Them Graveyard Words

VINYL FORMAT. Bessie Smith was the greatest of all prewar blues singers, and perhaps the greatest female blues singer of all time, as these meticulously restored sides from the very apex of her career in 1927 so divinely prove. In her short lifetime (she died in a car accident at age 42), she made close to 200 recordings, teaming up with just about every talented black musician of her day, including Clarence Williams, Charlie Green, Joe Smith, James P. Johnson, Louis Armstrong and Fletcher Henderson, to name just a few. The "Empress of the Blues" fought her way to the top of the recording industry to become the biggest selling and highest paid black recording artist of the roaring twenties. These recordings all made in New York City in 1927 include her best known sides, including "Back Water Blues", "Nobody Knows You When You're Down And Out", and "After You've Gone".