From The Tent Show To The Parlor: Bessie Smith's Travels In Her Time

It was a hot show that night, in that big tent out in the muddy field. Everybody had fun, though most people were tired; it was the end of a long T.O.B.A. circuit tour for the acts and of a long day of work for the people who had come to see them. But when the time came for the last act, everyone, including the other performers, was ready to hear Bessie, to turn that sweaty tent into the church of the blues. Everyone hollered as Bessie strutted onto the stage, dressed big, feathery and bright, and they didn't stop until she started singing.

Bessie's voice was elemental, a force set free from deep inside the world. It was a voice strong enough to hold all the blood, sweat and tears they'd shed for generations. Together, there in the muddy field, they reclaimed those blood, sweat and tears to the songs of their ownselves, for a time setting the frequency of a freedom independent of whatever the white folks got up to. "Everybody gets the blues," blues singers would later tell customers who bought their records, came to their shows or picked up guitars to sound like them. But anyone in the tent that night, or at a theater in the city to catch Bessie close a show, or at a rent party gathered around the record player to hear Bessie sing, knew this was a lie.