"The amazing biography of the great blues singer Bessie Smith by the acknowledged authority, Bessie is a fascinating story of her life and music. Issues of race and gender identity are still at the forefront in American life, and the story of Bessie's bisexuality, her childhood poverty, the corruption of the music business and the daily indignities African American performers suffered, resonate today as much as when the book was first published. Read it before the HBO movie comes out in mid-May."
Publisher Yale University Press
Publication Date 2005-06-10
Section Music / All Staff Suggestions / Nonfiction Suggestions / Carole H.
Format Paperback
ISBN 9780300107562
The definitive biography of Bessie Smith, the great singer known as the “Empress of the Blues”
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. This book—a revised and expanded edition of the classic biography of this extraordinary artist—debunks many of the myths that have circulated since her untimely death in 1937.
Chris Albertson writes with insight and candor about the singer’s personal life and her career, supplementing his historical research with dozens of interviews with her relatives, friends, and associates, in particular Ruby Walker Smith, a niece by marriage who toured with Bessie for over a decade. For this new edition he includes more details of Bessie’s early years, new interview material, and a chapter devoted to events and responses that followed the original publication in 1971.
