Saluting Our Sisters!

An SOS has been issued but who will heed the call? As music representatives, we would like to Salute Our Sisters who have been overlooked and underrated despite their immense impact on the journey of sound.

Mamie Smith was the first African-American woman to record a musical album. The saying “when one door closes, another one opens” can be applied to this story where a record label in the 1920s had an important decision to make. Sophie Tucker was due to record on a jazz compilation when she cancelled her participation because of illness. This created a rare opportunity for Mamie who was recommended by African-American composer Perry Bradford to sing on the entrepreneurial album he was composing with the record label. After the success of the sound, the white-owned record label was on the hunt for other Black artists to replicate the phenomenon. Why was this a phenomenon? Well you see, the audience that consumed this genre was white people, and the blues was the language of black people who sang during a time when segregation was in full swing, so the impact that was created is very important for the history of music. ‘Crazy Blues’ would change the course of music history, leading the way for women blues singers in band settings such as Bessie Smith and inspiring genres such as rock 'n' roll. ‘Crazy Blues’ sold 75,000 copies in its first month alone and generated up to $1 million in revenue for the label, yet Mamie Smith died without having received the rewards of her influence in 1946. Still financially poor, she was buried in an unmarked grave on Staten Island, New York, before grateful fans honoured her with a headstone in 2014, nearly 70 years later! Bessie Smith was known as the ‘Empress of Blues’ and yet she was unable to receive treatment after her accident which led to her life depending on a blood transfusion. The segregation of the time meant that no hospital would accept her as they did not transfuse black people. I often wonder what the potential of their force would have been like, how it would have looked in our society, how it would have felt.

As I am writing this, now 379... 380 words in realising I have barely covered 2 women; I am feeling a sense of sadness for the ‘gone too soons’ of history. When you listen to the words of your classic blues, know that it is not just a song but an expression of a reality that could not be comprehended in any other way. I feel sad and angry for the injustice, for the dishonour society puts on being an artist and for the lives unlived. However, I am incredibly proud of my sisters who transformed their pain into a language that inspired pleasure. Whose life has become timeless through the cords and connections of each generation after. Perhaps if we were transparent in our praise and acknowledgement then we would see with clarity the blurred lines that lead to unity.

TriggerBliss - MultiCreative

@triggeryourbliss

@triggeryourtruth