Bessie Smith’s first recordings

The fourth 1923 post for our annual celebration of Black History Month.

This week's guest post is by ROGER KIMMEL SMITH. See full bio, below. 

One hundred years ago today … Bessie Smith made her first recordings in the Columbia phonograph studio at 1819 Broadway in Columbus Circle. She wore a red dress bought for her by her future husband, Jack Gee.

Her debut as a recording artist was, one might say, overdue. She was already widely known as a supremely talented popular singer in the blues genre and had been a professional for a decade. She had a following that ranged geographically from her hometown of Chattanooga, Tennessee--where in childhood she had sung for nickels on the street--across the Deep South where she had performed in tent shows and theaters on the T.O.B.A. circuit, and up the eastern seaboard, particularly Philadelphia, where she had made her home.

The so-called "race record" market had blown open in 1920 with the unexpected commercial success of "Crazy Blues," sung by Mamie Smith accompanied by the tune's composer, Perry Bradford.

[Editor's note: NY1920 reported on Mamie Smith's influential recordings here, here, here, and here, and on her collaboration with Perry Bradford here.]

Following this hit recording, a profusion of female "blues shouters" (of both dark and pale complexion) had been ushered into the recording studios. Among the blues singers whose recording debuts preceded Bessie Smith's, in addition to Mamie Smith, were Trixie Smith, Lucille Hegamin, Esther Bigeou, Edith Wilson and her sister Lena Wilson, Sara Martin, Ethel Waters, Sophie Tucker, Marion Harris, and Alberta Hunter. The rise of the female voice on record, in this brash and vaudeville-flavored genre of popular song, is an important element underlying the emergence of the flapper, the "New Woman" whose enfranchisement had such a deep impact on 1920s cultural life.

[Editor's note: NY1920 reported on Ethel Waters here and here, Sophie Tucker here and here.]

A constellation of prevalent social prejudices--including those of class, color, and region--may explain why it took two and a half years for the recording industry to open its doors to Bessie Smith. Her voice, her physical appearance, and her personality were all low-down and raw. She had failed previous auditions for the Okeh and Black Swan labels because her voice was considered too "rough." (These rejections echoed a prior experience in which she'd been kicked off the chorus line of a touring show because the black producer Irvin C. Miller decided her looks didn't make the grade.) 

But that rough-hewn voice contained unmistakable power, along with superbly clear diction, innate musicality and timing, and a blunt emotional honesty that connected with audiences both on stage and on record. She quickly eclipsed all her competitors in popularity and her sound defined blues singing for at least a generation, if not for all time.

In the weeks before her Columbia debut, according to her biographer, Chris Albertson, Bessie Smith performed in a musical comedy called How Come? This stage show, which interpolated some songs by the noted composers Will Vodery and Henry Creamer, opened at the black-owned Attucks Theater in Norfolk, Virginia, on January 15, 1923. Two weeks later, at Philadelphia's Dunbar Theater, Bessie sang some songs between scenes. How Come? ran for a few weeks that spring at the Apollo Theater in Harlem. 

The jazz clarinet wizard Sidney Bechet, who played in the show's pit band, claimed to have secured Bessie Smith her Okeh audition with Fred Hager. Her successful Columbia tryout appears to have come at the behest of two men: the studio's "race record" director, Frank Walker, who later became her manager, and Clarence Williams, the black pianist, composer, and music publisher. Williams was her accompanist for her debut sessions of February 15-16.

Bessie Smith was accustomed to belting out the blues in tents and large theaters, but it may have taken her some time to get comfortable pouring her voice into the large conical horn that picked it up to be recorded acoustically. In fact, it's not entirely clear whether Columbia used any of the takes she completed on the 15th of February. On the first LP of Bessie Smith's complete recordings, produced by John Hammond and Albertson in 1970, the date for the opening tracks is listed as the 16th. According to the authoritative Discography of American Historical Recordings, on the 15th Bessie Smith and Clarence Williams played four takes of "Tain't Nobody's Business If I Do," all of them rejected, and five of "Down Hearted Blues," of which the fifth became the A side of the first Bessie Smith 78rpm disc to be released. On the flip side was "Gulf Coast Blues," composed by Williams and recorded on the 16th.

"Down Hearted Blues," with melody by Cora "Lovie" Austin and lyrics by Alberta Hunter, had been recorded the prior year by its lyricist for Paramount, and was being covered by others, but Bessie Smith's debut release of the song became a genuine hit, with about three quarters of a million sold. 

The magnitude of this success rocketed Bessie Smith to the top of the blues field at the very start of her recording career. Before long, contenders such as Monette Moore were covering Bessie's cover. Paramount advertised Moore's "Down Hearted" as "another version of the World's Greatest Blues."

Trouble, trouble, I've had it all my days

It seems like trouble going to follow me to my grave

- "Down Hearted Blues"

REFERENCES:

Albertson, Chris. Bessie. New York: Stein and Day, 1972.

Bessie Smith: The World's Greatest Blues Singer (2 LPs). Liner notes by Chris Albertson. Columbia Records, 1970.

Kay, Jackie. Bessie Smith: A Poet's Biography of a Blues Legend. New York: Vintage, 2021.

ROGER KIMMEL SMITH is a freelance wordsmith based in Ithaca, New York. He published the essay "1920: The Year Broadway Learned to Syncopate" in the independent newspaper The Syncopated Times. He hosts a weekly program of music and popular culture of the 1920s and 1930s, "Crazy Words, Crazy Tune," on WRFI Community Radio (Fridays noon to 2pm eastern time, www.wrfi.org). He also co-hosts and produces the podcast "When Humanists Attack!!"