Blues and Gospel Records, 1890-1943

A complete listing of all blues and gospel recordings by African-American artists from the earliest cylinders up to the end of 1943. It contains full details of singers, accompanists, place and date of recording, titles, issue numbers and alternate takes.

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Since its first edition in 1964, Dixon and Godrich's Blues and Gospel Records has been dubbed 'the bible' for collectors of pre-war African-American music. It provides an exhaustive listing of all recordings made up to the end of 1943 in a distinctively African-American musical style, excluding those customarily classed as jazz (which are the subject of separate discographies). The book covers recordings made for the commercial market (whether issued at the time or not) and also recordings made for the Library of Congress Archive of Folk Song and similar bodies -- about 20,000 titles in all, by more than 3,000 artists. For each recording session, full details are given of: artist credit, accompaniment, place and date of recording, titles, issuing company and catalogue numbers, matrix numbers and alternate takes. There are also short accounts of the major 'race labels', which recorded blues and gospel material, and a complete list of field trips to the south by travelling recording units. Howard Rye has joined the original compilers for this thoroughly revised fourth edition. This book is intended for anyone interested in pre-war blues and/or gospel music.