Bessie Smith was born on April 15, 1894, in Chattanooga, Tennessee, U.S., and had a great time in her career but it ended too soon when she died in a car accident on September 26, 1937 (aged 43), in Clarksdale, Mississippi, U.S.
Bessie Smith was an American blues singer widely renowned during the Jazz Age and was nicknamed the “Empress of the Blues”. She was the most popular female blues singer of the 1930s.
Bessie Smith’s parents: Meet William Smith, Laura Smith
Bessie Smith was born to Laura and William Smith, a laborer and part-time Baptist preacher (he was listed in the 1870 census as a “minister of the gospel”, in Moulton, Lawrence County, Alabama).
According to the singer, her father died while she was too young to remember him. By the time Bessie was nine, her mother and brother had also died. Her older sister Viola took charge of caring for her siblings.
Bessie was unable to go to school because her parents had died and her elder sister was taking care of her.
Due to her parent’s death and her poverty, Bessie experienced a “wretched childhood, and to earn money for their impoverished household, Bessie and her brother Andrew busked on the streets of Chattanooga. She sang and danced as he played the guitar. They often performed on “street corners for pennies, and their habitual location was in front of the White Elephant Saloon at Thirteenth and Elm streets, in the heart of the city’s African-American community.
In 1904, her oldest brother Clarence left home and joined a small traveling troupe owned by Moses Stokes. ”
In 1912, Clarence returned to Chattanooga with the Stokes troupe and arranged an audition for his sister with the troupe managers, Lonnie and Cora Fisher.
Bessie was hired as a dancer rather than a vocalist since the company already included popular singer Ma Rainey.
