This sloppy, unstructured two reeler featuring a diamond in the rough, blues singer Bessie Smith, is a it of a bumpy buggy ride but it does lay claim to having the only visual recording of the finest female blues singer outside of Billie Holliday.
Slick Jimmy the pimp is quite a rascal around the ladies but Bessie can't quit him. Caught philandering again Bess beats the woman and Jim walks. Drowning her melancholy in beer, Jimbo reappears to the delight of the locals, busts same energetic moves and takes her for a ride again.
Blues bustles with activity from a crap game to a jumping nightclub where customers and waiters camp it up while Bessie broods. She is indeed the jewel in the crown in the picture but there are also jazz giants (James P. Johnson, Thomas Morris) as well as Johnson Hall's Choir lending support to this unevenly edited, music explosion of rare and only filmed recording of The Empress of Blues.
An orphan street performing before 10, killed in a car crash at the height of her career, bisexual Smith's tempestuous personal life probably had a Jimmie or two in it as well. If anyone had the reason to sing the blues it was certainly the tragic Smith. A must for anyone interested in the history of American music.
Slick Jimmy the pimp is quite a rascal around the ladies but Bessie can't quit him. Caught philandering again Bess beats the woman and Jim walks. Drowning her melancholy in beer, Jimbo reappears to the delight of the locals, busts same energetic moves and takes her for a ride again.
Blues bustles with activity from a crap game to a jumping nightclub where customers and waiters camp it up while Bessie broods. She is indeed the jewel in the crown in the picture but there are also jazz giants (James P. Johnson, Thomas Morris) as well as Johnson Hall's Choir lending support to this unevenly edited, music explosion of rare and only filmed recording of The Empress of Blues.
An orphan street performing before 10, killed in a car crash at the height of her career, bisexual Smith's tempestuous personal life probably had a Jimmie or two in it as well. If anyone had the reason to sing the blues it was certainly the tragic Smith. A must for anyone interested in the history of American music.