CHAPTER 11 | THE BLUES 261
of blues on records, it is often called classic blues. All the well-known clas-
sic blues singers were women: Mamie Smith, Gertrude “Ma” Rainey, Bessie
Smith, Ethel Waters, Alberta Hunter, and many others. They recorded a vari-
ety of material, including Tin Pan Alley pop songs, but most of their songs are
twelve-bar blues.
Perhaps the greatest of the classic blues singers was Bessie Smith, nicknamed
“Empress of the Blues.” Born in Tennessee in 1894, at age seventeen she became a
dancer for a vaudeville troupe that featured Ma Rainey. By the early 1920s Smith
had begun performing as a singer. In 1923 she made her fi rst record for Columbia,
“Downhearted Blues.” Within six months it sold 780,000 copies. For the next
decade she recorded prolifi cally and performed widely, although the popularity
of classic blues singers declined after 1929.
Smith’s 1925 recording of Handy’s “St. Louis Blues” (LG 11.1) showcases her
rough, expressive voice. She emphasizes key words with swooping glides, heav y
vibrato, and subtle shadings of pitch, especially on the blue notes. Accompany-
ing her are two instrumentalists: Fred Longshaw, not at his customary piano but
at the harmonium, a reed organ that sounds out of place in a blues context, and
Louis Armstrong, a New Orleans–born cornetist who was soon to have a major
impact on his own. Smith and Armstrong interact in a call-and-response texture,
with Smith singing in the fi rst half of each four-bar phrase and Armstrong impro-
vising fanciful “licks” (fl ourishes) in the second half. The wheezy harmonium
robs the recording of some of the rhythmic verve characteristic of other classic
blues records, but Smith’s heartfelt vocal and Armstrong’s imaginative fi lls more
than compensate.
The relationship of this performance to Handy’s composition reveals key
aspects of the blues aesthetic. Smith alters Handy’s lyrics and often fl attens outLG 11.1K Gertrude “Ma” Rainey
(1886–1939) was a Georgia
native and one of the fi rst
classic blues singers. The
Georgia Jazz Band, with
which she is pictured here,
includes pianist Thomas A.
Dorsey, later a leader in the
fi eld of gospel music (see
chapter 14).172028_11_254-279_r3_ko.indd 261 23/01/13 8:42 PM