Black Recording Artists, 1877–1926

This annotated discography covers the first 50 years of audio recordings by black artists in chronological order, music made in the “acoustic era” of recording technology. The book has cross-referenced bibliographical information on recording sessions, including audio sources for extant material, and appendices on field recordings; Caribbean, Mexican and South American recordings; piano rolls performed by black artists; and a filmography detailing the visual record of black performing artists from the period. Indexes contain all featured artists, titles recorded and labels.

Craig Martin Gibbs lives in Kyoto, Japan.

Compiled by Craig Martin Gibbs
Format: softcover (7 x 10)
Pages: 500
Bibliographic Info: appendices, bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2013
pISBN: 978-0-7864-7238-3
eISBN: 978-1-4766-0085-7
Imprint: McFarland

Table of Contents


Preface 1

Introduction 3

Abbreviations 5

Locations of Recordings 8

The Organization of the Discography 9

The Discography 11

Appendices

I. Field Recordings in the United States 379

II. Piano Rolls 398

III. Recordings from Mexico, South America and the Caribbean: 1905–1926 408

IV. Films 425

V. Audio Sources 427

Bibliography 437

Individual Artists and Group Names Index 439

Recording Titles Index 449

Commercial Labels and Field Recordings Index 486

“fascinating information. It is also a resource that will enable researchers to trace the development of black recorded music through its formative stages offering historians and music scholars a trove of data to analyze…Gibbs has performed an impressive feat of dedicated scholarship”—Against the Grain; “invaluable…a great deal of work went into this definitive work…highly recommended”—Los Angeles Jazz Scene – Jazz Around Town; “fascinating”—Document Records Newsletter.