12’ Bar Ramblin’ #47 ‘Blues Queens vol.II’ with Stefan Matussek

In the first half of the 20th century female blues singers were the first to popularize the blues. This is because classic female blues (also known as vaudeville blues) became an amalgam of traditional folk blues and urban theater music, introducing a new audience to a then still relatively obscure form of music. Ma Rainey is credited as the first to perform the blues on stage as entertainment in 1902 and the first ever recorded blues vocals were sung by Mamie Smith in 1920. Since then the female artists of the genre have had just as big of a musical impact as their male counterparts.