Same old story....

[oursin]

Seen in a review of Marybeth Hamilton's In Search of the Blues: Black voices, white visions:

When record companies first marketed race records - music by and for blacks - the singers were women: Mamie Smith and her Hot Jazz Titans, Ma Rainey, Ida Cox, Victoria Spivey, Alberta Hunter. According to Hamilton, "nearly every work of blues history" dismisses these women as "popularisers, not folk singers". They did not count as "the real black voice".

She did it, but it wasn't The Real Thing....