Scene Explorer
Locations
AU Melbourne Perth Sydney
BE Brussels
BR Rio de Janeiro
CA Montréal Toronto Vancouver
CO Medellín
DE Düsseldorf Hamburg
ES Madrid
FR Paris
GB Belfast Birmingham Brighton Bristol Cambridge Cardiff Coventry Edinburgh Glasgow Islington Leeds Liverpool London Manchester Nottingham Oxford Sheffield Surrey
IE Dublin
IS Reykjavík
JM Kingston New York
JP Tokyo
NL Amsterdam
NO Bergen
PR San Juan
SE Gothenburg Stockholm
US Aberdeen Athens Atlanta Austin Baltimore Berkeley Boston Brooklyn Buffalo Chapel Hill Chicago Cincinnati Clarksdale Cleveland Compton Dallas Dayton Denver Detroit El Paso Fort Worth Fullerton Gary Hollywood Houston Indianapolis Jacksonville Kansas City Las Vegas Long Beach Long Island Los Angeles Los Angeles (LA) Louisville Macon Memphis Meridian Miami Minneapolis Nashville New Brunswick New Haven New Orleans New York Newark Oakland Oklahoma City Orlando Philadelphia Phoenix Pittsburgh Portland Queens Richmond Sacramento San Diego San Francisco San Jose Santa Monica Seattle Shreveport Springfield St. Louis Staten Island Tacoma Tallahassee Tulsa Washington Wilmington
Genre breakdown
█████ Jazz
█████ Classical
█████ Blues
█████ Classical
█████ Blues
Bessie Smith
Jazz, Classical, Blues189.9m all-time streams (31 Jul '26)
The first major blues and jazz singer on record and one of the most powerful of all time, Bessie Smith rightly earned the title of "The Empress of the Blues." Even on her first records in 1923, her passionate voice overcame the primitive recording quality of the day and still communicates easily to today's listeners (which is not true of any other singer from that early period).
At a time when the blues were in and most vocalists (particularly vaudevillians) were being dubbed "blues singers," Bessie Smith simply had no competition.
At a time when the blues were in and most vocalists (particularly vaudevillians) were being dubbed "blues singers," Bessie Smith simply had no competition.
