1920s

Ask anyone to name the first female blues guitarist and you’ll probably be told it was Sister Rosetta Tharpe. Or maybe Big Mama Thornton. Memphis Minnie came before both of them.

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If Jimmie Rodgers bridged the gap between blues and country, then The Carter Family did the same for folk and bluegrass. (more…)

Jimmie Rodgers might not have been the first country musician to make a record – that was Eck Robertson. But with his Blue Yodels he was country music’s first superstar. (more…)

Eck Robertson was the first country musician to make a record. He might have been called “the Hendrix of the fiddle” if only he’d been born half a century later.

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