Using biography, fiction, poetry and prose, Scottish poet, playwright, and novelist Jackie Kay has published a book on the life of blues singer Bessie Smith. The singer was tragically killed in 1937 in a traffic accident, she was just 43.
‘A wonderful writer on a wonderful singer.’ Robert Wyatt
Her childhood was surrounded by poverty and death, she lost her parents and was raised by her elder sister and was unable to gain an education. To raise money, she and her brother busked on the streets of Chattanooga, Tennessee. Her brother left to join a travelling show, but returning years later, he got Bessie an audition and she was taken on as a dancer in the troupe whose lead singer was Ma Rainey.
Smith would later form her own act in 1913 before making her first recording in 1923 for a new start-up called Columbia Records which sold 780,000 copies and made her a star. Her life was certainly eventful: ‘Smith’s life was notoriously difficult: she drank pints of ‘bathtub gin’, got into violent fist fights, spent huge sums of money and had passionate love affairs with men and women. She once single-handedly fought off a cohort of the Ku Klux Klan.’
In November 1929, she made her only film appearance in St Louis Blues which was shot in Astoria, Queens, Smith sang the title song accompanied by members of Fletcher Henderson’s orchestra, the Hall Johnson Choir:
As a young black girl growing up in Glasgow, Jackie Kay found in Bessie someone with whom she could identify and who she could idolise. In this remarkable book Kay mixes biography, fiction, poetry and prose to create an enthralling account of an extraordinary life.
Starting from Monday, 22 February, an abridged version of the book will feature on BBC Radio 4 as Book of the Week.