The “hillbilly” and “race” music terms popularized in 1922 shaped the way that “country music” and other genres have been defined and recognized ever since. Nicholas Stoia’s 2014 “Early Blues And Country Music” examines the similarities between blues and hillbilly music from the early 20s through the mid 40s: https://blog.oup.com/2014/10/early-blues-country-music/
Country music historians often point to 1922 as a starting place for their story, while a lot of blues historians choose to start with Mamie Smith in 1920 as a starting point for theirs.
There were some very popular songs in the mid-late 1910s with “blues” in the title, but blues historians tend to place them in a separate bin. For starters, most pre-1920 blues recordings had white singers. Of course, in the 1920s, a large number of “white blues” recordings were part of mainstream “hillbilly” music. So, does it really make sense that a white person singing blues in the 1920s is considered “real country music,” while a white person singing blues a few years earlier isn’t worthy of even a passing mention in country music history ? Some of the 1910s blues records were very successful and influential. It’s a shame that a lot of good music that was very successful in its day has been largely tossed aside because it doesn’t neatly fit the mythical “pure genres” of music that had not even been invented yet by record companies for marketing purposes.
Let’s take a look at a couple of examples:
Marion Harris was one of the first popular white singers of blues and jazz. Here’s a couple of examples of her recordings from 1916: “I Ain’t Got Nobody Much” https://youtu.be/nzqLaS289qk
“Paradise Blues” https://youtu.be/PWwg3pk3_Y0
Al Bernard sang a wide variety of music, including blues in the late 1910s. “The Boy From Dixie” recorded a version of “Frankie and Johnny” in 1919 (later covered by Jimmie Rodgers and many others) https://youtu.be/ViH6Dd03c6Y
Al Bernard recorded “Hesitation Blues” in 1919: https://youtu.be/wsgXDg1Zv_8
For comparison, here’s Charlie Poole’s 1930 recording, “If The River Was Whiskey” https://youtu.be/2GGadvsrDJo
Al Bernard did record with Vernon Dalhart in 1921, and recorded a bit of hillbilly goodness of his own later on, such as “Yodelin’ Bill” from 1926: https://youtu.be/Va38RAuclWo
Al Bernard also yodeled in “O-Le-O-Lady” https://youtu.be/bgsq48w4abE
Red Hot Jazz Archive has a list of “The First Blues Records,” which has a lot of 1914-16 blues titles: https://syncopatedtimes.com/the-first-blues-records/
Lasses White, who wrote one of those 1916 songs with an unpleasant name, went on to be a Grand Ole Opry member in the 30s.
Another category that is too often overlooked is “early black string bands.” They get grouped in somewhat with blues or jazz, but usually as an afterthought at best. A great example is the unfortunately named Ciro’s Club Coon Orchestra. They were the first to record a version of “St. Louis Blues” with vocals in 1916. Some claim this was the first blues recording with a black singer. The Document Records series “The Earliest Black String Bands” covers this group in great detail. Most of their songs had a lot of banjo, and if you played an instrumental section of one of their songs for random people and asked how they’d classify the sound, I bet “country” would get a good percentage of votes. Be sure to check out the Hawaiian themed songs this group recorded in the late 1910s, too.
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