There are some people whose voices ring out across the centuries, who, even after they have gone, possess a strange ability to still be effortlessly here. Bessie’s voice has that quality. Unsettled ...

Bessie Smith, Empress of the Blues, was the first African American superstar, an artist that mingled regal dignity with sensuality. We’ll sample her recorded legacy, talk with critics and hear ...

On this day, 100 years ago, Columbia Records held a recording session with a singer named Bessie Smith. The country at large didn't know her then, but soon found out because she was launching a career ...

Chris Albertson, who as a teenager in Denmark became captivated by the blues singer Bessie Smith and decades later produced a widely praised multivolume reissue of her recordings and wrote an equally ...

It may already be almost a hundred years since she made her most significant recordings – she is from an era before amplification – and yet her unfailing capacity to hold the listener’s attention, to ...

Smith was barnstorming the South, performing her act under a canvas tent for Black audiences or in segregated theaters. One sweltering night in July, it took her to the heart of Concord’s Black ...

(ThyBlackMan.com) As the undisputed “Empress of the Blues,” Bessie Smith’s voice is a cornerstone of American music history. Her raw emotion, unwavering strength, and uncompromising style helped shape ...

While most Chattanoogans are aware of the name Bessie Smith and her place in music history, not just here but worldwide, few likely know much about Blue Goose Hollow, the neighborhood where she ...