A BBC RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK
BESSIE SMITH: SINGER, ICON, PIONEER.
SCOTLAND'S NATIONAL POET JACKIE KAY BRINGS TO LIFE THE TEMPESTUOUS
STORY OF THE GREATEST BLUES SINGER WHO EVER LIVED.
'A gem of a book . . . beautiful.' BERNARDINE EVARISTO
'A wonderful writer on a magnificent singer.' ROBERT WYATT
'Kay's book is the amplifier that Smith's voice deserves.' _SUNDAY
TIMES_
'The most vivid evocation of Bessie Smith I have ever read.' IAN CARR,
_BBC MUSIC_
BESSIE SMITH was born in Tennessee in 1894. Orphaned by the age of
nine, she sang on street corners before becoming a big name in
travelling shows. In 1923 she made her first recording for a new
start-up called Columbia Records. It sold 780,000 copies and made her
a star. Smith's life was notoriously difficult: she drank pints of
'bathtub gin', got into violent fist fights, spent huge sums of money
and had passionate love affairs with men and women. She once
single-handedly fought off a cohort of the Ku Klux Klan.
As a young black girl growing up in Glasgow, Jackie Kay found in
Bessie someone with whom she could identify and who she could idolise.
In this remarkable book Kay mixes biography, fiction, poetry and prose
to create an enthralling account of an extraordinary life.
'Biographies don't usually bring the subject to life again. This one
did. I finished the book then started it again immediately.'
PEGGY SEEGER
'What a life! What gulpable storytelling! Exactly the kind of writing
about music we need: personal, ardent, playfully confrontational,
questioning, undogmatic. A love song to a complicated idol.'
KATE MOLLESON
'Pure joy: one trailblazing woman pays tribute to another. Jackie Kay
finds the music in the short, dazzling, capricious life of Bessie
Smith.'
HELEN LEWIS
Les mer
Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9780571362936
Publisert
2021
Utgiver
Vendor
Faber & Faber
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Forfatter