Bessie Smith - Do Your Duty

Bessie Smith (1892 - 1937)

was a rough, crude, violent woman. She was also the greatest of the classic Blues singers of the 1920s. Bessie started out as a street musician in Chattanooga. In 1912 Bessie joined a traveling show as a dancer and singer. The show featured Pa and Ma Rainey, and Smith developed a friendship with Ma. Ma Rainey was Bessie's mentor and she stayed with her show until 1915. Bessie then joined the T.O.B.A. vaudeville circuit and gradually built up her own following in the south and along the eastern seaboard. By the early 1920s she was one of the most popular Blues singers in vaudeville. In 1923 she made her recording debut on Columbia, accompanied by pianist Clarence Williams. They recorded "Gulf Coast Blues" and "Down Hearted Blues." The record sold more than 750,000 copies that same year, rivaling the success of Blues singer Mamie Smith (no relation). Throughout the 1920s Smith recorded with many of the great Jazz musicians of that era, including Fletcher Henderson, James P. Johnson, Coleman Hawkins, Don Redman and Louis Armstrong. Her rendition of "St. Louis Blues" with Armstrong is considered by most critics to be one of finest recordings of the 1920s.

Bessie Smith was one of the biggest African-American stars of the 1920s and was popular with both Whites and African-Americans, but by 1931 the Classic Blues style of Bessie Smith was out of style and the Depression, radio, and sound movies had all damaged the record companies' ability to sell records so Columbia dropped Smith from its roster. In 1933 she recorded for the last time under the direction of John Hammond for Okeh. The session was released under the name of Bessie Smith accompanied by Buck and his Band. Despite having no record company Smith was still very popular in the South and continued to draw large crowds, although the money was not nearly as good as it had been in the 1920s. Bessie had started to style herself as a Swing musician and was on the verge of a comeback when her life was tragically cut short by an automobile accident in 1937. While driving with her lover Richard Morgan (Lionel Hampton's uncle) in Mississippi their car rear-ended a slow moving truck and rolled over crushing Smith's left arm and ribs. Smith bled to death by the time she reached the hospital. John Hammond caused quite a stir by writing an article in Downbeat magazine suggesting that Smith had bled to death because she had been taken to a White hospital and had been turned away. This proved not to be true, but the rumor persists to this day.

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[Don Spear]

Damn it, I'm 80 and trying to respond to this recording. I was introduced to Bessie in 1950 with this recording which we played over and over. She's a one and only. Listen to her background musicians; I don't think such a combination of excellence has has ever been duplicated.

[howlingsin]

wonderful ,wonderful ,wonderful ..

[joestuffsda]

I recommend the book "Blues Legacies and Black Feminism" by Angela Y. Davis where she writes excellent about Gertrude "ma" Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday.

[PositivFritid]

Our high-school song, although with other lyrics :)

[Elmer Snail]

No doubt about it when she sings "if you want to have some luck give your baby your last F*ck ,,,, " (she did not say "buck") ... she was getting no royalties on her last sides for Okeh (the recording company that had refused her a contract 10 years earlier after rejecting her audition record) and she was paid a pittance. The big mystery is why she did record for other companies after her Columbia contract expired? Victoria Spivey, as an example, NEVER stopped recording from 1926 on.

[debdessaso]

So we think today's music is blunt and raunchy? Bessie Smith was light years ahead of many of today's "explicit" lyrics--and she did it with class so that what she said probably went over the heads of many conventional listeners.

[Maruna Junttila]

You are lucky having your mother with you. I lost my father New Years Eve 2010 at his age 95 yrs. What a great, great man he was. He also was going strong. I miss my father so much. It seems people their generation are those old tartrees. Nothing pulls them down until the final day comes. People today are weaker.

[jmconroy1031]

Bessie just liked to get her drink on, I have all her cd's, wish I had the the original records

[oker59]

Bessie Smith was violent? Never heard of that before! I've read various things from the liner notes in my Bessie Smith box sets to the wiki; and, I don't recall anyboyd quite indicating that!

[oker59]

gimme a pig . . . foot; YEaaHHH!

[Don Spear]

No longer, I'm 81 now! And still playing Bessie.