By Barbara White
On April 15, 1894 in Blue Goose Hollow, Chattanooga, Tennessee, Laura Smith gave birth to her eighth child; a baby girl she named Bessie.
And now, more than one hundred years later, Bessie Smith needs no introduction. She was, and still is, the Empress of the Blues. So why I have chosen to write about Bessie in the context of jazz? Glad you asked.
Bessie came late to jazz, but when she did, she sang it like no one else could have.. She had a natural sense of timing that lent itself to jazz rhythms even better than to blues interpretation. Her unmistakable voice filled with passion and soul brought life to every song.
But Bessie didn't take to jazz right away. The music that touched her, and has forever been linked to her, was the blues.
In 1902 in Chattanooga, a child sang on street corners for pennies. Crowds of folks would gather to hear her. Finally, the owner of a local club called the Ivory heard about the little girl with the great big voice. He went to hear her for himself and he was amazed by what he heard. He hired Bessie for his club and paid her a hefty $8.00 a week. Bessie knew then that she could do what she loved and make a living too.
At seventeen, Bessie joined the Moses Stokes Traveling Show. Her brother Clarence had arranged for her to audition. She left Chattanooga and traveled to Atlanta. Also in the troupe, was Ma Rainey-the Mother of the Blues. Doubtless, Ma taught Bessie how to put on a real show for the audience. She taught Bessie to do a vaudeville routine complete with comedy and dancing. But no one taught Bessie how to sing.
In Atlanta, Bessie left the show and began performing at a local club called the "81". Crowds packed in to see her. According to some of the accounts written by the people who saw her perform, Bessie loved doing comedy and she had the audience rolling in the aisles.
She also had a little trick she called "walkin'."
"Walkin'" a man out of the audience was easy for Bessie. She would pick one listener in the audience and sing to him as if he was the only one there. Before the end of her performance that fellow would walk right up to the stage completely under her spell. It entertained Bessie and her chorines no end.
While Bessie was traveling around the south and as far north as Philadelphia, building her reputation, Mamie Smith-no relation-was the first black woman to make a blues recording. In Chicago Alberta Hunter also began to record. The success of these women was phenomenal and crossed racial lines. With the popularity of black female blues singers on the rise, Bessie auditioned to record her music.
Piano player, Clarence Williams, arranged her first audition with the "race record" label Okeh Records. The label turned Bessie down because her voice was too rough. Once again, Bessie hit the road traveling through the south to Georgia. But when she returned to Philadelphia Clarence Williams again arranged for a recording audition this time with Columbia Records. Columbia producer Frank Walker had heard Bessie before and he could hardly wait to record her. He wasted no time in releasing her first single "Down Hearted Blues."
Even though Alberta Hunter had released the song the year before, Bessie's version sold 750,000 copies. Thus began a remarkable ten-year recording career.
From 1923 until 1929 Bessie recorded music regularly and toured the country from New York to Chicago, Atlanta to Philadelphia and every small town in between. She made millions and spent it just as quickly as she got it. She traveled in her own bright yellow Pullman Car. Her excessive appetites were legendary. She ate too much, drank too much and despite being married had numerous affairs with both men and women. Her physical presence dominated everything around her. She stood six feet tall and weighed two hundred pounds. She was violent and crude and thoroughly unique and all of it is reflected in her voice. When she sang about life there was no doubt she knew what she was singing about.
In the nineteen thirties as the Depression ground the country to a halt, Bessie's career faltered. She recorded less often and her record sales were down. In part, the economy was to blame, this was compounded by the waning popularity of the blues. At first Bessie refused to give up her music, but gradually she began to incorporate more jazz tunes in her repertoire. We hear her singing "Gimme a Pig Foot" and "Do Your Duty." The recording of "Pig Foot" even boasts the clarinet playing of Benny Goodman.
Bessie began sitting in at jazz joints in Harlem and Philadelphia. She performed at the famed Apollo Theater. In 1936, she covered for Billie Holiday when Billie was too sick to perform at Connie's Inn. Connie's was on 48th street between Broadway and Seventh Ave. This uptown audience was treated to a "new" Bessie Smith. There were no blues. Bessie sang popular songs of the day and her natural ability to swing shone through. Her talent even transformed Tin Pan Alley ditties like "Alexander's Ragtime Band" into great stuff.
Bessie's career was back on track. She was winning a whole new audience. She finally had peace and happiness in her personal life too. Richard Morgan, uncle of Lionel Hampton, had been Bessie's friend and lover for several years. He gave her life a stability she had not known before.
In the early morning hours of September 26, 1937, Bessie and Richard Morgan were driving down a dark road near Clarksdale, Mississippi. It was dark and lonely. Suddenly, they rammed into the back of a truck stopped on the side of the road.
Bessie's arm was nearly severed in the accident. While Richard attempted to stop the bleeding a doctor happened to drive by. He sent Morgan to get an ambulance. Matters were complicated when a white couple crashed into the doctor's car. Both of them, a man and a woman were badly injured.
When the first ambulance arrived, Bessie was taken to the "colored" hospital in Clarksdale. This precipitated the rumors that she died because she was denied treatment in the white hospital. But as Dr. Smith-the Good Samaritan at the scene--explained, Bessie was never taken to the white hospital. In the south at that time no ambulance driver would have even brought a black person to a non-black hospital. And in Clarksdale, the two hospitals were less than one mile apart.
Racism, for all of its evils, did not kill Bessie Smith. She died of shock and loss of blood and medical science that was far more primitive. But rumors spread and grew as years went by. The legend of Bessie's death over-shadowed the achievements of her life. And perpetuating those rumors helped others, among them record producer John Hammond and playwright Edward Albee, to line their pockets
Bessie is the undisputed leader among blues singers, but we should never forget that she was an extraordinary jazz performer too.
Now, if you haven't added Bessie Smith your collection already, go out and treat yourself to one or more of the many Bessie Smith anthologies available on c.d. And while you listen to her powerful voice I want you to remind yourself of the very primitive recording equipment used to capture her genius. There was no high tech machinery to add to the quality of her voice. There was no doctoring of the sound. It is raw and unrefined and the full, earthy emotion explodes at you. Even after all of these years you know you are in the presence of greatness, royalty, the Empress of the Blues.
