
Before OKeh would bet on records made by Black artists for Black buyers, somebody had to go and find out whether that market existed. The company sent Ralph Peer. He went into barbershops and pool halls and asked people whether they would buy records made by their own artists, and came back with the answer: yes, they will. That is Barry Mazor’s account of how Mamie Smith’s “Crazy Blues” got made in 1920 - not the story Perry Bradford told for the rest of his life, and Barry has a line for that: the least-heard sentence in the history of music is “I don’t deserve that much credit for this.” Host Nate Wilcox is joined by Barry Mazor, author of “Ralph Peer and the Making of Popular Roots Music,” in a conversation first recorded in 2022 and returning now as part of Let It Roll From the Beginning. GO TO THE LET IT ROLL SUBSTACK TO HEAR THE FULL EPISODE -- The final 15 minutes of this episode are exclusively for paying subscribers to the Let It Roll Substack. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber to support the show. Thanks! Email letitrollpodcast@gmail.com Follow us on Twitter. Let It Roll is proud to be part of Pantheon Podcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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