Empress of the Blues -- Bessie Smith

The Great Bessie Smith




On April 15, 1894 Bessie Smith was born. Born in poverty of course, she describes her place of birth as “a little ramshackle cabin.” Writers say that it was located on Charles Street at the foot of Cameron Hill in an area of Chattanooga, Tennessee known as Blue Goose Hollow.

Her parents, William and Laura Smith, brought seven children into a world not unlike our own here in Nova Scotia. Perhaps it might have been Africville. He was a part-time Baptist preacher, and to that we can all relate. He died when she was an infant and shortly after Bessie's mother died.

Left behind, on their own the children had to take care of themselves; one of the older daughters, Viola, took charge; she was already a mother. The classic case of an infant trying to raise an infant and her brothers and sisters: Bessie, Tinnie, Lulu, Andrew and Clarence.

They took up residence in a tenement on West Thirteenth Street in the city’s district known as Tannery Flats. It was a ‘hood, just like our ‘hood in Halifax, where everything happened that wouldn’t happen anywhere else.

Viola was a hard worker and she earned respect from her community for her industry, thrift and her belief in the Almighty. But one of the boys, Clarence, decided that it was time to see the world beyond Chattanooga and after a fight with Viola he moved on to become a man of the world and he hooked up with a traveling minstrel troupe.

This inspired Bessie to perform and she began singing with her brother Andrew accompanying her on guitar; she sang on the street for change before she became a star. Remember, first you dream, and dream Bessie did, she had big dreams.

Bessie got constantly into trouble, which prompted Viola’s, to the outhouse response. To the outhouse Bessie was condemned when she got into mischief and this prompted her to say in her later years that she was “raised in a shithouse.”

Bessie became famous for her direct language; her colorful language made her a Star.

When she left Chattanooga in 1912 she was a mature teenager to say the least. Bessie hooked up with the Moses Stokes troupe after an audition arranged by her brother Clarence, but at that time she was already a well-known singer in Chattanooga.

In the early years of the Blues the songs were normally sung by men, who were usually disabled and played an instrument. The woman, who became known as “the mother of the Blues,” was Gertrude “Ma” Rainey. Ma was not the classic female Blues singer that Bessie became.

The recording industry was just awakening and from it there came recording stars, like Mamie Smith, whose release of “Crazy Blues,” took the industry by storm. Every promoter began looking for women who could sing the Blues. It turned out that such women were rare breeds, but Bessie was made to sing the Blues just as Portia White was a natural classic vocalist.

On February 15, 1923 Bessie, accompanied by Clarence Williams, recorded, “Down Hearted Blues” and “Gulf Coast Blues” in Columbia’s Studio in New York and the rest is history; she made a fortune. Those who knew her at the time of this recording say she looked like anything but a Blues singers; she was seventeen, “tall, fat and scared to death.”

By 1924 she was the highest paid Black entertainer in the country and she grew into the role of the “Empress of the Blues.”

As Swing music debuted, her stardom declined and in 1931 her contract was dropped by Columbia. Bessie, to her credit, possessed the most powerful and flexible voice in the United States. By mid-1937 her career was on the comeback trail, but on the dark morning of September 26, 1937 her car, driven by Richard Morgan, became involved in a fatal car accident and Bessie was killed.

There are many versions of the truth regarding the circumstances of her death and the car-truck accident that took her away from us. At the time of her death, she was a forty-three-year-old legend.

On August 7, 1970 a new tombstone, a gift of Janis Joplin and Juanita Green, was dedicated to Bessie Smith and put in place. The tomstone reads: "THE GREATEST BLUES SINGER IN THE WORLD WILL NEVER STOP SINGING -- BESSIE SMITH 1894 - 1937."


Well wishes,


F. Stanley Boyd



Chris Albertson’s interview on Bessie Smith

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1315822


This website offers more information on Bessie Smith and you will enjoy.

http://www.jerryjazzmusician.com/mainHTML.cfm?page=albertson.html