Bessie Smith

Compilation Reviews:

1990: Bessie Smith – The Gold Collection [1923–1933]

1991: The Complete Recordings, Volume 1 [1923–1924]

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The Gold Collection

Disc 1: 1.1 The St. Louis Blues 1.2 Careless Love 1.3 Cake Walkin‘ Babies 1.4 Down Hearted Blues 1.5 T’ain’t Nobody’s Business If I Do 1.6 Sing Sing Prison Blues 1.7 Sinful Blues 1.8 Reckless Blues 1.9 The Yellow Dog Blues 1.10 Nashville Women’s Blues 1.11 I Ain’t Got Nobody 1.12 I Want Every Bit of It 1.13 Jazzbo Brown from Memphis Town 1.14 Honey Man Blues 1.15 Trombone Cholly 1.16 There’ll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight 1.17 Send Me to the ‚Lectric Chair 1.18 Mean Old Bedbug Blues 1.19 Lock and Key 1.20 After You’ve Gone
Disc 2: 2.1 Alexander’s Ragtime Band 2.2 Backwater Blues 2.3 It Won’t Be You 2.4 Empty Bed Blues, Pt. 1 2.5 Devil’s Gonna Get You 2.6 Poor Man’s Blues 2.7 I’m Wild About That Thing 2.8 Kitchen Man 2.9 Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out 2.10 He’s Got Me Goin‘ 2.11 Wasted Life Blues 2.12 Keep It to Yourself 2.13 On Revival Day (A Rhythmic Spiritual) 2.14 Moan, You Moaners 2.15 Hustlin‘ Dan. 2.16 New Orleans Hop Scop Blues 2.17 Long Old Road 2.18 Safety Mama 2.19 Gimme a Pigfoot 2.20 Do Your Duty

Gimme a pigfoot! And a bottle of beer!

This cheapo compilation of classic vaudeville blues is a pretty wild ride through her entire catalogue (which clocks in at 160 songs, so there’s a quarter of her work here). It’s not entirely arbitrary: The compilers took close care to represent important songs from each year of her recording period spanning the decade from 1923 to 1933. So you have a couple of important A- and B-sides from each year, with severe liberties taken considering the chronology. The sound quality of this budget double disc is questionable, but for very casual fans of her powerful mix of 1920s blues, vaudevillian dixieland and simply unmatched, deeply heartfelt and soul-wrenching moaning vocal roar, this career-spanning compilation just might be an even better fit than the of course essential The Complete Recordings series which goes through her catalogue chronologically.

If you are interested in getting all of her recordings, see my list Complete Blues Discographies: What to Get.

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The Complete Recordings, Volume 1

Disc 1: 1. Down Hearted Blues 2. Gulf Coast Blues 3. Aggravatin‘ Papa 4. Beale Street Mama 5. Baby Won’t You Please Come Home 6. Oh Daddy Blues (You Won’t Have No Mama at All) 7. ‚Tain’t Nobody’s Business If I Do 8. Keeps on A-Rainin‘ (Papa He Can’t Make No Time) 9. Mama’s Got the Blues 10. Outside of That 11. Bleeding Hearted Blues 12. Lady Luck Blues 13. Yodeling Blues 14. Midnight Blues 15. If You Don’t Know Who Will 16. Nobody In Town Can Bake A Sweet Jelly Roll Like Mine 17. Jail-House Blues 18. St. Louis Gal 19. Sam Jones‘ Blues
Disc 2: 1. Graveyard Dream Blues 2. Cemetery Blues 3. Far Away Blues [with Clara Smith] 4. I’m Going Back To My Used To Be [with Clara Smith] 5. Whoa, Tillie, Take Your Time 6. My Sweetie Went Away 7. Any Woman’s Blues 8. Chicago Bound Blues 9. Mistreating Daddy 10. Frosty Morning Blues 11. Haunted House Blues 12. Eavesdropper’s Blues 13. Easy Come, Easy Go Blues 14. Sorrowful Blues 15. Pinchbacks – Take ‚Em Away 16. Rocking Chair Blues 17. Ticket Agent, Ease Your Window Down 18. Boweavil Blues 19. Hateful Blues

But I’m going to do just as I want to anyway and don’t care if they all despise me

There are different ways to acquire all of Bessie Smith’s recordings (160 songs plus some squished alternate takes). Columbia / Legacy’s five volume series in double discs was the first effort to recreate and complete her LP-sets The Bessie Smith Story from the 1970s on CD and it is everything it promises to be.

The first volume collects her first 38 songs published 1923/1924, and while these are the foundation of her fame – her first single, Alberta Hunter’s “Down Hearted Blues”, was a smash hit, and “’Tain’t Nobody’s Business If I Do” (also recorded by Hunter earlier, you see the pattern) is one of admittedly many important versions of the era ensuring the song’s endurance – Smith would get better with time, the masterpieces would come a bit later, the sound here is still slightly formative. Only occasionally relying on small Dixieland combos, Smith mostly used just a pianist at this stage (but what a pianist, Clarence Williams), or a small uncredited crew with a clarinet or a violin. This, alongside the rough recording conditions, actually adds an aura of rurality and barrelhouse sounds, far removed from the big city where it took place. It works charms, as Smith’s vocals are already stunning – wailing but articulate, soulful and stentorian but of nuanced sentiment. However, the best was yet to come.

Bessie Smith wasn’t the first to record vaudeville blues or classic female blues as it is also dubbed, since for its first few years, only female vocalists were recording blues in commercial settings, that was Mamie Smith. She hasn’t been around the longest – that would be Ma Rainey, almost ten years Smith’s senior and reportedly singing these blues since 1902. She wasn’t the one to stick around the longest to become a grand old lady of the blues (Alberta Hunter), she wasn’t the business-savviest of the popular performers like Victoria “blues is my business” Spivey. No, Bessie Smith was none of these things. Instead, she was, and I don’t use that word lightly, the greatest. No other voice from that era of very restricted recording techniques comes through as hers, no other voice emotes like this, no other voice sounds as equally at home in urban 1920s razzle-dazzle as it does in worksong-rooted howlers and bawlers. There is no point in missing out on any of her material.

If you are interested in getting all of her recordings, see my list Complete Blues Discographies: What to Get.