Bless Bess

I love Bessie Smith and am grateful to my dear ma for bringing me up with diverse musical background that included all the wacky new romantics and eighties bands like The Style Council, The The, and The Smiths as well as older gems like Bessie, Billie, Nina and Ella. Bessie Smith was, as far as I can gather, the first real Lady of the Blues - she was born in 1894 and was signed up to a record label in 1923- performing right up until she died from a car accident in 1937. She wrote and sang and was especially famous and well paid in the 20's. I am listeningto the album 'Bessie smith - The Empress and the Pianist 1923-1931" which has a bunchh of songs with her accompanied by some well known pianists oftehday. There is something no nonsense, clean and simple about blues singing accompanied by just piano or guitar, and these recordings are great. Her voice is rich and confident, easy, plain almost, but with clarity, and expression. To quote the CD sleeve 'There was a day in February 1923 when Bessie Smith went into a studio to record Alberta Huter's Down Hearted Blues that was to be a revelation. Suddenly everything was changed by that powerful contralto, by an unparallelled dramatic depth, a persuasive power that owed nothing to sentimentality. The pure beauty that resounded through the amplifiers, stunning everybody in the studio, would be produced on thoasands on 78s.'.
I like her because she sounds so strong, no nonsense, a powerful woman. The way she sings the Blues there is yearning and pain and grit and sensuality and survival - but nothing tragic, nothing flimsy, nothing showy. I can imagine the life of her big family raised by her big sister after the early death of her parents, can feel the dust of the Great Depression looming, feel the worn wood of front porches, and simple kitchens and women's bodies in faded cotton and men with hats drinking, their guarded eyes looking out to horizon, squinting into the sun.