Back-Water Blues’ was one of the best known works of the Empress of the Blues, Bessie Smith, recorded for Columbia Records in 1927 with James P. Johnson on piano. Bemoaning the fate of losing a home to flood waters after five days and nights of rain, Smith laments: ‘Thousands of people ain’t got no place to go.’ While many latter-day listeners have equated this song with the disastrous 1927 flood of the Mississippi River, Smith actually recorded this before that particular flood had occurred. As musicologist Dr. David Evans has noted, ”Back-Water Blues’ was recorded in February 1927, before the great disaster of April. Perhaps the build-up of rain made her anticipate the flood; it was released just as the flood came, and as a result, it became a big hit.’
