Perry Bradford

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Perry Bradford was born in 1893 in Montgomery, Alabama, and grew up in Atlanta. He was a composer, songwriter and vaudeville performer, nicknamed Mule for his stubbornness. In 1906 he worked in minstrel shows, and in 1909 he was already playing as a solo pianist in Chicago. As a pianist, singer, dancer and composer he travelled the theatres of the South and the North between 1908 and 1919, in a song-and-dance act under the name Bradford and Jeanette.

Music and breakthrough

In New York he managed to convince Frederick W. Hager of Okeh Records to record Mamie Smith. He became her musical director, and she played the lead in his 1918 show Made in Harlem. In this way Smith became, in 1920, the first African American blues singer on record, with his song Crazy Blues. He also organised the first recording session, That Thing Called Love, in which an African American artist with a white studio band played material that belonged to African American culture.

Influence

Between 1923 and 1927 Bradford himself recorded seven sessions, with, among others, Johnny Dunn, Bubber Miley, Buster Bailey, James P. Johnson and, in 1925, Louis Armstrong on two tracks. Because of the stock market crash of 1929 and the change in jazz and African American songs, he lost influence, and during the Depression he was almost forgotten. In 1957 Little Richard had a hit with his Keep A-Knockin'. His autobiography Born With the Blues appeared in 1965.

Listening

In School of Rock

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• After Hours: Session 1^NL Reader
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