West End Blues
1928
Armstrong's twelve-second opening cadenza announced that jazz had a soloist, and everything since has been the answer.
★ 9.1
Browse by time · decade
1920s
1920 – 1929
Showing 20 songs from the 1920s
Rhapsody in Blue
1924 · From Rhapsody in Blue
Ross Gorman slurred the opening clarinet as a joke in rehearsal, and Gershwin kept the wail for Aeolian Hall.
★ 8.7
Stardust (1927)
1927
Carmichael whistled the tune to his band at Gennett and cut it fast; Parish added the lyric two years later.
★ 8.3
Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground
1927
Wordless humming answered by a pocketknife slide, an 1792 hymn tune NASA put on the Voyager Golden Record.
★ 7.8
T for Texas (Blue Yodel No. 1)
1928
Cut in a converted Camden church in 1927, two takes, and the yodel that made hillbilly records big business.
★ 7.7
St. Louis BluesBessie Smith
St. Louis Blues
1925 · From The Complete Recordings
Armstrong's cornet answering every line Smith sings, with only a wheezing harmonium underneath, cut in New York in 1925.
★ 7.5
Ain't Misbehavin'
1929
Waller sold every song in Hot Chocolates for five hundred dollars, then cut this one alone for Victor.
★ 7.5
Singin' the Blues
1927
No vocal, the melody withheld until the final chorus, and Beiderbecke's cornet solo transcribed note-for-note by Fletcher Henderson's orchestra.
★ 7.4
Wildwood Flower
1928
Maybelle Carter played melody and rhythm at once, and every country guitarist since has learned this 1860 parlor tune.
★ 7.0
Downhearted BluesBessie Smith
Downhearted Blues
1923 · From The Complete Recordings
Alberta Hunter and Lovie Austin wrote it; Smith's debut record sold 780,000 copies in six months, just voice and piano.
★ 6.9
Black and Tan Fantasy
1927
Miley's growl trumpet, Nanton's plunger-muted trombone, and a Chopin funeral march closing out the 1927 Victor side.
★ 6.9
Crazy Blues
1920
Seventy-five thousand copies in two months, Perry Bradford's tune, and Smith's voice opening the record industry to Black audiences.
★ 6.8
Pony Blues
1929
H.C. Speir set up the June 1929 session, and Patton's first Paramount release still sounds like the Delta's starting point.
★ 6.7
Pine Top Boogie WoogiePinetop Smith
Pine Top Boogie Woogie
1928
Smith calls out the steps over a rolling left hand, on the first record to carry boogie woogie in its title.
★ 5.6
The Prisoner's SongVernon Dalhart
The Prisoner's Song
1924
Cut for Victor in 1924 by a conservatory-trained opera singer, its sales proved a mass audience for hillbilly records.
★ 5.5
In The Jailhouse Now
1928
Recorded in Camden in February 1928, a vaudeville novelty from 1915 that Rodgers claimed forever with one yodel.
★ 5.5
It Had to Be You
1924
Gus Kahn's lyric prefers the flaws to the virtues, and Jones's 1924 record held number one for five weeks.
★ 5.5
My Blue HeavenGene Austin
My Blue Heaven
1928
Donaldson wrote the tune waiting his turn at a Friars Club billiard table; Austin's soft croon sold millions.
★ 4.5
Spike Driver Blues (1928)Mississippi John Hurt
Spike Driver Blues (1928)
1928 · From 1928 Sessions
Okeh sent an Avalon sharecropper home after modest sales, leaving behind a fingerpicked John Henry that refuses the hammer.
★ 4.3