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Biography of Bessie Smith

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Biography of Bessie Smith THE N.C. ESSAY Page 3 BIOGRAPHY OF BESSIE SMITH - - A Review Reprint (In my quest for background materials for a play I plan to write on the life of Bessie Smith, I ran across this article which as proven to be very interesting and infonuative. It is reprinted with the permission of the author and the Winston-Salem Journal and Sentinel. We thank them both.) Henry Pankey “BESSIE.” By Chris Albert­ I son. Stein and Day. 253 pages. $7.95. When one considers the enormous legacy she left, the unmistakable stamp she put on three generations of jazz and pop singers from the performers of her day to Billie Holiday and In 1920, the whit;e music in­ Janis Joplin and the h i^ drama dustry allowed Mamie Smith, a of her life and death, it is sur­ singer unrelated to Bessie, to prising, even a bit shocking, that become the first black to record hearsay, but Hammond’s title - a serious biography of blues as a soloist. Mamie’s “Crazy “Did Bessie Smith Bleed To single Bessie &nith has not ap­ Blues” opened the door to blacks Death While Waiting For Medical peared before. and started a blues craze. Bessie Bessie Smith Aid?” - is still remembered by Possible writers have been was signed to record, at $125 a many as a question to be an­ scared off by her influence or side, by Columbia’s “race” swered “yes.” some of the sordid details of her division and in February 1923 Albertson, though leaving life. Possible many have felt the first stepped up to the acoustical personal conclusions to readers, myths surrounding the Empress horn then used to collect enough debunks the myth by presenting of the Blues too popular and too sound to register on wax. Tlie testimony from Dr. Frank Smith, attractive to dispel. session produced two usable a white physician who happened Thirty-five years have passed takes, her classic “Gulf Coast Oddly, the injustices of black- onto the scene of the accident, since her dea^, and 45 since her Blues” and “Down Hearted and supporting details drawn hey-day. Many important white relations on a larger scale Blues,” which, to Columbia’s did not draw her ire. Mistrustful from hospital records and a black documents have been lost; most astonishment, sold 780,000 copies of whites, she preferred the ambulance driver who drove of the people who knew her first­ in the next six months. company of blacks and accepted Several appearances at black Bessie to the black hospital at hand have died or forgotten the Such sales are very good even the nearly total segregation of the New York City theaters led to a Clarksburg where she died. He truth. Writing accurately about now, but for a record by a black times. Though affluent white lucky break, and Bessie was tells the other side by reprinting a her from the standpoint of the to do that well in 1923 was liberals of the ’20s courted her, called in to replace an ailing 1938 clipping from a black 70’s, therefore presents terrific phenomenal. Recordings by newspaper. The piece, clearly she rarely socialized with them, young Billie Holiday at hazards. blacks were not sold in most fashionable Connie’s Inn in­ inaccurate in some verifiable Chris Albertson, however, stores patronized by whites or and when she did, the results particulars, is based on Morgan’s were usually mortifying to her downtown Manhattan. Her appears to have sidestepped the even heard by whites, and only a performances in swing style account as retold by Jack Gee Jr. pitfalls. In telling Bessie’s story small percentage of blacks were white hosts. Unlike Ethel Waters, to black reporters. who was for a time a blues rival, galvanized patrons, and the and attempting to recreate what then wealthy enough to afford engagement led to more work In a concise epilogue, Albert­ she was as a woman as well as a and other black performers, she son traces the growth of Bessie’s costly record players or even made no effort to embrace white exposing Bessie to new star, he seems to have taken records, which went for the legend and, with justifiable audiences either, Albertson audiences. The record industry nothing as truth without princely sum of 75 cents each. began making new overtures; a cynicism, the ways others have collaborating evidence. Soon commanding $1,000 to notes. made fortunes from Bessie’s Through the late ’20s, her movie was mentioned. Bessie Albertson opens with details of $2,000 a week, Bessie shared and was clearly on her feet again. recordings without passing on a Bessie’s grand exit, her funeral sometimes squandered her new records and shows remained cent to her heirs. For all her in Philadelphia in 1937, Uien wealth on friends, relatives and a popular but though she found recordings, Bessie was $28,575 - doubles back to her birth in new husband, Jack Gee, blazing a some solace in an adopted son, With renewed confidence, she less than most promising new accepted a featured spot in a poverty in Chattanooga Tenn., trail through big city black her personal life floundered. talents get as an advance today. probably on April 15, 1894. Like Bessie and Gee separated in show touring the South in late Record company officials hold theaters and through the South on summer 1937. The show opened to virtually everything else in her the tent show circuit. As her bitterness when she learned he there were no royalty first 25 years, the date cannot be had invested $3,000 of her money good business in Memphis and arrangements in her day and career peaked and leveled off in was due in Darling, Miss., Sept. verified. Albertson presents the 1925, her marriage began to in a rival show starring his new apparently feel no moral or few facts that are known of mistress. Shortly, the stock 26. Feeling restless after her final financial obligations to Bessie's crack as Jack found her performance in Memphis, Bessie Bessie’s childhood, among then dependence on alcohol and ex­ market crash left the record surviving relatives. Ironically, business in panic and Bessie’s urged her lover, Richard Albertson, who says he received the early death of her parents and tramarital sex - both with men Morgan, to drive them part of the the future singer’s decision in brand of the blues faded in only a small fee for producing on and women - intolerable. The way ahead of the company. 1912 to leave four brothers and couple avoided each other, and popularity. As her wealth waned, a free-lance basis the current friends dropped her and in Seventy-five miles out of sisters to join another brother in when thrown together, often Memphis, their car struck a reissue of Bessie’s work, is an a traveling show featuring the fought physically as well as November, 1931, Columbia accomplice in the crime. dropped her too. Though she truck pulling onto a narrow rural Uues singer now ranked second verbally, Bessie hurling all of her highway. Morgan escaped with If, however, Albertson owes only to Bessie, Gertrude “Ma” 200 pounds at Jack but generally recorded four sides, at $37.50 Bessie anything, his book surely each, two years later, her few injuries, Bessie, on the side of Rainey. coming off the loser. the car that struck the truck, was repays the debt. To read his Legend has it “Ma” literally When aroused, there was no recording career was over. To meticulously researched and the public, Bessie Smith was a seriously, perhaps mortally kidnapped young Bessie and one Bessie would not take on, injured. written biography is to travel the taught her to sing blues. Albert­ including the Ku Klux Klan, has-been. roads she traveled, take the jolts son’s sources deny this but which tried to interrupt her show Albertson gives a quick but and bumps she took, indulge in suggest “Ma” Rainey’s success in Concord in 1927. Told by a bleak sketch of Bessie’s most For 35 years, stories of racism her often illicit pleasures and may have inspired Bessie to frightened musician that sheeted depressed days; little is available of neglect by white doctors and understand the blues behind her specialize in blues music. Bet­ figures were pulling up the stakes about them. While Ethel Waters hospital officials, have been blues. Another writer might have ween 1915 and 1922, though, of her tent, she flew into a rage, was drawing $1,250 for a single connected with Bessie’s death, told her story more colorfully; Bessie developed a style of her stomped out and accosted the network radio broadcast and most of them tied to an article by but Albertson’s version is colorful own and her own set of fans in the klansmen. “What the ★ ★ * you other blacks were getting movie John Hanunond, the producer of enough and besides is graced South and cities as far north as think you’re doing?” she offers the Empress of the Blues Bessie’s last recordings, with the blessing that comes Atlantic City, N.J. She also bellowed. “I’ll get the whole was usually out of work. Only published in “down beat,” a when a writer knows nothing developed a taste for cheap liquor damn tent out here if I have to. after she made a shift to swing month after the accident. better embellishes the reputation that remained unquenched most You just pick up them sheets and music did her career take a turn Hammond later admitted the of a great artist than the truth.
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