Sony Music The Complete Columbia Recordings

This 10 CD box set features the Complete Columbia Recordings by the legendary blues singer, Bessie Smith (1894-1937). Known as ‘The Empress of the Blues’, Bessie Smith was the most popular female blues singer of the 1920s and 1930s. She is hailed as one of the greatest singers of her era and remains a huge influence on jazz vocalists including artists as diverse as Billie Holiday, Janis Jopin and Dory Previn. A protégé of Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith was signed to Columbia in 1923 as part of their hunt for female blues singers. Success on the concert platform and on disc ensued and Smith became the highest paid black entertainer of her time. She worked with the finest musicians of the day, including Louis Armstrong, Coleman Hawkins and Fletcher Henderson. A combination of America’s economic ‘Great Depression,’ together with the advent of the ‘talkies’ that effectively put paid to vaudeville artists, curtailed her career but she never stopped performing and appeared in two movies including St Louis Blues. Later recordings for Okeh show her progression into swing. Tracks include her famous versions of "Down Hearted Blues", "Baby Won’t You Please Come Home", "St Louis Blues" and "Gimme A Pigfoot and A Bottle of Beer". This box set is part of a series heralding the giants of jazz. Other titles in the series feature Louis Armstrong, Charles Mingus & Duke Ellington.