|
| Bessie Smith
Many of the stories of Bessie Smith's life have turned out to be just stories. We will try and siphon out the fake from the fact. But the true facts of her life are amazing enough.
Beginnings
Born on April 4, 1894 (other sources have April 15, or 1895, 1898, 1900), in Chattanooga, Tennessee. She was raised by extended family due to her father (a preacher) dying soon after she was born, and her mother dying several years later.
Legend has it that Bessie was "discovered" by the great Ma Rainey for her Rabbit Foot Minstrels while passing through Chattanooga in 1912. But the fact is that Bessie was singing well before that. But research shows that the Rainey show did not start until 1916. Bessie had in fact, begun singing on street corners for nickels, and had been on her own performing for several years before meeting Rainey. Stardom and Jack Gee
Over the course of several years, after Bessie had established a following in the South, she moved to Philadelphia in 1922. In 1923, she made her first recording (Downhearted Blues) in New York City for Columbia Records. It was a big hit, and immediately established Smith as a star.
That same year, she met and married Jack Gee. It was a relationship of mutual abuse (mostly Gee) and infidelity. Although Bessie was making $1500 a week, making her the top-paid Black entertainer of her time, her love for gin would later lead to problems in her relationships and her career.
The next eight years, Bessie recorded for Columbia Records. Her relationship with Fletcher Henderson as her accompanist worked very well, and it was during this time she recorded St. Luis Blues with Louis Armstrong, considered one of the great classic recordings.
Like Armstrong, Bessie was known for spreading her wealth among others, taking care of family and friends. The more she made, the more she gave. Problems for Bessie
But her drinking began to affect her work. She began to miss engagements from a previously exhausting schedule, which produced less money for Gee and her manager, Frank Walker. Gee would come along at times to stop her drinking and keep her engagements, often by beating her.
By the late 1920s however, Smith was facing competition by the likes of Ethel Waters, Josephine Baker, and Alberta Hunter. That, combined with Smith's bouts with unreliability caused her career to begin to downslide. In 1926, Smith adopted the six-year-old son of a friend, whom she and Jack named Jack junior. To help take care of the child, Bessie cut down further on her engagements.
This same year, Bessie began an affair with another woman. This was a chorus girl in her show named Lillian. This was not Smith's first dalliance with women, but her first steady affair with one. All around did what they could to keep the relationship from Jack Gee. But gin, jealousies and other women caused Jack to find out about her and others. Gee caught Bessie with a different woman in 1927. Gee claimed to have a nervous breakdown as a result. According to some, Gee did this at times to gain sympathy from Smith. It also worked to collect more money from Smith, although it is no clear if there was ever any attempt from Jack to expose Bessie's affairs with women. It also would have cut off his "meal ticket".
The Downslide 1929 was a tough year for Bessie. "Talking pictures" began to kill vaudeville and the tours that Bessie, among others, relied upon. Then, as Bessie tried branching out into Broadway musicals, her attempt failed miserably. Then Jack used Bessie's money to promote the career of another woman. Although any affair was denied by both sides, Bessie fought publicly with Gee, and she never forgave him for this action. The Stock Market crash in October also added to Smith's woes. Jack Gee's response to Bessie's public attacks was to have the authorities take Jack junior away with claims of Bessie being an "unfit mother". Bessie responded by working more to make a living in the Depression. Columbia Records dropped her from their label, and Bessie was down to $500 a week, from which all expenses were drawn from her salary. Although Bessie had no recording contract, she recorded for the last time in 1933 under the direction of John Hammond for Okeh (featuring Jack Teagarden and Benny Goodman). During Bessie's downslide, her salvation was found in her relationship with Richard Morgan (Lionel Hampton's uncle). Morgan was a bootlegger from Alabama who had known Bessie during her early years. After Gee's actions, Morgan was a loving and faithful companion. Morgan also helped with a comeback for Bessie in the mid-1930s, including an engagement at the Apollo in 1935. The End While traveling to an engagement in Memphis in 1937, their car rear-ended a truck and rolled over. Bessie's arm and ribs were crushed. Stories about her what happened next have circulated to this day. Jack junior was told that she was refused admittance to three hospitals because she was black. This was later fueled by an article John Hammond later wrote for Downbeat Magazine. In any case, She was eventually taken to a black hospital in Clarksdale, Mississippi, where she died. What seems to have been the case is that it was perhaps indifference that caused her death. The police and ambulance came by, but certainly not with the swiftness necessary for such injuries, according to bystanders talked to in later years. The fact that she was an unknown black woman in deep Mississippi at that time has been felt by many to be the true cause as to the wait that contributed to her death. Her funeral was not attended by her peers in the business. Jack Gee threw himself on to the casket sobbing (allegedly all for show). Despite the wrangling over her estate, no one bought a headstone. It was thirty-three years later in 1970, when Janis Joplin and the wife of the head of the local NAACP bought a tombstone that her grave had a marker. More great links: |
|
