Bessie Smith was an American blues singer widely renowned during the Jazz Age. Nicknamed the “Empress of the Blues”, she was the most popular female blues singer of the 1930s.
Smith began forming her act around 1913, at Atlanta’s “81” Theater. By 1920, she had established a reputation in the South and along the East Coast. At the time, sales of over 100,000 copies of “Crazy Blues”, recorded for Okeh Records by the singer Mamie Smith (no relation), pointed to a new market.
Bessie Smith children: Meet Jack Gee Jr
Jack Gee, Jr. was in a boy’s home in Maryland, away from his mother. In 1932, he was discharged to Jack Gee. Jack Gee, Jr. wrote to Smith, telling her how miserable he was. Smith, accompanied by a sizeable group of male friends, traveled to Gee’s at once to fetch Jack, Jr. and brought her son back to Philadelphia.
Although Smith had high hopes for Jack, Jr. –in particular, she wanted him to be a lawyer–Jack, Jr. had no interest in school or in settling down to regular life. Like his mother, he was apt to disappear for days at a time.
