Known as the "Empress of the Blues”, Bessie Smith went on to become the world's highest-paid Black entertainer of her time.
“I wrung my hands and I wanted to scream / But when I woke up I found it was only a dream.” There she stood at Columbia’s studio in New York to record this song in September 1923. She and pianist ...
America's Jazz Heritage: A Partnership of the The Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund and the Smithsonian Institution provided the funding to produce many of the video master and reference copies.