“Crazy Blues” by Mamie Smith was the record that launched a new era for blues in the music business. Smith was not the first person to sing the blues on record, but up until “Crazy Blues,” almost all the others had been white, catering to a white clientele. Only when “Crazy Blues” created a sensation among African American buyers did the record companies realize the potential for black music. By various news accounts, “Crazy Blues” sold anywhere from 10,000 to 2,000,000 copies, enough at any rate for OKeh and other labels to look for more black women to sing the blues and launch “race record” series for the newly discovered blues market. Smith had been singing an early variant by composer Perry Bradford, “Harlem Blues,” in a theatrical production in New York, and it was Bradford who pushed for OKeh to record her doing “Crazy Blues” with a black band, the Jazz Hounds, on August 10, 1920. The song brought wealth and fame to both Smith and Bradford during the 1920s and paved the way for Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey and many more to follow.
