Bessie Smith Podcast (Finished)

The podcast discusses the life and career of Bessie Smith, the Empress of the Blues. Born in 1894, she overcame poverty and tragedy to become a successful blues singer. She rose to fame in the 1920s, recording hits and performing with renowned artists. Despite facing personal struggles and the decline of blues music during the Great Depression, Bessie Smith remained influential in the music industry. Her mentor Ma Rainey and her songs reflected her life experiences, such as heartbreak and defiance. Bessie Smith's impact on the music world earned her a place in the Women's Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Hello, I hope you can hear us because we're doing the best we can with what we have. But this is our podcast assignment. I'm Elizabeth. I'm Rosalia. And today we are talking about Bessie Smith, the Empress of the Blues. First, we're going to dive into her life and career. According to Biography.com, Elizabeth Smith was born on April 15, 1894, the youngest of seven siblings. Her family was very poor, and both of her parents died by the time she was nine years old. After her parents' passing, she and her siblings moved in with an aunt, and she and her brother started working as street performers to make money. In 1912, her brother Clarence invited her to join a musical group that she was part of. And one fateful day, Ma Rainey saw her sing and asked her to join her group. According to New York Historical. Bessie joined a series of automobile shows, and in 1923, an agent from Columbia recorded her singing, and she eventually signed a contract with them. Her first record was the Downhearted Blues, which sold over 500,000 copies in the first year. She recorded songs with many famous singers, including Louis Armstrong. And also, in 1923, she married a man named Jack T, though they had a rough marriage due to cheating, and eventually led to divorce in 1929. In the 1920s, she was the highest black paid performer, which she was making $2,000 a week, and became the empress of the blues. She traveled to theaters and clubs around the country, which sold out many times. Unfortunately, when the Great Depression hit, Smith's fame started to decline. The blues was becoming less popular, and many record labels wanted to cater to the increasingly popular jazz genre, which Smith did dabble in a little bit, but saw very little success from. In the 1930s, she saw a small regain of popularity in New York City, although it was nowhere near her level of fame in the 20s. On September 26, 1937, Bessie Smith tragically died in a car accident in Mississippi. She was buried in an unmarked grave in Pennsylvania, until James Joplin paid to have a tombstone erected for her in 1971, and it reads, quote, The greatest blues singer in the world will never stop singing, unquote. According to Britannica.com, Smith was inducted into the Women's Hall of Fame in 1984, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1989. So that's Bessie Smith's life and career, and now I'll talk a little bit about some of her influences as an artist. Bessie Smith's biggest influence was Ma Rainey, which is also known as the Music of the Blues. Ma Rainey was influential for bridging the traditions of far-field and southern blues, which blues are descended from call-and-response storytelling songs of West Africa. She has a strong voice and a moaning kind of style of singing. She was also Smith's mentor. And to give you a bit of an idea of that influence, here's one of Ma Rainey's songs, Slaves to the Blues. Here are some slaves, and don't go hangin' by. Here are some slaves, and don't go hangin' by. Here are some slaves, and don't go hangin' by. Here are some slaves, and don't go hangin' by. So that is Bessie Smith's greatest musical influence. All right, so I think the scheme that fits best with Bessie Smith as an artist is music and identity, because you can see a lot of her life experience in her songs, most notably St. Louis Blues, which we did listen to that one in class. I hate to see the evening sun go down. I hate to see the evening sun go down. It makes me think I'm on my last doorstep. Feeling tomorrow like I feel today. All right, so if we look at the lyrics for that song, which we found, we're finding all these lyrics on songlyrics.com. She says, I hate to see the evening sun go down. It makes me think I'm on my last doorstep. She has talking about death, a pretty heavy topic, especially, obviously she couldn't have known this at the time of recording, but now that we know she died pretty young in a really horrible way, it makes this a lot more sad, in my opinion. Also talks about a lot of heartbreak. Another song would be what's it called? Ain't Nobody's Business If I Do, which I'll pull up for you in a second. All right, here is Ain't Nobody's Business If I Do. There ain't nothing I can do or nothing I can say that folks don't criticize me. Sorry if the music quality is bad. I'm going to see if I can replace it later on, but right now we're just having to get that audio off of my phone. But what the lyrics are saying is there ain't nothing I can do or nothing I can say that folks don't criticize me, but I'm going to do just as I want to anyway and don't care if they all despise me. Basically talking about how no matter what she does or what people think, she's going to keep on doing herself and keep on making her music and her records, and it's honestly something that we should all honestly listen to and stop worrying about what everyone else thinks about it. All right. One more, one musical, another musical example we're going to use is, I thought this was an interesting one, Send Me to the Electric Chair, which let me pull that up real quick. Here it is. ♪ Judge, your honor, hear my plea Before you open up your court But I don't want no sympathy But I don't put my good man's throne I caught him with a tripling chain I warned him about before I had my knife and winnings clean And the rest you ought to know Judge, judge, please Mr. Judge Send me to the electric chair Judge, judge All right. So this is, these lyrics are the obviously fictional story of a woman murdering her husband for cheating on her. The reason, this could be based slightly off of Bessie's personal experience because her marriage with Jack G ended because of his affair, although I do think it's a little bit hypocritical of her because she, because Smith also had many affairs of her own with both men and women. But this song is, I guess, inspired by her rage and, yeah, I guess what she wishes she could do. But, yeah, I thought that was an interesting one. In conclusion, Bessie Smith was a really popular artist who had a rough life in general but was really influential for her time, dealing with many other popular artists like Louis Armstrong and she was also a very big influence on artists such as Billie Holiday. And also being a really popular artist selling out shows all over the country and making just a bunch of money for her time while also having people who influenced her like Ma Rainey and helped her get to the point where she was in her career. All right, that's all we've got. Thank you for listening.