Bessie Smith

Big and brash, Bessie Smith tore through a song like nobody's business. In the '20s, she lived a hard life full of booze and sex and love gone wrong — and sang about all of it with a full-throated sassiness that made her the most popular singer of the decade and earned her the nickname "Empress of the Blues."

Bessie Smith sang about sex and pain and drink like a woman who'd been there, done that — and she had. Just listen to the aptly titled "Careless Love Blues," the lamenting "Grave Yard Blues," and sexually charged "Trombone Cholly," and you'll hear just how raw and real the blues can be.

Even among these lesser-known songs, Bessie Smith's rapturous, full-bodied voice brings on home every ounce of the elation, sorrow, and carnal passion that she lived. And if there's one thing Bessie did, it's live a life worthy of the blues.

Every moment of Bessie Smith's hard-drinkin', hard-lovin' life can be heard in her songs. Not a woman to hold back (either on stage or off), Bessie sang of gin and sex (with both men and women) and love gone wrong with a brash, powerful style that made her the most popular singer of the '20s. A shift in musical tastes and a tragic accident, which led to her untimely death, cut short a brilliant career — a career represented at its very best by these classics of the blues.