Bessie Smith (April 15, 1894 – September 26, 1937) was an American
blues singer.
Sometimes referred to as 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.
Life
The 1900 census indicates that Bessie Smith was born in
Chattanooga, Tennessee in July 1892. However, the 1910 census recorded her birthday as April 15, 1894, a date that appears on all subsequent documents and was observed by the entire Smith family. Census data also contributes to controversy about the size of her family. The 1870 and 1880 censuses report three older half-siblings, while later interviews with Smith's family and contemporaries did not include these individuals among her siblings.
Bessie Smith was the daughter of Laura (née Owens) and William Smith. William Smith was a laborer and part-time Baptist preacher (he was listed in the 1870 census as a "minister of the gospel", in Moulton, Lawrence, Alabama.) He died before his daughter could remember him. By the time she was nine, she had lost her mother and a brother as well. Her older sister Viola took charge of caring for her siblings.
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.
In 1904, her oldest brother, Clarence, covertly left home by joining a small traveling troupe owned by Moses Stokes. "If Bessie had been old enough, she would have gone with him," said Clarence's widow, Maud. "That's why he left without telling her, but Clarence told me she was ready, even then. Of course, she was only a child."
In 1912, Clarence returned to Chattanooga with the Stokes troupe. He arranged for its managers, Lonnie and Cora Fisher, to give Smith an audition. She was hired as a dancer rather than a singer, because the company also included the notable singer Ma Rainey. Smith gradually moved her way up through the troupe to a singer then to lead singer performing with Ma who was her mentor.
In 1915, Smith left the troupe to join the T.O.B.A Theater Owners Bookers Association which was an entertainment circuit for African American performers in the 1920's and 30's. T.O.B.A. helped Smith to spread her popularity throughout the country and get herself known.
By the early 1920s, Smith had starred with Sidney Bechet in How Come?, a musical that made its way to Broadway. She spent several years working out of Atlanta, Georgia's 81 Theater, and performing in black theaters along the East Coast. Following a run-in with the producer of How Come?, Smith was replaced by Alberta Hunter and returned to Philadelphia, where she had taken up residence.
There, she met and fell in love with Jack Gee, a security guard whom she married on June 7, 1923, just as her first recordings were being released by Columbia Records. The marriage was a stormy one, with infidelity on both sides. During the marriage, Smith became the biggest headliner on the black Theater Owners Booking Association (T.O.B.A.) circuit. Her show sometimes featured as many as 40 troupers and made her the highest-paid black entertainer of her day. Gee was impressed by the money, but never adjusted to show business life, or to Smith's bisexuality. In 1929, when Smith learned of Gee's affair with Gertrude Saunders, another performer, she ended the marriage, though she never sought a divorce.
Smith eventually found a common-law husband in an old friend, Richard Morgan, who was Lionel Hampton's uncle and the antithesis of her husband. She stayed with him until her death.
Career
All contemporary accounts indicate that while Rainey did not teach Smith to sing, she probably helped her develop a stage presence. Smith began forming her own act around 1913, at Atlanta's "81" Theater. By 1920, Smith had established a reputation in the
South and along the
Eastern Seaboard.
In 1920, sales figures for "Crazy Blues," an Okeh Records recording by singer Mamie Smith (no relation) pointed to a new market. The recording industry had not directed its product to blacks, but the success of the record led to a search for female blues singers. Bessie Smith was signed by Columbia Records in 1923 and her first session for Columbia was February 15, 1923. For most of 1923, her records were issued on Columbia's regular A- series; when the label decided to establish a "race records" series, Smith's "Cemetery Blues" (September 26, 1923) was the first issued.
She scored a big hit with her first release, a coupling of "Gulf Coast Blues" and "Downhearted Blues", which its composer Alberta Hunter had already turned into a hit on the Paramount label. Smith became a headliner on the black T.O.B.A. circuit and rose to become its top attraction in the 1920s. Working a heavy theater schedule during the winter months and doing tent tours the rest of the year (eventually traveling in her own railroad car), Smith became the highest-paid black entertainer of her day. Columbia nicknamed her "Queen of the Blues," but a PR-minded press soon upgraded her title to "Empress".
She made some 160 recordings for Columbia, often accompanied by the finest musicians of the day, most notably Louis Armstrong, James P. Johnson, Joe Smith, Charlie Green and Fletcher Henderson.
Broadway
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. She never stopped performing, however. While the days of elaborate vaudeville shows were over, Smith continued touring and occasionally singing in clubs. In 1929, she appeared in a
Broadway flop called
Pansy, a musical in which top critics said she was the only asset.
Film
In 1929, Smith made her only film appearance, starring in a two-reeler titled
St. Louis Blues, based on
W. C. Handy's
song of the same name. In the film, directed by
Dudley Murphy and shot in
Astoria, she sings the title song accompanied by members of
Fletcher Henderson's orchestra, the Hall Johnson Choir, pianist
James P. Johnson and a string section — a musical environment radically different from any found on her recordings.
Swing era
In 1933,
John Hammond, who also mentored
Billie Holiday, asked Smith to record four sides for Okeh (which had been acquired by Columbia Records in 1925). He claimed to have found her in semi-obscurity, working as a hostess in a speakeasy on Philadelphia's Ridge Avenue. Bessie Smith worked at Art's Cafe on Ridge Avenue, but not as a hostess and not until the summer of 1936. In 1933, when she made the Okeh sides, Bessie was still touring. Hammond was known for his selective memory and gratuitous embellishments.
Bessie Smith was paid a non-royalty fee of $37.50 for each selection and these Okeh sides, which were her last recordings. Made November 24, 1933, they serve as a hint of the transformation she made in her performances as she shifted her blues artistry into something that fit the "swing era". The relatively modern accompaniment is notable. The band included such swing era musicians as trombonist Jack Teagarden, trumpeter Frankie Newton, tenor saxophonist Chu Berry, pianist Buck Washington, guitarist Bobby Johnson, and bassist Billy Taylor. Benny Goodman, who happened to be recording with Ethel Waters in the adjoining studio, dropped by and is barely audible on one selection. Hammond was not entirely pleased with the results, preferring to have Smith revisit her old blues groove. Her "Take Me For A Buggy Ride" and "Gimme a Pigfoot" continue to be ranked among her most popular recordings.
Death
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. Tire marks at the scene suggested that Morgan tried to avoid the truck by driving around its left side, but he hit the rear of the truck side-on at high speed. The tailgate of the truck sheared off the wooden roof of Smith's old Packard. Smith, who was in the passenger seat, probably with her right arm or elbow out the window, took the full brunt of the impact. Morgan escaped without injuries.
The first people on the scene were a Memphis surgeon, Dr. Hugh Smith (no relation), and his fishing partner Henry Broughton. In the early 1970s, Dr. Smith gave a detailed account of his experience to Bessie's biographer Chris Albertson. This is the most reliable eyewitness testimony about the events surrounding Bessie Smith's death.
After stopping at the accident scene, Dr. Smith examined Bessie Smith, who was lying in the middle of the road with obviously severe injuries. He estimated she had lost about a half-pint of blood, and immediately noted a major traumatic injury to her right arm; it had been almost completely severed at the elbow. But Dr. Smith was emphatic that this arm injury alone did not cause her death. Although the light was poor, he observed only minor head injuries. He attributed her death to extensive and severe crush injuries to the entire right side of her body, consistent with a "sideswipe" collision.
Broughton and Dr. Smith moved the singer to the shoulder of the road. Dr. Smith dressed her arm injury with a clean handkerchief and asked Broughton to go to a house about 500 feet off the road to call an ambulance.
By the time Broughton returned, about 25 minutes had elapsed since the accident and Bessie Smith was in shock. Time passed with no sign of the ambulance, so Dr. Smith suggested that they take her into Clarksdale in his car. He and Broughton had almost finished clearing the back seat when they heard the sound of a car approaching at high speed. Dr. Smith flashed his lights in warning, but the oncoming car failed to stop and plowed into the doctor's car at full speed. It sent his car careening into Bessie Smith's overturned Packard, completely wrecking it. The oncoming car ricocheted off Dr. Smith's car into the ditch on the right, barely missing Broughton and Bessie Smith.
The young couple in the new car did not have life-threatening injuries. Two ambulances arrived on the scene from Clarksdale; one from the black hospital, summoned by Mr. Broughton, the other from the white hospital, acting on a report from the truck driver, who had not seen the accident victims.
Bessie Smith was taken to Clarksdale's Afro-American Hospital where her right arm was amputated. She died that morning without regaining consciousness. After Smith's death, an often repeated but now discredited story emerged about the circumstances; namely, that she had died as a result of having been refused admission to a "whites only" hospital in Clarksdale. Jazz writer/producer John Hammond gave this account in an article in the November 1937 issue of Down Beat magazine. The circumstances of Smith's death and the rumor promoted by Hammond formed the basis for Edward Albee's 1959 one-act play The Death of Bessie Smith.
"The Bessie Smith ambulance would not have gone to a white hospital, you can forget that." Dr. Smith told Albertson. "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."
Smith's funeral was held in Philadelphia on Monday, October 4, 1937. Her body was originally laid out at Upshur's funeral home. As word of her death spread through Philadelphia's black community, the body had to be moved to the O.V. Catto Elks Lodge to accommodate the estimated 10,000 mourners who filed past her coffin on Sunday, October 3. Contemporary newspapers reported that her funeral was attended by about seven thousand people. Far fewer mourners attended the burial at Mount Lawn Cemetery, in nearby Sharon Hill. Gee thwarted all efforts to purchase a stone for his estranged wife, once or twice pocketing money raised for that purpose.
The grave remained unmarked until August 7, 1970, when a tombstone—paid for by singer Janis Joplin and Juanita Green, who as a child had done housework for Smith—was erected.
The Afro-American Hospital, now the Riverside Hotel in Clarksdale, was the site of the dedication of the fourth historic marker on the Mississippi Blues Trail.
Selective awards and recognitions
Grammy Hall of Fame
Recordings of Bessie Smith were inducted into the
Grammy Hall of Fame. This special Grammy Award was established in 1973 to honor recordings that are at least 25 years old and that have "qualitative or historical significance."
{| class=wikitable
|-
| colspan="5" style="text-align:center;"| Bessie Smith: Grammy Hall of Fame Award
|-
! Year Recorded
! Title
! Genre
! Label
! Year Inducted
|- align=center
| 1923
| "Downhearted Blues"
| Blues (Single)
| Columbia
| 2006
|- align=center
| 1925
| "St. Louis Blues"
| Jazz (Single)
| Columbia
| 1993
|- align=center
| 1928
| "Empty Bed Blues"
| Blues (Single)
| Columbia
| 1983
|}
National Recording Registry
In 2002 Smith's recording of the single, "
Downhearted Blues", was included by the
National Recording Preservation Board in the
Library of Congress'
National Recording Registry. The board selects songs on an annual basis that are "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."
"Downhearted Blues" was included in the list of Songs of the Century by the Recording Industry of America and the National Endowment for the Arts in 2001. It is in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as one of the 500 songs that shaped rock 'n' roll.
Inductions
{| class=wikitable
|-
| colspan="5" style="text-align:center;"|
|-
! Year Inducted
! Category
! Notes
|- align=center
| 2008
| Nesuhi Ertegun Jazz Hall of Fame
| Jazz at Lincoln Center, NYC
|- align=center
| 1989
|
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award
|- align=center
| 1989
|
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
| "Early influences"
|- align=center
| 1981
| Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame
|- align=center
| 1980
|
Blues Hall of Fame
|}
U.S. Postage Stamp
{| class=wikitable
|-
| colspan="4" style="text-align:center;"|
|-
! Year Issued
! Stamp
! USA
|- align=center
| 1994
| 29 cents Commemorative stamp
| U.S. Postal Stamps
|}
Digital remastering
Technical faults in the majority of her original
gramophone recordings—especially variations in recording speed, which raised or lowered the apparent
pitch of her voice, misrepresented the "light and shade" of her phrasing, interpretation and delivery. They altered the apparent
key of her performances (sometimes raised or lowered by as much as a
semitone.) The fact that the "centre hole" in some of the master recordings had not been in the true middle of the master disc meant that there were wide variations in tone, pitch, key and phrasing, as commercially released records revolved around the spindle.
Given those historic limitations, the current digitally remastered versions of her work deliver significant, very positive differences in the sound quality of Smith's performances. Some critics believe that the American Columbia Records compact disc releases are somewhat inferior to subsequent transfers made by the late John R.T. Davies for Frog Records.
Popular culture
The 1948 short story "Blue Melody" by J.D. Salinger and the 1959 play The Death of Bessie Smith by Edward Albee both deal with Smith's death.
References
Further reading
Albertson, Chris, Liner notes, Bessie Smith: The Complete Recordings, Volumes 1 - 5, Sony Music Entertainment, 1991.
Albertson, Chris, Bessie (Revised and Expanded Edition), Yale University Press (New Haven), 2003. ISBN 0-300-09902-9.
Brooks, Edward, The Bessie Smith Companion: A Critical and Detailed Appreciation of the Recordings, Da Capo Press (New York), 1982. ISBN 0-306-76202-1.
Davis, Angela Y., Blues Legacies and Black Feminism: Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday, Pantheon Books (New York), 1998. ISBN 0-679-45005-X.
Eberhardt, Clifford, Out of Chattanooga, Ebco (Chattanooga), 1994.
Feinstein, Elaine, Bessie Smith, Viking (New York), 1985, ISBN 0-670-80642-0.
Grimes, Sara, Backwaterblues: In Search of Bessie Smith, Rose Island Pub. (Amherst), 2000, ISBN 0-9707089-0-4.
Kay, Jackie, Bessie Smith, Absolute (New York), 1997. ISBN 1-899791-55-8.
Manera, Alexandria, Bessie Smith, Raintree (Chicago), 2003. ISBN 0-7398-6875-6.
Martin, Florence, Bessie Smith, Editions du Limon (Paris), 1994. ISBN 2-907224-31-X.
Oliver, Paul, Bessie Smith, Cassell (London), 1959.
Palmer, Tony, All You Need is Love: The Story of Popular Music, Grossman Publishers/Viking Press (New York), 1976. ISBN 0-670-11448-0.
Welding, Pete; Byron, Tony (eds.), Bluesland: Portraits of Twelve Major American Blues Masters, Dutton (New York), 1991. ISBN 0-525-93375-1.
External links
Interview with Bessie Smith biographer Chris Albertson
Listen to Bessie Smith at
Jazz Old Time On Line
Listen to Bessie Smith at
The Red Hot Jazz Archive
Watch Bessie Smith in
St. Louis Blues at
The Red Hot Jazz Archive
Bessie Smith Hall in Chattanooga, Tennessee
Bessie Smith at Find A Grave Memorial
Milestone Bessie Smith recordings at Three Perfect Minutes
Category:1894 births
Category:1937 deaths
Category:African American female singers
Category:American blues singers
Category:American buskers
Category:Bisexual musicians
Category:Blues Hall of Fame inductees
Category:Road accident deaths in Mississippi
Category:Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners
Category:LGBT African Americans
Category:LGBT musicians from the United States
Category:People from Chattanooga, Tennessee
Category:Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees
Category:Vaudeville performers
Category:Classic female blues singers
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