The Life and Lasting Influence of Bessie Smith:
By most accounts, Bessie Smith was a rough, crude, violent woman. She was also one of the greatest Blues singers of the 1920s. The road that took her to the title “Empress of the Blues” was not an easy one. It was certainly not one of the romantic "rags to riches" tales that Horatio Alger made popular during her time. For a young black woman from the South the journey was anything but easy, and it would require a special kind of person, and Bessie Smith was definitely that. She was a woman who fought for what she believed in and backed down to no one. She had a boundless determination, which sometimes became a flaming hot temper, and no one was exempt from it. Yet these same experiences and temperament also expressed great loyalty to those around her. The entire range, with all its passion, was expressed in her songs, and the way she sang them. Bessie Smith was born into a poor black family in the segregated south. The precise date of her birth is unknown, and most accounts list the year as 1894, but others state 1898 or 1900. According to the 1900 census, she was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee, in July, 1892. That date contradicts what is recorded on her wedding certificate and confirmed by family members, which is April 15, 1894. That 1900 census also provides facts regarding the size of Smith's family that conflict with many published biographies. The censuses of 1870, 1880 and 1900 list Bessie Smith as the thirteenth child of William Smith and the tenth of Laura (Owens) Smith. This information does not coincide with accounts given by family and school mates interviewed by a Smiths biographer, Chris Albertson. According to his book, Bessie, William Smith was a laborer and part-time Baptist preacher who died before Bessie could remember him. By the time Bessie was nine, she had lost her mother as well, and her older sister Viola was left in charge of caring for her sisters and brothers. Like many from that generation, Bessie dreamed of escaping her life of
Cited: 5. Bessie Smith (1895-1937) http://www.redhotjazz.com/bessie.html 6. Bessie Smith (1895-1937) Empress of the Blues http://www.library.csi.cuny.edu/dept/history/lavender/386/bsmith.html