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The first blues songs, including W.C. Handy's "Memphis Blues", are published as sheet music.
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The United States enters World War I. Military and economic mobilization accelerates the great internal migration of African Americans that is already underway.
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Mamie Smith was the first black vocalist to record the blues. Mamie Smith records for Okeh Records. Her "Crazy Blues" becomes the first blues hit, beginning the business of "race" recording.
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Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey, the defining performers of the classic blues, make their recording debuts.
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Ralph Peer, the famous Artist & Repertory man for Okeh and Victor Records, makes his first field recordings in Atlanta, Georgia, marking the recording debut of both the folk blues and what will later be called country music.
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The first male folk blues records, featuring singers Papa Charlie Jackson and Daddy Stovepipe, are issued.
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Electrical recording technology is introduced.
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Blind Lemon Jefferson is first recorded. He will become the dominant blues figure of the late 1920's and the first star of the folk blues.
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The early Delta bluesman Charley Patton is first recorded.
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The Wall Street Crash of 1929 begins on Black Thursday, signaling the beginning of the Great Depression in the United States. Amid widespread economic ruin, sales of records and phonographs plummet, crippling the recording industry.
