1925-1933

Bessie Smith | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (July 8, 2003)
• Original Release Date: January 13, 1992
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Nimbus Records
• ASIN: B0000037I0
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #754,179 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #98 in Music > Indie Music > Blues > Vocal Blues

Track Listings

1. The Yellow Dog Blues

2. Nashville Woman's Blues

3. Careless Love

4. I Ain't Gonna Play No Second Fiddle

5. I Want Every Bit of It

6. Money Blues

7. One and Two Blues

8. Muddy Water [A Mississippi Moon]

9. Lock and Key

10. A Good Man Is Hard to Find

11. Dyin' by the Hour

12. Foolish Man Blues

13. I Used to Be Your Sweet Mama

14. Standin' in the Rain Blues

15. I'm Wild About That Thing

16. Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out

17. Blue Spirit Blues

18. Do Your Duty

19. Gimme a Pigfoot (And a Bottle of Beer)

20. I'm Down in the Dumps

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Glorious Bessie...glorious sound, December 12, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: 1925-1933 (Audio CD)

This album blows me away every time I get the air moving with these 70 year old vibrations. Bessie Smith's performances, of course, are stunning. But the quality of sound on this reissue is what brings her and her band into your living room. You realize after hearing this CD, that the tinny quality we have come to associate with 78 records is an artifact, caused by engineers who hate noise more than they love music, and use low-pass filtering. These recordings are unfiltered, and beautiful. It makes me want to check out Hermes' other reissues in its Vintage Jazz Series.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A good set of Smith standards..., August 28, 2000

By 

[e-mail] - See all my reviews

This review is from: 1925-1933 (Audio CD)

A nicely remastered set of Bessie Smith tunes, though not a complete set, this is a difinitive sampler and a great place to start if you've never listened to Bessie Smith before. A good example of why she was "The Empress Of The Blues." Also listen to Big Mama Sue, who is heavily influenced by Smith, she sings and plays washboard in most major Dixieland festivals today, visit and listen to her at bigmamasue.com

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars CHATTANOOGA WOMAN'S BLUES, December 29, 2009

By 

Barry McCanna (Normandy, France) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: 1925-1933 (Audio CD)

For anyone wanting an overview of Bessie Smith's recording career, this compilation is well worth considering. On the first track she's accompanied by (Fletcher) Henderson's Hot Six, which includes Charlie Green on trombone, Buster Bailey on clarinet, and Coleman Hawkins on tenor sax. Louis Armstrong is involved on the next three, and the later recordings include the sublime "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out". The compilation concludes with three of her last four recordings, on which she demonstrates that her voice was as good as ever. Sound quality is excellent despite the fact that this CD dates from 1987.