Track Listing

Disc 1:

1. Downhearted Blues
2. Gulf Coast Blues
3. Aggravatin' Papa
4. Beale Street Mama
5. Baby Won't You Please Come Home
6. Oh Daddy Blues
7. `Tain't Nobody's Business If I Do
8. Keeps On Rainin'
9. Mama's Got The Blues
10. Outside Of That
11. Bleeding Hearted Blues
12. Lady Luck Blues: 3
13. Yodelin' Blues: 3
14. Midnight Blues: 3
15. If You Don't I Know Who Will
16. Nobody In Town Can Bake A Sweet Jelly Roll Like Mine
17. Jail House Blues
18. St Louis Gal: 3
19. Sam Jones Blues
20. Graveyard Dream Blues
21. Cemetery Blues
22. Far Away Blues
23. I'm Going Back To My Used To Be

Disc 2:

1. Whoa Tillie Take Your Time
2. My Sweetie Went Away
3. Any Woman's Blues
4. Chicago Bound Blues
5. Mistreatin' Daddy
6. Frosty Mornin' Blues: 4
7. Haunted House Blues
8. Eavesdroppers Blues
9. Easy Come Easy Go Blues
10. Pinchbacks - Take `Em Away
11. Rockin' Chair Blues
12. Ticket Agent Ease Your Window Down
13. Bo Weavil Blues
14. Hateful Blues
15. Frankie Blues
16. Moonshine Blues
17. Louisiana Low Down Blues
18. Mountain Top Blues
19. Work House Blues
20. House Rent Blues
21. Salt Water Blues
22. Rainy Weather Blues

Disc 3:

1. Weeping Willow Blues
2. The Bye Bye Blues
3. Sing Sing Prison Blues
4. Follow The Deal On Down
5. Sinful Blues
6. Woman's Trouble Blues
7. Love Me Daddy Blues
8. Dyin' Gambler Blues
9. The St Louis Blues
10. Reckless Blues
11. Sobbin' Hearted Blues
12. Cold In Hand Blues
13. You've Been A Good Old Wagon
14. Cake Walkin' Babies From Home
15. The Yellow Dog Blues: 1
16. Soft Pedal: 1
17. Dixie Flyer Blues
18. Nashville Women's Blues: 2
19. Careless Love: 1
20. J. C. Holmes Blues
21. I Ain't Going To Play Second Fiddle
22. He's Gone Blues

Disc 4:

1. Nobody's Blues But Mine
2. I Ain't Got Nobody
3. My Man Blues
4. New Gulf Coast Blues
5. Florida Bound Blues
6. At The Christmas Ball
7. I've Been Mistreated And I Don't Like It
8. Red Mountain Blues
9. Golden Rule Blues
10. Lonesome Desert Blues
11. Squeeze Me
12. Them Has Been Blues
13. Squeeze Me
14. What's The Matter Now?
15. I Want Every Bit
16. Jazzbo Brown From Memphis Town
17. The Gin House Blues
18. Money Blues
19. Baby Doll
20. Hard Drivin' Papa
21. Lost Your Head Blues
22. Hard Time Blues 23.Hon

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #45114 in Music
• Released on: 2007-03-13
• Number of discs: 4
• Formats: Box set, Original recording remastered

Album Description
Bessie Smith was not the first to record a blues - indeed her early career was not even as a blues singer - yet she stands astride the genre like a colossus. As well as her fame as an entertainer, she was a formidable human being. She simply refused to recognise opposition - incredibly, one night in 1927, she faced down the feared Ku Klux Klan. She was born poor in 1894, in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Both parents died while Bessie was still young and she was raised by her older sister, Viola. To augment Viola's meagre earnings as a laundress, Bessie and her older brother Clarence took to the streets as entertainers. In time, Bessie obtained regular work as a dancer and chorus girl. By 1921, when she was living in Philadelphia, Bessie was a star. She had several unsuccessful tests for recording companies. In February 1923, after she'd moved to New York, Columbia gave her a chance. Her first cuts, made on February 15th, are lost. However, the next day she recorded Gulf Coast Blues and Down Hearted Blues with piano backing by Clarence Williams, who had written the former.This combination was released as Bessie's first disc. It sold 750,000. All her skills are on display. Initially, Gulf Coast was the A-side, but it was the honesty and clarity of Down Hearted that people flocked to buy. Soon after her recording debut, Bessie and new husband, Jack Gee, discovered that she was signed not to Columbia, but to Clarence Williams, who was appropriating half Bessie's recording fee. The angry pair confronted Williams, who released Bessie from her contract. With Williams temporarily out of favour, a new piano accompanist was needed. Fletcher Henderson stepped in. He's featured on ten sides here and shows himself to be as self-effacing, if a little subtler, than Williams. By the end of June, with a decent supply of material in the can, Walker released Bessie for a Southern tour. Her hit record had preceded her and the shows were sell-outs. During this tour, Bessie also discovered the emerging power of radio. Most shows were then transmitted `live' so, while earning a fee for performing, she promoted her records. The final two cuts on CD:A feature Bessie duetting with fellow blues singer Clara Smith. Bessie generally kept other blueswomen at bay, but Clara was an exception. Her voice here is plaintive and flexible, but Bessie dominates. Having mainly confined her to piano accompaniment, Columbia now began adding extra instruments. The first two tracks on CD:B, have the singer in the company of a decent clarinettist and pianist. Presumably Fletcher Henderson was needed elsewhere because he was back the next day. From Bessie's January 1924 sides, Frosty Mornin' Blues is surely a gem - its more traditional blues instrumentation, with Harry Reser on guitar, draws a performance of feeling from Bessie - once she and Reser accommodate to to the slow rhythm. Reser returned to help Bessie deliver an ironic interpretation of Easy Come Easy Go Blues. After this session, it was back to live work in Nashville. She was popular with both white and black audiences in the south, although they were, of course, segregated. Other black performers seem to have modified their acts for whites, cleaning them up if necessary. Not Bessie. She was in the vanguard of a generation of black performers which wouldn't conform to the `yassuh' stereotype.

Customer Reviews

Essential Recordings Given New Life in Wonderfully Re-mastered Set
JSP records has long been known for its meticulously re-mastered reissues of vintage blues, jazz, country, and popular recordings. These "78s" were made before the introduction of magnetic recording tape around 1948, which ushered in the age of "High Fidelity". The earliest recordings were entirely "acoustic," with the performers playing or singing into a large bell whose acoustic vibrations were cut by an attached stylus into wax or metal "masters." The introduction around 1925 of "electronic recording" using microphones improved the sound of records considerably, but the acoustic vibrations picked up by the mics were still "cut" directly onto master discs which were pressed into retail copies, and much of the richness and detail of the sound was lost.

Until his death in 2004, JSP regularly used the services of John R.T. Davies to restore the sound of its collections of reissued music originally recorded on "78's." Davies was regarded by many as the best sound restoration engineer of his generation. "Bessie Smith -- Queen of the Blues Volume 1," presented in a very affordable 4 -- disc box set, continues to uphold the standard set by John Davies. The sound quality of these CDs, which cover Bessie's entire catalog for Columbia records from 1923 until 1925, easily surpasses the Columbia's own sets, which were first issued in the early 1990s. Although the written notes are thin and there is no booklet of info about the music which is typically included in box sets, for pure sound you cannot do better than the JSP Bessie Smith. I have both the Columbia and the JSP sets, and listening to these new JSP boxes is like hearing these records for the first time.

As most readers will know, Bessie Smith was unquestionably the greatest blues singer of her day, and is arguably the greatest of all-time. When artists as diverse as Billie holiday, Mahalia Jackson, and Janis Joplin (who before her own death helped pay for a headstone for Bessie's grave) cite Smith as inspiring their own remarkable careers, you know that this is a voice that deserves to be listened to closely and often. These are legendary recordings from a masterful singer.

Bessie Smith's voice has always commanded attention. It is deep, strong, and above all heartfelt. But the JSP boxes for the first time clearly reveal the nuance, shading, and superb phrasing that were often obscured in previous reissues. Perhaps just as important, these new sets bring to life the contributions of the many famous jazz and blues musicians who accompanied Bessie throughout her career. For the first time we hear the full range of sound produced by such outstanding artists as pianist James P. Johnson, trumpeter Louis Armstrong, clarinetist Buster Bailey, and trombonist Charlie Green, to name but a few. It is not the sound of digital or analog tape recordings, but it is probably the best that we will have for many years.

The price is unbeatable. For under $30 you can have the best available set of the all the records Smith made between 1923 and 1925. A second box set covering the balance of her career has just been released, and is also highly recommended. Jazz and blues enthusiasts, and music lovers generally, have cause for celebration with the issuance of these box sets by JSP. They are essential and loving presentations of a woman who, over 60 years after her death, continues to teach us about the "soul" that is the foundation of all great music.

Carmel's opinion
Excellent sound quality of the earlier recordings of the most important of all blues singers.

BESSIE SMITH-QUEEN OF THE BLUES. VOL 1.
AMAZON IS ONE OF VERY FEW OUTLETS THAT SELL CD'S ETC.FROM SOME OF THE OLD
BUT NOT FAMOUS ARTISTS, THAT MADE MUSIC WHAT IT IS TODAY. THIS ARTIST WAS AS THE TITLE IMPLIES, A BLUES SINGER FROM THE 1920'S WHO UNFORTUNATELY DIED VERY YOUNG BY TODAYS STANDARDS,BUT WHO PIONEERED FINE MUSIC. I WAS
ONLY INTRODUCED TO BESSIE BY AN OLD FRIEND RECENTLY, AND I GOT ONTO THE WEB TO FIND OUT ABOUT HER. THIS CD REPRESENTS EVERYTHING GOOD ABOUT 'THE BLUES' AND HAS BEEN REMASTERED PERFECTLY. ON THIS CD ACCOMPANYING BESSIE ARE OTHER ARTISTS INCLUDING LOUIS ARMSTRONG. FOR ANYONE WHO ENJOYS 'THE BLUES' THIS IS A MUST.