He taught her how to take a moody blues ballad and make it into a bouncy jump song.
Rather, he sang blues ballads, mostly his own songs, in a gentle vocal style.
Between the two companies, they recorded some of the era's best blues music, from lively jump boogie woogie to slow blues ballads.
Holcomb's repertoire included old-time music, hymns, traditional music and blues ballads.
In style, the song is a blues ballad and deals with the singer's despair with his partner.
The influence of black musicians through blues ballads and ragtimes is strong, but Siegmeister also followed the earnest ways of postwar classical forms.
"Pledging My Love" is a blues ballad.
A further development was the evolution of the blues ballad, which mixed the genre with Afro-American music.
The most famous blues ballads include those about John Henry and Casey Jones.
Her speciality was singing slow blues ballads utilising her rich and heavy contralto voice.