Radio

Bessie Smith sang the blues live on WMC, a Memphis, Tennessee, radio station , as early as 1924. The regular remote broadcasts from The Palace on Beale Street appear to have continued until sometime in the 1930s. The legacy of a blues presence on Memphis radio programming eventually influenced the owners of WDIA radio, the shape of black radio, and lives of WDIA personalities B. B. King and Rufus Thomas, and local listener Elvis Presley, whose first commercial success was...