Bessie Smith - 'Chattanooga Gal'

 

 
Bessie Smith was the first major blues and jazz singer on record and one of the most powerful of all time, and rightly earned the title of "The Empress of the Blues."  Even on her first records in 1923, her passionate voice overcame the primitive recording quality of the day and still communicates easily to today's listeners.  At a time when the blues were in and most vocalists (particularly vaudevillians) were being dubbed "blues singers," Bessie Smith simply had no competition.

Back in 1912, Bessie Smith sang in the same show as Ma Rainey, who took her under her wing and coached her.  Although Rainey would achieve a measure of fame throughout her career, she was soon surpassed by her protégée.  In 1920, Smith had her own show in Atlantic City, New Jersey and, in 1923, she moved to New York.  She was soon signed by Columbia Records, and her first recording (Alberta Hunter's "Downhearted Blues") made her famous.  Bessie Smith worked and recorded steadily throughout the decade, using many top musicians as sidemen on sessions, including Louis Armstrong, Coleman Hawkins, Joe Smith (her favorite cornetist), James P. Johnson, and Charlie Green.  Her summer tent show Harlem Frolics was a big success during 1925-1927, and Mississippi Days in 1928 kept the momentum going.

However, by 1929 her style became out of fashion and Bessie Smith's career was declining despite being at the peak of her powers (and still only 35).  She appeared in 'St. Louis Blues' that year (a low-budget movie short that contains the only footage of her), but her hit recording of "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out" predicted her leaner Depression years.  Although she was dropped by Columbia Records in 1931 and made her final recordings on a four-song session in 1933, Bessie Smith kept on working.  She played the Apollo in 1935 and substituted for Billie Holiday in the show 'Stars Over Broadway'.  The chances are very good that she would have made a comeback, starting with a Carnegie Hall appearance at John Hammond's upcoming From Spirituals to Swing concert, but she was killed in a car crash in Mississippi.

Bessie Smith's big, beautiful voice and emotionally naked interpretation made her into one of the all-time stars of the gramophone (78s) record, influencing talents as wide-ranging as Billie Holiday, Mahalia Jackson and Janis Joplin, and many others.  This 4CD set includes all of her best known songs, whose raw energy and emotion shine out across the decades and show just why she became such a star. Transcending the worlds of blues, gospel and popular song, Bessie is a seminal figure in modern music and this box is the ultimate overview of her career.

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