Long Lost Blues Popular Blues in America, 1850-1920

Mamie Smith's 1920 recording of 'Crazy Blues' is commonly thought to signify the beginning of commercial attention to blues music and culture, but by that year more than 450 other blues titles had already appeared in sheet music and on recordings. In this examination of early popular blues, Peter C. Muir traces the genre's early history and the highly creative interplay between folk and popular forms, focusing especially on the roles W. C. Handy played in both blues music and the music business. Closely analyzing sheet music and other print sources that have previously gone unexamined, "Long Lost Blues" revises our understanding of the evolution and sociology of blues at its inception, leading to new insights on the blues industry's scope and importance to mainstream America.