DISCOGRAPHY 1920-2026 (20CD)
BIOGRAPHY
Robinson was born in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1891. The year of her birth has been given as 1883, but in 2018, researcher John Jeremiah Sullivan discovered her birth certificate stating she was born in Cincinnati in 1891.
When she was around age 10, she found work touring with the Four
Dancing Mitchells, a white act. As a teenager, she danced in Salem Tutt
Whitney's Smart Set. In 1913, she left the Tutt Brothers to sing in
clubs in Harlem and married William "Smitty" Smith, a singer.
On February 14, 1920, Smith recorded "That Thing Called Love" and "You
Can't Keep a Good Man Down" for the Okeh label in New York City, after
African-American songwriter and bandleader Perry Bradford persuaded Fred
Hager to break the color barrier in black music recording. Okeh Records
recorded many iconic songs by black musicians. Although this was the
first recording by a black blues singer, the backing musicians were all
white. Hager had received threats from Northern and Southern pressure
groups saying they would boycott the company if he recorded a black
singer. Despite these threats, the record was a commercial success and
opened the door for more black musicians to record.
Smith's biggest hits were the August 10, 1920 recordings of a set of
songs written by Perry Bradford, including "Crazy Blues" and "It's Right
Here for You (If You Don't Get It, 'Tain't No Fault of Mine)", again for
Okeh Records, A million copies were sold in less than a year. Many were
bought by African Americans, and there was a sharp rise in sales of
"race records".Because of its historical significance, "Crazy Blues" was
inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1994 and was selected for
preservation in the National Recording Registry of the Library of
Congress in 2005.
Although other African Americans had been recorded earlier, such as
George W. Johnson in the 1890s, they were performing music that had a
substantial following among European-American audiences. The success of
Smith's record prompted record companies to seek to record other female
blues singers and began the era of what is now known as classic female
blues.
Smith continued to make popular recordings for Okeh throughout the
1920s. In 1924, she made three releases for Ajax Records, which, while
heavily promoted, did not sell well. She made some records for Victor.
She toured the United States and Europe with the band Mamie Smith &
Her Jazz Hounds as part of Mamie Smith's Struttin' Along Review.
She was billed as "The Queen of the Blues", a billing soon one-upped by
Bessie Smith, who was called "The Empress of the Blues". Mamie found
that the mass medium of radio provided a means of gaining additional
fans, especially in cities with predominantly white audiences. For
example, she and several members of her band performed on KGW in
Portland, Oregon in early May 1923 and received positive reviews.
Recording lineups of the Jazz Hounds included (from August 1920 to
October 1921) Jake Green, Curtis Moseley, Garvin Bushell, Johnny Dunn,
Dope Andrews, Ernest Elliot, Porter Grainger, Leroy Parker and Bob
Fuller, and (from June 1922 to January 1923) Coleman Hawkins, Everett
Robbins, Johnny Dunn, Herschel Brassfield, Herb Flemming, Buster Bailey
Cutie Perkins, Joe Smith, Bubber Miley, and Cecil Carpenter.
While recording with the Jazz Hounds, she recorded as Mamie Smith and
Her Jazz Band, comprising George Bell, Charles Matson, Nathan Glantz,
Larry Briers, Jules Levy, Jr., Joe Samuels, together with musicians from
the Jazz Hounds, including Hawkins, Fuller and Carpenter.