Bessie Smith
(April 15, 1894 – September 26, 1937)
Bessie was an African-American blues singer widely renowned during the Jazz Age. Nicknamed the “Empress of the Blues”, she was the most popular female blues singer of the 1930s. Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1989, she is often regarded as one of the greatest singers of her era and was a major influence on fellow blues singers, as well as jazz vocalists.
Born in Chattanooga, Tennessee, Smith was young when her parents died, and she and her six siblings survived by performing on street corners. She began touring and performed in a group that included Ma Rainey and then went out on her own. Her successful recording career with Columbia Records began in 1923, but her performing career was cut short by a car crash that killed her at the age of 43.
On September 26, 1937, Smith was critically injured in a car crash on U.S. Route 61 between Memphis, Tennessee, and Clarksdale, Mississippi. Her lover, Richard Morgan, was driving and misjudged the speed of a slow-moving truck ahead of him. Skid 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 vehicle. 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 person on the scene was a Memphis surgeon, Dr. Hugh Smith (no relation). In the early 1970s, Hugh 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 her death.
Arriving at the scene, Dr. Smith examined 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: her right arm was almost completely severed at the elbow.[26] He stated that this injury alone did not cause her death. Though 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.
Henry Broughton, a fishing partner of Dr. Smith’s, helped him move Smith 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 later, 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 slow and plowed into his car at full speed. It sent his car careening into Smith’s overturned Packard, completely wrecking it. The oncoming car ricocheted off Hugh Smith’s car into the ditch on the right, barely missing Broughton and Bessie Smith.
The young couple in the speeding car did not sustain life-threatening injuries. Two ambulances then arrived from Clarksdale—one from the black hospital, summoned by Broughton, the second from the white hospital, acting on a report from the truck driver, who had not seen the crash victims.
Smith was taken to the G. T. Thomas Afro-American Hospital in Clarksdale, where her right arm was amputated. She died that morning without regaining consciousness. After her death, an often repeated, but now discredited story emerged that she died because a whites-only hospital in Clarksdale refused to admit her. The jazz writer and producer John Hammond gave this account in an article in the November 1937 issue of DownBeat magazine. The circumstances of Smith’s death and the rumor reported 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”, Hugh Smith told Albertson. “Down in the Deep South Cotton Belt, 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 a little over a week later, on October 4, 1937. Initially, her body was laid out at Upshur’s funeral home. As word of her death spread through Philadelphia’s black community, her 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.Jack Gee thwarted all efforts to purchase a stone for his estranged wife, once or twice pocketing money raised for that purpose.
EXCERPT FROM DISCOVER MUSIC ARTICLE REGARDING BESSIE SMITH HEADSTONE
Towards the end of her life, Janis Joplin made a magnanimous gesture that confirmed her debt to an artist who was one of her greatest inspirations: the great blues singer Bessie Smith. On August 8, 1970, Joplin and Juanita Green — who had done housework for Smith as a child — paid for a proper headstone to be laid at Smith’s gravesite, which had remained unmarked since she was buried some 33 years earlier.
Joplin saw the equally outspoken and groundbreaking artist as such a role model that she sometimes told her friends she felt like Smith reincarnated. The tombstone at the gravesite, near Philadelphia, henceforth carried the epitaph “The Greatest Blues Singer in the World Will Never Stop Singing.” The touching, heartfelt words were chosen by Joplin and Green, who by this time was also the president of the North Philadelphia chapter of the NAACP.
Unmarked grave
Smith’s grave remained unmarked until a tombstone was erected on August 7, 1970, paid for by the singer Janis Joplin and Juanita Green, who as a child had done housework for Smith. Dory Previn wrote a song about Joplin and the tombstone, “Stone for Bessie Smith”, for her album Mythical Kings and Iguanas. The Afro-American Hospital (now the Riverside Hotel) was the site of the dedication of the fourth historical marker on the Mississippi Blues Trail.
Personal life
In 1923, Smith was living in Philadelphia when she met Jack Gee, a security guard, whom she married on June 7, 1923, just as her first record was being released. During the marriage, Smith became the highest-paid black entertainer of the day, heading her own shows, which sometimes featured as many as 40 troupers, and touring in her own custom-built railroad car. Their marriage was stormy with infidelity on both sides, including numerous female sex partners for Bessie.[36] Gee was impressed by the money, but never adjusted to show business life or to Smith’s bisexuality. In 1929, when she learned of his affair with another singer, Gertrude Saunders, Smith ended the relationship, although neither of them sought a divorce.
Smith later entered a common-law marriage with an old friend, Richard Morgan, who was Lionel Hampton’s uncle. She stayed with him until her death.
Musical themes
Songs like “Jail House Blues”, “Work House Blues”, “Prison Blues”, “Sing Sing Prison Blues” and “Send Me to the ‘Lectric Chair” dealt critically with social issues of the day such as chain gangs, the convict lease system, and capital punishment. “Poor Man’s Blues” and “Washwoman’s Blues” are considered by scholars to be an early form of African-American protest music.
What becomes evident after listening to her music and studying her lyrics is that Smith emphasized and channeled a subculture within the African-American working class. Additionally, she incorporated commentary on social issues like poverty, intra-racial conflict, and female sexuality into her lyrics. Her lyrical sincerity and public behavior were not widely accepted as appropriate expressions for African-American women; therefore, her work was often written off as distasteful or unseemly, rather than as an accurate representation of the African-American experience.
Smith’s work challenged elitist norms by encouraging working-class women to embrace their right to drink, party, and satisfy their sexual needs as a means of coping with stress and dissatisfaction in their daily lives. Smith advocated for a wider vision of African-American womanhood beyond domesticity, piety, and conformity; she sought empowerment and happiness through independence, sassiness, and sexual freedom. Although Smith was a voice for many minority groups and one of the most gifted blues performers of her time, the themes in her music were precocious, which led to many believing that her work was undeserving of serious recognition.
Smith’s lyrics are often speculated to have portrayed her sexuality. In “Prove it On Me”, performed by Ma Rainey, Rainey famously sang, “Went out last night with a crowd of my friends. They must’ve been women, ’cause I don’t like any mens.. they say I do it, ain’t nobody caught me. Sure got to prove it on me.” African American queer theorists and activists have often looked to Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith as “gender-bending” role models of the early 20th-century blues era.
There was no official national record chart in the US until 1936. National positions have been formulated post facto by music historian Joel Whitburn.
Year Single US
Pop[38][nb 1]
1923 “Downhearted Blues” 1
“Gulf Coast Blues” 5
“Aggravatin’ Papa” 12
“Baby Won’t You Please Come Home” 6
“T’ain’t Nobody’s Biz-Ness if I Do” 9
1925 “The St. Louis Blues” 3
“Careless Love Blues” 5
“I Ain’t Gonna Play No Second Fiddle” 8
1926 “I Ain’t Got Nobody” 8
“Lost Your Head Blues” 5
1927 “After You’ve Gone” 7
“Alexander’s Ragtime Band” 17
1928 “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” 13
“Empty Bed Blues” 20
1929 “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out” 15
78 RPM Singles — Columbia Records
A-3844 “Gulf Coast Blues” 1923-02-16
A-3844 “Down Hearted Blues” 1923-02-16
A-3877 “Aggravatin’ Papa” 1923-04-11
A-3877 “Beale Street Mama” 1923-04-11
A-3888 “Baby Won’t You Please Come Home” 1923-04-11
A-3888 “Oh Daddy Blues” 1923-04-11
A-3898 “Keeps on A Rainin All Time” 1923-02-16
A-3898 “Tain’t Nobody’s Bizness if I Do” 1923-04-26
A-3900 “Outside of That” 1923-04-30
A-3900 “Mama’s Got the Blues” 1923-04-30
A-3936 “Bleeding Hearted Blues” 1923-06-14
A-3936 “Midnight Blues” 1923-06-15
A-3939 “Yodeling Blues” 1923-06-14
A-3939 “Lady Luck Blues” 1923-06-14
A-3942 “If You Don’t, I Know Who Will” 1923-06-21
A-3942 “Nobody in Town Can Bake a Jelly Roll Like My Man” 1923-06-22
A-4001 “Jail House Blues” 1923-09-21
A-4001 “Graveyard Dream Blues” 1923-09-26
13000 D “Whoa, Tillie, Take Your Time” 1923-10-24
13000 D “My Sweetie Went Away” 1923-10-24
13001 D “Cemetery Blues” 1923-09-26
13001 D “Any Woman’s Blues” 1923-10-16
13005 D “St Louis Gal” 1923-09-24
13005 D “Sam Jones’ Blues” 1923-09-24
13007 D “I’m Going Back to My Used to Be” 1923-10-04
13007 D “Far Away Blues” 1923-10-04
14000 D “Mistreatin’ Daddy” 1923-12-04
14000 D “Chicago Bound Blues” 1923-12-04
14005 D “Frosty Mornin’ Blues” 1924-01-08
14005 D “Easy Come Easy Go Blues” 1924-01-10
14010 D “Eavesdropper Blues” 1924-01-09
14010 D “Haunted House Blues” 1924-01-09
14018 D “Boweavil Blues” 1924-04-07
14018 D “Moonshine Blues” 1924-04-09
14020 D “Sorrowful Blues” 1924-04-04
14020 D “Rocking Chair Blues” 1924-04-04
14023 D “Frankie Blues” 1924-04-08
14023 D “Hateful Blues” 1924-04-08
14025 D “Pinchbacks, Take ’em Away” 1924-04-04
14025 D “Ticket Agent Easy Your Window Down” 1924-04-05
14031 D “Louisiana Low Down Blues” 1924-07-22
14031 D “Mountain Top Blues” 1924-07-22
14032 D “House Rent Blues” 1924-07-23
14032 D “Work House Blues” 1924-07-23
14037 D “Rainy Weather Blues” 1924-08-08
14037 D “Salt Water Blues” 1924-07-31
14042 D “Bye Bye Blues” 1924-09-26
14042 D “Weeping Willow Blues” 1924-09-26
14051 D “Dying Gambler’s Blues” 1924-12-06
14051 D “Sing Sing Prison Blues” 1924-12-06
14052 D “Follow the Deal on Down” 1924-12-04
14052 D “Sinful Blues” 1924-11-11
14056 D “Reckless Blues” 1925-01-14
14056 D “Sobbin’ Hearted Blues” 1925-01-14
14060 D “Love Me Daddy Blues” 1924-12-12
14060 D “Woman’s Trouble Blues” 1924-12-12
14064 D “Cold in Hand Blues” 1925-01-14
14064 D “St Louis Blues” 1925-01-14
14075 D “Yellow Dog Blues” 1925-05-06
14075 D “Soft Pedal Blues” 1925-05-14
14079 D “Dixie Flyer Blues” 1925-05-15
14079 D “You’ve Been a Good Ole Wagon” 1925-01-14
14083 D “Careless Love” 1925-05-26
14083 D “He’s Gone Blues” 1925-06-23
14090 D “I Ain’t Goin’ to Play No Second Fiddle” 1925-05-27
14090 D “Nashville Women’s Blues” 1925-05-27
14095 D “I Ain’t Got Nobody” 1925-08-19
14095 D “J.C.Holmes Blues” 1925-05-27
14098 D “My Man Blues” 1925-09-01
14098 D “Nobody’s Blues but Mine” 1925-08-19
14109 D “Florida Bound Blues” 1925-11-17
14109 D “New Gulf Coast Blues” 1925-11-17
14115 D “I’ve Been Mistreated and I Don’t Like It” 1925-11-18
14115 D “Red Mountain Blues” 1925-11-20
14123 D “Lonesome Desert Blues” 1925-12-09
14123 D “Golden Rule Blues” 1925-11-20
14129 D “What’s the Matter Now?” 1926-03-05
14129 D “I Want Every Bit of It” 1926-03-05
14133 D “Jazzbo Brown from Memphis Town” 1926-03-18
14133 D “Squeeze Me” 1926-03-05
14137 D “Hard Driving Papa” 1926-05-40
14137 D “Money Blues” 1926-05-04
14147 D “Baby Doll” 1926-05-04
14147 D “Them Has Been Blues” 1926-03-05
14158 D “Lost Your Head Blues” 1926-05-04
14158 D “Gin House Blues” 1926-03-18
14172 D “One and Two Blues” 1926-10-26
14172 D “Honey Man Blues” 1926-10-25
14179 D “Hard Time Blues” 1926-10-25
14179 D “Young Woman’s Blues” 1926-10-26
14195 D “Back Water Blues” 1927-02-17
14195 D “Preachin’ the Blues” 1927-02-17
14197 D “Muddy Water” 1927-03-02
14197 D “After You’ve Gone” 1927-03-02
14209 D “Send Me to the ‘Lectric Chair” 1927-03-03
14209 D “Them’s Graveyard Words” 1927-03-03
14219 D “There’ll Be a Hot Time in Old Town Tonight” 1927-03-02
14219 D “Alexander’s Ragtime Band” 1927-03-02
14232 D “Trombone Cholly” 1927-03-03
14232 D “Lock and Key Blues” 1927-04-01
14250 D “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” 1927-09-27
14250 D “Mean Old Bed Bug Blues” 1927-09-27
14260 D “Sweet Mistreater” 1927-04-01
14260 D “Homeless Blues” 1927-09-28
14273 D “Dyin’ by The Hour” 1927-10-27
14273 D “Foolish Man Blues” 1927-10-27
14292 D “I Used to Be Your Sweet Mama” 1928-02-09
14292 D “Thinking Blues” 1928-02-09
14304 D “I’d Rather be Dead and Buried in my Grave” 1928-06-16
14304 D “Pickpocket Blues” 1928-02-09
14312 D “Empty Bed Blues Pt1” 1928-03-20
14312 D “Empty Bed Blues Pt2” 1928-03-20
14324 D “Put It Right Here” 1928-03-20
14324 D “Spider Man Blues” 1928-03-19
14338 D “It Won’t Be You” 1928-02-12
14338 D “Standin’ in The Rain Blues” 1928-02-12
14354 D “Devil’s Gonna Git You” 1928-08-24
14354 D “Yes Indeed He Do” 1928-08-24
14375 D “Washwoman’s Blues” 1928-08-24
14375 D “Please Help Me Get Him Off My Mind” 1928-08-24
14384 D “Me and My Gin” 1928-08-25
14384 D “Slow and Easy Man” 1928-08-24
14399 D “Poor Man’s Blues” 1928-08-24
14399 D “You Ought to be Ashamed” 1928-08-24
14427 D “You’ve Got to Give Me Some” 1929-05-08
14427 D “I’m Wild About that Thing” 1929-05-08
14435 D “My Kitchen Man” 1929-05-08
14435 D “I’ve Got What It Takes” 1929-05-15
14451 D “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out” 1929-05-15
14451 D “Take It Right Back” 1929-07-25
14464 D “It Makes My Love Come Down” 1929-08-20
14464 D “He’s Got Me Goin'” 1929-08-20
14476 D “Dirty No Gooder’s Blues” 1929-10-01
14476 D “Wasted Life Blues” 1929-10-01
14487 D “Don’t Cry Baby” 1929-10-11
14487 D “You Don’t Understand” 1929-10-11
14516 D “New Orleans Hop Scop Blues” 1930-03-27
14516 D “Keep It to Yourself” 1930-03-27
14527 D “Blue Spirit Blues” 1929-10-11
14527 D “Worn out Papa Blues” 1929-10-11
14538 D “Moan Mourners” 1930-06-09
14538 D “On Revival Day” 1930-06-09
14554 D “Hustlin’ Dan” 1930-07-22
14554 D “Black Mountain Blues” 1930-07-22
14569 D “Hot Springs Blues” 1927-03-03
14569 D “Lookin’ for My Man Blues” 1927-09-28
14611 D “In the House Blues” 1931-06-11
14611 D “Blue Blues” 1931-06-11
14634 D “Safety Mama” 1931-11-20
14634 D “Need a Little Sugar in My Bowl” 1931-11-20
14663 D “Long Old Road” 1931-06-11
14663 D “Shipwreck Blues” 1931-06-11
78 RPM Singles — Okeh Records
8945 “I’m Down in the Dumps” 1933-11-24
8945 “Do Your Duty” 1933-11-24
8949 “Take Me for a Buggy Ride” 1933-11-24
8949 “Gimme a Pigfoot (and a Bottle of Beer)” 1933-11-24
Compilation albums
Bessie Smith Album (1938)
Empress of the Blues (1940)
Empress of the Blues, Vol. II (1947)
The Bessie Smith Story, in 4 Volumes (1951)
Awards and honors
Grammy Hall of Fame
Three recordings by Smith were inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, an award established in 1973 to honor recordings that are at least 25 years old and that have “qualitative or historical significance”.
Bessie Smith: Grammy Hall of Fame Award[40]
Year Recorded Title Genre Label Year Inducted
1923 “Downhearted Blues” Blues (single) Columbia 2006
1925 “St. Louis Blues” Jazz (single) Columbia 1993
1928 “Empty Bed Blues” Blues (single) Columbia 1983
National Recording Registry
In 2002, Smith’s recording of “Downhearted Blues” was included in the National Recording Registry by the National Recording Preservation Board of the Library of Congress. The board annually selects recordings that are “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”.
“Downhearted Blues” was also included in the list of Songs of the Century by the Recording Industry of America and the National Endowment for the Arts in 2001, and in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s 500 songs that shaped rock ‘n’ roll.
Inductions
Year Inducted Category Notes
2008 Nesuhi Ertegun Jazz Hall of Fame Jazz at Lincoln Center, New York
1989 Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award
1989 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame “Early influences”
1981 Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame
1980 Blues Hall of Fame
In 1984, Smith was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame.
U.S. postage stamp
The U.S. Postal Service issued a 29-cent commemorative postage stamp honoring Smith in 1994.
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 “center hole” in some of the master recordings had not been in the true middle of the master disc, so that there were wide variations in tone, pitch, key and phrasing, as commercially released records revolved around the spindle.
Given those historic limitations, the digitally remastered versions of her work deliver noticeable improvements in the sound quality of Smith’s performances, though 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.[45]
In popular culture
The 1948 short story “Blue Melody”, by J. D. Salinger, and the 1959 play The Death of Bessie Smith, by Edward Albee, are based on Smith’s life and death, but poetic license was taken by both authors; for instance, Albee’s play distorts the circumstances of her medical treatment, or lack of it, before her death, attributing it to racist medical practitioners.[46] The circumstances related by both Salinger and Albee were widely circulated until being debunked at a later date by Smith’s biographer.[47]
Dinah Washington and LaVern Baker released tribute albums to Smith in 1958. Released on Exodus Records in 1965, Hoyt Axton Sings Bessie Smith is another collection of Smith’s songs performed by folk singer Hoyt Axton.
Each June, the Bessie Smith Cultural Center in Chattanooga sponsors the Bessie Smith Strut as part of the city’s Riverbend Festival.[48][49]
She was the subject of a 1997 biography by Jackie Kay, reissued in February 2021 and featuring as Book of the Week on BBC Radio 4, read in an abridged version by the author.[50][51]
The song “Bessie Smith” by The Band first appeared on The Basement Tapes in 1975, but probably dates from 1970 to 1971, although musician Artie Traum recalls bumping into Rick Danko, the co-writer of the song, at Woodstock in 1969, who sang a verse of “Going Down The Road to See Bessie” on the spot.[52]
In the 2015 HBO film Bessie, Queen Latifah portrays Smith, focusing on the struggle and transition of Smith’s life and sexuality. The film was well received critically and garnered four Primetime Emmy Awards, winning Outstanding Television Movie.