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Scott Joplin publishes "Maple Leaf Rag", making ragtime main influence on the Piedmont style of the blues songs.
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The Timeline of Blues Music
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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 starts the great migration of African-Americans to the north
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Mamie Smith Records "Crazy Blues" and it becomes the first blues hit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaz4Ziw_CfQ -
Electronic recoding technology is introduced and blues music is available for wider audience.
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The early Delta Bluesman Charley Patton recorded first song.
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The Great Depression in the USA and blacks migrated to the north along the route of Illinois Central Railroad towards Chicago. Chicago Blues was made and it was more powerful.
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Muddy Waters Makes his first Chicago recordings
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B.B. King has his first major rhythm and blues hit with a version of "Three O'Clock Blues".
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Muddy Waters performs at the Newport Jazz Festival to tremendous acclaim.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gNs-29s-0Q -
John Hammand pushes to have a selection of Robert Johnson's recording reissued on LP by Columbia.
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Delta Bluesmen Son House and Skip James perform at the Newport Folk Festival.
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Muddy water and B.B. King performs at the Fillmore East, a concert venue in the East Village region of New York City, to a predominantly white audience.
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Columbia's release of the complete Robert Johnson recordings on CD sells 400,000 albums in six months.
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Congress declares 2003 the "Year of the Blues", commemorating the 100th anniversary of W.C. Handy's encounter with an unknown early bluesman at a train station in Mississippi.
