"The Empress of the Blues" gave voice the listeners' tribulations and yearnings of the 1920s and '30s. A new 10-CD box set collects the complete... The Mythic Power Of Bessie Smith Vocalist Bessie ...

She recorded for only 10 years. But during that decade, singer Bessie Smith arguably did more than anyone to advance the blues as a bedrock of American popular music. On Feb. 16, 1923, she walked into ...

The pioneering singer influenced blues, jazz, rock and beyond with her powerful voice and inventive delivery, displaying a greatness rooted in the... This essay is one in a series celebrating women ...

Sexy and racy, Blues singer Bessie Smith was the definition of a Red Hot Mamma and the most successful entertainer of her time. On the eve of her tragic death in 1937, Bessie takes center stage in a ...

Miche Braden stars as Bessie Smith, the legendary “Empress of the Blues,” who blazed the trail for a century of performers from Aretha Franklin to Adele. Mixing classics like “Need a Little Sugar In ...

"There's some that calls the blues the devil's music. Well, honey, I done danced to the devil's music. So, I gotta give the devil his due." So says blues icon Bessie Smith, to whom the devil is a ...

Bessie Smith is known now as the “Empress of the Blues.” The Tennessee native rose to greatness through the 1920s and ‘30s and was one of the first blues singers to make a record. Her first effort, ...

In the days following the death of the Empress of the Blues, newspapers across the nation carried the story. One day after the Sept. 26, 1937, fatal car crash, The Chattanooga News carried the story ...

There’s a reason Bessie Smith was known as the Empress of the Blues. Her heartfelt songs and gritty glamour introduced the sounds of African American music to large audiences in the 1920s and 30s. She ...

The Makar of Scotland, their poet laureate, from 2016 to 2021, Jackie Kay discusses growing up Black and adopted in an all-white section of Glasgow. Her imaginary family included Bessie Smith. She ...

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. By the summer of 1927, Bessie Smith, the “Empress of the Blues” herself, was enjoying a high-riding career when her personal ...