Empress Of The Blues Essay

Ella Baker was born in Norfolk, Virginia in 1903. She always had strong opinions, and “followed her own mind”. However, she was influenced by her grandmother growing up, and this contributed to her sense of social justice and racism. Her grandmother, who had once been a slave, told her granddaughter stories of her own years in slavery. Her grandmother had been whipped for refusing to marry

“For Colored Girls” is comprised of seven women who represented a different shade of the rainbow. The colors are brown, red, yellow, white, green, orange and blue. Their costumes and make-up transformed each of them and were symbolic of the color their character embodied. The ensemble acting made all of their roles of equal importance, without one dominating the other. These women together formed a bond through their various adversities, gradually taking them from strangers to acquaintances. From an objective view, the audience is allowed to simply observe the events as they take place (Goodykoontz & Jacobs, 2011, pg. 82) chronologically. Throughout the movie during some of the conflicting and traumatic scenes, one of the women recites a

Finally, Columbia Records’ Frank Walter signed Smith to a recording contract and set her up in a studio on February 15, 1923. Although there is nothing that survives from her very first recording date, the following date she recorded “Gulf Coast Blues” and “Down Hearted Blues”. The record sold more than 750,000 copies that year, making her a blues star. She then married Jack McGee in June 1923.

Around 1903 when my parent's died to survive, my brother, Andrew, and I began to perform a musical act on the streets of Chattanooga. I sang and my brother accompanied me on the guitar, often in front of the White Elephant Saloon. In 1912, when Clarence my older brother returned to Chattanooga, he persuaded the managers of his troupe, Lonnie and Cora Fisher, to give me an audition. Consequently, I was hired as a dancer with the Moses Stokes Company, to perform in a show that included the Mother of the Blues, Ma Rainey. Intriguing rumors surround our meeting—legend has it that Ma Rainey literally kidnapped me, that she and her husband forced me to tour with their show, teaching me in the process how to sing the blues. Some rumors say we had

Out of all the topics for our assigned Research Paper, I decided to write about the forgotten history of African Americans, the systemic oppression we faced and how that in turn affected the way society views black women blues music. There could be many reasons why so many students are never taught the untold history African american culture and how black woman helped shape the blues. All throughout my experience in the education system I can remember very select few times where I was taught about African Americans that did something positive for our community besides Martin Luther King Jr, Harriet Tubman, and the same famous historical scholars that we always repeatedly learn about throughout the school system. I was always taught to have

Perry Bradford had previously written many blues songs, but never had them recorded. Some of those songs included, “Crazy Blues”, “My Sportin’ Man”, and “Harlem Blues”. Bradford was never able to find someone willing enough to record his songs. However, that changed when he met Mamie. Mamie agreed to record his songs, which was a huge moment in her life. In February of 1920, she went to Okeh studios in New York to record a few of the songs. Later that year in August, she, and others went back to the studio, to record “Crazy

     Every summer my family and I go to our house in the cape just north of Boston. One hot summer morning, I was leaving the house to meet my family at the beach, suddenly I remembered my mother asked me to pick up a jar of “Kingfish Herring” for her and her friend to snack on at the beach.

With the peoples’ changing taste in music and Smith’s alcoholic tendencies, it seemed unlikely that her career would ever pick back up, but near the end of the 1930s, her career was on the rise with her recording and performing again. Unfortunately, Smith did not get to enjoy her comeback. On September 26, 1937, she was killed in a car accident. She hit her old Packard with a parked truck near Coahoma, Mississippi, between Clarksdale and Memphis and injured herself so severely that one of her arms was nearly severed off her body. Since there was no record of her exact birth date, it was estimated that she was about 43 years old when she died (History.com Staff “Blues

Bessie smith was another good musician I call her the queen of blues. Bessie Smith was born on April 15, 1894 in Chattanooga, Tennessee. She was one of seven children. Her father, a Baptist minister, died soon after her birth, leaving her mother to raise her and her siblings. Around 1906, her mother and two of her brothers died and Smith and her remaining siblings were raised by their aunt. It was around this time that Smith began to perform as a street singer, accompanied on the guitar by one of her younger brothers. Then soon she started writing more music and was the one of the best in that period of time.The background of blues music. Sometime around 1890, the blues emerged as the distinct African-American art form, rooted in the southern U.S. and drawing on work songs and hollers, folk tradition, black spirituals, and the popular music of the time. Looking back from 1890, one can speculate about the African influence in the musical structure of the blues

Rainey recruited her for her 1915 Tennessee tour which later launched Smith’s career. Bessie Smith grew up in poverty, and as an adult was known to be a heavy drinker and curse constantly. Like her mentor, Smith was married but often had affairs with women and men alike. In his biography Bessie, historian Chris Albertson describes a famous anecdote in which Smith snapped at a fellow performer and lover, saying “I got twelve women on this show and I can have one every night if I want it.” “Young Woman’s Blues” and “Empty Bed Blues” are the next two songs on the playlist. In the prior, Smith sings the 1920’s equivalent of “Single Ladies,” and that she “a young woman and ain't done runnin' 'round” and she “ain't gonna marry, ain't gonna settle down.” In the second, Smith sings of receiving oral sex from a skilled lover, yet only through

Eddie James “Son” House, Jr., an American blues singer and guitarist once stated, "People keep asking me where the blues started and all I can say is that when I was a boy we always was singing in the fields. Not real singing, you know, just hollerin', but we made up our songs about things that was happening to us at the time, and I think that's where the blues started (Cohn, 1993).”

The main theme of the blues was built upon racism in the surrounding. The music expressed the bad treatment, and starvation that blacks received from the dominant race. An example of the music is by Ma Rainey, who was one of the earliest connections between the male country blues artists that roamed the backroads of the South and their female equivalent; she made her professional debut in 1900 at the age of l4 at the Springer Opera House in Columbus, Georgia. She was one of the first to feature the blues on stage. Ma Rainey said from "Chain Gang Blues":

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“A woman's greatest asset is her beauty”; which has been changed throughout time. The painting, The Ugly Duchess was portrayed to be beauty during the time, but as time past, opinions of it’s beauty has changed. Beauty can be simply defined as a quality someone or an object presents that gives pleasure or satisfaction towards the mind.This for example, would be physical appearances or intellectual values. Celebrities are known for their physical appearances or intellectual values, but Emma Watson displays both gracefully.Whether someone or an object is beautiful or ugly, the standards for those terms are constantly changing as society changes.

Blue invited friends over for crochet and knitting parties. Tap, tap, tap went the needles. Zoop, zoop, zoop when the hooks. Soon lots of warm alpaca fashions were ready for the new store.