#emptybedblues

[mediaartsrecordingsound]

Bessie Smith

(born Elizabeth Smith, 15 April 1894 - 26 September 1937)

[randomrecordreview]

Known as the Empress of the Blues, Bessie Smith was the most popular jazz and blues singer of the 1920s and 30s and her style has been influential on many who came after – male and female. After a challenging childhood and an early start trying to earn money by singing and dancing, Smith was signed to Columbia Records in 1923, their ‘race records’ imprint, marketed specifically to the Black American population. She made 160 recordings for them, and one of her early records, Downhearted Blues, sold over 2 million copies. It was Columbia’s marketing Dept that named her Empress of the Blues. She died in 1937 after a tragic car accident and an estimated 7000 people came to her funeral. Her grave, however, was unmarked until Janis Joplin paid for a gravestone in 1970. Smith’s work challenged elitist norms by encouraging working-class women to embrace their right to drink, party, and satisfy their sexual needs, regardless of gender, as a means of coping with stress and dissatisfaction in their daily lives. This LP is the third of five double album sets, presenting her work in chronological order. The first two sides contain recordings from 1924 that were made acoustically, ie without a microphone but using a conical horn which activated a stylus that ‘scratched the sound’ straight onto the record. They’ve done a good job of restoring the sound and cutting out the hiss and scratch of the originals in this 1971 release, but the atmosphere of those early recordings is still very much evident, which I rather like. Smith’s powerful voice, one that really doesn’t need amplification, is what makes the soul of these blues shine through. #bessiesmith #blues #jazz #emptybedblues #meandmygin #empressoftheblues #vinyl #gatefoldsleeve #nowplaying #nowlistening #recordcollection #randomrecordreview https://www.instagram.com/p/CEC3ucYJDF3/?igshid=aqx2m00abggp

[ozgeersu]

EĞİTİM ŞART! Tatilde bile... #excercise #twelvebar #blues #shuffle #drum #notation #bessiesmith #emptybedblues #wokeupthismornin' :: (at Simya Gallery)

[katzalley]

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#video #katzalleyrecords #bessiesmith #emptybedblues in stock (at Katz Alley)