Who was nicknamed the "Empress of the Blues" and became the highest-paid African American entertainer of the 1920s?

Bessie Smith was nicknamed the "Empress of the Blues". She was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee on April 15, 1894 and died in Clarksdale, Mississippi on September 27, 1937.

She recorded her first track in 1923, Downhearted Blues. In September of that year he gave voice to Jailhouse Blues. She recorded with: Louis Armstrong, Sidney Bechet, Benny Goodman. In 1929, she starred in the short film St. Louis Blues. John Coltrane, in 1964, dedicated to her the song Bessie's Blues.

She became a blues star, and was the most famous and highest paid black singer, earning $ 2,000 a week. She had her own train to travel and had her own show in which more than 40 artists came to perform under her baton.

She died in 1937 in a traffic accident surrounded by mystery and racism: it was reported that she was denied assistance in a Mississippi hospital reserved for white patients and died while being transferred to the nearest hospital for black people.

Bessie Smith was nicknamed Empress of the Blues and had a big impact on the Jazz community.