Bessie started her career as a street musician in her hometown, Chattanooga.
Bessie Smith (1894-1937) was the most popular female blues singer of the 1920s and 1930s. Du Bois was on its board of directors) and was dismissed because she was considered too rough, she supposedly stopped singing to spit.
Harlem Renaissance: Bessie Smith was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee on the 15th day of April in 1894. Harlem’s cabarets attracted both Harlem residents and white New Yorkers seeking out Harlem nightlife. When she was 29 years old, she signed a contract with Columbia records. Her electrifying stage presence served her well in film and theater, too: Smith starred in the movie St. Louis Blues in 1929 and substituted for Billie Holiday in the musical show Stars Over Broadway in 1935. Working a heavy theater schedule during the winter and performing in tent shows the rest of the year (eventually traveling in her own railroad car), Smith became the highest-paid black entertainer of her day. The rise of sound movies and radio plus with the beginning of the Great Depression made it hard for Smith's type of blues to survive and she was soon dropped. Bessie's major contribution came in 1920 during the Harlem Renaissance with her recording Crazy Blues. Bessie developed a good friendship with her soon to be mentor Ma Rainey. Their marriage was stormy with infidelity on both sides, including numerous female lovers for Bessie.
Bessie Smith was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee on the 15th day of April in 1894. Gee was impressed by the money but never adjusted to show business life or to Smith's bisexuality. She was also able to benefit from the new technology of radio broadcasting, even on stations in the segregated South.
The rise of sound movies and radio plus with the beginning of the Great Depression made it hard for Smith's type of blues to survive and she was soon dropped. In 1912 Smith joined a traveling show as a singer and dancer. Bessie Smith (July, 1892 or April, 1894 – September 26, 1937) was the most popular and successful female blues singer of the 1920s and 1930s, and an important influence on subsequent singers, including Billie Holiday, Mahalia Jackson, Nina Simone and Janis Joplin.Smith's wrenching blues expressed the harsh realities experienced by the black underclass in the Jim Crow era. In 1912 Smith joined a traveling show as a singer and dancer.
By 1937 Bessie was about to make a comeback as a swing musician but a tragic car accident cut that short.
~Bessie Smith I’ve been poor and I’ve been rich, and rich is better.
circuit and rose to become its top attraction in the 1920s. During most of the 20's she had recorded with a lot of Jazz musicians, like Louis Armstrong and Coleman Hawkins, Smith's and Armstrong's rendition of St. Louis Blues is considered to be one of the greatest pieces of the 20's. Usually "Blues" was in the harlem renaissance because much racism was written about in the 1900's. Opportunity: A Journal of Negro Life Background Info How Bessie Got Started -It was around this time that Smith began to perform as a street singer, accompanied on the guitar by one of her younger brothers. Bessie Smith's evocative voice and style ultimately captivated black and white audiences alike. She was then living in Philadelphia, when she met Jack Gee, a security guard, whom she married on June 7, 1923, just as her first record was being released. In 1929, when she learned of his affair with another singer, Gertrude Saunders, Smith ended the relationship, although neither of them sought a divorce.Both sides of her first record, "Downhearted Blues" backed with "Gulf Coast Blues", were hits (an earlier recording of "Downhearted Blues" by its co-writer Alberta Hunter had previously been released by Paramount Records). James Van Der Zee. See more ideas about Bessie smith, Jazz music and Harlem renaissance.