BILL HALEY & HIS COMETS: (Singing) We're gonna rock around the clock tonight. We're gonna rock, rock, rock till broad daylight. SHAPIRO: Or does rock 'n' roll owe a debt to lesser-known musical ...

On this day, 100 years ago, Columbia Records held a recording session with a singer named Bessie Smith. The country at large didn't know her then, but soon found out because she was launching a career ...

The hangings parted and a great brown woman emerged—she was the size of Fay Templeton in her Weber & Fields days, and she was even garbed similarly, in a rose satin dress, spangled with sequins, which ...

Miche Braden stars as Bessie Smith, the legendary “Empress of the Blues,” who blazed the trail for a century of performers from Aretha Franklin to Adele. Mixing classics like “Need a Little Sugar In ...

Long before superstardom existed, Bessie Smith showed the world what it meant to be a legend. Born into poverty, she turned her pain into art and her art into power. Her songs defined the blues, her ...

Bessie Smith, Empress of the Blues, was the first African American superstar, an artist that mingled regal dignity with sensuality. We’ll sample her recorded legacy, talk with critics and hear ...

Jazzanooga is celebrating National Jazz Appreciation Month (JAM) with a tribute to a jazz icon each week in April during its JAM Fest. Coincidentally, the late, great Bessie Smith's birthday is also ...

The four-time Emmy-award winning HBO film Bessie, directed by Dee Rees, depicts the life and times of songstress Bessie Smith, a.k.a., the Empress of the Blues. Starring Queen Latifah as the openly ...

The fact that we ever got to hear any of the classic blues singers at all is a total historical accident. Mamie Smith was the first to record a blues song, “Crazy Blues.” The Okeh Record Company were ...

A local historical society believes America is a nation filled with music as diverse as its people, influenced by cultures from around the world. That’s why a program called “From Bessie Smith to ...