Placing an artist within the evolution of blues

Four Women in American Music History

American music history has grown an incredible amount in the last hundred years . Prior to that time , there were very few styles of music that originated in America . However , with the advent of jazz and related styles , American music culture was born . Blues is one of the early styles of music that is truly American , and there are many American artists who sang or performed in that style . In fact , blues is still popular today , although it has changed over time . Blues is an important and

long-term American musical style , which has had many effects on musical culture from the early 1900s through today

Bessie Smith was an early blues singer . She was popular in the 1920s and 30s , and was known as much for her hard-drinking , rough life as much as her music . She sang about what she knew . Bessie was an African American woman who indulged in sex and alcohol , and had a strong temper She never gave up without a fight , either in her music or her life Getting into a fight with Bessie wasn 't something a person wanted to do either , because she was over six feet tall and weighed about two hundred pounds . Bessie had a history of getting into fist fights with people male or female . She also took off after her ex-husband with a gun when she found him cheating on her , after beating up his lover . However Bessie herself was known for sleeping with a number of both men and women (Whitney

Musically , Bessie was not really trained . She could not read music , and relied on other musicians to write her songs down for her . She did write her own lyrics , though . She was a formidable presence on stage able to sing loudly and strongly because of her size , and her tendency to sing in the range that was easiest for her . In writing her music Bessie tended to modify existing melodies , and sometimes create new ones , so that they lay well in her good ' range (Whitney

Here is an example of Bessie 's lyrics , which show her feelings about life plainly : I ain 't no high yella , I 'm a deep killer brown /I ain 't gonna marry , ain 't gonna settle down /I 'm gonna drink good moonshine and rub these browns down /See that long lonesome road , Lawd you know it 's gonna end /and I 'm a good woman and I can get plenty men (Whitney

Bessie was also known as something of a racist . While her fans were both black and white , she was rude to both whites and lighter-skinned blacks . Even at the height of her career , when she had enough money to live as she chose (even as a white person might , in the early 30s , she chose to stay on the streets and to live the life that was familiar to her . Her lyrics here show her thinking on this matter : Mister rich man , rich man , open...