"capsule review for ""Me and Bessie"" that read, ""The raw fervor of Linda Hopkins's blues singing is all that matters here, and it's enough. Unfortunately, the show is also burdened with a silly script by Will Holt, which consists mostly of having Miss Hopkins disavow the fact that she's Bessie Smith with all the fervor of a Kennedy disavowing politics."" However, in 2011, Backstage magazine remembered Hopkin's performance as Smith: ""It's been 36 years since I saw her in it at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles, but she's stayed with me as the definitive Bessie Smith, and of"
"to the often difficult experience of black women in the South. These songs were ""filled with emotion and the sad, hard truths about life"". Rainey's raw talent for singing the Blues landed her a record deal in 1923 with Paramount Records. With her success as a performer and businesswoman she is named ""The Mother of Blues."" Bessie Smith started her career in a Minstrel show at the age of 14 as a dancer, under the influence of Ma Rainey she began to sing. Ma Rainey was one of the first successful Black women to emerge from Minstrel shows, but the"
"Bessie Smith, Alberta Hunter, and Ethel Waters were the most popular, each bringing something new and unique to the stage of American music. Ma Rainey, referred to as the ""Mother of the Blues"", became popular in the early 1900s. Rainey was the first popular black female stage entertainer to incorporate authentic blues into her song selection. She is known for the “Jump Blues” which incorporated a racy and theatrical style, whereas Bessie Smith, who was known as the ""empress of the blues” showcased the classic blues. Unfortunately, as the male-dominated country blues grew in popularity, women fell out of the"
"Memphis Minnie Lizzie Douglas (June 3, 1897 – August 6, 1973), known as Memphis Minnie, was a blues guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter whose recording career lasted from the 1920s to the 1950s. She recorded around 200 songs, some of the best known being ""Bumble Bee"", ""Nothing in Rambling"", and ""Me and My Chauffeur Blues"". Douglas was born on June 3, 1897, in Algiers, Louisiana. She was the eldest of 13 siblings. Her parents, Abe and Gertrude Douglas, nicknamed her Kid when she was young, and her family called her that throughout her childhood. It is reported that she disliked the"
"Comedy Album. In 2009, she received critical praise for her role as the abusive Mary Lee Johnston in the film ""Precious"" and won numerous awards, including the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She hosted ""The Mo'Nique Show"", a late-night talk show that premiered in 2009 on BET; it was cancelled in 2011. In 2015, she received rave reviews for her performance as Ma Rainey in the HBO biopic ""Bessie"" and earned a Primetime Emmy Award nomination. Mo'Nique was born on December 11, 1967, in Baltimore, Maryland, the daughter of engineer Alice Imes and drug counselor Steven Imes, Jr. She"
"is a fictionalized account of the recording of her song of the same title in December 1927. Sterling A. Brown wrote a poem, ""Ma Rainey"", in 1932, about how ""When Ma Rainey / comes to town"" people everywhere would hear her sing. Academy Award winner Mo'Nique played Rainey in the 2015 film ""Bessie"". This sortable table presents all 94 titles recorded by Rainey. Ma Rainey ""Ma"" Rainey (born Gertrude Pridgett, September 1882 or April 26, 1886 – December 22, 1939) was one of the earliest African-American professional blues singers and one of the first generation of blues singers to record."
"them more believable to white audiences. On the other hand, these parts opened the entertainment industry to African-American performers and gave them their first opportunity to alter those stereotypes. Many famous singers and actors gained their start in black minstrelsy, including W. C. Handy, Ida Cox, Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, Ethel Waters, and Butterbeans and Susie. The Rabbit's Foot Company was a variety troupe, founded in 1900 by an African American, Pat Chappelle, which drew on and developed the minstrel tradition while updating it and helping to develop and spread black musical styles. Besides Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith, later"
"Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey, but she held her audiences spellbound with the fiery spirit of her delivery. At the height of the classic female blues era, competition was stiff, with numerous talented blueswomen performing, and Cox's singing was only part of her act. Nevertheless, as her career developed, she assumed and embodied the title bestowed on her, ""The Uncrowned Queen of the Blues"". Onstage, she exuded a glamorous sophistication and confidence that captivated her fans. She also embellished her stage presence with a stylish wardrobe, which often included a tiara, cape and rhinestone wand. The independent spirit that governed"
"received critically and garnered four Primetime Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Television Movie. Bessie Smith (Queen Latifah) is a young singer from Chattanooga, Tennessee. She and her siblings are orphaned when their parents, William and Laura, die, leaving their oldest sister, Viola (Khandi Alexander), to raise them. Viola is stern and Bessie's childhood is unhappy. She along with her brother Clarence (Tory Kittles) scrape by working for local vaudeville shows. Her stage ambitions are frustrated by producers unwilling to feature dark-skinned black women in their shows. Bessie sneaks onto traveling performer Ma Rainey's (Mo'Nique) train compartment and asks to join her"
"had to adapt to a larger, more varied audience's aesthetic. Classic female urban and vaudeville blues singers were popular in the 1920s, among them ""the big three""—Gertrude ""Ma"" Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Lucille Bogan—and Victoria Spivey. Mamie Smith, more a vaudeville performer than a blues artist, was the first African American to record a blues song in 1920; her second record, ""Crazy Blues"", sold 75,000 copies in its first month. Ma Rainey, the ""Mother of Blues"", and Bessie Smith each ""[sang] around center tones, perhaps in order to project her voice more easily to the back of a room"". Smith"
"professional blues singers was Ma Rainey, who claimed to have coined the term ""blues"". Classic female urban or vaudeville blues singers were popular in the 1920s, among them Mamie Smith, Gertrude Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Victoria Spivey. Mamie Smith, more a vaudeville performer than a blues artist, was the first African- American to record a blues in 1920; her ""Crazy Blues"" sold over 75,000 copies in its first month. The musical forms and styles that are now considered the ""blues"" as well as modern ""country music"" arose in the same regions during the nineteenth century in the southern United"
"the group left the stage, Ma launched into a performance of ""Shether"", while photos of Minaj were displayed on the stage screen behind her. During the performance, she repeatedly directed f-bombs at Minaj. Remy Ma Reminisce Mackie (née Smith; May 30, 1980), known professionally as Remy Ma, is an American rapper. She was initially discovered by Big Pun, and came to prominence for her work as a member of Fat Joe’s group, Terror Squad. In 2006, she released her debut studio album """", which was a modest success, peaking at number 33 on the ""Billboard"" 200 chart. She is one"
"early experience with touring troupes included stints with other African-American travelling minstrel shows on the Theater Owners Booking Association vaudeville circuit: the Florida Orange Blossom Minstrels, the Silas Green Show, and the Rabbit Foot Minstrels. The Rabbit Foot Minstrels, organized by F. S. Wolcott and based after 1918 in Port Gibson, Mississippi, were important not only for the development of Cox's performing career but also for launching the careers of her idols Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith. Known colloquially as the Foots, the troupe provided a nurturing environment in which Cox developed her stage presence, but life on the vaudeville"
"Bessie (film) Bessie is an HBO TV film about legendary American blues singer Bessie Smith, and focuses on her transformation as a struggling young singer into ""The Empress of the Blues"". The film is directed by Dee Rees, with a screenplay by Rees, Christopher Cleveland and Bettina Gilois. Queen Latifah stars as Smith, and supporting roles are played by Michael Kenneth Williams as Smith's first husband Jack Gee, and Mo'Nique as Ma Rainey. The film premiered on May 16, 2015. By the following year ""Bessie"" stood as the most watched HBO original film of all time. The film was well"
"Louis Smith, Johnny Dunn, Marvin Stamm, pianists Lil Hardin Armstrong, Harold Mabern, Phineas Newborn, Jr., Rozelle Claxton, Jimmy Jones, James Williams, alto saxophonists Frank Strozier, Sonny Criss, saxophonists George Coleman, Hank Crawford, Charles Lloyd, Ben Branch, Ben Smith, Garnett Brown, Frank Lowe, Kirk Whalum, drummers Jimmy Crawford and Tony Reedus, and guitarist Abu Talib. In addition, legendary band leader Jimmy Lunceford is closely associated with Memphis due to the influential jazz orchestra he formed in the late 1920s in that city. Legendary blues singer Bessie Smith was born in Chattanooga, and busked its streets with her brother as a young"
"long time before it became a part of the first explosion of recorded popular music in American history. This came in the 1920s, when classic female blues singers like Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith and Mamie Smith grew very popular; the first hit of this field was Mamie Smith's ""Crazy Blues"". These urban blues singers changed the idea of ""popular music"" from being simple songs that could be easily performed by anyone to works primarily associated with an individual singer. Performers like Sophie Tucker, known for ""Some of These Days"", became closely associated with their hits, making their individualized interpretations just"
"North until 1923, when she made her first recordings. She and Bessie Smith brought about a change in the style of the classic blues, as audiences came to prefer their rougher, earthier sound to that of the lighter-voiced, more refined blues singers who had preceded them on record. Rainey recorded over 100 songs, 24 of them her own compositions. According to the jazz historian Dan Morgenstern, “Bessie Smith (and all the others who followed in time) learned their art and craft from Ma, directly or indirectly.” Other classic blues singers who recorded extensively until the end of the 1920s were"
"Cake Walkers"". In 1910, she was described as ""Mrs. Gertrude Rainey, our coon shouter"". She continued with the Rabbit's Foot Company after it was taken over by a new owner, F. S. Wolcott, in 1912. Beginning in 1914, the Raineys were billed as Rainey and Rainey, Assassinators of the Blues. Wintering in New Orleans, she met numerous musicians, including Joe ""King"" Oliver, Louis Armstrong, Sidney Bechet and Pops Foster. As the popularity of blues music increased, she became well known. Around this time, she met Bessie Smith, a young blues singer who was also making a name for herself. A"
"her as ""the woman I got now"" and calls her ""the key to the world."" Minnie was also reported to have lived with a man known as ""Squirrel"" in the mid- to late 1930s. Minnie was not religious and rarely went to church; the only time she was reported to have gone to church was to see a gospel group perform. She was baptised shortly before she died, probably to please her sister Daisy Johnson. A house in Memphis where she once lived, at 1355 Adelaide Street, still exists. Memphis Minnie has been described as ""the most popular female country"
"to the Belmont Theater to listen to Ma Rainey, Ida Cox, and Bessie Smith when they passed through Pensacola, Florida. In 1922, when Ms. Pierce was almost thirteen, Bessie Smith passed through town again. Bessie's pianist, Clarence Williams, suffered a heart attack and Ms. Pierce subbed in to played piano with Bessie Smith for two weeks at the Belmont Theater. At the age of 15, Pierce began playing piano professionally. Some accounts claim she toured with Gertrude ""Ma"" Rainey, however, during this time she was actually accompanying Ida Cox at the Belmont Theater. After her time accompanying Ms. Cox, Billie"
"Sleepy John Estes, Robert Wilkins, Joe McCoy, Casey Bill Weldon and Memphis Minnie used a variety of unusual instruments such as washboard, fiddle, kazoo or mandolin. Memphis Minnie was famous for her virtuoso guitar style. Pianist Memphis Slim began his career in Memphis, but his distinct style was smoother and had some swing elements. Many blues musicians based in Memphis moved to Chicago in the late 1930s or early 1940s and became part of the urban blues movement. City or urban blues styles were more codified and elaborate, as a performer was no longer within their local, immediate community, and"
"reviews. As of 2016, Bessie remained the most watched HBO original movie of all time with 1.34 million viewers and an 18-49 demo rating of 0.4. Bessie (film) Bessie is an HBO TV film about legendary American blues singer Bessie Smith, and focuses on her transformation as a struggling young singer into ""The Empress of the Blues"". The film is directed by Dee Rees, with a screenplay by Rees, Christopher Cleveland and Bettina Gilois. Queen Latifah stars as Smith, and supporting roles are played by Michael Kenneth Williams as Smith's first husband Jack Gee, and Mo'Nique as Ma Rainey. The"
"vocalist. ""Can I Do It for You"" was recorded by Donovan in 1965, under the title ""Hey Gyp (Dig the Slowness)"". A 1929 Memphis Minnie and Kansas Joe McCoy song, ""When the Levee Breaks"", was adapted (with altered lyrics and a different melody) by Led Zeppelin and released in 1971 on their fourth album. ""I'm Sailin'"" was covered by Mazzy Star on their 1990 debut album, ""She Hangs Brightly"". Memphis Minnie Lizzie Douglas (June 3, 1897 – August 6, 1973), known as Memphis Minnie, was a blues guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter whose recording career lasted from the 1920s to the"
"Ma Rainey ""Ma"" Rainey (born Gertrude Pridgett, September 1882 or April 26, 1886 – December 22, 1939) was one of the earliest African-American professional blues singers and one of the first generation of blues singers to record. She was billed as the ""Mother of the Blues"". She began performing as a young teenager and became known as Ma Rainey after her marriage to Will Rainey, in 1904. They toured with the Rabbit Foot Minstrels and later formed their own group, Rainey and Rainey, Assassinators of the Blues. Her first recording was made in 1923. In the next five years, she"
"station in Memphis when station officials persuaded her to sing on the air. That resulted in her performing her composition and being paid for it. As time went on, she wrote other songs and eventually signed with Victor Records, singing her own compositions. In the 1950s, Beasley retired from radio and devoted her efforts to real estate. Beasely died of pneumonia January 7, 1980, in Ardsley, New York. She was 75. Irene Beasley Irene Beasley (January 28, 1904 - January 7, 1980), known as the ""long, tall gal from Dixie,"" was a singer and master of ceremonies best known for"
"Carrie Smith Carrie Louise Smith (August 25, 1925 – May 20, 2012) was an American blues and jazz singer. She was not well known in the United States but had a small following in Europe. Smith was born in Fort Gaines, Georgia. She was a member of a church choir that performed at the 1957 Newport Jazz Festival. She first won notice singing with Big Tiny Little in the early 1970s, but became internationally known in 1974 when she played Bessie Smith (to whom she is of no relation) in Dick Hyman's ""Satchmo Remembered"" at Carnegie Hall. Smith then launched"
"Getaway,"" Minnie won the prize with ""Me and My Chauffeur Blues"" and ""Looking the World Over"". Paul and Beth Garon, in their biography ""Woman with Guitar: Memphis Minnie's Blues"", suggested that Broonzy's account may have combined various contests at different dates, as these songs of Minnie's date from the 1940s rather than the 1930s. By 1935 Minnie was established in Chicago and had become one of a group of musicians who worked regularly for the record producer and talent scout Lester Melrose. Back on her own after her divorce from McCoy, Minnie began to experiment with different styles and sounds."
"story later developed that Rainey kidnapped Smith, forced her to join the Rabbit's Foot Minstrels, and taught her to sing the blues; the story was disputed by Smith's sister-in-law Maud Smith. From the late 1910s, there was an increasing demand for recordings by black musicians. In 1920, Mamie Smith was the first black woman to be recorded. In 1923, Rainey was discovered by Paramount Records producer J. Mayo Williams. She signed a recording contract with Paramount, and in December she made her first eight recordings in Chicago, including ""Bad Luck Blues"", ""Bo-Weevil Blues"" and ""Moonshine Blues"". She made more than"
"slapstick role played by a large man in motley clothing and large, flapping shoes. The humor she invoked often turned on the male characters' desire for a woman whom the audience would perceive as unattractive.[106] Over time, the presence of black women in these shows ushered in a new platform to showcase their talent and tell their own stories of struggle, success, relationships, and womanhood. Women, such as Ma Rainey, who got her start singing and performing as the ""coon shouter"" with the Rabbit Foot Minstrels is recognized as one of the innovators of the ""Blues"" sound. Rainey's songs spoke"
"her last years in the Jell Nursing Home, in Memphis, where she died of a stroke in 1973. She is buried at the New Hope Baptist Church Cemetery, in Walls, DeSoto County, Mississippi. A headstone paid for by Bonnie Raitt was erected by the Mount Zion Memorial Fund on October 13, 1996, with 34 family members in attendance, including her sister Daisy. The ceremony was taped for broadcast by the BBC. Her headstone is inscribed: The inscription on the back of her gravestone reads: The hundreds of sides Minnie recorded are the perfect material to teach us about the blues."
"and his lovely wife Minnie. Minnie (film) Minnie is a 1922 American silent comedy film starring Leatrice Joy and co-directed by Marshall Neilan and Frank Urson. Neilan also wrote and produced the film which was released by Associated First National Pictures (later First National Pictures). It is not known whether the film currently survives, which suggests that it is a lost film. As described in a film publication, Minnie (Joy), the homeliest girl in town, is devoted to her father (Barnum), a discouraged inventor who has been working on a wireless device. Subject to the sneers of her neighbors, Minnie"
"Both forms provide a different take on the lived experiences of young Black lesbian women in a way that gives the characters depth and power. Both stories of identity, they are not only diversifying the characters audiences enjoy in media, but also providing an authentic expression of these lives. In 2015, Rees' film ""Bessie"" premiered on HBO, starring Queen Latifah as the iconic singer Bessie Smith. The film was well received by critics. It also won four Primetime Emmy Awards, including the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Television Movie. Rees was nominated for Outstanding Directing for a Miniseries, Movie or"
"Irene Ryan Irene Ryan (born Jessie Irene Noblitt; October 17, 1902 – April 26, 1973) was an American actress who found success in vaudeville, radio, film, television, and Broadway. Ryan is most widely known for her portrayal of Daisy May ""Granny"" Moses, the mother-in-law of Buddy Ebsen's character, on the long-running TV series ""The Beverly Hillbillies"" (1962–1971), for which she was nominated for Emmy Awards for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series in 1963 and 1964. Ryan was born Jessie Irene Noblitt on October 17, 1902, in El Paso, Texas. She was the second child and last daughter born"