“[In the early 20th] century, professional traveling entertainers in the South, many of them women, began to incorporate blues into their stage acts. In 1912 the first blues sheet music appeared, and very shortly the blues moved into the mainstream of white popular music as well as southern white folk music. In 1920 the first blues record by a black vocalist appeared, initiating a flood of thousands of commercial recordings that continues today. These popularizing trends took place in a historical context of increasing migration of rural southern blacks to the northern urban centers. Blues have continued to flourish in the ghettos, mainly among people with strong and recent ties to the South. Hastened by the hit and star system of the record industry, a series of new performance styles grew up, containing elements that reminded the listener of the South but also reflecting the increasing sophistication and complexity of city life. Styles emanating from the cities had an influence on southern rural blues singers through records and through the recording artists’ personal appearances, while at the same time the urban blues scene was nourished by a steady stream of new performers arriving from “down home.” The blues on this album, all from commercial recordings, illustrate the major styles in which blues were performed from the turn of the century to the outbreak of World War Il. Side One contains styles already in existence at the advent of recording, including examples of early white folkand popular-blues styles. Side Two presents styles that developed or came into prominence largely after or as a result of commercial recording.” (album notes excerpt)

Just scored a heap of these 70’s New World Records LP comps from Mississippi Records, on the cheap. This one’s sporting some prime cuts, and there’s plenty more like this that are on the way.

+ Liner notes *PDF