page_title: Bessie Smith
section_title: Early life
hierarchical_section_title: Bessie Smith / Early life
caption_attribution_description: Portrait of Bessie Smith
context_page_description: Bessie Smith was an American blues singer. She was sometimes called "The Empress of the Blues" and was very popular in the 1920s and 1930s. A lot of people think that she was one of the best singers of her time, and along with Louis Armstrong, she was an important influence on later jazz singers.
context_section_description: In the 1900 American census, Bessie Smith's mother, Laura Smith, said that Bessie was born in Chachanooga, Tennessee in July 1892. In the census  in 1910, her sister, Viola Smith said that Bessie's birthday was April 15, 1894. That is the date that is on all later documents, and was the one that Smith used.
  She was the daughter of Laura and William Smith. William Smith was a laborer and part-time Baptist preacher who died before his daughter was old enough to remember him. By the time she was nine, her mother had died as well, and her older sister Viola had to look after for her sisters and brothers.
  To earn money for their poor family, Smith and her brother Andrew began Busking (performing) on the streets of Chattanooga as a duo. She sang and danced, and he accompanied her on guitar. They liked to perform in front of the White Elephant Saloon in the middle of Chattanooga's African-American community.
  In 1904, Smith's oldest brother, Clarence, ran away from home and joined small traveling troupe owned by Moses Stokes. "If Bessie had been old enough, she would have gone with him," said Clarence's widow, Maud. "That's why he left without telling her, but Clarence told me she was ready, even then. Of course, she was only a child."
  In 1912, Clarence came back to Chattanooga, with the Stokes troupe and helped Smith get an audition. She got a job as a dancer, not a singer, because the company already had a singer called Ma Rainey.
  By the early 1920s, Smith starred a musical called How Come? with Sidney Bechet. The musical went to Broadway. Smith had an argument with the producer of How Come? and she was replaced by Alberta Hunter. Smith went back to Philadelphia, where she now lived. She met and fell in love with a security guard called Jack Gee. They got married on June 7, 1923. At this time, Smith made her first song recordings with Columbia Records. Her marriage was difficult and both of them had affairs.
  Smith became the biggest headliner on the black Theater Owners Booking Association circuit. She ran a show that sometimes had as many as 40 people and made her the highest-paid black entertainer of her day. Gee liked the money she was earning, but did not like her show business life. In particular, he did like the fact that Smith was bisexual. In 1929, Smith found out that Gee was having an affair with another performer called Gertrude Saunders. Smith separated from Gee but they never got divorced. Smith went to live with a man called Richard Morgan, as is they were husband and wife. He was an old friend and the uncle of a jazz musician called Lionel Hampton. Smith and Morgan stayed together for the rest of her life.
caption: Portrait of Bessie Smith after her crash
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