Bessie Smith, ‘The Empress of the Blues’, is regarded by many as the greatest female blues vocalist ever. Born in Chattanooga, Tennessee, on April 15, 1894, Bessie Smith was a protege of Ma Rainey who surpassed her mentor to become the No. 1 blues act of the 1920s. Her life and death were the stuff of legend, frequently memorialized in books and stage productions. Her music has been constantly revived over the years by leading jazz and blues vocalists. Among her most recognizable classics were ‘Tain’t Nobody’s Business If I Do’, ‘The St. Louis Blues’, ‘Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out’, ‘Careless Love Blues’ and ‘Empty Bed Blues’. Altogether she recorded more than 200 sides from 1923 to 1933, many of them featuring her powerful, dramatic singing backed only by piano (Clarence Williams, Fletcher Henderson, James P. Johnson, et al.), others adding horns (Coleman Hawkins, Louis Armstrong, and Don Redman, to name just a few). When the vaudeville blues styles of the ’20s went into decline in the Depression years, Smith persevered, and though she did not record again after 1933, she was still hitting the road on a Southern tour with the Broadway Rastus show when she suffered fatal injuries in auto accident on Highway 61 on Sept. 26, 1937. Stories that she died after being refused admittance to the white hospital in Clarksdale made good copy for sensationalist articles and dramatic scripts, but no evidence was ever produced to verify such a story; local reports indicate that she was taken (as were all African Americans who needed hospital care when facilities were segregated) to the G.T. Thomas Afro American Hospital (now operating as the Riverside Inn), where she passed away. Tourists at the Riverside can now even rent ‘the Bessie Smith room’ for a night. The Bessie Smith Performance Hall at the Chattanooga African American Museum is named in her honor.
— Jim O’Neal
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