The Jazz-Me Blues

New York: Palmetto Music Pub. Co, 1921. First Edition. Slim quarto (30.5cm); original pictorial wrappers; 6pp. Moderate wear, handling, and dust-soil to wrappers, some creases and edge-tears, with inner spine-fold archivally reinforced, with a patch of paper tape remnant to upper end of same; complete, Good to Very Good. One of the earliest hits by African American songwriter and composer Thomas Henry Delaney (1889-1963). Born in Charleston, SC, he would eventually become one of the most popular jazz and blues composers on Tin Pan Alley. The front wrapper reproduces a photograph of Lucille Nelson Hegamin (1894-1970), backed by the band Albury's Blues and Jazz Seven. In 1920, she became the second African American blues singer to record, following Mamie Smith and Perry Bradford's August, 1920 recording of "Crazy Blues." She recorded "Jazz-Me Blues" in 1921, backed by her husband Bill and his band, the Blue Flame Syncopators; thanks to her recording, Delaney's song would go on to become a jazz standard. OCLC notes a scant 8 holdings. (Inventory #: 82277)