Okeh Records

…jazz and blues after purchasing OKeh Records, adding household names such as Louis Armstrong to its growing lineup. At the time many in the recording industry referred to these genres as “race records,” a term believed to have been coined by an employee of OKeh to describe music made by…

Representatives of the Okeh division of Columbia Records “discovered” Hurt and persuaded him to travel to Memphis, Tennessee, and then later to New York City, to record. The records that resulted from those sessions caused little stir, and Hurt soon returned to Avalon, where he worked as a…

…who was then working for OKeh Records. It was used especially from the 1920s to the 1940s to indicate the audience for whom the recordings were intended. Use of the term faded as white audiences were also exposed to blues and jazz and began to appreciate Black performers and to…