Bessie Smith, American singer and actress (born 1894)

Bessie Smith

American blues singer (1892–1937)

Bessie Smith was an African-American blues singer widely renowned during the Jazz Age. Nicknamed the "Empress of the Blues" and formerly Queen of the Blues, she was the most popular female blues singer of the 1930s. Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1989, she is…