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Known as the ‘Empress Of The Blues’, Bessie Smith's majestic delivery and indomitable spirit made her not only the first superstar of the blues but one of the unrivalled great voices of the twentieth century. She had her rivals, including Ma Rainey, Alberta Hunter, Clara Smith and Ida Cox. But none matched her emotional intensity or the nobility of her rich contralto voice, which earned her title. Her voice was huge but full of nuance, her intonation was immaculate and her expressiveness still takes the breath away to this day.

Bessie Smith was the first superstar of the blues with one of the greatest voices of the twentieth century – dubbed ‘The Empress Of The Blues’, her majestic delivery and indomitable spirit were unsurpassed. Re-mastered for exceptional audio clarity, the emotional intensity and expressiveness of Bessie Smith still takes the breath away.

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Born in Tennessee, the exact year of her birth is uncertain and has been variously given as 1894–96, 1898 and 1900, although the earliest suggestion appears the most likely. One of seven children, she was orphaned at the age of 8 and was discovered by Ma Rainey when the older woman passed through Chattanooga around 1912. By then, Bessie had already spent time singing on street corners for tips but had recently joined her brother Clarence in Moses Stokes' entertainment troupe, which is where Rainey heard her. There has been much debate about whether Rainey actually coached the young singer who would soon eclipse her, or merely offered general encouragement, but there's no doubt she was a major influence. By 1913, Bessie was to be found singing in a theatre in Atlanta and she went on to sing with a number of other shows on the vaudeville circuit, including Charles P. Bailey's troupe and Pete Werley's Florida Cotton Blossoms. By 1920, she was a headline act in her own right. That was the year that Mamie Smith recorded ‘Crazy Blues’, but Bessie had to wait another three years to make her first recordings. After being rejected at auditions for a number of labels, Frank Walker signed her to Columbia and took her to New York, where she cut ‘Down Hearted Blues’ (already recorded by Alberta Hunter) and ‘Gulf Coast Blues’. Released in spring 1923, the record was the biggest seller of the year and made Bessie a national star virtually overnight.

During the 1920s she toured the South as well as the major northern cities booked by TOBA (the Theatre Owners Booking Association, known as 'the Toby' but jokingly said by musicians to stand for ‘Tough On Black Artists’). It certainly wasn't that tough on Bessie Smith, for she was soon the highest-paid black entertainer in America, earning $2000 a week – a staggering sum at the time – and travelling between shows in her own railroad car. It was indicative of the set-up of the music industry at the time, in which record companies made their money from the recordings and the artists from touring. In contrast to the riches she made from her shows, Columbia paid her just $200 per side for her recordings.

On her earliest sessions she was backed only by the pianist Fletcher Henderson, but she was later accompanied by the likes of Louis Armstrong, pianist James P. Johnson, trumpeters Joe Smith and Tommy Ladnier, guitarist Eddie Lang and trombonist Charlie Green. Following ‘Down Hearted Blues’, her biggest hits included ‘Nobody Knows You When You're Down And Out’, ‘Empty Bed Blues’, ‘A Good Man Is Hard To Find’, ‘Careless Love’ and her definitive version of W.C. Handy's ‘St Louis Blues’, featuring Armstrong's magnificent cornet. Her material ranged across a variety of styles, from deep indigo melancholy to jaunty pop songs.

But the rage for female blues singers was brief. She left behind some 160 recordings, but by 1930 her recording career was pretty much over, as male singers took command. In addition to changing musical tastes, she was also an excessive drinker, downing gin by the tumblerful and hymning her favoured tipple on songs such as ‘Me And My Gin’. In 1929, she performed in the short movie The St Louis Blues (the only footage of her that exists) and in the same year appeared in a Broadway musical called Pansy, which flopped badly. 

Columbia dropped her in 1931, but there was one final recording session for Okeh Records in 1933, when John Hammond put together a band, including Coleman Hawkins, Benny Goodman and Jack Teagarden, to accompany her. Smith appeared reluctant and complained that ‘nobody wants to hear blues no more’, and the songs she recorded, including ‘Gimme A Pigfoot And A Bottle Of Beer’, were in a swing style rather than pure blues. She sang superbly, but, although the recordings were billed as her comeback, they led to no upturn in her declining popularity. Her last few years were spent playing seedy Harlem theatres and touring the South, which had once been her empire. On 27 September 1937, Hammond travelled to Mississippi to bring her back to New York to try to revive her career with another recording session and plans for a further film. That very day, she was in a car crash on the road between Clarksdale and Memphis. Her right arm was nearly severed in the crash and was immediately amputated, but she never recovered consciousness and died from loss of blood. She was 43. Hammond claimed in an article in Down Beat magazine that she died after being refused admission to a hospital because of her skin colour. He later admitted that his report was based on hearsay and the claim has never been verified. However, the rumour has persisted and was the subject of Edward Albee's 1959 play The Death Of Bessie Smith. Alan Lomax repeated the claim in his 1993 book The Land Where The Blues Began.

The blues Bessie sang about were dramatically reflected in her own life. She grew up in abject poverty and, when she found fame and wealth, took full advantage of everything they had to offer. Yet, despite an extravagant and self-indulgent lifestyle, she never lost sight of ‘her people’, the southern black audience which sustained her, and she disapproved of black musicians who openly embraced white, European styles.

She understood the subject matter she sang about – the poverty, the heartache, the rejection, the infidelity and the drinking. Her personal life was tumultuous. Husband Jack Gee, whom she married in 1923, became increasingly violent, although, at six foot tall and weighing 200 pounds, and with a fiery temper of her own, she reportedly often gave as good as she got. Both were unfaithful to each other and Bessie was promiscuous and bisexual, often sleeping with her chorus girls while on tour. She drank heavily, and the tragedy in her own life, which led to prolonged bouts of low self-esteem, was in many ways in stark contrast to her self-confident, indomitable public persona. Yet this dichotomy, and the tension (even torment) it generated, only enhanced the often heart-rending expressiveness of her voice.

It was a voice that could sing anything, combining downhome saltiness with great musical sophistication. As a blues singer she was sublime, able to conjure pain and suffering at will. It was an ability that was there from the very beginning – just listen to the way she delivers the bittersweet vocal on ‘Down Hearted Blues’, her debut recording from 1923. Equally thrilling are ‘The Yellow Dog Blues’ and ‘Back Water Blues’, the latter one of her own compositions, inspired by the great Mississippi River flood of 1927. But there was enormous energy and enthusiasm for life and its more risqué pleasures, too. Listen to her hellraising on ‘Gimme A Pigfoot And A Bottle Of Beer’ or lustily belting out the none-too-subtle double entendres of ‘I Need A Little Sugar In My Bowl’. 

Her vaudeville background meant that she was equally adept at singing standards – but she almost always invested them with her own transcendence. Her 1929 recording of ‘Nobody Knows You When You're Down And Out’ transforms an over-familiar song into a haunting piece of harrowing autobiography. She could also take Tin Pan Alley songs such as ‘Careless Love’ and ‘Muddy Water’ (recorded around the same time by Bing Crosby) and make them sound compelling and fresh. 

Her impact and influence on other singers has been huge, and Billie Holiday, Mahalia Jackson, Nina Simone and Janis Joplin were among the many who subsequently claimed her as a seminal influence. In 1970, when Joplin discovered that Smith's grave remained unmarked (despite a lavish funeral and 10,000 people filing past her coffin), she helped to pay for a headstone. Its inscription declared, ‘The Greatest Blues Singer in the World Will Never Stop Singing’. 

Bessie Smith could not want for a better epitaph.