"Dallas Blues" is an American blues song written and published in March 1912 by Hart Wend, the first ever blues song ever to appear in print. [1] . "Oh, You Beautiful Doll" - the work of composers Tin-Peng-Ellie - was published a year earlier, but only her first verse was in the format of a 12-beat blues. In the same 1912, two more songs were released that had the word “blues” in their title: “Baby Seals Blues” (August 1912; vaudeville number written by Arthur Sills) and “The Memphis Blues” (September 1912; written by William Handy ). [2] [3] However, none of them was a real blues. [4] The exact date of the song is unknown, but there is evidence indicating that “Dallas Blues” was written no later than 1909. [5] In 1918, Lloyd Garrett supplemented the text by adding lines about the character's longing for the Dallas song. [6] Despite the fact that the song was written for the standard blues tempo ( Tempo di Blues. Very slowly ) (inaccessible link) [7] , it is often performed in the style of ragtime or dixieland .
In 1918, a recording of the song was released by Wilbur Sweatman's Jazz Band on a Columbia record. In 1929, Louis Armstrong and his orchestra recorded a song for the Okeh Records label .
Notes
- ↑ Duncan, Blues Fiddling Classics , page 30: “This tune was the first 12-bar blues to be published (March 1912). It was written by violinist / band leader Hart Wand from Oklahoma. ”
- ↑ Davis, The History of the Blues , page 59: "But in a sense, the very first blues was the twelve-bar opening verse to the pop song" Oh, You Beautiful Doll, "which was published in 1911."
- ↑ Davis, The History of the Blues , page 59: "The composer of the very first copyright" blues "was Hart Wand, a white Oklahoma violinist and bandleader whose" Dallas Blues "was so named because its melody gave a black porter who worked for Wand's family "the blues to go back to Dallas." This was followed a few months later by "Bably Seal Blues", a negligible item by the black vaudeville performer Arthur "Baby" Seals and ragtime pianist Arthur Matthews. "
- ↑ Charters, The Country Blues , pages 34-35: "The first was Hart Wand's" Dallas Blues, "published in March; the second was Arthur Seals's" Bab Seals' Blues, "published in August; Handy finally brought out his blues in September. Both Handy and Arthur Seals were Negroes, but the music that they titled "blues is more or less derived from the standard popular musical styles of the" coon-song "and" cake-walk "type. It is ironic the first published piece in the Negro "blues idiom," Dallas Blues, 'was by a white man, Hart Wand. ”
- ↑ Charters, The Country Blues , page 35.
- ↑ Jasen, A Century of American Popular Music , page 45: “Dallas Blues”; Wand Publishing Co. — Oklahoma City, 1912; Probably the first published blues number. Words were added (by Lloyd Garrett in 1918). Although a favorite of dance and jazz bands, Ted Lewis and His Band had the number 7 hit in 1931, with Fats Waller as vocalist (Columbia 2527-D).
- ↑ Wand, “Dallas Blues,” p. 2