1920s Jazz Singers: The Voices of the Jazz Age

The 1920s jazz singers who mattered most were the Black blues women whose records opened a new market, led by Mamie Smith, Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith, together with Ethel Waters and Louis Armstrong, who carried that style toward jazz and pop. This list covers 16 singers who made their name on record between 1920 and 1929, grouped by style: the blues singers, the vaudeville and Broadway singers, and the men who brought scat and microphone singing. Each entry gives dates, what the singer did in the decade and a recording to start with.

How 1920s Singers Got on Record

Before 1920 the big record companies rarely recorded Black singers. That changed when songwriter Perry Bradford persuaded Okeh to record Mamie Smith: her “Crazy Blues” sold 75,000 copies in its first month, and other labels went looking for Black blues singers. Columbia followed in 1921 and Paramount in 1922, and in 1922 Okeh coined the term “race records” for discs marketed to Black buyers. Black Swan, founded in Harlem in 1921 by Harry Pace, was the first widely distributed label owned and run by African Americans until Paramount bought it in 1924. Paramount is estimated to have issued a quarter of all race records between 1922 and 1932.

Most of these singers learned their trade in tent shows and Black vaudeville. The Theatre Owners Booking Association (T.O.B.A.), formed in 1920, booked Black performers into more than 80 theaters at its peak; it paid less than white vaudeville, and performers called it “Tough on Black Artists.” Singers had to fill a hall without a microphone; electrical recording, which Victor and Columbia adopted in spring 1925, opened the way for quieter, conversational singers such as Bing Crosby.

The line between blues and jazz singing was thin. The classic blues singers recorded with pianists or small jazz bands, and players such as Louis Armstrong, Coleman Hawkins and Fletcher Henderson worked on their sessions. For the bands and instrumentalists of the decade, see our guide to jazz in the 1920s; for the singers who came after, our ranking of the greatest jazz singers of all time.

The Blues Singers Who Made the First Hits

After “Crazy Blues,” record companies scouted and recorded hundreds of Black women singers. These seven are the most important of them. More women from the decade appear in our list of the greatest female jazz singers.

Mamie Smith (1891-1946)

Mamie Smith, a Cincinnati-born vaudeville and Harlem cabaret singer, made her first record for Okeh in February 1920. On August 10, 1920 she recorded Bradford’s “Crazy Blues” with her Jazz Hounds, the first blues recorded by a Black woman. Billed as “The Queen of the Blues,” she kept recording for Okeh through the decade; in 1922 her Jazz Hounds included a young Coleman Hawkins. “Crazy Blues” entered the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1994 and the National Recording Registry in 2005. Start with “Crazy Blues” (Okeh, 1920).

Ma Rainey (1886-1939)

Gertrude “Ma” Rainey had toured Southern tent and minstrel shows for about two decades before Paramount signed her in 1923. In five years she made more than 100 recordings as the “Mother of the Blues,” and with Bessie Smith she moved audiences toward a rougher, earthier sound than the lighter singers who had recorded first. “See See Rider Blues,” recorded in October 1924 with Louis Armstrong on cornet, is in the National Recording Registry, and her 1928 “Prove It on Me” refers openly to relationships with women. She received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2023. Start with “See See Rider Blues” (Paramount, 1924).

Bessie Smith (c. 1894-1937)

In 1912 Bessie Smith was hired as a dancer by a touring troupe that already featured Ma Rainey, and she later became the top attraction on the T.O.B.A. circuit. Columbia signed her in 1923, and both sides of her first record, “Downhearted Blues” and “Gulf Coast Blues,” were hits. She was the most popular of the classic blues singers and the highest-paid Black entertainer of her day, and she made about 160 recordings for Columbia. She received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1989. Start with “St. Louis Blues” (Columbia, 1925), with Armstrong.

Ida Cox (1888 or 1896-1967)

Born in Toccoa, Georgia, Cox left home at 14 to tour with minstrel shows and was one of the T.O.B.A. circuit’s top solo acts by the early 1920s. Paramount billed her as “The Uncrowned Queen of the Blues” and recorded 78 titles with her between 1923 and 1929. She was one of the few blues women of the time to write her own songs, and in 1929 she and her husband, pianist Jesse Crump, launched their own touring revue, Raisin’ Cain. In 1961 she returned with Blues for Rampart Street (Riverside), with Coleman Hawkins and Roy Eldridge. Start with “Wild Women Don’t Have the Blues” (Paramount, 1924).

Sippie Wallace (1898-1986)

Sippie Wallace, born in Arkansas and raised in Houston, was billed in tent shows as “The Texas Nightingale.” Between 1923 and 1927 she recorded more than 40 songs for Okeh, with accompanists including Armstrong, Sidney Bechet and King Oliver. Her first sides, “Shorty George” and “Up the Country Blues,” made her a blues star. She spent decades as a church organist in Detroit, returned in 1966, and her album Sippie (Atlantic), recorded in 1981, earned a Grammy nomination. Start with “Special Delivery Blues,” with Armstrong.

Trixie Smith (c. 1895-1943)

Atlanta-born Trixie Smith worked in vaudeville and minstrel shows before her first records for Black Swan in 1922. In January 1922 she won a blues contest at New York’s Manhattan Casino with her own “Trixie’s Blues,” with Lucille Hegamin in second place. Her “My Man Rocks Me (With One Steady Roll)” (Black Swan, 1922) is often cited as the first record to use “rocking” and “rolling” in a secular sense. Armstrong played on her “Railroad Blues” (1925), and she later acted in five films. Start with “Railroad Blues.”

Victoria Spivey (1906-1976)

Spivey grew up in Houston and as a teenager worked Texas clubs, occasionally with Blind Lemon Jefferson. Okeh signed her in St. Louis in 1926, and her first record, her own “Black Snake Blues,” sold well; “Dope Head Blues” (1927) and “Organ Grinder Blues” (1928) followed. In 1929 she played Missy Rose in King Vidor’s first sound film, Hallelujah! In 1961 she co-founded Spivey Records with Len Kunstadt; it recorded Hegamin and Wallace, and her own 1962 session with Big Joe Williams had a young Bob Dylan on harmonica. Start with “Black Snake Blues” (Okeh, 1926).

Vaudeville, Broadway and Radio Singers

A second group sang blues when the market asked for it but built careers in revues, on Broadway and on radio, with a lighter delivery closer to jazz-pop singing. Ethel Waters and Alberta Hunter also appear in our overview of Black jazz singers from the 1920s to today.

Ethel Waters (1896-1977)

Born in Chester, Pennsylvania, Waters worked Black vaudeville as “Sweet Mama Stringbean” and in 1921 became the fifth Black woman to make a record. At Black Swan (1921 to 1923), with Fletcher Henderson as accompanist, she was the best-paid Black recording artist of the moment, and “Down Home Blues” (1921) was a hit. She moved beyond the blues to pop and jazz songs: at Columbia from 1925 she had hits with “Dinah” and, in 1929, “Am I Blue?”, both now in the Grammy Hall of Fame. Start with “Dinah” (Columbia, 1925).

Alberta Hunter (1895-1984)

Alberta Hunter left Memphis for Chicago at about 11 and from 1917 sang at the Dreamland, where she worked with King Oliver’s band. With pianist Lovie Austin she wrote “Downhearted Blues,” which she recorded for Paramount in 1922; Bessie Smith’s 1923 version became the big hit. In 1928 she played Queenie opposite Paul Robeson in the first London production of Show Boat. After 20 years as a nurse she returned in 1977 at the Cookery in Greenwich Village. Start with “Downhearted Blues” (Paramount, 1922).

Lucille Hegamin (1894-1970)

Lucille Hegamin, from Macon, Georgia, sang in Chicago cabarets as “The Georgia Peach” before moving to New York. In November 1920 she became the second Black blues singer on record after Mamie Smith, cutting sides for the small Arto label; “Arkansas Blues” was a hit, and “He May Be Your Man (But He Comes to See Me Sometimes)” became her signature song. Like Mamie Smith she sang in a lighter, pop-influenced style, and her 1922 Paramount records were issued in the label’s popular series rather than its race series. Start with “Arkansas Blues.”

Edith Wilson (1896-1981)

Louisville-born Edith Wilson was recorded by Columbia in 1921 with Johnny Dunn’s Jazz Hounds, starting with Perry Bradford’s “Nervous Blues”; her sessions that September were the first by a Black blues singer for Columbia. She cut 17 songs with Dunn in 1921 and 1922, but her career ran mainly through revues: the Plantation Revue with Florence Mills in 1922, a European tour from 1925, and Hot Chocolates with Armstrong and Fats Waller in 1929. She later acted on radio and television and performed until 1980. Start with “Nervous Blues” (Columbia, 1921).

Adelaide Hall (1901-1993)

Brooklyn-born Adelaide Hall began in the chorus of Shuffle Along on Broadway in 1921. At the Sunset Café in Chicago she developed her scat singing with Armstrong’s encouragement, and on October 26, 1927 she sang a wordless vocal on Duke Ellington’s “Creole Love Call,” using her voice as another instrument in the band. The record became a hit and helped launch both her and Ellington into the mainstream. In Blackbirds of 1928 she starred with Bill “Bojangles” Robinson in a show that ran 518 performances. Start with “Creole Love Call” (1927).

Annette Hanshaw (1901-1985)

Hanshaw, from New York, made her first commercial records for Pathé in 1926 and from 1928 recorded for Columbia, mostly on its cheaper “dime-store” labels such as Harmony. Her records featured jazz soloists such as Red Nichols, Joe Venuti, Eddie Lang, Benny Goodman and Jack Teagarden. Billed as “The Personality Girl,” she ended many records with a cheerful “That’s all!” She was one of the most popular radio singers of the late 1920s and early 1930s, had sold more than four million records by 1934, and quit performing in 1937. Start with her 1929 “Am I Blue?”

The Men: Scat and the Microphone

The decade’s best-known male singers brought two new things: scat, which put a horn player’s phrasing into the voice, and a soft, close-up delivery suited to the microphone. Our ranking of the greatest male jazz singers follows the line they started.

Louis Armstrong (1901-1971)

Armstrong left New Orleans in 1922 to play second cornet in King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band in Chicago, and in the mid-1920s he backed Ma Rainey, Alberta Hunter and Bessie Smith on record. He was not the first to scat on record, but his Hot Five side “Heebie Jeebies” (Okeh, 1926) became a national bestseller and made scat singing famous. His “Ain’t Misbehavin’,” from the 1929 revue Hot Chocolates, was his biggest-selling record up to then, and his phrasing was a formative influence on Bing Crosby. His playing is covered in our list of jazz trumpet players. Start with “Heebie Jeebies” and “Ain’t Misbehavin’.”

Cliff Edwards (1895-1971)

Edwards, from Hannibal, Missouri, taught himself the ukulele to accompany himself in saloons and became “Ukulele Ike.” He first recorded in 1919 and scatted an interlude on “Old Fashioned Love” in 1923, three years before “Heebie Jeebies.” One of the most popular singers of the 1920s, he headlined New York’s Palace in 1924, appeared with Fred and Adele Astaire in the Gershwins’ Lady, Be Good! that year, and introduced “Singin’ in the Rain” in The Hollywood Revue of 1929. He later voiced Jiminy Cricket in Disney’s Pinocchio (1940). Start with “Singin’ in the Rain” (1929).

Bing Crosby (1903-1977)

Crosby, born in Tacoma and raised in Spokane, joined Paul Whiteman’s orchestra in 1926 with singing partner Al Rinker; with pianist Harry Barris they became the Rhythm Boys. With Whiteman he recorded alongside Bix Beiderbecke, Jack Teagarden and Eddie Lang, scatted on “Mississippi Mud” in 1927, and in 1928 had his first No. 1 hit, “Ol’ Man River.” He was one of the first singers to use the microphone for intimacy rather than volume, moving popular singing away from the belting of Al Jolson. In 1963 he became the first recipient of the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Start with “From Monday On” (1928), with Whiteman and Beiderbecke.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who was the most popular jazz singer of the 1920s?

Among blues and jazz singers, Bessie Smith: she was the most popular of the classic blues singers and the highest-paid Black entertainer of her day. In the wider pop market, Al Jolson was one of the biggest stars of the decade, Cliff Edwards one of its most popular singers, and Bing Crosby had his first No. 1 hit in 1928.

What was the first jazz vocal record?

There is no single first, but the usual starting point is Mamie Smith’s “Crazy Blues,” recorded for Okeh on August 10, 1920. It was the first blues recorded by a Black woman and opened the market for race records. Scat singing was also on record before Louis Armstrong’s “Heebie Jeebies” (1926), for example on Cliff Edwards’s “Old Fashioned Love” (1923).

Was Al Jolson a jazz singer?

Not in the sense used on this page. Jolson was one of the most famous and highest-paid stars of the 1910s and 1920s and starred in The Jazz Singer (1927), the first major talking picture, but he was a vaudeville belter and blackface entertainer. Bing Crosby’s quieter microphone singing moved popular singing away from his style.

Were most 1920s jazz singers women?

Most of the decade’s blues and jazz recording stars were women: after “Crazy Blues” the labels recorded hundreds of Black women in the classic blues style. Men came forward in the second half of the decade, when Louis Armstrong and Bing Crosby became known as singers, and from 1926 the success of Blind Lemon Jefferson shifted blues records toward men accompanying themselves on guitar or piano.

Which 1920s singers had long careers?

Several. Ethel Waters moved into Broadway and film and was nominated for an Oscar for Pinky (1949). Alberta Hunter returned in 1977, after 20 years as a nurse, for a six-year run at the Cookery in New York. Sippie Wallace and Victoria Spivey came back in the 1960s blues revival, and Louis Armstrong reached No. 1 with “Hello, Dolly!” in 1964.