Bessie Smith

by Jackie Kay

Published 7 October 1997
Bessie Smith was certainly the greatest blues singer who lived and probably one of the greatest and most influential singers of the twentieth century. Her blues songs mirrored her tempestuous life as she travelled across America performing and making records, taking both male and female lovers, achieving great wealth and stardom until her eventual decline during the years of the depression. She died in a car crash in 1937 aged 43.