The Life and Times of Bessie Smith ♛

Standing 6 ft. and 200lbs Bessie Smith aka Lucille Bogan is crowned as the ''Empress of the Blues'' . She was a famous 1920's and 30's blues singer who shocked the masses with her racy songs and personal life. Bessie was a strong woman who didn't take any mess. She's the real life Madea.

Here's an excerpt from '' The History of Women in Music'' by Ross Whitney.

''Bessie used her size and strength to advantage in other ways outside of her stage performances.
In personal arguments, contractual disputes with managers, employee discipline, or disagreements with other singers, Bessie was known to use her fists with little reservation. On one occasion, at a party in 1925 following an appearance in her home town of Chattanooga, Tennessee, she knocked down a large male who was bothering her and a couple of friends. Later, when the man retaliated by stabbing her in the side with a knife, she chased him down the street until she dropped from the strain of the wound.

Her temper drove her to even greater extremes in 1926 when she caught husband Jack Gee in an affair with one of her chorus girls. After beating up the girl and throwing her off their parked train, she pursued Jack down the New York railroad track firing at him with his own handgun. Jack was a strong and violent man with whom Bessie had numerous physical encounters. Echoes of brutality made their way into Bessie's lyrics. She wrote the words to ''Please Help Me Get Him off My Mind '' in 1928, not long before her final separation with her husband.

Not that Jack was the only one fooling around. Bessie had a sexual appetite that extended to both genders, and she gratified it widely and regularly. While lamenting unfaithful lovers in her songs, she revealed promiscuous tendencies of her own. Typical is this verse from her 1927 " Young Woman's Blues ". For instance, her sexual involvement with her chorus girls was no secret. According to her niece and close companion at the time, Ruby Walker, Bessie was openly physical in public with at least one of her dancers, Lillian, with whom she slept regularly during January and February, 1927.

Growing up on Chattanooga TN's poor side, later traveling the black entertainment circuit throughout the South and Northeast (she never traveled abroad). Professionally, Bessie was territorial to the point that she refused to appear in the same show with another blues singer. Her relationships with other female singers were often stormy. Bessie did agree to record with rival, Clara Smith (no relation) a few songs of which My Man Blues portrays the two in mock competition over the same man.

Though the song ends with an agreement to share their lover Ron, the singers' real-life association terminated at a party shortly afterward in a fist fight that left Clara badly beaten. Sometimes her fights landed her in jail, like one with Ruby Walker over a male dancer.

On September 26, 1937, Smith was severely injured in a car accident while traveling along U.S Route 61 between Memphis, TN and Clarksdale, MS with her lover Richard Morgan, at the wheel. She was taken to Clarksdale's Afro-American Hospital where her right arm was amputated. She did not regain consciousness, dying that morning. Smith's funeral was held in Philadelphia on October 4, 1937. Jack Gee (husband) thwarted all efforts to purchase a stone, once or twice even pocketing money raised for that purpose. The grave remained unmarked until August 7, 1970, when a new tombstone was placed, paid for by singer Janis Joplin and Juanita Green, who as a child, had done housework for Smith. '' Bessie Smith's recordings were inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1989.

Here's something that will wake you up in the morning.