Paramount Records

even managed her own booking schedule.

When Paramount Records finally put her on a 78 in 1923, they were recording over 100 tracks in just five years.

Those recordings are not just historical artifacts.

They are living blueprints that show how African American storytelling could be captured with the limited acoustic technology of the era.

rooted in the blues, but already stretching toward a broader musical conversation.

In 1923, she signed with Paramount Records and recorded her first track, Bow Weevil Blues, which was captured on a wax cylinder in a makeshift studio in Chicago.

Over the next five years, she produced more than 100 recordings, an astonishing output that dwarfed most other female blues singers of the era.

Those recordings were distributed across the South, giving white audiences a taste of authentic African American music while simultaneously reinforcing racial segregation through targeted marketing.

Um, people like Mamie Smith are soon, she's soon followed up by people like Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey, who actually hires, Dorsey ends up getting hired by Ma Rainey and becoming her bandleader and, and a music arranger.

He gets this gig 'cause he, he's, gets some work at Paramount Records.

I'm kind of compressing the timeline 'cause we've already used half of our time and got a lot to cover.

Um, but he gets, gets, gets a job with Paramount Records, then gets a job with Ma Rainey, who's absolutely one of the top blues stars of the day, works with her from 1924 to 1928, and it seems like he's made it at this point.

Like, he's a made man.

He's, he's the number one guy of one of the top five blues, top three blues singers in the country at a time when she's selling tens or hundreds of thousands of copies of every record she's doing.