Cited as one of the first representations of black queer popular culture, Ma Rainey's sensational Prove It on Me Blues is a ...

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 ...

Bessie Smith’s music is a bridge across generations. Her recordings are more than musical artifacts—they’re living, breathing expressions of pain, joy, survival, and rebellion.

Bessie Smith, The Empress of Blues, will make an appearance as portrayed by Rebecca Marks-Jimerson. Smith had received her ...

By the summer of 1927, Bessie Smith, the “Empress of the Blues” herself, was enjoying a high-riding career when her personal traveling tour railroad car pulled into Concord. Smith was ...

Smith grew up in poverty and obscurity and truly experienced a wretched childhood. In order to make ends meet, Bessie and her brother Andrew started busking on the streets of Chattanooga.

All About Jazz is celebrating Bessie Smith's birthday today! “Empress of the Blues” She embodied the meaning of the blues, living the life she sang about. Bessie Smith set the standard for blues ...

Across the nation, Juneteenth is a time to reflect, remember, and rejoice — and in Chattanooga, that spirit was alive and ...

About Bessie Smith. Smith was a native of Chattanooga, Tennessee, born in 1894. She grew up orphaned and in poverty. Her voice was her way out, first with a traveling act on the Black vaudeville ...

If Bessie Smith were alive today, she’d likely be singing the blues about North Carolina. A state advisory panel has recommended against approval of a highway historical marker for the night the ...

The Bessie Smith Cultural Center and Chattanooga African American Museum lie in what is now downtown’s Martin Luther King ...