| Bessie Smith was an early American blues singer born in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Initially a dancer, she was encouraged to sing by Ma Rainey, in whose travelling show she worked. Bessie Smith began singing on stage in 1913 in Atlanta and by 1920 she was a star, regularly touring the South playing for black audiences, her main constituency.
Despite this, she did not start recording till 1923 on Columbia records. These recordings, including the million-selling 'Down Hearted Blues', made her one of the foremost singers of the 1920's and featured such musicians as Louis Armstrong, Joe Smith, Clarence Williams, Benny Goodman, and Fletcher Henderson.
Bessie Smith had numerous hits over the decade, including the songs most associated with her, such as 'Nobody Knows You When You're Down And Out'. They sold well for most of that decade, but by 1929 a sequence of bad personal and business decisions, coupled with her heavy drinking, had left her broke, and without a recording contract. |
