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In 1920, black music left the front porch.

[[image - black & white photograph of a big band music ensemble]]

When Sophie Tucker missed a recording session, Mamie Smith took her place.

Mamie Smith was black. And "Crazy Blues," the song she sang, was the first record a black artist ever made.

Soon Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, Ethel Waters and Bertha "Chippie" Hill sang the blues that Mamie made famous.

Then a new music with black roots became popular: Jazz. And what Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and Fletcher Henderson created in the 1920's, Miles Davis played his own way 25 years later.

Just like Barbecue Bob, Peg Leg Howell and Blind Lemon Jefferson were picking rural blues before Taj Mahal even picked up a guitar.

And Jimmy Witherspoon, Joe Turner and Wynonie Harris sang solo with swing bands long before anyone even heard of Johnny Mathis, O.C. Smith or Ronnie Dyson.

And Big Bill Broonzy, Big Joe Williams and Brownie McGhee played "race music" 10 years before it became the "rhythm & blues" that Sly & The Family Stone and The Chambers Brothers play today.

So some of Columbia's latest releases really aren't new at all.

In fact, they began a long time before Sophie broke her date.

[[image - black & white photographs of record covers: Ronnie Dyson "If You Let Me Make Love to You Then Why Can't I Touch You?", Taj Mahal "Giant Step," Johnny Mathis "Close to You," Miles Davis "At Fillmore," The Chambers Brothers "New Generation," Sly & The Family Stone "Greatest Hits," and O.C. Smith's "Greatest Hits"]]

ON COLUMBIA AND EPIC RECORDS AND TAPES