Bessie Smith

by Jackie Kay

A BBC RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK

Bessie singer, icon, pioneer.

Scotland's National Poet Jackie Kay brings to life the tempestuous story of the greatest blues singer who ever lived.

'A gem of a book . . . beautiful.' BERNARDINE EVARISTO
'A wonderful writer on a magnificent singer.' ROBERT WYATT
'Kay's book is the amplifier that Smith's voice deserves.' SUNDAY TIMES
'The most vivid evocation of Bessie Smith I have ever read.' IAN CARR, BBC MUSIC

BESSIE SMITH was born in Tennessee in 1894. Orphaned by the age of nine, she sang on street corners before becoming a big name in travelling shows. In 1923 she made her first recording for a new start-up called Columbia Records. It sold 780,000 copies and made her a star. Smith's life was notoriously she drank pints of 'bathtub gin', got into violent fist fights, spent huge sums of money and had passionate love affairs with men and women. She once single-handedly fought off a cohort of the Ku Klux Klan.

As a young black girl growing up in Glasgow, Jackie Kay found in Bessie someone with whom she could identify and who she could idolise. In this remarkable book Kay mixes biography, fiction, poetry and prose to create an enthralling account of an extraordinary life.

'Biographies don't usually bring the subject to life again. This one did. I finished the book then started it again immediately.'
PEGGY SEEGER

'What a life! What gulpable storytelling! Exactly the kind of writing about music we personal, ardent, playfully confrontational, questioning, undogmatic. A love song to a complicated idol.'
KATE MOLLESON

'Pure one trailblazing woman pays tribute to another. Jackie Kay finds the music in the short, dazzling, capricious life of Bessie Smith.'
HELEN LEWIS

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography, Music, Memoir, History, Queer, Biography Memoir

224 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 1997

About the author

Born in Glasgow in 1961 to a Scottish mother and a Nigerian father, Kay was adopted by a white couple, Helen and John Kay, as a baby. Brought up in Bishopbriggs, a Glasgow suburb, she has an older adopted brother, Maxwell as well as siblings by her adoptive parents.

Kay's adoptive father worked full-time for the Communist Party and stood for election as a Member of Parliament, and her adoptive mother was the secretary of the Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND).

Initially harbouring ambitions to be an actress, she decided to concentrate on writing after encouragement by Alasdair Gray. She studied English at the University of Stirling and her first book of poetry, the partially autobiographical The Adoption Papers, was published in 1991, and won the Saltire Society Scottish First Book Award. Her other awards include the 1994 Somerset Maugham Award for Other Lovers, and the Guardian Fiction Prize for Trumpet, based on the life of American jazz musician Billy Tipton, born Dorothy Tipton, who lived as a man for the last fifty years of her life.

Kay writes extensively stage, screen, and for children. In 2010 she published Red Dust Road, an account of her search for her birth parents, a white Scottish woman, and a Nigerian man. Her birth parents met when her father was a student at Aberdeen University and her mother was a nurse. Her drama The Lamplighter is an exploration of the Atlantic slave trade. It was broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in March 2007 and published in poem form in 2008.

Jackie Kay became a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) on 17 June 2006. She is currently Professor of Creative Writing at Newcastle University. Kay lives in Manchester.



Jackie Kay was born and brought up in Scotland. THE ADOPTION PAPERS (Bloodaxe, 1991) won the Forward Prize, a Saltire prize and a Scottish Arts Council Prize. DARLING was a poetry book society choice. FIERE, her most recent collection of poems was shortlisted for the COSTA award. Her novel TRUMPET won the Guardian Fiction Award and was shortlisted for the IMPAC award. RED DUST ROAD, (Picador) won the Scottish Book of the Year Award, was shortlisted for the JR ACKERLEY prize and the LONDON BOOK AWARD. She was awarded an MBE in 2006, and made a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2002. Her book of stories WISH I WAS HERE won the Decibel British Book Award.
She also writes for children and her book RED CHERRY RED (Bloomsbury) won the CLYPE award. She has written extensively for stage and television. Her play MANCHESTER LINES produced by Manchester Library Theatre was on this year in Manchester. Her new book of short stories REALITY, REALITY was recently published by Picador. She is Professor of Creative Writing at Newcastle University.

Reviews

[Alwynne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Poet Jackie Kay’s telling of the life of legendary singer Bessie Smith, “Empress of the Blues” who performed to packed-out venues across America in the 1920s. Kay mingles fact with imagined scenes and personal recollections tracing her own obsession with Smith’s work, dating back to being given one of her recordings as an adopted child in an almost totally white Glasgow; somehow listening to Smith’s voice and lyrics was a catalyst for Kay’s understanding and exploration of her own identity as black and lesbian. Kay doesn’t adopt a standard linear approach to Smith’s story here, instead she highlights aspects of Smith’s life and career: from her discovery, her disastrous marriage to abusive, manipulative Jack Gee, her numerous on the road affairs with women, to her recording contracts, unanticipated fame and flamboyant showmanship. Kay uses Smith’s experiences to consider what it was like to be both a celebrity and a black working-class woman in early 20th-century America, the lavish spending, the riotous ‘rent’ parties with flowing bootleg liquor and pigs’ foot stew, the ‘buffet flats’ that catered for every sexual whim, confrontations with the Klan, the relentless racism encountered on tour, the impact of colourism, and finally the almost-inevitable fall from grace.

I love Bessie Smith’s voice but apart from Queen Latifah’s recent biopic, I know almost nothing about her and I thought Kay did a reasonable job of sketching out key facts but I found the juxtaposition of memoir and biography and the disjointed structure often less than satisfying, Kay’s enthusiasm for Smith shines through at various points, and the portrait of Smith’s larger-than-life personality is decent enough, but there are quite a few sections that stray into rather flat, laundry-list territory. The passages linking Smith's personal history to wider issues around race and representation were probably the most engaging ones and it’s a shame that these weren’t more sustained. So, although I think this is an okay piece for any Smith fans, I’m not sure it’s the best place to start for readers who aren’t already interested in her and her music.

[Vivienne Muller · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read this as part of a historical research project... It's not bad, but I would not call it a good book. Te structure is ambitious but not well executed, it's at times difficult to tell the difference between an extended citation and a fictional addition of the author. I did however enjoy the honest dedication to pressing Bessie Smith's queerness, and there are many interesting anecdotes in the book as well as good poetry. The most disappointing thing is the writing quality. It feels like it was written for children and much of the historical context feels oversimplified (potentially because the author is from Scotland and the audience may be one unfamiliar with US history). The book is too sentimental and personal to be written badly.

[David Ward · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an extraordinary book about an extraordinary character.

Bessie Smith comes over as larger than life, a legend in life and death. I listened to some of her many recordings while I read, and hers was a voice that still sounds great despite early recording techniques. She is one woman in the same line as Billie Holiday, Janis Joplin and Amy Winehouse - all great, all tragic figures. Bessie is probably the most outrageous of them all.

Author Jackie Kay presents a personal view of Bessie that has been present most of Jackie's life, being lucky enough to be introduced to the blues and jazz at an early age.

This is well worth reading. It becomes clear that, as Bessie's gravestone proclaims, "The Greatest Blues Singer In The World Will Never Stop Singing."

[Charlie Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting and passionate account of the life, times and tribulations of this amazing talent.
Made me want to listen to her.

[Tina · Rating 4 out of 5]

This isn’t a straightforward biography. The author intertwines experiences and thoughts of her own. I loved it.

[Ayre · Rating 1 out of 5]

I got this book in a book box and I think placing it in that book box was a disservice to the author due to the fact that this book is a very niche subject. I'm entirely sure it has its audience but I don't think the readers of a queer book box for teens IS that audience. My rating of this book is based on my own enjoyment of it. If you are specifically seeking out information about Bessie Smith you're already much more likely to enjoy this book.

Lets get into what I felt about this book. The author is very obviously obsessed with Bessie Smith and that bias of fandom bleeds through often. This makes what should be a unbiased biography into more of fan fiction. Often times the author makes up fictional stories of what she thought Bessie or someone who interacted with Bessie would do in a situation where there is little information on whatever is being referenced (ie what Bessie was thinking as she died). Its honestly incredibly creepy if you don't take into account that the author isn't typically a non-fiction writer. I don't think there is a whole lot of actual information on Bessie's life so this felt very repetitive in order to flesh out the book. The author is also very much a fan of lists which not only annoys me but make the book feel like its being written for someone just learning to read (please note content in this book is not for children). There are also a lot of contradictions that I just didn't understand. For example, at one point the author is talking about Bessie fighting a lot and says she always uses her fists and never her words but then jumps into a story of Bessie yelling at people with no physical altercation involved. The author also references how Bessie's story is in her music often. How Bessie's music is her true autobiography... but Bessie barely wrote any of the songs she sang.

The final problem I had was what felt like a lot of unnecessary micro-aggressions. Bessie COULD NOT be described in this book without calling her fat in some why. Her weight was mentioned more than any other physical descriptor and there were whole sections on the racism she experienced. The other thing that bothered me was the shame involved around her sapphic sexual encounters. Her queerness was almost exclusively linked to her alcoholism. I couldn't tell if Bessie herself or the author was ashamed of Bessie's love of women.

As far as recommending this book, I obviously wouldn't. If you want a true biography this isn't it. Maybe try Bessie by Chris Albertson (Its the most frequently referenced book but I haven't read it so I don't know if its actually good). This book is strictly for people looking for somewhat accurate fan fiction presented as actual fact.

[J.D. Frailey · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first half of the book was brilliant, mesmerizing, as good as it gets. The author Jackie Kay has been the national poet of Scotland, a novelist and essayist as well as a poet. She and her brother are black, adopted by Scottish communist parents, her adoptive father was also a big blues fan who gave the author her first blues album when she was 12 years old, a Bessie Smith double album, and it changed her life. She said there are virtually no other Black people where they lived in Scotland, and this opened up a whole New World for her. The first half of the book also Chronicles the birth of the blues and especially blues women, who seemed to be all pretty highly sext, it didn’t matter if it was men or women, it was one big drunken party all the time. Bessie Smith had plenty of hard knocks in her life, singing on street corners for nickels when she was a small child, was picked up by Ma Rainey and taken on her traveling blues show, good stuff. The second half of the book grew tiresome to me, really redundant in a lot of items, going over that same ground again and again, I was glad to see the book end and also glad I found it. I’ve had Alexa play some Bessie Smith songs, they are all really old and scratchy, but you get a feel for the jumping aliveness of the music.

[Morgan · Rating 4 out of 5]

When Kay imagines Smith’s life—a rhythmic reciting of the contents of a lost trunk or a daydreamed conversation between Smith and her mentor Ma Rainey—this book transcends, taking you to the place Smith held deep within her, the well from which the blues flowed.
Those moments are so strong they carry the story overall, which at times feels more like an essay on Smith, a recitation of facts that framed the blues legend’s life. I’m sure this is due to lack of source material—but as a reader I wish Kay had been more courageous in filling in those gaps with imagined passages more often: America dreamed of Smith when she was famous; let us dream of the queen of the blues now, too.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book. An honest and probing assessment of Bessie and her turbulent life. The good, the bad, and the ugly. Written in a style I found both poetic and appropriate for author and subject. Bessie cries out from the pages. Her music not forgotten. A short life maybe but an enduring blues legacy.

[Tara Lepore · Rating 4 out of 5]

I expected there to be more cross narrative with the author's own life but I actually loved how there were just little glimpses. A haunting and passionate biography.

[Moonkiszt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Random reading brought this to me. . . .she had a hard life, but she made her own choices. A bohemian of the truest kind. I love that she got to do more than those who are so willing to conform. Still, there's more info about her sexual prefs than her music or poems.

The end of her life was tragic, and she was lost . . .but her voice is still out there and her songs are still being sung by others, and every so often she can be still heard thanks to recordings ringing out her blues and jazz.
25|52:17a

[Tom Allen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jackie Kay, an amazing poet writing about an amazing blues woman.

[Malcolm Walker · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the first book by Jackie Kay I have read, though I must have heard her for years on different speech based programmes on Radio 4, inc;uding 'Start The Week', and the different arts review programmes on that channel.

This is the first prose book by Jackie Kay. The next book by Kay 'Trumpet' (1998) is what started me reading this book. In the foreword of 'Trumpet' Ali Smith recommends to the reader that they read 'Bessie Smith' first, since that first prose work, written and published before 'Trumpet' informed the writing of 'Trumpet'. Both books cenre on music, and how black musicians and jazz musicians resisted the implicit and explicit assumptions in their identity, where white people talk in cliches about how black people live, which they havce no personal experience of.

In 'Bessie Smith' Jackie Kay starts with her earliest recollections of finding Bessie, when Kay was as a teenager in the 1970s, including confiding to miming to her Bessie Smith albums in her bedroom, with her hairbrush as the microphone. from this starting point Kay feels her way into Bessie Smith's life with the basic facts and comments than could only be speculative. Kay treads lightly on the early known facts of Bessie Smith's life, because the identifiably personal facts are so few. In the back of the book there are several apendices including a brief chronology of those bare-bones facts that the main text fleshes out.

According to later documents Bessie was born in 1894, in Chattanooga and grew up with little to no sense of being part of a family, in a hand to mouth life. Her parents died when she was a child, so the barefoot life of a sharecropper was all she had to hold on to, well nearly all. In the early 1900s there was one way out of the racism of the croppers life, one uncertain haven against the Jim Crow laws, the theatre. Which meant several things, black male blues singers singing about the ills of being black in what seemed like crude musical and literary howls of pain, often played on instruments that the musicians made for themselves. Easier to accomodate on the ear were the minstrel shows, where for modern readers to read about them they have to suspend every last critcal value they have. Early minstrel shows consisted of white males blackenng their faces whilst singing parody songs about black suffering - a more ironic description of the lives of black slaves, where the whites pretend to join them to mimic their suffering in jolly tones would be hard to imagine. It was form of entertainment where the word 'schadenfraude' had never been invented. The irony deepened when black men and women joined the vaudeville show. They too blacked up, because this parody of the suffering of being black, and the inequality of slavery, had to be maintianed through the make up, the pretence. But black people's genuine voices and intonation could not be rendered white, and ocasionally shone through. The first black blues woman to be famous in her own right was 'Mother of the blues' Ma Rainey (1886 - 1939).

From the impenitrable jet black irony of the minstrel shows, where singing about suffering and division through slavery was prefferable to actually living out that suffering, there was a path developed for the most talented and toughest black men and women who could create their own relative autonomy, led by their abilities as performers. where no such autonomy was meant to be possible. This is shown in one of the appendices where Bessie Smith's tour itinerary is detailed in map form. The modern rock music industry is well known for it's dishonest and violent management of musical talent, where the talent itself was a creative talent for putting managed violence into a musical form. For Bessie Smith the management of her song writing, recording, and touring when race laws dictated where a perfrormer might stay after the performance was over naturally led to the sterotype of the hustling husbands who managed their talented wives, their property, carelessly, and were less interested in the marriage and more engaged with the financial rewards that the asset they managed could bring in, for the money to be syphoned off unseen from the person who attracted the wealth.

But I have yet to hear the song title 'Irony Blues' it would be too 'meta' for it to be a proper blues song. So I will plough on here..... One of the interesting paradoxes is how many of the women who took the blues to the stage and gave it a sass and satin makover that the men who sang the blues could not were all called Smith, Mamie, Clara, Bessie, Laura and Trixie. None of them were related to each other. Smith was the sir name a slave owner gave to their families long before, Many talented women across the world of the 19th and 20th centuries found the recognition of their talent was reduced, as they married and took on their husbands names, their talents were subsumed into their hussbands reputations and business affairs, as the patriarchy marched on into the future leaving a trail of wreckage many would call 'history' behind it. With their voices, song writing talent, and the name Smith to support them these black women punched well above any level that they could ordinarily be expected to achieve, whilst their sir name gave them a distinction.

They would have gone a lot further too, had they had the support of a strong sisterhood, which because she could, Bessie created for herself. Why Bessie earned the Empress of The Blues is explained in the chapter about the pullman train coach she bought with the wealth she earned from her live performances, as her recordings spread her fame - she was the first black person to have such a mobile palace. For her to be able to play live, and live off stage the way she wanted to as if she were a restless teenager who did not have to be settled. Even now the image of Bessie in her prome is an image that today's teenagers might still dream of. The pullman coach was a palace on wheels which gave Bessie and her touring entourage a a unique freedom from the racism that recycled and repeated iself across America. This luxury pullman coach also gave her freedom from prohibition era laws that even as they were ineffective in prohibiting the distribution of alcohol, had to be followed to the letter of the law, whilst the law was breached.

And what is there to say about promiscuity, lesbiansim and male homosexuality? In todays 21st century world we talk about 'safe spaces', knowing that what they are spaces for allows room for thought where we can choose how to act, But in Bessie's world the space she and her muscians contrrol the most was on stage, where her charisma as a performer made the place safe. Off stage the next safest place was her pullman carriage when everyone thought her violent husband, Jack, was not about. But that Bessie creating a safe space for her entourtage to experience all the alcohol they wanted and all the sexual license for those that wanted it, also. All without fear of arrest/prosecution. This was the luxury of privacy indeed. That Bessie's husband was the one person they, and she, feared would visit the pullman carriage unannounced was preferable to having any other authority to fear. That he was 'good with his fists'.... Well men had to be back then, when men could be violence towards each other and to the women that with the blessings of the law they had the right to beat up when they chose. Women like Bessie had to be strong in different ways, like knowing when to watch and what to be watchful for, and where to hide when she needed to. Bessie was physically strong enough to beat Jack up, which became part of the roller coaster of life on tour, where the touring was all of the life that was there to be had. When Jack and Bessies seperated, with the property and custody laws being in his favour he could beat Bessie hands down in the seperating Bessie from who she loved the most, her closest lover, other members of her touring entourage, and the child she semi-legally adopted. That the seperation came amid the Wall Street crash, which collapsed the marker for 'race records' as the recordings of black blues singers were known, proved to be a triple blow to Bessie.

If Jack and Bessie knew their way around a marriage and companionship, whilst both being from such rough backgrounds that they could only be creative whilst fueled by alcohol, amid prohibition, then other musicians could take their chances with Bessie amid the chaos, but also Jack and Bessie did not know that when Colombia records presented the pair with that first record contract, what they never noticed was that the executive who presented the contract to them struck out the clause that would have paid Bessie performance royalties on her record sales, rather than Bedssie being paid a flat fee to reocrd a song. Slips like this are inevitable, with recording and performing laws being in their early stage and black people not being able to put the practically infinite power of white corporate power in perspective - because of how near infinite white corporate power was.

I was bowled over by the story of her being invited to a party full of wealthy, polite, white people by writer Carl Van Vechten and pianist Porter Granger, where she downed a pint of whiskey to perform for the crowd, and was perfect with the situation as long as she was performing. When finally stopped nerves go the worse of her and her ettiquete went out of the window, she left soon after too.

But what to do when the paty leaves you? With the 1929 crash the sales of 'race records' as blues 78 RPM records were sold as genre, collapsed, Bessie kept her Colombia recording contract (minus the royalties that had she signed away with a more lawyerly eye that she should have got) until 1931. She still wrote the songs, but with the recession her blues songs had become prophesies, rather than the rallies against the real poverty that she had come from. With the recession 'race records' preferred recordings with lighter skinned black female vocalists. In 1933, the last year Bessie recorded, Billie Holiday made her first recordings. The tour promoters who Bessie worked with prevailed over whether Bessie toured atall, and when she did how much lighter skinned the tones of her female backing vocalists were. The market for the full on blackness and the blues that Bessie wrote and performed shrank. The newer 'race records' artists were either dark skinned men or lighter skinned women, who would have to adapt more rapidly to the evolving market to keep their recording career alive. Bessie was lefft to write lyrics for songs, for which she had the musicians to play live, but no recording contract.

With distant hindsight, the chest these lyrics were stored in, along with her jewels and other most personal objects became an object of myth. It was never to be seen. Eventhe manner of her death because the cause of disagreement and we can only wonder at how callous the times became when fame and reputation could be so devalued so quickly that although it was known where her remains were buried, it too k a white woman blues singer to give Bessie a gravestone, 33 years later, and the white blues singer would die much younger than Bessie did, soon after. That singer was Janis Joplin, who died a few months later, hereself. Janis also died soon after.

Postscript: Jacky Kay did not suggest the following but I felt led to write it. Bessie Smith was a songwriter among here many other talents. For any songwriter in later generations their songs are their children. Perhaps the best shortcut to discover the afterlife of Bessie Smith is to listen to the 1958 album 'Lavern Baker sings Bessie Smith', a modern early rock and roll era take on Bessies songs that was part of the raised profile of her/revival of her twenty years after her death. Another document worth exploring would be 'The Bessie Smith Song Book' (Penguin) where 38 of Bessie's songs are transcribed for lyrics and music, and lots of pictures are added to round out the portrait of Bessie the artist.

[Jacquie · Rating 5 out of 5]

She tells us about Bessie's life and delves into her lyrics but she mostly tells us why Bessie is important to the world and to her.

'My life was changed by Bessie's blues. My soul was converted. Any good art transforms you, makes you ask yourself questions about the world you live in, people, laws, yourself. Any good art can change the way you look at yourself.'

Her life was incredibly dramatic and there is so much missing from what we know about her despite her fame. Partly because of the time and because there was so long before the first biography that much information was lost. Jackie Kay leans into this in the telling and imagines what is missing, in clearly indicated and very beautiful ventures into the version she imagines. In one she describes the contents of a lost trunk of Bessie's effects that have made their way safely to Scotland rather than being lost, among them are

'A bottle of bootleg liquor and a pint glass with a lipstick imprint of the lips of the Empress. A horsehair wig - shiny black hair that once long ago ran all the way down to the round shoulders of Bessie Smith. A strand of pearls and imitation rubies. A satin dress. Headgear that looks like a lampshade in someone's front room with lots of tassels hanging down. A plain dress with beaded fringed.......A reject selection of songs that were never released. A giant pot of chicken stew still steaming, its lid tilted to the side. '

It is a good read and her love pours through the pages and it sends you back to the songs.

[Vicky Burns Bellman · Rating 5 out of 5]

'There is the perception, on the one hand, of the blues as lowlife (the view of middle class jazz fans and critics) and on the other hand, the blues as high life, royalty (for classic blues singers and their fans). This combination can't be bettered: the result is a Black working class queen'.

Such an interesting and moving short book, a book you could really feel. Particularly moving that this working class queer Black woman is profiled by a working class lesbian Black woman. This is the power of own voices - because I've read a fair few musical biographies in my time (of white people and people of colour, of straight and queer people) and they've never captured the meaningfulness of a contribution of an artist to the culture as this one did. Jackie Kay outlined both the meaning Bessie had to the Black community at the time, and the meaning Bessie had to Jackie growing up adopted in a white Scottish village. And by doing that she made the Empress come alive. A legacy that should be remembered forever; a keeper of Black history and legacy and longing.

The rage and tempest, the lack of impulse control, the generosity, the binges, the addiction. The chronic childhood trauma of early orphaning, and being raised by siblings. The mean men. The trauma of poverty and racism. A passionate heart and a pure gift. Rest well, Bessie Smith.

[Jay Gabler · Rating 5 out of 5]

The brilliance of this book is that it embraces the Empress of the Blues in all her complexity. We start where Jackie Kay did, with competing images of the artist in agony and ecstasy; then we turn to the music, and learn more about the life. Along the way, Kay is frank about what we can know, what we never know, and what's none of our damn business. While few readers will achieve the depth of Kay's fascination, they'll at least all learn not merely to think of Bessie Smith when they're down and out: this singer brought joy to millions, as well as voicing their pain.

I reviewed Bessie Smith: A Poet's Biography of a Blues Legend for The Current.

[Oliver Crook · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jackie Kay is a poet, who understands pain and loss and isolation like few others. Bessie Smith was a 1920s blues singer who rose to the top before tumbling back to nothing. Can I make it any more obvious? Kay retells Smith's stories with empathy, passion, and the right words in exactly the right spot. She reimagines Smith's intimate, most vulnerable moments, resulting in the three of us crying together. It transcends decades and distance to be truly stirring. The only criticism is that she didn't dare take the most artsy moments to the extremes.

Read more: https://atwoodmagazine.com/brbs-bessi...

[Thamires · Rating 5 out of 5]

É história de Bessie Smith e do blues, acho que são um só até, os dois se completam, Bessie Smith foi completa com o blues, com o blues ela não precisava mais de ninguém. A vida de Bessie smith só era ela e o blues, não importava mais nada e ninguém, nada que fosse tão importante para Bessie do que o blues. Todas as pessoas que cruzaram a vida de Bessie à decepcionaram, o blues foi o conforto que ela precisava. Bessie Smith não era apenas uma cantora de blues, ela era o blues.

[Rebecca Stonehill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating account of the turbulent life and tragic death of 'Empress of the Blues' Bessie Smith. I listened to Jackie Kay narrating the audio and loved the way she wove in details of her own life and upbringing and how, as a young adopted black girl growing up in inner-city, predominantly white Glasgow, she became fascinated by Bessie Smith.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book!

Received this through and online subscription and I would never have chosen it, but I loved every minute.

A great insight into a true ku remarkable woman and her journey through the Blues scene.

[Angel · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted the charm of the style to bump this up to a 3 star book, but during writing my review I was too annoyed to allow that.

First of all, I don't know how well this can be called a biography - a tribute to Bessie Smith is a better title. It's full of Jackie Kay's reflections on a handful of facts about Bessie Smith's life, Kay's own fascination with the singer, and imagined trains of thought for the most intense parts of Smith's life. I don't think that's an inherently bad way of discussing a singer, but I do think it would disappoint anyone looking for a straight biography.

Second of all, Kay's narration bothered me. It's frustrating because I love Jackie Kay - that's the whole reason I read this book! But she seems more focused on celebrating Smith and excusing any and all faults than writing a biography. In fact, Kay dedicates so much time to questioning Smith's objectively bad decisions and excusing her fist fights and drinking habits, that sympathy comes across as more important than analysis of a life. Kay is clearly a huge, lifelong fan, and that comes across as more important than any facts about Bessie Smith's legendarily messy life.

One of my big frustrations (and I had several) was the repeated analysis of Bessie Smith's lyrics and how they reflected her life. Only to mention later that she wrote a tiny fraction of her songs and potentially didn't even have a choice of what she sung. Yes, her lyrics are about bad men and being poor, and yes, she had that lived experience, but those are hallmarks of the blues genre. Kay mentions lyrics that are prophetic to Smith's life, and that's a fascinating coincidence, but she plays it like it's Smith's genius and that the singer somehow knew. The songs Smith actually wrote are a great example of her mental state, and Kay does some good linking of them to the timeline. That passage was super interesting. So why spend so much time comparing her life to lyrics she didn't write?

Another thing that bothered me was the question 'does Jackie Kay know any southern food other than pig's feet?' Don't get me wrong, it's referenced in one of the songs, but she brings up pig's feet literally every time she talks about food. It's a silly thing, but it pops up so regularly that you start to go 'did the people there eat anything else at all?'

And my final complaint is the way sexuality is discussed. Firstly, the emphasis on Bessie Smith being a lesbian when she married 2 men, had a long relationship with a third and slept with both men and women. What's wrong with calling her bisexual? Is it necessary to insist she was a lesbian or even to give her a label that she didn't pick herself? Secondly, I don't like the way she describes Ma Rainey. She fictionalises/elaborates on a rumour that Ma Rainey kidnapped Bessie Smith (which both women apparently deny) and gives her telling an explicitly sexual undertone, while saying 'Ma's arms are strong as a lesbian's.' She WAS a lesbian though?? And what is that supposed to mean? It's an uncomfortable indication of how many view lesbians - overtly manly, ready to steal and deceive, willing to do things to women without their consent. It's really distasteful and I was disappointed to read it.

[Jennifer]

I love Bessie Smith's music. And she's from my hometown, so she's a figure I also grew up with. So this should have really hit the spot. It's meant to be a blend of biography, fiction, poetry, and prose. But even the biographical bits are very speculative, and even though it's obvious the author did some research, it seems very unevenly applied. There's a lot of "she would have done this/it might have been like that." Frequently, these statements had no follow-up statement to justify why the author would even say those things. Like these:

- "She might have been addicted to the sugar in Coca-Cola to substitute for corn liquor." (I have no idea how she got here or why this is relevant. I guess every whisky drinker in Scotland who likes Irnbru is drinking it as a substitute?)

- "It was impossible to be a blues singer in the America of the 1920s without travel being in the blood." (What about Mississippi John Hurt, or anyone else who didn't get the opportunity to travel with their blues until the folk revival? Or ever?)

- "It was possible she would have never been in show business if it hadn't been for Clarence." (Given that she was already performing, this statement should really get some evidence.)

A lesser issue, but still relevant - in the first 25 pages she talks dramatically about it being cold at least three times in Chattanooga (like people standing out in the cold wind at the train station, or Bessie singing out in the cold) and when the sky is "hanging down low and mean and grey".... And instantly I'm transported, but to Scotland. Chattanooga is hot, and humid, and sunny, and rapidly thunderstormy at times and is really only cold enough for a light coat for three months in winter. Not even that, nowadays. So even as we're speculating about how Bessie's life went, I'm having to imagine some other version of that. Another reviewer described this book as fan fiction, and given how hard it is to trust the non-fiction elements of the book, that feels about right.

[Holly Cruise · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this book up on a whim at Queer Lit (Manchester) because it seemed intriguing despite the fact I didn't know any Bessie Smith songs, and the extent of my Jackie Kay experience was my mum leaving Trumpet at my house and it being on my 'to read' pile. So it's kind of great that I felt that odd impulse to grab this because not only is it a really great read, writing it helped Kay to finish Trumpet.

It's a biography, sure, but it's also a love letter to Smith, an attempt to understand her, and in parts an account of her importance to Kay herself as a black woman, as a person who feels emotions deeply, and as a fan of great music (I have now listened to some Bessie Smith - even through the crackling of time, she's clearly brilliant).

Each chapter sort of covers part of her life. Not strictly chronologically, often thematically, but always poetically. Kay inserts short bursts of fiction where she imagines with Smith and her friends might have been thinking. It doesn't feel gratuitous because it feels utterly sincere. Smith, after all, sang her life as song, why not have a writer write it as fictionalised biography?

There's a lot of repetition of themes, thoughts, moments, which has the effect of creating a quite hypnotic prose style. Maybe that works for a musician - after all, what are songs but often repeating chrouses, refrains, even verses?

It's a short read, and honestly worth your time even if you don't care for the blues. You will.

[Anthony · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jackie Kay (2021) BESSIE SMITH (AUDIOBOOK)
BorrowBox - Faber & Faber

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 5 out of 5 stars

BorrowBox writes, "BESSIE SMITH was born in Tennessee in 1894. Orphaned by the age of nine, she sang on street corners before becoming a big name in travelling shows. In 1923 she made her first recording for a new start-up called Columbia Records. It sold 780,000 copies and made her a star. Smith's life was notoriously difficult: she drank pints of 'bathtub gin', got into violent fist fights, spent huge sums of money and had passionate love affairs with men and women. She once single-handedly fought off a cohort of the Ku Klux Klan. As a young black girl growing up in Glasgow, Jackie Kay found in Bessie someone with whom she could identify and who she could idolise. In this remarkable book Kay mixes biography, fiction, poetry and prose to create an enthralling account of an extraordinary life."
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You'll have heard of Bessie Smith for sure if you've heard "Break My Soul" by Beyoncé enough times. Bessie is named right before Nina Simone and Kelly Row[land] in Beyoncé"s rap/riff. Bessie's life was all too short but nevertheless, she's a queer icons!
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#JackieKay #BessieSmith #Book #Books #Read #Reads #Reading #Review #Reviews #BookReview #BookReviews #GoodReads #Audiobook #Audiobooks #BorrowBox

[Diane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jackie Kay brought Bessie Smith to life with her wonderful prose. This was a no-holds bar account of a woman who had a voice that brought droves of people to see her but had several things against her that overshadowed her life - rampant racisms - she was African American, she was bisexual, she was a female, she was an alcoholic (which probably would have led to an early demise due to cirrhosis but it was a car accident that took Bessie when she was in her thirties) and due to her drinking Bessie Smith would become violent.
She was abused by her second husband - a no talent hack who only stole from her even after she died and by family who although they loved the gifts Bessie lavished upon them such as houses they couldn't even give the Empress of the Blues a proper gravestone. And of course Columbia Records took advantage of her and never paid Bessie any royalties despite the fact that one of her records sold over 780,000 copies in a seven month period and that was back in the 20's or the 30's. That was simply amazing.
Most music is derived from things that happen in life and Bessie Smith was one of the best, if not the best, at telling stories thru song whether it was the abuse she suffered or the hooch she drank. Another artist gone too soon.

[Vance Cariaga · Rating 3 out of 5]

From the blog (vancecariaga.com): This book got a lot of attention in the UK, partly because Kay is a celebrated and much-honored writer in her home country of Scotland. In this book, she uses her experience as a mixed-race woman (half Scottish, half Nigerian) and lesbian to chronicle and analyze the life of legendary American blues artist Bessie Smith. During the 1920s, Smith was one of the biggest music stars in the United States. She was also a sharp businesswoman who earned a lot of money for the time, and took no crap from anyone – except for a cruel and abusive husband, who seemed to have a weird spell over Bessie’s mind, heart, and career. The book takes a deep dive into that relationship as well as many others (including love affairs with women), while the author uses her own experiences to expound upon the challenges Bessie Smith faced as a black woman in the American South. There’s enough to like here to make it worth reading, but too much of it starts to get repetitive, and the personal asides get in the way.

[Emily Brownsey · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this book. I felt so connected to both the author and Bessie smith from start to finish. In the beginning, Jackie Kay describes what it’s like to feel a sense of comfort, belonging and intimacy with a figure you’ve never met. I’ve also had this, what feels to be a life long fictional relationship with multiple artists whose voices ground me & ‘understand’ me; the likes of aretha, Amy, Paul weller, Brittany Howard etc. There’s one page where Jackie Kay describes the presence of these blues women, from how they shimmy to how their tragedy is portrayed in their lyrics and I must have read it 10 times. I was heartbroken to learn about Bessie’s abusive relationships and her difficult dynamic with her family, label and her money. An artist can “convert” your soul as Jackie Kay said, and I couldn’t agree more. This is a tragic story of an unbelievably chaotic blues woman that I plan to buy some records of if I can get my hands on some!

[Gayle Slagle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bessie Smith: A Poet's Biography of a Blues Legend by Jackie Kay is not your usual biography. Combining historical facts about Smith with imagined scenes and ways in which she impacted and influenced the author's life, the book is a hodgepodge of facts, thoughts, and feelings. Kay is a black who was adopted in Scotland by white parents; when her father gives her a record by Smith as a gift for her 12th birthday, she identifies with the singer, who has a huge impact on her life. While I knew some facts about Bessie Smith, this book presented much information that I did not know in an interesting manner. While some may be distracted by Kay's writing style, I loved it for the most part. This book was a pleasure for me to read and I recommend that you give it a try.

[James Wilson · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5*. A tightly-wound and personal tribute to one of the most influential blues singers of the early 20th century. With relevant anecdotes from the authors own life as well as a mixture of both hard facts and speculation, Jackie Kay tells the story of Bessie Smith, from her humble beginnings in Chattanooga, Tennessee to her violent and tragic end. This book has no filler or fat, which I appreciated, offering an easily digestible and arresting insight into Smiths life and character. It’s overall structure is barebones and simplistic, but I think that rather adds to it’s effect. Overall a solid and enjoyable read.

[Johnnie B. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I absolutely LOVE the Alberston version. It is probably my favorite biography ever. I was worried that nothing could top that one. From the description, it seemed like Kay was going to interject a poet's voice to the story. There were a few moments that felt different, very much in her voice, but for the most part, it felt very much like Albertson's book all over again. Fortunately, I loved the version and the subject matter so it still gets high marks but didn't quite deliver on the other front.