The newly arrived African Americans helped to increase the crowds at the jazz clubs that first began to open along Seventh Street in the 1920s. With these newcomers came the musical sounds of the American South, including the hard-rocking Texas blues that would later define the "Oakland sound" and lead to the advent of rock and roll. Night spots like Veteran's Club, shown here in a picture taken in 1945, helped to make Oakland an important center of African-American musical innovation.