Bessie Smith - A RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK
'She [Bessie Smith] showed me the air and taught me how to fill it ... she's the reason I started singing, really' - Janis Joplin'[Jackie Kay] offers the most vivid evocation of Bessie Smith I have ever read' - Ian Carr, BBC MusicBessie Smith was born in Tennessee in 1894.