning more than a century.
But, Blues Alley isn’t your typical blues documentary. Our goal is to tell the stories of blues music, but also to reach into the lives of the people who created it. Explore the places they lived, and the times that inspired the first truly authentic form of American music.
Our first series W.C. Handy, the Founding Father of American Music, weaves the tale of the man who first took a rustic music from the Mississippi delta, turned it into an international phenomenon, and made blues music sing for everyone, everywhere.
You’ll be amazed.
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The history of black music is the history of American music. AEWorks Blues Alley Podcast takes you on a remarkable odyssey of struggle, intrigue, business, crime, & music, all spanning more than a century.
But, Blues Alley isn’t your typical blues documentary. Our goal is to tell the stories of blues music, but also to reach into the lives of the people who created it. Explore the places they lived, and the times that inspired the first truly authentic form of American music.
Our first series W.C. Handy, the Founding Father of American Music, weaves the tale of the man who first took a rustic music from the Mississippi delta, turned it into an international phenomenon, and made blues music sing for everyone, everywhere.
You’ll be amazed.
Ethel Waters had a long and wildly successful career.
It was only for a few years - in the early twenties - that she was what we’d consider - a classic blues singer.
She began singing in 1917. There was a party at Jack’s Rathskeller. The scheduled singer with the band hadn’t shown up and someone shouted use Ethel she’s always singing.
Ethel Waters didn’t hesitate – she loved to sing.
That night would be just the first - in an entire life of firsts.
Ida Cox may be the bluesiest of all the blues singers, but that’s just the beginning of her story.
Music researcher and author Derrick Stewart-Baxter summed up Ida Cox this way –
“Only show business and vaudeville in particular, could have created such an unbelievable character as Ida Cox. Certainly, no author would have dared to invent her, and if he had done so, he would have never put such a wildly improbable person into a book.”
There were quite a few women named Smith among the classic blues artists – first came Mamie Smith, then Clara Smith - and the best know of all Bessie Smith.
But there’s another Smith out there that hardly anyone knows about - her name is Trixie Smith and she was largely forgotten – except by collectors.
But Trixie Smith made four dozen records - and gave us a phrase that would forever change American Music.
Because it was her recording of “My Man Rocks Me With One Steady Roll - written by J. Berni Barbour that has the honor of being the first record to refer to rocking and rolling as a secular idiom with sexual overtones – as it would come to be used in the forties and fifties leading to the birth of Rock n Roll.
Among the Classic Blues Singers, Clara Smith was second only to Bessie Smith in volume of recorded output - with 122 records.
She was a star – a headliner – packing theaters on the TOBA circuit from New York to New Orleans, and was billed as “Queen of the Moaners” for both her singing style and her sexually explicit lyrics - but very little is known today about the life of Clara Smith.
Before the early twentieth century - the music business was based on sheet music sales - distributed largely through the music departments of department stores like Macy’s, Marshall Field’s, and dozens of other retail chains across the nation.
The recording industry changed all that in the early twentieth century, and the second person to record a Classic blues record was a founding mother - named Lucille Hegamin.
In 1923 - there was a woman who set the musical tone of the decade and the jazz age that followed. Her name was Bessie Smith, and her story is literally a maze of myth and legend. Fantastic - and false - tales so reflective of their time, they seem inevitable, and mundane truths so obscure - we may never know exactly what happened.
We can learn a lot though, about the personal life of an artist through her music, and Bessie Smith left her soul on 160 - 78 rpm lacquer discs - for everyone to experience.
And no matter what genre Smith sang – from the first recording – to the last - it was all tinged with the blues.
In 1923 - there was a woman who set the musical tone of the decade and the jazz age that followed. Her name was Bessie Smith, and her story is literally a maze of myth and legend. Fantastic - and false - tales so reflective of their time, they seem inevitable, and mundane truths so obscure - we may never know exactly what happened.
We can learn a lot though, about the personal life of an artist through her music, and Bessie Smith left her soul on 160 - 78 rpm lacquer discs - for everyone to experience.
And no matter what genre Smith sang – from the first recording – to the last - it was all tinged with the blues.
A couple of years before Bessie Smith recorded her legendary “Down Hearted Blues” - Alberta Hunter cut it - and had some success with it. It makes sense. She wrote the song - with her friend “Lovie” Austin.
Late in life she embarked on a second career - completely outside of performing. Then successfully came back to the music business after twenty years away.
She was a fiercely private woman - personally and professionally. And - unlike many of her co-stars of Classic Blues - Alberta Hunter had no intention of ending up - hurt and penniless.
Before there was Mamie Smith and “Crazy Blues,” even before W.C. Handy first encountered the blues in Tutwiler Mississippi, there was an artist who had already embraced the music.
Ma Rainey recalled first coming across the genre in a small Missouri town around 1902, where she heard a young girl singing a sad song about a man leaving his woman.
Rainey was so impressed she learned the song from the girl - and began using it as an encore in her own act. When someone asked her ‘what kind of song she was singing?’ Rainey claimed to have spontaneously coined the term “the blues.”
It was 1920 - and the head of Okeh Records - Fred Hager - a white executive - finally agreed to let Perry Bradford - an African American record producer - to do a test recording with Sophie Tucker - a legendary Broadway singer - who sometimes sang the blues.
It was the beginning of a musical epoch, yet today very few people know who Mamie Smith was.
Before Rosa Parks, there was another Rosa Parks, a Memphian named Ida B Wells. Wells was a school teacher - turned journalist - turned activist. Predictably her anti-lynching articles, and speeches enraged southern whites. We’ll tell you the whole amazing story on this Special Rabbit Hole Edition of AEWorks Blues Alley Podcast.
He fought in WWI, championed civil rights throughout the twentieth century, became a celebrated author, and adviser to Dr. Martin Luther King. Yet few people know his name. We’ll tell you the whole amazing story on the AEWorks Blues Alley Podcast.
Founded by Chester Pond, the Yazoo & Delta Railway began service in 1897, running from Ruleville, Mississippi - population 336, to an empty spot in the middle of the delta. So why would a tiny town need it’s own railroad? And why was it called the Dog? We’ll tell you the whole amazing story on the AEWorks Blues Alley Podcast.
Handy had a hit… but could he write another? And, why was he still playing gigs for six dollars a night? We’ll tell you the whole amazing story on the AEWorks Blues Alley Podcast.
Handy had written a hit in Memphis Blues, but could he keep it? There’s a fine line between business and theft in Jim Crow Memphis. We’ll tell you the whole amazing story on the AEWorks Blues Alley Podcast.
Department stores are a waning institution in 21st century American culture. But, without them there might not be American music at all. We’ll tell you the whole amazing story on the AEWorks Blues Alley Podcast.
Just like the legendary crossroad in the Mississippi delta, the corner of Main Street and Madison Avenue in Memphis, TN, is its own kind of crossroad. It’s also one of the most important places in the history of American music. We’ll tell you the whole amazing story on the AEWorks Blues Alley Podcast.
Did you know that the story of American music, as we know it today, began at a tiny train station in a now mostly forgotten town called Tutwiler, MS? We’ll tell you the whole amazing story on AEWorks Blues Alley Podcast.
Blues music has been around for well over a hundred years. In the 21st century, we have the same relationship to W.C. Handy, that he had to Beethoven. It’s time to begin looking at the founders of blues as the American corollaries of Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart.
The Blues Alley Podcast, is more than just the story of the founders. It’s also about the places and environment that they lived in, because art, literature, science, technology, even economics – all influence music and vice versa.
The Blues Alley takes a look at all of these elements, and how they each contributed to the rise of American Music.
It’s an inspiring story. One you won't believe, but one you will love.
The history of black music is the history of American music. AEWorks Blues Alley Podcast takes you on a remarkable odyssey of struggle, intrigue, business, crime, & music, all spanning more than a century.
But, Blues Alley isn’t your typical blues documentary. Our goal is to tell the stories of blues music, but also to reach into the lives of the people who created it. Explore the places they lived, and the times that inspired the first truly authentic form of American music.
Our first series W.C. Handy, the Founding Father of American Music, weaves the tale of the man who first took a rustic music from the Mississippi delta, turned it into an international phenomenon, and made blues music sing for everyone, everywhere.
You’ll be amazed.
