Blues singer, born in Chattanooga, Tennessee, USA. Raised in poverty in the US South, she ran away as a teenager with Ma Rainey's Rabbit Foot Minstrels, a black revue. She began her career in the modest circuit of vaudeville tents and small theatres, but her magnificent voice, blues-based repertoire, and vivacious stage presence soon gained her recognition as one of the outstanding African-American artistes of her day. She made a series of recordings throughout the 1920s, accompanied by leading jazz musicians, including Louis Armstrong, and these are regarded as classic blues statements. She starred in the 1929 film, St Louis Blues.
| Bessie Smith | |
|---|---|
|
Bessie Smith photographed by Carl Van Vechten |
|
| Years active | 1912-1937 |
| Genres | Blues |
Bessie Smith (July, 1892 – September 26, 1937) is largely regarded as the most popular and successful blues singer of the 1920s and 1930s, and by some as the most influential performer in blues history. At any rate, Bessie Smith was one of seven of ten surviving children of William and Laura Smith. According to Smith's biographer Chris Albertson in his seminal book Bessie (1972, revised in 2003), William Smith was a laborer who also worked as a part-time Baptist preacher (he was listed in the 1870 census as a minister of the gospel, in Moulton, Lawrence, Alabama), but he died before Bessie could remember him. As Bessie's niece-by-marriage Ruby Walker told biographer Albertson in 1971, "Bessie probably wouldn't have been in show business if it hadn't been for Clarence."
When Clarence returned to Chattanooga in 1912 with the Moses Stokes Theatre Company, he arranged for the troupe's managers Lonnie and Cora Fisher to give his sister an audition. Bessie was initially hired as a dancer with the Moses Stokes company, a show that also included Ma Rainey, who did not teach Smith to sing but probably helped her develop a stage presence. Smith began developing her own act around 1913, at Atlanta's "81" Theatre.
In 1923, when blues had become popular enough to begin selling records, Smith was signed by Columbia records, and quickly rose to stardom as a headliner on the T. Working a heavy theater schedule during the winter months and doing tent tours for the rest of the year (traveling in her own railroad car), Smith became the highest-paid black entertainer of her day. Johnson, Joe Smith, Charlie Green, and Fletcher Henderson.
Smith's career was cut short by a combination of the Great Depression (which all but put the recording industry out of business) and the advent of "talkies", which spelled the end for vaudeville. Smith, however, never stopped performing.
John Hammond asked her to record four sides for the Okeh label in 1933 after seeing her perform in a Philadelphia nightclub. They are of particular interest because Bessie Smith was in the process of translating her blues artistry into something more apropos in the Swing Era, and this session gives us a hint of what was to come. Hammond was not pleased with the result, preferring to have Smith back in her old blues groove, but "Take Me For A Buggy Ride" and "Gimme a Pigfoot" are among her most popular recordings.
On September 26, 1937, Smith was severely injured in a car accident while traveling from a concert in Memphis to Clarksdale, Mississippi along U.S. Route 61 with her companion (and Lionel Hampton's uncle) Richard Morgan.
Rumors surrounding her death
Shortly after her death, Hammond stirred up controversy by suggesting, in a Down Beat article, that Smith was refused admittance to a white hospital. It was only when biographer Chris Albertson's 1972 book Bessie featured an interview with the attending doctor, Hugh Smith, that the story was put to rest. In the letter, Dr. suess who attended to Smith, wrote, in part:
Bessie Smith was injured in an automobile accident several miles out from Clarksdale and was brought to Clarksdale in a colored ambulance....She died some eight or ten hours after admission to the hospital.But Lomax wrote:
They had heard about what happened to Bessie Smith in 1937 in their hometown.While Lomax claimed that this alleged incident was "typical" of racism in the South, the doctor who tended to Smith on the scene (quoted in Chris Albertson's book) confirmed that it was extremely unlikely that a black ambulance driver would have taken a black patient to a white hospital, especially when there was a nearby black hospital. The driver in question told writer George Hoefer, 20 years later, that he had taken Smith straight to Clarksdale's black hospital, which has been confirmed. Smith was in fact still alive when she was brought to the hospital, in the middle of the night, but she never regained consciousness, and died that morning at 11:50.
Artistic legacy
A more recent play featuring fourteen of the songs Smith made famous, The Devil's Music: The Life and Blues of Bessie Smith by Angelo Parra, was named one of the "top-10 Off-Broadway experiences" of 2001 by the New York Daily News .
Smith's impact on other singers has been substantial — singers including Billie Holiday, Mahalia Jackson, Nina Simone and Janis Joplin have all claimed her as a huge influence. In 1970, when it was discovered that Smith's grave remained unmarked, Joplin offered to pay for a stone and ended up sharing the cost with Juanita Green, who said she owed her successful career to Bessie Smith. She asked me if I was in school, and when I nodded, she said, 'You better stay there, 'cause you can't sing.'
References in other works
The rock and roll group The Band, popular during the 1960s and the 1970s, wrote a song about Bessie Smith named after her.
Excerpt of the lyrics to The Band's "Bessie Smith":
"Bessie was more than just a friend of mine
We shared the good times with the bad
Now many a year has passed me by
I still recall the best thing I ever had
I'm just goin' down the road t' see Bessie
Oh, See her soon
Goin' down the road t' see Bessie Smith
When I get there I wonder what she'll do.." paid tribute to Smith with their song Bessie.
Excerpt of the lyrics to Bad Music Inc's "Bessie":
"It's easy to forget, or not to be aware
So let me take a moment, I've a legacy to share
Bessie, Bessie sing through your pain..."
Singer/pianist/songwriter Nina Simone dedicates her blues-song "I Want A Little Sugar In My Bowl" to Bessie Smith on her live-album It Is Finished (1974), stating "Bessie Smith, you know?..."
The character of Shug Avery in 'Alice Walker's 'The Colour Purple' is inspired / based on Smith.
User Comments Add a comment…