Answer:
Bessie Smith was nicknamed the <em>“Empress of the Blues”</em>. She was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee on April 15, 1894 and died in Clarksdale, Mississippi on September 27, 1937.
She recorded her first track in 1923, <em>Downhearted Blues</em>. In September of that year he gave voice to <em>Jailhouse Blues</em>. She recorded with: Louis Armstrong, Sidney Bechet, Benny Goodman. In 1929, she starred in the short film St. Louis Blues. John Coltrane, in 1964, dedicated to her the song Bessie’s Blues.
She became a blues star, and was the most famous and highest paid black singer, earning $ 2,000 a week. She had her own train to travel and had her own show in which more than 40 artists came to perform under her baton.
She died in 1937 in a traffic accident surrounded by mystery and racism: it was reported that she was denied assistance in a Mississippi hospital reserved for white patients and died while being transferred to the nearest hospital for black people.
