<Tr> <Td_colspan="2"> Problems playing these files? See media help . </Td> </Tr> <P> The first publication of blues sheet music was in 1908: Antonio Maggio's "I Got the Blues" is the first published song to use the word blues . Hart Wand's "Dallas Blues" followed in 1912; W.C. Handy's "The Memphis Blues" followed in the same year . The first recording by an African American singer was Mamie Smith's 1920 rendition of Perry Bradford's "Crazy Blues". But the origins of the blues were some decades earlier, probably around 1890 . This music is poorly documented, partly because of racial discrimination in U.S. society, including academic circles, and partly because of the low rate of literacy among rural African Americans at the time . </P> <P> Reports of blues music in southern Texas and the Deep South were written at the dawn of the 20th century . Charles Peabody mentioned the appearance of blues music at Clarksdale, Mississippi, and Gate Thomas reported similar songs in southern Texas around 1901--1902 . These observations coincide more or less with the recollections of Jelly Roll Morton, who said he first heard blues music in New Orleans in 1902; Ma Rainey, who remembered first hearing the blues in the same year in Missouri; and W.C. Handy, who first heard the blues in Tutwiler, Mississippi, in 1903 . The first extensive research in the field was performed by Howard W. Odum, who published an anthology of folk songs from Lafayette County, Mississippi, and Newton County, Georgia, between 1905 and 1908 . The first noncommercial recordings of blues music, termed proto - blues by Paul Oliver, were made by Odum for research purposes at the very beginning of the 20th century . They are now lost . </P> <P> Other recordings that are still available were made in 1924 by Lawrence Gellert . Later, several recordings were made by Robert W. Gordon, who became head of the Archive of American Folk Songs of the Library of Congress . Gordon's successor at the library was John Lomax . In the 1930s, Lomax and his son Alan made a large number of non-commercial blues recordings that testify to the huge variety of proto - blues styles, such as field hollers and ring shouts . A record of blues music as it existed before 1920 can also be found in the recordings of artists such as Lead Belly and Henry Thomas . All these sources show the existence of many different structures distinct from twelve -, eight -, or sixteen - bar . </P>

Of the following is not considered one of the sources for the blues