Bessie Smith
The original tough-mama prototype for nearly every female blues singer to come, hard-living, big-voiced Bessie Smith was also the first blues singer with a mega-hit recording career, achieved in part via collaborations with some of the most notable musicians of her era. In her prime in the 1920s and 1930s, she was the highest-paid black entertainer in the U.S., and her influence persists to this day.
Listen to Bessie Smith
at Finetune.
Albums
- (2007) Itinerary of a Genius
- (2000) Empty Bed Blues
- (1992) The Complete Recordings, Vol. 3 (Disc 2)
- (1934) The Essential Bessie Smith
- (1928) The Complete Recordings Vol. 4
- (1927) The Complete Recordings: Volume 3
- (1927) The Collection
- (1925) Martin Scorsese Presents The Blues: Bessie Smith
- (1925) The Complete Recordings Volume 2
- (1923) The Complete Recordings
Top Tracks
- Downhearted Blues
- Muddy Water (A Mississippi Moan)
- Gimme a Pig Foot and a Bottle of Beer
- Empty Bed Blues
- Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out
Related Artists
- Billie Holiday
- Alberta Hunter
- Ma Rainey
- Dinah Washington
- Sippie Wallace
- Victoria Spivey
- Louis Armstrong
- Memphis Minnie
- Ethel Waters
- Big Mama Thornton
- Maria Muldaur
- Nina Simone
- Etta James
- Bonnie Raitt
- Koko Taylor
- Lucinda Williams
- Ida Cox
- Debbie Davies, Hubert Sumlin, Henry Gray, Calvin J
- Christine Ohlman, Eddie Shaw, Hubert Sumlin, Henry
- Tampa Red
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