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Music: Was Bessie Smith a feminist?David Suismana

a Ph.D. candidate in history, Columbia University,

To cite this Article Suisman, David(1999) 'Music: Was Bessie Smith a feminist?', Souls, 1: 1, 71 — 75To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/10999949909362153URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10999949909362153

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MusicWas Bessie Smith a Feminist?David Suisman

Angela Y. Davis, Blues Legacies and BlackFeminism: Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, BessieSmith, and Billie Holiday (Pantheon Books,1998)

I Can't Be Satisfied: Early American WomenBlues Singers—Town & Country. Vol. 1,Country; Vol. 2, Town (Yazoo, 1997)

I he blues has always been about secrets.From the beginning, blues singers confidedabout conjure women, backdoor men, and themysteries of human behavior. When a singermoaned, "I mistreated my baby, and I can'tsee no reason why," it rang like a bewilderedconfession, a secret not even the singer un-derstood. In blues lore, secrets followed bluessingers like shadows, and it never matteredwhether the story about the Faustian mid-night bargain was truth or promotionalhokum. Either way, it imbued the music witha persuasive clandestine authority. Indeed,the basic communicative power of blues mu-sic rested on another secret: how to transformso many tales of pain and struggle into enter-tainment, pleasure, and joy. All of these se-crets intersected in the blues' veiled languageof signifyin(g) and innuendo. Black singersand musicians since the era of slave spiritualsartfully conveyed multiple simultaneous mes-sages in their music; the sweet jelly rolls,juicy lemons, and proud roosters on bluesrecords constituted a vital blues vocabulary.

Given this proliferation of secrets, oneshould be wary of accepting at face valuethe predominance of love and sex in bluessongs. This represents something muchmore complex than a preoccupation withthese themes per se. As Angela Davis notesin Blues Legacies and Black Feminism:Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, Bessie Smith, andBillie Holiday, sexual relations representedone of the only autonomous dimensionsof life for the African Americans who cre-ated and popularized blues music in thehalf century after emancipation. Conse-quently, songs about love and sex werethe vehicle used to express a broad arrayof concerns about personal and social free-dom.

Although information is scarce on thenineteenth-century origins of the blues, PaulOliver has shown that the style was forged inthe wake of the Civil War and existed beforeit got its name.1 In the first decades of thetwentieth century, Southern traveling varietyshows then propagated—some would saycommercialized—the blues, as did the pub-lished blues compositions of W. C. Handyand others. The blues was not permanentlyenshrined in American culture, however, un-til the blues recording boom of the 1920svaunted the talents of singers like BessieSmith and Ma Rainey. In the beginning,blues recording was a female domain; themost famous early male blues singers—Charley Patton, Big Bill Broonzy, RobertJohnson—did not record until the late 1920sor 1930s.

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Was Bessie Smith a Feminist?

Although Bessie Smith became one of thedecade's biggest stars, she and other bluessingers failed to impress some AfricanAmericans. As Hazel V. Carby has demon-strated, women blues singers were generallyshunned by the black middle classes, espe-cially women, who saw the blues as an ex-pression of the most debased or retrogradeaspects of African-American life. With theNational Association of Colored Womenand the black women's club movement, theearly twentieth century was an era of orga-nization and activism and marked the emer-gence of a vital feminist tradition for blackmiddle-class women. Yet working-class andpoor rural black women were systematicallyexcluded from the middle-class institutionsand were occasionally targeted by them forinvidious forms of "uplift."2

Drawing on Carby's analysis and her ownwork in Women, Race, and Class, AngelaDavis argues that the women blues singersof the 1920s expressed and addressed theconcerns and needs of poor and working-class black women denied formal institu-tional outlets. Davis sets out to use the bluesas a means to find a secret tradition of work-ing-class black feminism that existed along-side the black middle-class tradition.Searching for "hints of feminist attitudes" inthe music (p. xi), she devotes the bulk of herstudy to scrutinizing the lyrics of therecorded songs of Ma Rainey and BessieSmith. (Although included in the title, BillieHoliday receives the least—and weakest—analysis.) This exploration into the feministdimensions of women's blues continues therevealing work begun in the 1980s byRosetta Reitz, Sandra Leib, and Daphne Du-val Harrison,3 but comparatively, Davis caststhe narrowest net. By her own admission,she has only limited interest in understand-ing the blues in its historical context andis principally concerned with "how these

women's performances appear through theprism of the present" (p. xi).

Although songs about love and sexual re-lationships make up the greatest part of theoeuvre, Davis shows that an important num-ber of songs about other topics—travel,working conditions, social justice—existedas well. In some cases, Davis identifiesunequivocal protest (Bessie Smith's "PoorMan Blues"), whereas in others, she piecestogether arguments from songs withless obvious meanings. In these, she oftenstresses that announcing a problem consti-tutes the necessary first step in resolving it.In examining a number of songs about abu-sive partners, for example, Davis asserts thatby mentioning domestic violence publicly,these songs made possible later actions ofconsciousness-raising and public protest. Ina similar style of roots-searching, Davismakes the interesting argument that songs inwhich the singer gives advice to female lis-teners may be heard as fostering inchoatefeelings of sisterhood and solidarity. Some ofher analyses, however, hang precariously onher interpretation of the singer's delivery of aparticular line, and this mode of speculativejudgment raises unanswered questions aboutthe singer's intent and the audiences' inter-pretations. Although Davis often strains to fitthe song lyrics into her arguments, thebook's underlying thesis succeeds by virtueof the overwhelming amount of textual evi-dence she is able to marshal.

In his 1964 review of LeRoi Jones's BluesPeople, Ralph Ellison quipped, "The tremen-dous burden of sociology that Jones wouldplace upon this body of music is enough togive even the blues the blues." Unfortunately,despite Davis's often provocative con-tentions, her programmatic approach to themusic and the singers has exactly this effect.At the outset of the study, Davis admits that"to impute [to the singers] a feminist con-

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Was Bessie Smith a Feminist?

sciousness as we define it today . . . would bepreposterous, and not very interesting atthat" (p. xi), yet by the conclusion of heranalysis of the blues in Harlem, she claimsBessie Smith was "an anachronism" with a"decidedly black feminist consciousness . . .pervad[ing] her work" (p. 160). Her individ-ual analyses are driven less by her sourcesthan by her passionate desire to uncover thesecret history of black feminism. This leadsher to ignore completely the historical fac-tors such as audiences and performance con-texts that cre-ated meaningin the music atleast as muchas recordingsdid. The

women bluessingers of the1920s werenever knownsimply asr e c o r d i n gartists: Theyachieved their fame and cultural influencethrough spectacular live performances filledwith dancing, comedy, lavish costumes, andexpensive jewelry. At the peak of popularity,Bessie Smith also impressed fans with herprivate railroad car, as Ma Rainey did withher private touring bus emblazoned with hername on the side. Their impact was felt notonly in their outspokenness on record butalso in their strong, charismatic personali-ties, their prominence as public figures, theirfinancial independence, and their reputationsas exquisite artists. Audiences includedwomen and men, rural and urban, and in theSouth at least, white as well as black (thoughaudiences were frequently segregated). Ac-knowledging that the blues stars' recordingcareers were contingent upon these broad,diverse audiences, we recognize that what

Although Bessie Smith became one of the decade's

biggest stars, she and other blues singers failed to

impress some African Americans women blues

singers were generally shunned by the black middle

classes, especially women, who saw the blues as an

expression of the most debased or retrograde as-

pects of African-American life.

the blues communicated was much more var-ied and complex than a program for an incip-ient working-class feminism.

Even if Davis's real interest lies in thelegacy of these recordings and not in thesingers or their context, she does not show adirect, empirical link between the protofemi-nist themes in the recorded songs and the de-velopment of subsequent self-conscious tra-ditions of black feminism. Davis makesan important political argument from herreadings of women's blues, but it does, not

adequa t e lyexplore themyriad, andsubtle waysthe women'sblues legacyhas beenhanded down.Since the1920s, for ex-ample, MaRainey's im-pact has prob-

ably owed more to legend than to thescratchy, poorly recorded records whoselyrics even Davis concedes are often hard tounderstand. Rainey's influence has been feltnot simply through her own recorded musicbut also through poems (Sterling Brown),songs (Memphis Minnie, Bob Dylan), andplays (August Wilson), as well as throughthe legend that she had been Bessie Smith'smentor in the years before they recorded.

The ultimate appeal and power of the blueshave always rested on its artistry and pathos,not its agenda. Although Davis certainly has arich and revealing subject in the sexual poli-tics of women's blues, her work would havebenefited greatly from an increased attentionto the limitations of her methods. Thestrength of Blues Legacies and Black Femi-nism lies in its forceful reassertion that the

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Was Bessie Smith a Feminist?

women bluessingers of the1920s were, inRosetta Reitz'sphrase, "freshand feisty, notvictims." MaRainey laid barethis sentiment in" M e m p h i sBound Blues"(1925): "I talkbecause I'm

¿stubborn, I sing because I'm free."

heartbreak and mis-treatin' men, one

The women blues singers of the 1920s were

never known simply as recording artists:

They achieved their fame and cultural influ-

ence through spectacular live performances

filled with dancing, comedy, lavish«, cos-

tumes, and expensive jewelry.

1

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S asked to choose a sound track for theGreat Migration, we might do well to select•fne recent two-CD collection, / Can't Be Sat-

isfied: Early American Women Bluesv Sitigers—Town and Country. The disks con-

taip'ïprty-six songs by thirty-two differentsingers. cV/ho range from famous (Ma Rainey)to once-famous (Lucille Bogan) to decidedly

<ûbscure (Geéshie Wiley). Bessie Smith, Ethel' Waters, Alberta Hunter, and Ida Cox are no-

ticeably absent (for licensing reasons, per-haps), but this .actually enhances the collec-

on by. leaving jnore room for lesser-known:isj£ Indéed/bne of the greatest strengths

oí' this^evealing collection lies in the broadoffers of¿the diverse culture of

^ ^ A<^Ha2el Í3arby%asíargued that women blues

cî> syigers^ meSiateä jíite x>ímoral panic" that.,v> .,o^ erup ted^oveiNtrîe^èxual and social behavior of

s~. " „i^' Ablad^wornên-during theïireat Migration, and

osf". ^s N the proud^&sertive Angers on this collection

> x ,"*; .b."' support thatNaïgiiment^weUriîtey sang openly

v ^ ¿C j.Nabojif sexuality wHenj^ost^iniddle-class insti-c^ ^ ° ^üoftsdisplaced oRsùpp'rêssèd black women's.N?1

cv* sexuali^ tp^àvoid corifi-Qntíñg;die complicatedv. jS" ^ sexfialjipolitics, bf the^ new jlrban circum-

j>N ^.^ ^tance's.jAis ijt"bavjá's^book?Íoyésana sex arev o^ , # s .th^èjnosti'reqilent,themes, and aniad tales of

hears resoundingprotest in songslike Sara Martin's"He's Never GonnaThrow Me Down"and Hattie Burle-son's "Bye ByeBlues." The singersin this collectiongave voice to a hostof other contempo-

rary social issues as well, including economichardship (Lucille Bogan's "Pay Roll Blues"),drunkenness (Lillian Miller's "Dead DrankBlues"), and homelessness (Memphis Min-nie's "Outdoor Blues"). Not all these songssignaled explicit remonstration, but they did atleast call honest attention to the problemsmany listeners faced.

Much of the material in the collection rein-forces Davis's thesis, and it expands theprotofeminist expression best highlighted onRosetta Records's excellent women's bluescollections from the 1980s and early 1990s.Disappointingly, however, the Yazoo diskslack the same well-documented, forceful pre-sentation as the Rosetta reissues. The linernotes offer valuable biographical informationabout the singers (few of whom are listed inSheldon Harris's encyclopedic Blues Who'sWho) but little comment on the social contextof the music or the significance of town-and-country women's blues as an organizing prin-ciple for the collection.

Although the first disk is labeled Countryand the second, Town, the division betweenthese is far from clear. On one level, the des-ignations refer to differing musical styles, butas Don Kent admits in his liner notes, "[T]hedistinction between urban and rural singerswas and is often arbitrary." The city/townblues that dominated most of the 1920s—

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Was Bessie Smith a Feminist?

what has been termed "classic blues"—was asmooth, vaudeville-influenced singing style,with accompaniment usually consisting of ei-ther a solo piano player or a highly polishedjazz combo. The country style was marked bya rougher, more "down home" sound, some-times with accompanying piano but oftenwith solo guitar or jug band. (Although MaRainey appears on the Town disk and is oftengrouped with the classic blues singers, hermusic is more consistent with the countrystyle, and she always enjoyed much greaterpopularity in rural areas than in urban ones.)The neat dichotomy between country andtown should not hide the fact that the mostsuccessful singers on both disks made theirprofessional careers in urban environments.Not only was urban nightlife a magnet for themost talented performers, but working as apracticed professional singer was rarely anoption in diffuse rural areas.

Moreover, the organization of the collec-tion blurs the fact that the history of bluesrecording generally followed the reverse di-rection of the Great Migration, that is, fromcity to country. The classic style reigned formost of the 1920s but faded beginningaround 1927 with the decline of the TheaterOwners Booking Association and the rise ofswing jazz. Recording of country-styleblues followed in its wake, but this formwas dominated largely by male performers.Most of the singers on the Town disk—Vic-toria Spivey, Clara Smith, Sippie Wallace,Bertha "Chippie" Hill, for example—werenational stars in the mid-1920s and will befamiliar to many listeners. However, veryfew of the singers on the Country diskachieved any significant national fame,which makes this the far more intriguing ofthe two disks. Unfortunately, the packagingof these disks masks this transition inrecording. Not only does the Country vol-ume precede the Town volume, but the liner

notes also omit information about recordingdates. Although the covers promise "classicrecordings of the 1920s," Robert Dixon andJohn Godrich's Blues and Gospel Records,1902-1943 reveals that almost half of thesongs on the country disk were recorded af-ter 1930.

These elisions notwithstanding, this im-portant collection offers a variety of outstand-ing voices from the Great Migration, reflect-ing the full range of women's experiences.Bertha Lee (Charley Patton's wife) sings ofhoodoo power in the Mississippi Delta, Jen-nie Mae Clayton and Hattie Burleson offervoices from the growing Southern cities, andSippie Wallace and Victoria Spivey exude theconfidence of Northern professionalism.With emotions stretching from joy to despair,optimism to disgust, these songs open a win-dow onto the problems, pleasures, and con-tradictions of changing social conditions. Formost women, change held the promise of im-provement, and the songs reflect women's se-riousness about pursuing better conditions.As Hattie Burleson sang defiantly, "If youdon't believe I'm leavin' Dallas town, justwatch the train I'm on."

Notes1. See Paul Oliver, "That Certain Feeling: Blues and

Jazz . . . in 1890?" Popular Music 10 (1) (1991):11-19.2. See Carby's two essential blues-related articles, "It

Jus Be's Dat Way Sometime: The Sexual Politics ofWomen's Blues," Radical America 20 (4) (1987):8-22,and "Policing the Black Woman's Body in an UrbanContext," Critical Inquiry 18 (Summer 1992):738-55.

3. In 1980, Rosetta Reitz established her path-break-ing Rosetta Records label. Issuing collections of long-out-of-print women's blues packaged with extensive ana-lytical essays and countless rare photographs, Reitz'swork has been indispensable to subsequent investiga-tions of women's blues. For Lieb and Harrison, see San-dra R. Lieb, Mother of the Blues: A Study of Ma Rainey(n.p.: University of Massachusetts Press, 1981); DaphneDuval Harrison, Black Pearls: Blues Queens of the 1920s(New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1988).

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