Bessie+Smith

__ Bessie Smith __ The greatest musician of her time was born on April 15th, 1894, in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Her name was Bessie Smith, and was known as the “Empress of the Blues”. Smith was born into poverty, and began her career by singing on the streets for spare change from passersby. She was originally hired as a dancer, but she perfected her singing skills. She became one of the greatest recording artists of her time. With her first album, Smith sold 780,000 copies! Twice, she single-handedly pulled Columbia Records out of bankruptcy. She recorded //five// of her songs with Louis Armstrong! She also recorded many more songs with two other famous African Americans – Fletcher Henderson and James P. Johnson.

Smith gave many concerts, and everyone who watched was captivated. On the morning of September 26th, 1937, Smith was driving to one of her concerts. She was involved in an accident fatal to her. She died that day, and it seemed as if the whole world cried. A rumor later erupted that Smith bled to death, because a hospital refused to admit her. This was because Smith was an African American. In 1960, Edward Albee made a play about Smith, called //The Death of Bessie Smith//. And, thirty-five years after Smith’s death, Chris Albertson wrote a biography about Smith, and in the book he got rid of the rumor of the hospital. He also won a Grammy award for his book. // EJS-2 //

__ Works Cited __
 * 1) Altman, Susan. “Bessie Smith.” //Extraordinary African-Americans//. 2001. Print.
 * 2) “Bessie Smith.” //Encyclopedia of World biography//. n.p., n.d. //Biography in Context//. Web. 16 February 2011.
 * 3) Albertson, C.. “Bessie Smith.” //Fact Monster//. n.p., 2003. //The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia.// Web. 16 February 2011.

For more information about Bessie Smith, and to hear some of her songs, click [|here].

[[image:bessie.jpg width="164" height="245"]]Bessie Smith the famous blues singer
==She was born on April 15, 1894. Chattanooga, Tennessee. She was married to Jack Gee, it was a stormy relationship. They had fights frequently despise the fact that they had an adopted son name Jack Gee Jr. She had a hard marriage so she started to write songs. Her songs started to reflect her life and what she went through. She started to form mobs when she was seen in public. People would just relate to her music so much because she was so real and you could understand her train of thoughts. People know her for her magnificent voice, sense of dramatic, and clarify of diction (understandable). For an example she wrote a song called A Good Man Is Hard to Find ﻿ Smith always got recognized; Smith always got recognized; she had the longest selling albums. Sometimes when people go to see her in theaters and they refuse to leave until she performs for one last time. She was the ultimate African American blues singer. She would express her feelings by writing songs. Like what she went through with her marriage and with what was going at the time. She didn’t necessary have to write about sad things. She wrote about happy good times too. She was interested in working on her vocals, but along with that she worked on her dancing skills. So now when she performs she can sing and dance for her audience. During 1927 she was the highest paying African American. Then something terrible happened on September 26th, 1937, Smith was involved in an accident. It ended up that she died. Some people described that time as if it was the whole world cried. ==

Some of her songs:Bessie Smith-The Down Hearted Blues
Bessie Smith-Give Me a Pigfoot and a Bottle of beer Bessie Smith-My Sweetie Went Away For more information on Bessie Smith and more of her music visit allmusic.com

Work Cited Page Biography in context, WEB, 2/15/2011, Chris Albertson, Edward Brook & etc. Allmusic.com, WEB, 2/15/2011, John Bush, Matt Collar, & etc.