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There’s a reason Bessie Smith was known as the Empress of the Blues. Her heartfelt songs and gritty glamour introduced the sounds of African American music to large audiences in the 1920s and 30s. She ...

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 ...

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 ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich – Ann Arbor's Theatre Nova has announced an extension of its smash hit "The Devil's Music: The Life and Blues of Bessie Smith" by Angelo Parra. The show was slated to run through April ...

This broadcast opens with a celebration of the music of Bessie Smith, the Empress of the Blues, in honor of her birthday, with new releases from saxophonist Melissa Aldana, vocalists Emma Larsson, ...

Janelle Monae recently honored the legacy of blues icon Bessie Smith, performing a high-energy set at Manhattan’s packed Stephan Weiss Studios to kick off HBO’s “Bessie’s 81 Theater Tour.” The ...

Miche Braden has been channeling Bessie Smith for over a decade. Now she's bringing her show, The Devil's Music: The Life and Blues of Bessie Smith, to the St. Luke's Theater Off Broadway, set to open ...

NEW YORK (AP) — "There's some that calls the blues the devil's music. Well, honey, I done danced to the devil's music. So, I gotta give the devil his due." So says blues icon Bessie Smith, to whom the ...

Like a perfectly timed high note in a torch song, Bessie doesn't tiptoe into queerness as filmmaker Dee Rees gives us a love letter to Black, bisexual brilliance. After all, when history forgets our ...

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 ...