Bessie Smith

Understanding the literary pen as a fundamental tool that writes the narrative of black existence while also analyzing how the black woman’s voice in blues music represents black life is essential in exhibiting utile productions of knowledge and expressive culture in both literature and music. Known for her distinguished classification in music as the “Empress of the Blues,” Bessie Smith was a prominent blues singer of the 1920s. Born in Chattanooga, Tennessee, in 1894, Smith began singing as a street performer and danced in minstrel shows. In 1923, Smith was signed to Columbia Records, becoming the highest-paid blues singer of this epoch. Known for her classic recordings from “Down Hearted Blues” and “Back-Water Blues” to “St. Louis Blues,” “Need a Little Sugar in My Bowl,” and “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out,” the 1920s and 1930s marked the zenith of Smith’s performance career. Not only was Smith constantly touring as a blues singer in the 1920s, but she also starred in the 1929 film St. Louis Blues. Smith produced 160 recordings with Columbia Records, and her collaborations with Louis Armstrong, Fletcher Henderson, and Benny Goodman, respectively a trumpeter, a pianist, and a clarinetist, heightened her blues/jazz mark in the entertainment industry. Smith’s voice resonates in the vocal performances of Billie Holiday, Aretha Franklin, Nina Simone, and Janis Joplin. Many scholars have paid homage to Bessie Smith’s musical ability and performative ingenuity through their anthologies, essays, novels, film, and music. While each source illustrates the skill of Bessie Smith as a prominent blues singer, the sources in each category also convey different ways in which readers see another iteration of Bessie Smith as blues woman and artist whose recordings in the early 20th century spoke to and protested the social ills of the black community. This bibliography is divided into sections on the common sources that provide a general perspective on blues music, primary sources that are fundamental to research on Bessie Smith and blues/jazz music structures, journal articles that provide a brief look into other scholars’ perspectives on Bessie Smith through poetry, the sonic structure of blues music and Bessie Smith’s vocal style, blues music’s portrayal in African American literature, and finally the element of the sermonic in blues music. The citations in this article, from books, essays, and journal articles, provide an interdisciplinary perspective on blues and jazz and on the eminence with which Bessie Smith wrote, sang, and preached the blues.