Downhearted Blues - Bessie Smith
Pinchback Blues - Bessie Smith
Poor Man's Blues - Bessie Smith
Lyrics zu Downhearted Blues
https://play.google.com/music/preview/Tqzjosy4ldzwqknvm4uuyis65pe?play=1
Lyrics zu Pinchback Blues
http://www.songlyrics.com/bessie-smith/pinchbacks-take-em-away-lyrics/
Lyrics zu Poor Man's Blues
https://play.google.com/music/preview/Thvl3qv6dkdg6muz2ckfn466pdy?play=1
“By singing about black lives with care and conviction, Smith and her sister classic blues women Ma Rainey, Alberta Hunter and Sippie Wallace advanced the revolutionary idea that black lives mattered — and specifically, that black women's lives mattered.” (Quelle: https://www.npr.org/2019/08/05/747738120/how-bessie-smith-influenced-a-century-of-popular-music?t=1586286362832, gelesen am 07.04.2020)
"To hear Smith's genius and to begin to understand the power of the blues, we need to slow down and adjust to her tempo so we can appreciate the care and skill with which she makes her vocal choices. Working within the framework of the blues, she varies her inflection and phrasing to convey an idea or a feeling. She stretches a note to emphasize a word, sings with varying degrees of roughness, or hits a high note at an unexpected moment to make us pay attention to her point. She stresses certain words while cutting others short; she deviates from the expected melody, offering an element of surprise. Smith teases meaning out of her lyrics, even the pedestrian ones, imbuing them with significance and using them to express her own unique personality and attitude. The individuality of her voice, the content of her lyrics and her style of delivery communicate a new type of womanhood, a modern form of femininity. By turns Smith sounds confident, assertive, vulnerable, self-possessed, independent and complex. The appeal of this persona and the vocal approaches that created it were powerful. Smith's artistry, communicative power and public appeal anticipate that of Beyoncé, a singer whose capacity to articulate the longings, frustrations and passions of African American women with tremendous vocal dexterity and onstage polish are a latter-day manifestation of the Empress of the Blues." (Quelle: https://www.npr.org/2019/08/05/747738120/how-bessie-smith-influenced-a-century-of-popular-music?t=1586286362832, gelesen am 07.04.2020)
