Bessie Smith
(April 15, 1894 – September 26, 1937)
Nicknamed The Empress of the Blues, Smith was the most popular female blues singer of the 1920s and 1930s. She is often regarded as one of the greatest singers of her era and, along with Louis Armstrong, a major influence on subsequent jazz vocalists…
Bessie’s father, a Baptist preacher, died before she could remember him. By the time she was nine, she had lost her mother and a brother as well.
To earn money for their impoverished household, Bessie Smith and her brother Andrew began busking on the streets of Chattanooga as a duo: she singing and dancing, he accompanying her on guitar. Their favorite location was in front of the White Elephant Saloon
at Thirteenth and Elm streets in the heart of the city's African-American community.
(From Wikipedia)
In 1912 Bessie joined a traveling show as a dancer and singer. The show featured Pa and Ma Rainey, and Smith developed a friendship with Ma. Ma Rainey was Bessie's mentor and she stayed with her show until 1915…
Check out Ma in 1926 (excuse the quality of this 86 year old recording)...
According to an article written by redhotjazz.com, "Bessie Smith was a rough, crude, violent woman. (Who became) the greatest of the classic Blues singers of the 1920s…"
In 1915, Bessie joined the T.O.B.A. vaudeville circuit and gradually built up her own following in the south and along the eastern seaboard.
In 1923 she made her recording debut on Columbia, accompanied by pianist Clarence Williams.
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| Clarence Williams |
They recorded "Gulf Coast Blues" and "Down Hearted Blues."
The record sold more than 750,000 copies. Throughout the 1920s Smith recorded with many of the great Jazz musicians of that era, including Fletcher Henderson, James P. Johnson, Coleman Hawkins, Don Redman and Louis Armstrong. Her rendition of "St. Louis Blues" with Armstrong is considered by most critics to be one of finest recordings of the 1920s…
A film of the same name was released in 1929; based around her 1925 recording of the song with Louis Armstrong…
By 1931 the Classic Blues style of Bessie Smith was out of style and the Depression, radio, and sound movies had all damaged the record companies' ability to sell records so Columbia dropped Smith from its roster. In 1933 she recorded for the last time under the direction of John Hammond for Okeh…On September 26, 1937, Smith was critically injured in a car accident while traveling along U.S. Route 61 between Memphis, Tennessee, and Clarksdale, Mississippi. Her lover, Richard Morgan, was driving and, probably mesmerized by the long stretch of straight road, misjudged the speed of a slow-moving truck ahead of him, swerving at the last moment and side-swiping the truck. Bessie’s arm was amputated and she died of her injuries…
Jazz writer/producer John Hammond, in an article in the November 1937 issue of Down Beat magazine, inferred that Bessie died due to a failure of a “Whites Only” hospital to treat her…
This rumor has been discredited… The first people at the scene of the accident were a Memphis surgeon, Dr. Hugh Smith (no relation), and his fishing partner Henry Broughton. Dr. Smith recounts the story as, "The Bessie Smith ambulance would not have gone to a white hospital, you can forget that. Down in the Deep South cotton country, no ambulance driver, or white driver, would even have thought of putting a colored person off in a hospital for white folks."
R.I.P. BESSIE SMITH,...
“THE EMPRESS OF THE BLUES”
ABOUT BESSIE SMITH...
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