Timeline of Blues Music

Earliest form of blues, which is the African spirituals being brought to the United States. By 1867, the first collection of the African spirituals were published.

Laws allowed more and more restrictions and cruelty to the African-Americans. Racial violence and lynchings increase.

"Camp Meeting Shouts.", published by the Victor Records, is the first known actual recording of black music.

Some of the first set of blues songs are published as sheet music.

One of the earliest blues and legend artist W.C. Handy, also known as Father of the Blues, got his inspiration from a bluesman playing guitar with a knife at a train station in Mississippi.

One of the most famous and earliest blues songs that is accepted by large amount of audiences is W.C. Handy's "Memphis Blues".

More and more blues music records were issued, leading to the emerge of the early blues artists such as Mamie Smith, Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey, Ralph Peer, Blind Lemon Jefferson, etc.

Mamie Smith's record "Crazy Blues" is also one of the earliest blues music, and started using the term "race" recording.

The Wall Street Crash of 1929 begins on Black Thursday, marked the beginning of the Great Depression in the United States. The huge drop of economy also brought down to the sale of records and advertisements on music.

After World War I and just about US was entering World War II, economic and military mobilization creates new opportunities for African Americans to keep migrating and promoting their music, particularly in the urban centers of the North.