Vocal Color in Blue

Abstract

Examining the influence of the blues shouter’s vocal sound on what became the Broadway belter’s technique, this chapter showcases a line of historical singing lessons, the contexts and moments in which singers taught particular songs to one another and in which vocal technique was also part of what was being transmitted. The reader is invited to listen for lessons in the first three decades of the twentieth century—lessons both acknowledged and disavowed—attended by Gertrude “Ma” Rainey, Bessie Smith, Sophie Tucker, Ethel Waters, and Ethel Merman. Attuned to the multiplicity of vocal colors in which blues music has been sung, the chapter positions the blues as not only an antecedent of jazz but also, via vocal sound, a vital protogenre of Broadway’s belted-out show tunes.