Who was Bessie Smith

A.� Bessie Smith was a blues singer and composer who lived and worked in the early part of the last century. She was known as 'The Empress Of The Blues', and her style and material have influenced generations of musicians from then until now.

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Bessie was born in 1894 in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and she never forgot the poverty she saw, or the unequal treatment given to black people in America at that time. When her recording career began in 1923, some producers thought Bessie's style too 'rough'�to record, although her records and concerts were hugely popular.

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Q.� Wasn't there some scandal attached to her life

A.� There was�- a considerable amount! Bessie made no secret of her sexual enjoyment of various chorus girls who sang in her shows, and she openly scoffed at the notion of white men as suitable lovers. Her marriage to Jack Gee was an extremely tempestuous relationship. Bessie once caught Jack in bed with on of the singers from her show, and she chased him down the track from the parked train on which they had been travelling, shooting at him with his own gun as he ran! Bessie stood�six feet tall and weighted 200 pounds, and she was not slow to use her weight, and her violent temper, in pursuit of what she wanted. In common with a number of back musicians who have grown up in poverty, and been cheated in the early days of their careers, Bessie would react immediately to any suspicion that she was being cheated. On one occasion, she provoked a fight in a crowded theatre lobby with one of her show's promoters, in order to obtain her show fee in advance.

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Was she a good musician

Yes she was, Bessie's particular skill in delivering her impassioned blues has survived through times when blues became unfashionable, and her music and reputation have survived, when others of her peers have not. Her experience as a black woman making a career in segregated America gave her inspiration to write some of her most memorable material�- Black Water Blues, written about some flooded homes she saw when touring the southern states, and Poor Man's Blues, her personal perspective on the gulf between the 'haves and have nots' an aspect of life in which she had plenty of experience.

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Was she rich

Bessie Smith was earning up to $2,000 a week in the 1920s, which would be equivalent to a respectable rock star salary today. In spite of her wealth, and the encouragement she received to live a 'white' lifestyle, Bessie stubbornly clung to her roots, travelling and singing the blues, and drinking hard liquor, and fighting, as she had done all her life.

Did Bessie Smith die as a famous entertainer

Sadly not. The recording of her most famous and enduring song Nobody Knows You When You're Down And Out� was almost an indicator of the future of her career. Having recorded the song in 1929, Bessie was dropped by her record label two years later, a victim of the craze for Swing that was sweeping the nation. Bessie remained a popular live attraction, and continued to tour and sell-out concerts, until 1937, when she died in an automobile accident, aged just 43.

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Wasn't there some scandal about her death

Even in dying, Bessie managed to cause headlines. Having been involved in a smash between the vehicle in which she was travelling, and another, Bessie's left arm was crushed, and she bled to death. A newspaper article published at the time inferred that she could have been saved, had the ambulance not taken her to a 'whites only' hospital, which refused to admit her. This version of events has passed into musical folklore, no doubt boosted by the prejudice that created and evolved Bessie Smith's approach to her music and her life. In fact, it has no basis in fact at all.

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Does Bessie's reputation live on

It has survived, through her own recordings, and the influence she has had on following musicians, including Mahalia Jackson, Billie Halliday and of course Janis Joplin, whose uncompromising alcohol and blues lifestyle echoed Bessie's own so completely.���

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by� Andy Hughes