Bessie smith gay
The Popularity of Masculine Female Blues Singers
Masculine blues singers enjoyed a great popularity in Bronzeville’s cabarets in the twenties.
Blues singers, such as Gladys Bentley, Alberta Hunter, and 'Ma' Rainey, who were all famous at the conclude of the 1920’s, often performed in Chicago and had recorded numerous sexually explicit songs that included descriptions of homosexual acts.[1]
Gay Blues?
The sissies and "bulldaggers" mentioned in the blues were ridiculed for their cross gender behavior, but neither shunned nor hated. In the famous tune "Boy in the Boat" for example, the author counseled, "When you see two women walking hand in hand, just shake your top and try to understand."
In fact, the casualness toward sexuality, so common in the blues, sometimes extended to lesbian behavior. In "Sissy Man Blues," a traditional tune recorded by numerous male blues singers, the singer demanded, "If you can't take a woman, transport me a sissy man." [2]
The blues reflected a tradition that accepted sexuality, including homosexual deed and identities, as a natural part of life.
Gladys Bentley
Bentley appeared at several gay-friendly clubs in New York and Chicago in the
14 Queer People Of Color From History You Should Definitely Comprehend About
As the most popular blues singer of the 1920s, the "Empress of the Blues" hardly needs any introduction. She went from busking on the streets of Chattanooga, TN, to carrying out at the most famous club venues in the country. She would ultimately become the highest-paid black entertainer of her hour. Three of her original recordings have been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.
Her marriage to Jack Gee was a notoriously volatile relationship, with both partners not being entirely loyal. They would later divorce, due in part to Gee not being able to tolerate Smith's affairs with other women.
The "big three" of 1920s blues — Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, and Lucille Bogan — were all queer women. Bogan became acknowledged for her sexually explicit lyrics (eyes emoji). For example, one of her songs describes living as a B.D. or "bull dyke" with lyrics like:
"Comin' a time, B.D. women, they ain't gonna need no men / They got a head love a sweet angel and they walk just like a instinctive man."
Bessie Smith (ca. 1895–1937) was a blues and jazz singer from the Harlem Renaissance who is remembered at as the Empress of the Blues.
Elizabeth “Bessie” Smith was the youngest child of seven, born to Laura and William Smith in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Her father was a Baptist minister and night laborer and her mother a laundress. In 1900, William Smith died in a work accident and his wife and son Bud passed away in 1906. The six remaining Smith children, including Bessie, were orphaned and left to be raised by an aunt. Living in poverty, Smith began singing as a street artist on Ninth Street, Chattanooga’s center of music and dance, with her guitar-playing brother Andrew. The first published reference of a performance by Smith—when she was only 14 years old—was in the May 8, 1909, issue of the Indianapolis newspaper The Freedman. According to the review of her recital at Atlanta's 81 Theater, Smith captivated her audience through her contralto voice.
Smith refined her vocal approach on the Black vaudeville stage. Her brother Clarence was a comedian and dancer in the Moses Stokes Traveling Show. Bessie was hired onto the circuit but shortly after left to join the Mother of
queer, black & blue: empress bessie smith’s reign
Regardless of your beliefs or affiliations, one cannot defend the fact that the Black church is responsible for building and shaping decades of musical eras, and providing all those eras with icons. Some of the most powerful singers in history lent their voices to the booming pews of Sunday worship before they threw voices across tents, clubs, pubs and eventually, concert halls. One alum of the Black church choirs was Elizabeth “Bessie” Smith, the Gay Empress of the Blues.
Bessie started out as a chorus dancer in a traveling troupe that housed another jazz great, Ma Rainey. Under Rainey’s tutelage, Bessie transitioned from dancer to singer and her talent astounded to the point that she was soon headlining her own shows. Bessie Smith already filled almost any room she sang in as she traveled the state, before settling down in Philadelphia where she was discovered and signed by Columbia Records in the early 1920s. “Downhearted Blues” was her first commercial hit, serving as the introductory chapter to a 165-song, 2 million record-selling career that would have her heralded as the most s