Search - Bessie Smith :: Empty Bed Blues

A generous selection of classic blues.

John Austin | Kangaroo Ground, Australia | 03/18/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Featuring in the history of North American music, and flourishing between the two world wars was the Negroid song known as the "blues". Its origin is usually attributed to W C Handy. A "blues" song has its own tonality, harmony, duple time and other requisite features, and its singer usually laments, with little restriction on bawdy detail, the absence or loss of a lover. Ma Rainey was an early and influential exponent, and also a friend and teacher of Bessie Smith (1895-1937). We, in our turn, may lament the fact that Bessie Smith's life was short, tempestuous and tragic, but we can be grateful for at least two things. Firstly, she received the advantage of superb technical quality recording during the years 1925 to 1933. Secondly, she attracted or was accorded some of the best jazz musicians of her day to participate in her recordings - Charlie Green trombone, Fletcher Henderson, piano, Eddie Lang, guitar, Jack Teagarden trombone, etc. A generous selection of her blues recordings is offered in excellent reproduction on this "Living Era" CD. Here are some of the classic, narrative blues, the more "commercial" items, and several in which she had a hand in writing the lyrics. You'll find characteristic "double entendre" in the famous six minute "Empty Bed Blues", in which Bessie laments the absence from her bed of her current lover, a miner who is so skilled and tireless at plumbing the depths, drilling etc."