W. C. Handy Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Lynn Abbott and Doug Seroff

Critical Essay by Lynn Abbott and Doug Seroff

SOURCE: “‘They Cert'ly Sound Good to Me’: Sheet Music, Southern Vaudeville, and the Commercial Ascendancy of the Blues,” in American Music, Vol. 14, No. 4, Winter, 1996, pp. 402-54.

In the following essay, Abbott and Seroff trace the origins of blues music in southern vaudeville and consider the growth of popular blues.

The era of popular blues music was not suddenly set into motion by Mamie Smith's 1920 recording of “Crazy Blues.” By the time Mamie Smith was allowed to walk into a commercial recording studio, the blues was an American entertainment institution with an abounding legendry and a firmly established father figure. The history of the commercial ascendancy of the blues is partially preserved in sheet music, and although this field has been well plowed, new insights still crop up in the furrows. A more important, but far less explored, platform for the blues' commercial ascendancy was the African...
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