@Blues de Saint-Louis

Bessie Smith – St. Louis Blues, 1925



Bessie Smith avec orchestre (Louis Armstrong – Cornet, Fred Longshaw, Harmonium) – St. Louis Blues, Parlophone CA 1935 (rédition britannique de la Columbia américaine, MX 140241 de 1925)

50 Comments

  1. With Bessie Smith , the blues became a major force in American popular music . On her first test in the studio , in 1922 , she was rejected as too coarse – supposedly because she broke off a take to say , " I gotta spit . " Her first release , " Down Hearted Blues , " recorded in February 1923 , was one of the biggest – selling records of the year , and despite the usually short – lived tastes of the record – buying public , she continued to be one of the major recording artists of the 1920s . She had learned some of her style from Ma Rainey , when she toured with her as a 20 – year – old with The Rabbit's Foot Minstrels , but when she began her recording career , she was in her late 20s and had matured , gaining a range of phrasing and expression that went beyond any of the other classic blues performers . Within a year , she was outselling every other blues artist . the early 1930s , despite the wear on her voice from overuse and too much alcohol , she did a last session – produced by John Hammond – with Benny Goodman and Jack Teagarden . Her career was richly productive , and some of her brooding presence was captured in the short film St. Louis Blues , where , after a raffish plot encumbered with most of the period's racial stereotypes , she is shown performing the song in a bar with the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra accompanying her and the Hall – Johnson choir joining in from the tables around her . It is an unforgettable glimpse of one of popular music's most significant performers . " Nobody Knows You When You're Down And Out " is one of her classic songs , done in the late 1920s when her voice had darkened , and it opens with an eloquent statement of the verse by cornetist Ed Allen , who was working with the Williams studio groups at this time . Her recording has been imitated by hundreds of other singers , but no one has caught the introspection and brooding power of Bessie's performance .

  2. I wonder if listening to this through the radio in 1925 sounded as grainy as this, or is this an artifact of preservation.

  3. As a St Louisan, I can attest to the fact that as of the year 2003 when I left, over half of those buildings on Washington Ave were still standing, but the trolleys are all gone.

  4. Eu adoro o Blues e como musico vou usa-lo como influencia e minhas cançoes para de alguma maneira tornar a vida das crianças de todo o mundo em uma vida melhor para quando forem adultos queiram cantar essas cançoes para outras crianças!❤

  5. 세인트 루이스 블루스
    ㅡ베시 스미스

    저녁 해가 지는 것이 보기 싫어
    저녁 해가 지는 것이 보기 싫어
    그것은 마지막 무대를 끝낸 것 같은 기분이거든.
    내일도 오늘 같겠지.
    난 이제 짐을 챙겨 떠나련다.

    결혼한 세인트루이스 여인은 남자를 앞치마 끈에 묶어 끌고다니는데,
    화장품이나 가발을 사려는 것이 아니지.
    내가 사랑하는 남자는 아무 데도 가려하지 않지.
    나에게는 이주 우울한
    세인트 루이스 블루스가 있고,
    그는 바닷속에 던져진 바위와 같은 마음을 가져서
    내게서 멀리 떠나려 하지 않아.

  6. Powerful performance. Here for the music, not as an assignment. LOL! Thanks for sharing, 240252.

  7. Im here because my kids thought Nirvana sounded like it was 100 years old. I told them I’d play something from a hundred years ago.

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