Jazz Articles about Bessie Smith

Writer Chris Albertson Revives Bessie Smith Again

by Daniel Kassell
April 16, 2004

BessieChris Albertson Yale University Press 336 pages 45 illustrations ISBN: 0300099029

Reprising his 1972 biography Bessie, Jazz Journalist and long time contributor to Stereo review Chris Albertson has added to the lore of the blues.

Historically and culturally the first successful woman entertainer in the United States Bessie Smith has been referred to as the “greatest , “highest paid and “The Empress of the Blues but by detractors ...

Bessie Smith: Down Hearted Blues

by C. Michael Bailey
May 25, 2003

Bessie Smith perished in an automobile accident outside of Clarksdale Mississippi in 1937. Almost seventy years later, the "Empress of the Blues" continues to loom large in the American psyche. She, along with Louis Armstrong, defined--no, originated--the craft of jazz vocals. Naxos Jazz Legends begins its documentation of the Smith legend with a release of some of her earliest extant recordings for Columbia between February 1923 and April 1924. Ms. Smith had sparse accompaniment, usually only a piano or a ...