Bessie Smith - Best of the Empress of the Blues
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Music CD Cover
Artist: Bessie SmithEdition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 2004-08-10
Music Label: Blues Forever
Soundtracks:
- Do Your Duty - Bessie Smith,
- Take Me for a Buggy Ride - Bessie Smith,
- I'm Down in the Dumps - Bessie Smith,
- Gimme a Pigfoot - Bessie Smith,
- Safety Mama
- Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out
- Me and My Gin
- He's Got Me Goin'
- Muddy Water (A Mississippi Moan)
- Young Woman's Blues
- Take It Right Back ('Cause I Don't Want It Here)
- Careless Love
- I Ain't Got Nobody
- My Sweetie Went Away (She Didn't Say Where, When or Why)
- Far Away Blues - Bessie Smith, Bessie Smith, Clara Smith
- St. Louis Blues
- Cake Walkin' Babies (From Home)
- I Ain't Gonna Play No Second Fiddle
Free Music Notes for Best of the Empress of the Blues
Free Music Review: The Queen Is In The House
Hit: 4 Stars
Elsewhere in this space I have mentioned that in the early days of the blues, at least the recorded blues, women vocalists dominated the market. One thinks of Mabel Smith and Ma Rainey in that regard. But the queen of the hill, and the one still best remembered, for roaring out those barrel house blues is Bessie Smith. This little two-disc compilation gives a very nice beginner cross section of the kind of subjects that she sang about-mainly broken-hearted love, no good men and the trials and tribulations of being a black woman on her own.
Bessie music also represents the place, as with Blind Willie McTell on the male side, where the blues go from the Saturday night juke joints of the farm, make that cotton, country to the more sophisticated Southern city locales. Furthermore, she along with Memphis Minnie were the queens of the now lost art of sexual double entendre- you know, 'put a little sugar in my bowl', 'take me for a buggy ride' and other classic lines of that type.
Be aware in listening to this compilation that the quality of the early recordings can be a liitle grating on the ear but bear with it because this thing just grows on you. It is rather an acquired taste but once you have the Bessie in your head you will not want to turn the damn thing off. Top selections here are a moanful , weary St Louis Blues, The afore-mentioned Take Me For Buggy Ride and Mississippi Moan that later singers have covered. Are these recordings all the essentials you need to bring you up to speed on Bessie? No way, but go back the first sentence of this paragraph- you will be saving your pennies to get the next album.
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