Bessie Smith

Allotting her eight double-columned pages, Friedwald starts off by dividing all "great American female singers" into two groups: jazz singers such as Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald, and pop singers such as Judy Garland, Doris Day and Rosemary Clooney.

Will Friedwald's "Guide to the Great Jazz and Pop Singers," reviewed by Dennis Drabelle Post 2010

Allotting her eight double-columned pages, Friedwald starts off by dividing all "great American female singers" into two groups: jazz singers such as Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald, and pop singers such as Judy Garland, Doris Day and Rosemary Clooney.

Will Friedwald's "Guide to the Great Jazz and Pop Singers," reviewed by Dennis Drabelle Post 2010

There's the lovely idea of "Bessie Smith," written and sung by Robbie and Rick as the plaint of one of Bessie's lovers, who can't figure out if he's lost his heart to the woman herself or the way she sings.

The Basement Tapes 1975

His first book was "Giants of Jazz" (1957), a primer aimed at younger readers unfamiliar with legends such as Bessie Smith and Louis Armstrong.

The Seattle Times 2008

Yet when her album came out, and in subsequent appearances, jazz purists didn't know what to make of Ms. Peyroux: "Dreamland" had several numbers associated with Ms. Holiday and Bessie Smith, as well as signature songs of Patsy Cline ("Walkin' After Midnight") and Edith Piaf ("La Vie en Rose"), but Ms. Peyroux was decidedly not rendering these songs in a "jazzy" way—she wasn't swinging them as, say, Ella Fitzgerald would.

Planning Her Own Holiday Will Friedwald 2011

Backed by an 11-piece band, they traced the blues in songs by Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith, but also snuck in a rendition of "Layla."

The Short List 2011

There were plenty of blues at Nicole Miller's Fall 2011 runway show, but not the kind Bessie Smith used to sing about.

Mary Hall: New York Fashion Week: Nicole Miller's Blue Washed Fall 2011 Collection Mary Hall 2011

Ms. Braden doesn't try to capture the Empress's power and projection, but as with the biography, she gives us the general truth of Bessie Smith, balancing her regulation 12-bar blues ("Downhearted Blues") and numbers in a more general song form ("A Hot Time in the Old Town") with a dark, throaty style all her own.

Making Musical Mischief Will Friedwald 2011

I've always thought that Mr. Dylan was inspired by "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out," a classic Bessie Smith quasi-blues from 1929.

Ranging Far and Wide Will Friedwald 2011

There's an undated playbill (probably from 1936) advertising the dance-comedy team of Buck and Bubbles, headlining a show with W.C. Handy "and his St. Louis Blues Band," blues empress Bessie Smith (in what must have been one of her final New York appearances), and a half-dozen other acts.

No Myth: The Apollo's Power Will Friedwald 2011