Track Listing

Disc 1:

1. Aggravatin' Papa
2. Baby Won't You Please Come Home
3. 'Tain't Nobody's Bizness If I Do
4. Jail-House Blues
5. Graveyard Dream Blues
6. Ticket Agent, Ease Your Window Down
7. Boweavil Blues
8. Weeping Willow Blues
9. Dying Gambler's Blues
10. St. Louis Blues
11. You've Been a Good Ole Wagon
12. Cake Walkin' Babies (From Home)
13. Careless Love Blues
14. I Ain't Goin' to Play Second Fiddle
15. At the Christmas Ball
16. Jazzbo Brown from Memphis Town
17. Backwater Blues
18. After You've Gone

Disc 2:

1. Alexander's Ragtime Band
2. There'll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight
3. Trombone Cholly
4. Send Me to the 'Lectric Chair
5. Good Man Is Hard to Find
6. Dyin' by the Hour
7. Me and My Gin
8. Kitchen Man
9. Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out
10. On Revival Day (A Rhythmic Spiritual)
11. Moan, You Moaners
12. Black Mountain Blues
13. Shipwreck Blues
14. Need a Little Sugar in My Bowl
15. Do Your Duty
16. Gimme a Pigfoot (And a Bottle of Beer)
17. Take Me for a Buggy Ride
18. Down in the Dumps

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #19948 in Music
• Brand: Sony
• Released on: 1997-09-23
• Number of discs: 2
• Dimensions: .39 pounds

Amazon.com essential recording
Bessie Smith was crowned the Empress of the Blues, and, while this moniker was well deserved, she was much more. A prolific recording artist, Smith was quite an eclectic performer. In fact, she may have been one of the first true crossover artists. This neat two-disc set gives the listener a good sampling of her wide repertoire. Smith is backed up by some of the best jazz musicians of her era. Her rendition of "St Louis Blues" for example, features the horn work of a young Louis Armstrong. Smith was not above doing such suggestive material as "Kitchen Man" or "Need a Little Sugar in My Bowl" and could breath new life into a pop chestnut like "Alexander's Ragtime Band." And when Smith sang "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out," she knew what she was talking about. The title of this album says it all. --Lars Gandil

Customer Reviews

Some essential songs are missing!
Whoever decided to make this compilation, for some reason has left some of the most important Bessie Smith songs out!How can this be essential without her first hit "Downhearted blues" and such a gems as "Empty Bed Blues" or "My Sweetie Went Away"? Sound strange, but single CD titled "Colection" offers much better overview of her career than this double, 36 track collection! If you still want to purchase this, what remained in this CD are beautiful and moving songs recorded between 1923 and 1933, all of them glowing with Bessie Smith passion.The liner notes are written by her biographer Chris Albertson who find interesting comparation between her and todays rappers (mentality, not music wise!).To understand her art, its neccesary to listen great Ma Rainey who started singing the blues first and even teach young Bessie some tricks.While Ma Rainey style was more country blues (she had a raugh voice, highly emotional but not pretty as Bessie), Bessie was more concentrated on city audience and if death didnt stop her in a car crash, she would probably continued to work in swing era.Her passion is very similar to one of Mahalia Jackson and Im sure that Im not the only one who feels that blues and gospel are very close not only in music but in emotional involment as well - to feel both types of music listener has to feel something inside.There are two great albums recorded as tribute to Bessie Smith, by Dinah Washington and LaVern Baker, both highly reccomended - I heard them first and then wanted to hear the originals, but you may try the other way around!

essential
The title says it all. If you have only one Bessie Smith cd in your collection ( and we all need AT LEAST one - she is THAT influential, THAT soulful, THAT powerful a performer ) then this is it. It covers all sorts of songs, from interpretations of standards , to racy ( for their time ) innuendo-filled blues numbers, to love songs. A warning - these songs were recorded in the twenties and thirties, and all have that far-away, tinny sound to them, as if Smith were singing down a cardboard tube directly onto record. Even though the sound is admittedly dated, the power of the performances is undeniable.

The Empress Lives On!!!!!
I was watching tv one late night and stumbled across the short 1929 Movie St. Louis Blues starring Bessie Smith now im a 24 year old guy who is into all the lastest music but this lady sung a song called st. Louis Blues and i was watching the screen going who is this she her voice full of passion and pain and then i found how she died in a tragic car accident i was hurt bessie smith was she was really doing the da%mn back in the 1920's so if you wanna know where the r&b of today got its drama filled lyrics check out the empress of the blues she will not leave you disapointed