In 1919, African-American songwriter and pianist Perry Bradford was sure that there was a market for African-American music aimed at African-American consumers. He had a hard time convincing the record companies in New York of this, but he kept at it and managed to get Okeh records interested in the idea in 1920.

Before this time there had been a handful of successful African-American recording artists such as James Reese Europe and Bert Williams, but their music was aimed more towards the tastes of the White record buying public. Bradford wanted to market the contemporary African-American music, which was Blues and Jazz.

He felt that singer Mamie Smith a star of the musical revue “Maid of Harlem” had the right stuff to reach the African-American audience. Their first try was a couple of Perry Bradford pop songs with a slight Jazz and Blues feel “That Thing Called Love” and “You Can’t Keep a Good Man Down“. The record sold well enough that Okeh was willing to be a little more adventurous and try some real contemporary African-American music on their next release. The “A” side was a Perry Bradford song called “Crazy Blues“, and on the flip side was “It’ s Right Here for You“.

Okeh played up that fact that this was an African-American singer and band in their advertising and sheet music sales that accompanied the record. The record was a smash hit and some say it ended up selling over a million copies. Almost all other record companies then jumped on the band wagon and started recording African-American Blues and Jazz musicians.

Read: In 1920 Mamie Smith’s Crazy Blues paved the way for Black Music