In Bessie Smith, born in 1894 and raised in the slums of Chattanooga, Tennessee, black women everywhere found a formidable voice. Her life-long defiance of the white world found expression both in her extraordinary stage prescence and in her uninhibited behaviour off-stage: the crudity of her language, her unpredictable and often violent temper and her bouts of heavy drinking.
Used availability for Elaine Feinstein's Bessie Smith