Ed Andrews (Dates and places of birth and death unknown) was an American blues singer and guitarist, who made what are considered to be the first commercially released

country blues Country blues (also folk blues, rural blues, backwoods blues, or downhome blues) is one of the earliest forms of blues music. The mainly solo vocal with acoustic fingerstyle guitar accompaniment developed in the rural Southern United States in t ...

recordings, in 1924, some three years before such releases became commonplace.

Biography

Virtually nothing is known of Andrews' life. After the commercial success of some of the first female "

classic blues Classic female blues was an early form of blues music, popular in the 1920s. An amalgam of traditional folk blues and urban theater music, the style is also known as vaudeville blues. Classic blues were performed by female singers accompanied by ...

" singers such as

Mamie Smith Mamie Smith ( Robinson; May 26, 1891 – August or September 16, 1946) was an American singer. As a vaudeville singer, she performed in multiple styles, including jazz and blues. In 1920, she entered blues history as the first African-American a ...

Ma Rainey Gertrude "Ma" Rainey ( Pridgett; April 26, 1886 – December 22, 1939) was an American blues singer and influential early-blues recording artist. Dubbed the " Mother of the Blues", she bridged earlier vaudeville and the authentic expression of ...

and

Bessie Smith Bessie Smith (April 15, 1892 – September 26, 1937) was an African-American blues singer widely renowned during the Jazz Age. Nicknamed the "Honorific nicknames in popular music, Empress of the Blues" and formerly Queen of the Blues, she was t ...

in the early 1920s, the

Okeh OKeh Records () is an American record label founded by the Otto Heinemann Phonograph Corporation, a phonograph supplier established in 1916, which branched out into phonograph records in 1918. The name originally was spelled "OkeH" from the init ...

record company made field trips to the southern states to discover unrecorded musicians. In

Atlanta, Georgia Atlanta ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Georgia (U.S. state), most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. It is the county seat, seat of Fulton County, Georg ...

, they discovered and recorded Andrews in April 1924. He recorded two tracks, "Barrel House Blues" and "Time Ain't Gonna Make Me Stay", which were issued as

Okeh Records OKeh Records () is an American record label founded by the Otto Heinemann Phonograph Corporation, a phonograph supplier established in 1916, which branched out into phonograph records in 1918. The name originally was spelled "OkeH" from the init ...

(OK 8137). They were the first commercially released recordings of a male country blues singer. The record company's advertisement stated: "Right where the blues songs were born is where Ed. Andrews was singing ‘em and playing ‘em when the special OKeh Recording Expedition discovered him. Why, man alive, he was just scattering happiness all around, wherever he appeared." "Ed Andrews"
''BlindCarre.com'', September 22, 2014. Retrieved 12 May 2017 It is not known whether Andrews originated from Atlanta, or was an itinerant musician passing through the city. He played

12-string guitar A twelve-string guitar (or 12-string guitar) is a steel-string guitar with 12 strings in six courses, which produces a thicker, more ringing tone than a standard six-string guitar. Typically, the strings of the lower four courses are tuned in ...

, and sang with a pronounced

vibrato Vibrato (Italian language, Italian, from past participle of "wikt:vibrare, vibrare", to vibrate) is a musical effect consisting of a regular, pulsating change of pitch (music), pitch. It is used to add expression to vocal and instrumental music. ...

. His style has been likened to that of Peg Leg Howell, a Georgia musician who first recorded in 1926. On the basis of a lyric line, "Ain't got nobody lead me round and round", it has been conjectured that Andrews may have been blind. Tony Russell, "The first bluesman?", ''Jazz & Blues'', June 1972, p.15
reprinted at ''WeenieCampbell.com'', December 9, 2005. Retrieved 12 May 2017 Andrews made no further recordings. He was thought to have been "approaching middle age" when he recorded, but other aspects of his life are unknown.

References

Year of birth missing Year of death missing Country blues musicians American blues singers Okeh Records artists Singers from Georgia (U.S. state) 20th-century American singers {{US-blues-musician-stub