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Although blues music was sung as an oral tradition by enslaved people on southern plantations, classic female blues emerged early in the 20th century as a mixture of traditional folk blues and urban theater music. Appearing onstage with pianists or small jazz combos, dazzling pioneers like Ma Rainey, Betsy Smith, Memphis Minnie and Mamie Smith catapulted the vocal form onto the world stage. With new technologies in sound recording coupled with the advent of national radio broadcasts, the blues grew as one of the most popular forms of jazz. And then Ethel Waters, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday changed everything.