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Victor Military Band - The Memphis Blues

by: Victor Military Band

Publication date: 1914-07-15

Topics: 78rpm, oldtime, blues, ragtime

W.C. Handy's first success, The Memphis Blues, composed in 1912, which started the first blues craze in the early 1910s (although not what we think of as Blues today). As far as I know this is the first commercial recording of The Memphis Blues, dating from July of 1914. It includes the first strain, which was dropped from the later vocal version (which is not by Handy). From the original 78rpm disk.