Singer Bessie Smith's recording career lasted only 10 years, but during that time she created a body of work that helped shape the sound of the 20th century. Her first single, "Downhearted Blues ...

(ThyBlackMan.com) As the undisputed “Empress of the Blues,” Bessie Smith’s voice is a cornerstone of American music history. Her raw emotion, unwavering strength, and uncompromising style ...

HBO’s “Bessie,” a biopic premiering Saturday that stars Queen Latifah as the blues singer Bessie Smith, is a thoughtful and at times stirring example of how a film can add texture to a ...

On this day, 100 years ago, Columbia Records held a recording session with a singer named Bessie Smith. The country at large didn't know her then, but soon found out because she was launching a ...

Residents attending Enid Chautauqua on Friday, June 13, 2025, learned about the trials and tribulations of the “Empress of ...

Figuring out what made Bessie Smith different from every other blues singer doesn’t require a Ph.D. in musicology. “Bessie was just more ballsy,” says Queen Latifah, who plays Smith in the ...

After the KKK slunk away from the tent they were trying to sabotage in Concord, Bessie Smith returned to her show and kept on singing. Smith was a native of Chattanooga, Tennessee, born in 1894.

Residents attending Enid Chautauqua on Friday, June 13, 2025, learned about the trials and tribulations of the “Empress of ...

Chris Albertson, who as a teenager in Denmark became captivated by the blues singer Bessie Smith and decades later produced a widely praised multivolume reissue of her recordings and wrote an ...

She immediately said: “Bessie Smith.” It was a savvy choice, for it was Smith’s mid-1920s success as the first African American recording star that made the subsequent careers of Holiday ...