Bessie smith biography education galaxy
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In an interview originally published on Jerry Jazz Musician in , Bessie Smith biographer Chris Albertson talks about the life of “The Empress of the Blues,&#; one of popular music&#;s most important figures during the &#;s and &#;s
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Chris Albertson,
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Bessie
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Considered by many to be the greatest blues singer of all time, Bessie Smith was also a successful vaudeville entertainer who became the highest paid African-American performer of the roaring twenties.
First published in , author Chris Albertson &#;s Bessie was described at the time by critic Leonard Feather as &#;the most devastating, provocative, and enlightening work of its kind ever contributed to the annals of jazz literature.&#; New Yorker critic Whitney Balliett called it &#;the first estimable full-length biography not only of Bessie Smith, but of any black musician.&#;
Over thirty years later, Albertson polished his work, and includes more details of Bessie&#;s early years, new interview material, and a chapter devoted to events and responses that followed the original publication.
Albertson, the acknowledged authority on Bessie Smith, discusses the great singer&#;s career &#; and the myths surrounding it &#; in a September, interview with Jerry Jazz Musician editor/publisher Joe Maita.
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photo by Carl Van Vechten/Library of Congress
Bessie Smith,
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&#;She was a difficult and temperamental person, she had her love affairs, which frequently interfered with her work, but she never was a real problem. Bessie was a person for whose artistry, at least, I had the profoundest respect. I don&#;t ever remember any artist in all my long, long years &#; and this goes back to some of the famous singers, including Billie Holiday &#; who could evoke the response from her listeners that Bessie did. Whatever pathos there is in the world, whatever sadness she had, was brought out in her singing &#; and Early on in “Bessie,” a new HBO biopic premiering Saturday and starring Queen Latifah as the singer Bessie Smith, Smith’s about-to-be mentor, Ma Rainey (played by Mo’Nique), offers a musicological lesson in show business. “You got ‘The St. Louis Blues,’ ‘The Chicago Blues,’ ‘The Gin House Blues,’ the ‘My Man Done Left Me Blues’ — they all the same song, ain’t they, with the same three chords and you done heard them ‘bout a dozen hundred times from a dozen hundred people. So what make folks want to hear it from you? So you got to put something else in it.” The blues, that great American invention, that system of expression, of tension and release, that box for putting something into — have had their ups and downs, uptown and down, since emerging into cultural consciousness a century or so ago. But they are always with us, moving on as surely as a C7 chord wants to take you to the F. B.B. King may have died this week, but Alabama Shakes is on tour. The film, which is based on “Bessie: Empress of the Blues,” a biography by Chris Albertson, has been on a long road to fruition; the late Horton Foote (who shares a story credit) took an early swing at a screenplay. Latifah auditioned for it as long ago as ; eventually she gained control of the project herself and brought in Dee Rees (“Pariah”) to direct. (Rees also shares credit for the teleplay with Christopher Cleveland and Bettina Gilois.) “Bessie” follows the familiar “rise and fall and rise” arc of most show business stories, as the baby artist learns her crafts, then gets famous, forgotten and remembered again. (The movie itself is also meant to restore the singer to the world.) “Bessie” cheats a little on that last account, making it seem that Smith was part of the “From Spirituals to Swing” concert at Carnegie Hall, but she had died the year before, following a car crash, an event whose details are legendary and disputed and which the fi American blues singer (–) Musical artist Willie Mae "Big Mama" Thornton (December 11, – July 25, ), was an American singer and songwriter of blues and R&B. The Encyclopedia of Pop, Rock and Soul described Thornton, saying: "Her booming voice, sometimes pound frame, and exuberant stage manner had audiences stomping their feet and shouting encouragement in R&B theaters from coast to coast from the early s on". Thornton was the first to record Leiber and Stoller's "Hound Dog", in , which was written for her. It became Thornton's biggest hit, selling over , copies and staying seven weeks at number one on the Billboard R&B chart in According to New York University music professor Maureen Mahon, "the song is seen as an important beginning of rock-and-roll, especially in its use of the guitar as the key instrument". Thornton's other recordings include her song "Ball and Chain", made famous in the late s by Janis Joplin. Though later recordings of her songs by other artists sold millions of copies, she was denied royalties by not holding the publishing copyrights to her creativity. Thornton died of a heart attack and liver disorders, penniless in a boarding-house in Los Angeles, California, and was buried in a shared pauper's grave. In , Thornton was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the musical influence category. Thornton was born on December 11, , the sixth of George and Mattie (née Haynes) Thornton's seven children. While Thornton's birth certificate states that she was born in Ariton, Alabama, in an interview with Arhoolie Records producer Chris Strachwitz, she claimed Montgomery, Alabama, as her birthplace, perhaps because Montgomery was better known than Ariton. She was introduced to music in a Baptist church, wher
Review: HBO’s ‘Bessie’ offers a lesson in show biz and the blues
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Select Bibliography of Women Musicians and Composers
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Gender and Music | Composer Home Pages
(Call numbers refer to the holdings of Indiana University Libraries which include the Cook Music Library.) REFERENCE
Big Mama Thornton
Life and career
Early life and self-taught musicianship