Timeline of music in the United States (1920–1949)
music in the United States
This is a timeline of music in the United States from 1920 to 1949.
1920
Vaudevillean Mamie Smith records "Crazy Blues" for Okeh Records, the first blues song commercially recorded by an African-American singer, the first blues song recorded at all by an African-American woman, and the first vocal blues recording of any kind, a few months after making the first documented recording by an African-American female singer, "You Can't Keep a Good Man Down" and "That Thing Called Love", which were successful enough for Okeh to commission "Crazy Blues". Stylistically, it resembles other vaudeville music of the era, but it borrows a poetic and melodic form from African-American folk music, as well as elements of unrelated "field-holler" vocal practices. More than its traditional predecessors, this mixture would come to define and epitomize the blues for later generations. The song becomes a surprising commercial success that would open up the market for African-American music by selling more than 8,000 copies a week for several months. It is followed by a string of hits by African-American women singers.
A paper shortage contributes to a cost increase and a downturn in the sheet music publishing industry.
Joseph Patek forms a family band that will become one of the longest-lasting and most influential Czech-Texan groups.
KDKA in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania claims to be the first radio station with regularly scheduled programs.
Michigan and Wisconsin organize their first state-sponsored band contests.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Timeline of music in the United States (1920–1949)” is music in the United States. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Timeline, music and United, not as a finished interpretation.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 13, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7806123. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1920 and 1949.
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This entry incorporates text from “Timeline of music in the United States (1920–1949)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.