MUSIC HISTORY - The Tragic Death of Bessie Smith
The first major blues and jazz singer on record and one of the most powerful of all time, Bessie Smith聽rightly earned the title of "The Empress of the Blues." Even on her first records in 1923, her passionate voice overcame the primitive recording quality of the day and still communicates easily to today's listeners (which is not true of any other singer from that early period). At a time when the blues were in and most vocalists (particularly vaudevillians) were being dubbed "blues singers," Bessie Smith simply had no competition.
Smith's recording career began in 1923.聽She was then living in Philadelphia, where she met Jack Gee, a security guard, whom she married on June 7, 1923, just as her first record was being released.聽
During the marriage, Smith became the highest-paid black entertainer of the day, heading her own shows, which sometimes featured as many as 40 troupers, and touring in her own custom-built railroad car.聽聽 She made 160 recordings for Columbia, often accompanied by the finest musicians of the day, notably Louis Armstrong, Coleman Hawkins, Fletcher Henderson, James P. Johnson, Joe Smith and Charlie Green.
Both sides of her first record, "Downhearted Blues聽backed with "Gulf Coast Blues", were hits.
On September 26, 1937, Bessie was critically injured in a car crash.聽Her lover, Richard Morgan, was driving and misjudged the speed of a slow-moving truck ahead of him. Tire marks at the scene suggested that Morgan tried to avoid the truck by driving around its left side, but he hit the rear of the truck side-on at high speed. The tailgate of the truck sheared off the wooden roof of Smith's old Packard. Smith, who was in the passenger seat, probably with her right arm or elbow out the window, took the full brunt of the impact. Morgan escaped without injury.
(Note: photo is Richard Morgan and Bessie standing in front of her Packard.聽From the Stomp Off site鈥攕ee link below.)
The first people on the scene were a Memphis surgeon, Dr. Hugh Smith (no relation), and his fishing partner, Henry Broughton. After stopping at the accident scene, Hugh Smith examined the singer, who was lying in the middle of the road with obviously severe injuries. He estimated she had lost about a half pint of blood and immediately noted a major traumatic injury to her right arm; it had been almost completely severed at the elbow.聽He stated later that this injury alone did not cause her death. Although the light was poor, he observed only minor head injuries. He attributed her death to extensive and severe crush injuries to the entire right side of her body, consistent with a sideswipe collision.
Broughton and Smith moved the singer to the shoulder of the road. Smith dressed her arm injury with a clean handkerchief and asked Broughton to go to a house about 500 feet off the road to call an ambulance.
By the time Broughton returned, about 25 minutes later, Bessie was in shock. Time passed with no sign of the ambulance, so Dr. Smith suggested that they take her into Clarksdale in his car. He had almost finished clearing the back seat when they heard the sound of a car approaching at high speed. Smith flashed his lights in warning, but the oncoming car failed to stop and plowed into his car at full speed. It sent his car careening into Bessie's overturned Packard, completely wrecking it. The oncoming car ricocheted off Hugh Smith's car into the ditch on the right, barely missing Broughton and Bessie. (The young couple in the car did not have life-threatening injuries.)
Two ambulances then arrived on the scene from Clarksdale, one from the black hospital, summoned by Broughton, the other from the white hospital, acting on a report from the truck driver, who had not seen the accident victims.
Bessie was taken to the black hospital in Clarksdale, where her right arm was amputated.聽She died that morning without regaining consciousness. She was 43.
"The聽Bessie Smith ambulance would not have gone to a white hospital, you can forget that," Hugh Smith said later. "Down in the Deep South cotton country, no ambulance driver, or white driver, would even have thought of putting a colored person off in a hospital for white folks." Bessie's funeral was held in Philadelphia a little over a week later, on October 4, 1937. Her body was originally laid out at Upshur's funeral home. As word of her death spread through Philadelphia's black community, the body had to be moved to the O.V. Catto Elks Lodge to accommodate the estimated 10,000 mourners who filed past her coffin on Sunday, October 3.聽Contemporary newspapers reported that her funeral was attended by about seven thousand people.聽Her husband, Jack Gee, thwarted all efforts to purchase a headstone for his estranged wife, once or twice pocketing money raised for that purpose.聽Bessie's grave was unmarked until a tombstone was erected on August 7, 1970, paid for by the singer Janis Joplin and Juanita Green, who as a child had done housework for Bessie.
This is my favourite of Bessie's songs, "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out":
Thanks for listening. Hope to see you again next time when we take a journey back in Music History.
(The information used in this post is from Wikipedia and AllMusic.com and 聽http://stomp-off.blogspot.ca/2010/10/death-of-bessie-smith.html. There you can listen to a recording of Dr. Hugh Smith recounting the accident.)聽
Dominique "Nik" Petersen is an aficionado of old music and the author of The Dr. Hook Trivia Quiz Book. Read about it and her other books at the website:聽
"""
in Loving Music
Articles from Dominique 馃悵 Petersen
View blogTime for another round of Christmas songs, this time form the 1950s. These are the songs that I grew ...
"The Ballad of Lucy Jordan" is a song by American poet and songwriter Shel Silverstein. It was origi ...
Things exploded for Dr. Hook when their producer, Ron Haffkine, found a little tune called "A Little ...
Related professionals
You may be interested in these jobs
-
Sales Representative
Found in: beBee S2 CA - 3 weeks ago
SLB St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada Full timeAt SLB, we recognize that our innovation, creativity, and success stem from our differences. We actively recruit people with a diverse range of backgrounds and cultivate a culture of inclusion that unlocks the benefits of our diversity. We want to ensure that everyone feels a sen ...
-
Technicienne ou Technicien, en surveillance de travaux en infrastructures de transport
Found in: Talent CA C2 - 1 week ago
exp Joliette, Canada Full timeChez EXP, nous sommes anim茅s par le d茅sir de concevoir des solutions innovantes destin茅es aux milieux b芒tis et naturels du monde entier. Nous sommes une firme de g茅nie-conseil d'envergure internationale au sein de laquelle ing茅nieures et ing茅nieurs, urbanistes, architectes et aut ...
-
administrative assistant
Found in: Talent CA 2 C2 - 15 hours ago
Nirvair Stucco Ltd. Winnipeg, CanadaEducation: Secondary (high) school graduation certificate 路 Experience: 1 year to less than 2 years 路 Tasks 路 Plan and control budget and expenditures 路 Establish and implement policies and procedures 路 Determine and establish office procedures and routines 路 Oversee the classifi ...
Comments
Dominique 馃悵 Petersen
6 years ago #14
Thank YOU, George Touryliov !
George Touryliov
6 years ago #13
Dominique 馃悵 Petersen
6 years ago #12
Thank you for your kind words, @CityVP 馃悵 Manjit . I have loved Bessie Smith's music for years and had long ago heard the rumor that she had bled to death when a white hospital wouldn't admit her because she was black. Happily, while researching for this post, I learned that this was not true. So, although she died too young, it was from the accident.
CityVP Manjit
6 years ago #11
More than a share Dominique, I have placed it in my Yellow hive so I can study this buzz at much detailed depth on the weekend when I an afford it the time and attention it warrants - for there is so much here on the page that it deserves more than just a social media kind of read through. I can see from the initial construct that you have put a lot into this and so I am sure this will prove for me to be a feast of learning and your choice of topic is original and not an individual I have studied before. I call that caring, which to me is a greater personal principle than the social principle which we are all accustomed to that is now called sharing. Thanks for the care, Dominique.
Dominique 馃悵 Petersen
6 years ago #10
Dominique 馃悵 Petersen
6 years ago #9
Dominique 馃悵 Petersen
6 years ago #8
Sure is, Jos\u00e9 Lu\u00eds Casado. I love The Blues. ;o)
Dominique 馃悵 Petersen
6 years ago #7
Glad you liked it, Joyce \ud83d\udc1d Bowen Brand Ambassador @ beBee ;o)
Joyce 馃悵 Bowen Brand Ambassador @ beBee
6 years ago #6
Dominique 馃悵 Petersen
6 years ago #5
Oh, and thanks for the share!
Dominique 馃悵 Petersen
6 years ago #4
Glad you liked it, Pamela \ud83d\udc1d Williams ! ;o)
Dominique 馃悵 Petersen
6 years ago #3
Dominique 馃悵 Petersen
6 years ago #2
Thanks so much, Pedro!
Pedro 馃悵 Casanova
6 years ago #1