Bessie Smith: Complete Recordings Vol. 5

BESSIE SMITH: THE COMPLETE RECORDINGS, VOL. 5 (1931-1933)

CD I: 1) Need A Little Sugar In My Bowl; 2) Safety Mama; 3) Do Your Duty; 4) Gimme A Pigfoot; 5) Take Me For A Buggy Ride; 6) I'm Down In The Dumps; 7) The Yellow Dog Blues; 8) Soft Pedal Blues; 9) Nashville Women's Blues; 10) Careless Love Blues; 11) Muddy Water; 12) St. Louis Blue Soundtrack — Band Intro; 13) Crap Game; 14) St. Louis Blues; CD II: Ruby Smith interviews.

Yes, it would have certainly been an unforgivable mistake on the part of Columbia Records not to end this series of excellent quality catalog repackagings with at least one total rip-off. The last installment in the Bessie Smith saga, just as all the previous ones, is a fully priced 2-CD package, out of which the non-historian really needs a grand total of six songs. Of course, it would have been fairly easy to squeeze those six onto the remaining disc space of Vol. 4 — but would that count as the true raffinated sparkle of Columbia's marketing genius?

Let us see what else we have here. First, a bunch of crappy-sounding outtakes from a 1925 ses­sion: five crackling cuts, all of which we have already heard in superior versions on Vol. 2. Just what we need to hear in order to truly comprehend the giant stature of the Empress. Second, three tracks that reproduce, in complete form, the soundtrack to the short film St. Louis Blues, shot in 1929 and featuring Bessie's only preserved live appearance. The footage (which you can, and should, see on Youtube) is obviously priceless, and the semi-live rendition of 'St. Louis Blues' it­self, on which Bessie is backed not by Armstrong, but a huge black choir instead, is nice to have on CD, but the six-minute dialog sequence ('Crap Game') is a complete waste of space unless you want to have a crash course in African American Vernacular as spoken in the 1920s (except the sound quality is so awful you would still need subtitles).

Finally, the entire second disc is only indirectly related to Bessie; it is an interview CD, where Bessie's niece-by-marriage, Ruby Smith, recounts her memories of Bessie in a grueling seventy-minute session. Which is fine and dandy, but you might just as well read a book about Bessie rather than spend all this time trying to sort the wheat from the chaff and separate objective fact from biased personal feeling — never for one moment able to understand why exactly does this need to co-exist in one package with Bessie's actual music.

Unfortunately, what with all the ripping-off, the six real songs that make this «Final Chapter» worth owning are all classics, unexpendable for even the casual Bessie lover. Two date from a lonesome super-short session in 1931, four more from a similarly brief stunt in 1933; this is all that Bessie had the opportunity to produce in her last decade, before a complete goodbye to the recording industry and, eventually, a tragic death in a car accident in 1937.

The songs are pure vaudeville, no blues — urban blues was not something the people took to as lightly in the hungry 1930s as they did in the booming 1920s (it is, after all, one thing to listen about someone being miserable when you yourself are reasonably content, but a whole different story when your own misery is comparable). 'Need A Little Sugar In My Bowl' is arguably the dirtiest song Bessie ever did (she also needs a hot dog between her rolls, and other delights too scandalous to mention), yet somehow she manages to transform this pure anthem of lust into a song of soulful mourning, almost as if all the sugar and hot dog references had some further spiri­tual connotations attached. Accustomed as we are to all the cock rock hits on classic rock radio, it is hardly surprising to see words of love used as a metaphor for sex — but using culinary words as metaphors for sex and meta-metaphors for love, that is something else totally.

The last four songs from 1933 almost play as a mini-musical: Bessie demands of her man that he 'Do Your Duty' (same one as above, apparently), lets it all hang out on 'Gimme A Pigfoot' (and a bottle of beer, even though Prohibition was still in action), after the hangover, gets unusually sen­ti­mental ('Take Me For A Buggy Ride'), and, finally, gets dumped by both the guy and whoever else she could possibly be dumped by ('I'm Down In The Dumps'). Everything Bessie ever had is in these four tunes: arrogance, recklessness, sweetness, misery, determination, humour, sadness, the whole palette. Obviously, she had no idea this was going to be her musical testament, but that's how it turned out, and these four tunes are as perfect a swan song for the lady as Abbey Road would be for the Beatles.

Bessie Smith: Complete Recordings Vol. 4

BESSIE SMITH: THE COMPLETE RECORDINGS, VOL. 4 (1928-1930)

CD I: 1) He's Got Me Goin'; 2) It Won't Be You; 3) Spider Man Blues; 4) Empty Bed Blues (part 1); 5) Empty Bed Blues (part 2); 6) Put It Right Here (Or Keep It Out There); 7) Yes Indeed He Do!; 8) Devil's Gonna Git You; 9) You Ought To Be Ashamed; 10) Washwoman's Blues; 11) Slow And Easy Man; 12) Poor Man's Blues; 13) Please Help Me Get Him Out Of My Mind; 14) Me And My Gin; 15) I'm Wild About That Thing; 16) You've Got To Give Me Some; 17) Kitchen Man; 18) I've Got What It Takes (But It Breaks My Heart To Give It Away); 19) Nobody Knows You When You're Down And Out; 20) Take It Right Back ('Cause I Don't Want It Here); CD II: 1) Standin' In The Rain Blues; 2) It Makes My Love Come Down; 3) Wasted Life Blues; 4) Dirty No-Gooder's Blues; 5) Blue Spirit Blues; 6) Worn Out Papa Blues; 7) You Don't Understand; 8) Don't Cry Baby; 9) Keep It To Yourself; 10) New Or­leans Hop Scop Blues; 11) See If I'll Care; 12) Baby Have Pity On Me; 13) On Revival Day; 14) Moan, You Moa­ners; 15) Hustlin' Dan; 16) Black Mountain Blues; 17) In The House Blues; 18) Long Old Road; 19) Blue Blues; 20) Shipwreck.

It is amusing to learn that 'Nobody Knows You When You're Down And Out' — a song original­ly written by Bessie's minor competition Ida Cox, but eventually immortalized by the Empress — was recorded in 1929, immediately bringing on associations with the Wall Street crash and sub­sequent demise of the blues industry on the whole, and Bessie's in particular. How painfully auto­biographical, one might say.

Yet it is twice as amusing to know that the actual recording took place on May 15 of that year — more than five actual months before the beginning of the Depression. As prophetic as the song now sounds, when Bessie put it in the can, it was just another unhappy blues anthem with Ms. Smith, at that moment — not exactly a millionnaire, but certainly pretty well-off, singing "Once I lived the life of a millionnaire..." as if that past tense were spoken in all sincerity. Atmosphere? Unhappy, for sure, but nowhere near miserable: the emphasis is on frustration — Bessie makes herself sound mighty pissed off at having so stupidly squandered her fortunes, with a whiff of threat that echoes Timon of Athens.

I guess she brought it on herself, though — obviously God could not refuse such a fervent plea for bitter misery, and had little choice but to bring down the stock market. The economic history of the States is well observed by the statistics: Bessie cut 18 sides in 1928, 18 sides in 1929, but only 8 in 1930 (and only two in 1931!). Some of these eight sides were real strange, too, like 'On Revival Day' and 'Moan, You Moaners', the first and last pure gospel tracks that Bessie (whose relations with the Lord were, in general, not very amicable) ever did, and she did them well, even though I would not welcome the idea of a whole collection of such tunes; Bessie's powerhouse assault works well in a gospel context, but if, for some reason, one should want a longer, more de­tailed exposure to the genre, it requires such levels of subtlety as Bessie never possessed (un­like, for instance, Mahalia Jackson).

Nevertheless, let us not forget that all of 1928 and most of 1929 were still part of the roaring years, and there are quite a few tracks here that stand out fairly well, satisfying quite a few different tastes. Hungry for sleazy and salacious? The sprawling, two-part 'Empty Bed Blues', replete with Charlie Green's sexy trombone grunts, features lyrics that would make AC/DC and KISS members nervously blush in the distance ('He boiled my first cabbage and he made it awful hot / When he put in the bacon, it overflowed the pot' — I wonder what Tip­per Gore would have to say about that. Then again, with her level of understanding, she'd proba­bly suggest it as the soundtrack for Ready Steady Cook). If that is not enough, how about 'Kitchen Man'? Eddie Lang's Lonnie Johnson-style guitar, sinuously sliding along, is the perfect accompaniment for lines like 'Oh how that boy can open clam, no one else can touch my ham', and she likes his sausage meat, too, if you know what I mean.

If you want serious and troubled, there is 'Me And My Gin', simply an undispu­table classic ma­s­terpiece; Bessie's 'Stay away from me, 'cause I'm in my sin' transparently shows how the blues is, in fact, true Devil's music a whole decade before the advent of Robert Johnson. And if it does not, certainly 'Blue Spirit Blues' does, as she unfurls a panorama of hellish visions straight from Bald Mountain; a song even more ominously prophetic than 'Nobody...', recorded on October 11 — less than two weeks before the whole world truly went to hell.

If you want strong-willed quasi-feminist anthems, you can go no further than 'Put It Right Here (Or Keep It Out There)', where she explicitly states that no man can, or will, use her up financial­ly — and the even more scorching 'I've Got What It Takes (But It Breaks My Heart To Give It Away)', in which the lady protagonist refuses to bail out her good-for-nothing guy because 'I've been saving it up for a long long time, to give it away would be more than a crime'. One may que­stion the judgement, but not the determination.

To sum it up, Vol. 4 seems to pick up the pace that was somewhat slowed down on Vol. 3, and if it does not have the highest ratio of classic-to-filler, it certainly does have the most diverse port­folio. People occasionally complain that, by the time 1930 rolls along, her voice had started show­ing signs of wearing down, e. g. on such numbers as 'Hustlin' Dan' and 'Black Mountain Blues', but, first of all, I simply do not hear it, and second, even if this is true, it is still impossible: Bessie's voice is of the particular kind that usually stays immune to any troubles, be they smoke, drug, or age-related. The worst she could do was flub a note or two if she came in the studio drunk, but we are not exactly talking opera singers here. She was always in great form.

Bessie Smith: Complete Recordings Vol. 3

BESSIE SMITH: THE COMPLETE RECORDINGS, VOL. 3 (1925-1928)

CD I: 1) Red Mountain Blues; 2) Golden Rule Blues; 3) Lonesome Desert Blues; 4) Them Has Been Blues; 5) Squeeze Me; 6) What's The Matter Now; 7) I Want Every Bit Of It; 8) Jazzbo Brown From Memphis Town; 9) The Gin House Blues; 10) Money Blues; 11) Baby Doll; 12) Hard Driving Papa; 13) Lost Your Head Blues; 14) Hard Time Blues; 15) Honey Man Blues; 16) One And Two Blues; 17) Young Woman's Blues; 18) Preachin' The Blues; 19) Backwater Blues; 20) After You've Gone; 21) Alexander's Ragtime Band; CD II: 1) Muddy Water (A Mis­sis­sip­pi Moan); 2) There'll Be A Hot Time In The Old Town Tonight; 3) Trombone Cholly; 4) Send Me To The 'Lectric Chair; 5) Them's Graveyard Words; 6) Hot Spring Blues; 7) Sweet Mistreater; 8) Lock And Key; 9) Mean Old Bed Bug Blues; 10) Homeless Blues; 11) Looking For My Man Blues; 12) Dyin' By The Hour; 13) Foolish Man Blues; 14) Thinking Blues; 15) Pickpocket Blues; 16) I Used To Be Your Sweet Mama; 17) I'd Rather Be Dead And Buried In My Grave; 18) I'd Rather Be Dead And Buried In My Grave (alt. take).

Heard from the perspective of our utterly spoiled modern-day ears that quickly get tired of repe­tition, Vol. 3, covering Bessie's years of prime glam and luxury, is somewhat of an intuitive let­down; but from the perspective of contemporary audiences, there is hardly even one small sign here that Ms. Smith might somehow be «losing it». After all, her voice and emotional force are going as strong as ever, and her backing players are still the top of the crop — when you have Fletcher Henderson, Coleman Hawkins, and James P. Johnson all delighted to back the lady, you know her fortunes have not changed much.

But in terms of classic individual performances, Vol. 3 does not add much to what we already know. The first disc is livened up by occasional dance numbers, such as 'Jazzbo Brown From Memphis Town' and the energetic performance of the classic 'Alexander's Ragtime Band', where Hawkins, Joe Smith, and Henderson fight it out in the background while Bessie shouts it out as if her own salary drastically depended upon her being able to draw as many neighbours as possible to the vir­tues of Alexander's Rag­time Band (well, in a way, it was). But the second half is much more subdued, and, to a large extent, dominated by second- and third-rate songs that do not de­serve special mention (except for such trivia bits as Bessie being, once in a while, backed by gui­tar rather than piano, e. g., 'Mean Old Bed Bug Blues' — but, unfortunately, the player is no Lon­nie Johnson and no Blind Lemon).

Well-recognized classics would likely include 'The Gin House Blues', the first of Bessie's auto­biographical relays of her troubled relations with alcohol; 'After You've Gone', with a big band arrangement and an intentionally epic feel, as Bessie fulfills the relatively easy task of oblitera­ting Marion Harris' original by injecting realism and power into the recording; and the even more anthemic 'Muddy Water (A Mississippi Moan)' — no realism here to speak of, because the «Chattanooga gal» hardly ever set foot in the Delta (then again, neither did John Fogerty, and that is no reason to turn down 'Proud Mary' or 'Green River'), however, her goal is not to recreate any kind of swampy atmosphere, but rather to use the lyrics as a general metaphor for the idea of being proud of one's home and homeland, wherever and whatever that is, and she makes it into one of the stateliest performances of her entire career. The final outburst — 'My heart cries out for muddy water!' — is unforgettable.

A minor half-funny, half-sad oddity that also deserves to be singled out is 'Send Me To The 'Lec­tric Chair', departing from the general blues structure and featuring one of the most repetitive choruses in history, with Bessie repeating 'judge, judge, please Mr. Judge' in the same robotic manner for about thirty times or so, weirdly contrasting with the far more expressive verse melody where she explains that 'I had my knife and went insane, and the rest you ought to know'. Hardly a classic, but definitely a bizarre stand-out in a collection that, for the modern listener at least, threatens to render one of the most impressive blues performers in history less and less im­pressive with each following track.

Bessie Smith: Complete Recordings Vol. 2

BESSIE SMITH: THE COMPLETE RECORDINGS, VOL. 2 (1924-1925)

CD I: 1) Frankie Blues; 2) Moonshine Blues; 3) Louisiana Low Down Blues; 4) Mountain Top Blues; 5) Work Hou­se Blues; 6) House Rent Blues; 7) Salt Water Blues; 8) Rainy Weather Blues; 9) Weeping Willow Blues; 10) The Bye Bye Blues; 11) Sing Sing Prison Blues; 12) Follow The Deal On Down; 13) Sinful Blues; 14) Woman's Trouble Blues; 15) Love Me Daddy Blues; 16) Dying Gambler's Blues; 17) The St. Louis Blues; 18) Reckless Blues; 19) So­b­bin' Hearted Blues; CD II: 1) Cold In Hand Blues; 2) You've Been A Good Ole Wagon; 3) Cake Walkin' Babies (From Home); 4) The Yellow Dog Blues; 5) Soft Pedal Blues; 6) Dixie Flyer Blues; 7) Nashville Women's Blues; 8) Careless Love Blues; 9) J. C. Holmes Blues; 10) I Ain't Goin' To Play Second Fiddle; 11) He's Gone Blues; 12) No­body's Blues But Mine; 13) I Ain't Got Nobody; 14) My Man Blues; 15) New Gulf Coast Blues; 16) Florida Bound Blues; 17) At The Christmas Ball; 18) I've Been Mistreated (And I Don't Like It).

The second volume is just as indispensable as the first. It was during this particular period that Smith crashed the last barriers, conquering Detroit and Chicago, teaming up with the hottest play­ers around, gaining the title of «Empress of the Blues» and becoming the most highly paid black performer of her time. If none of this shows on the actual recordings, well, blame it on genre re­quirements: Bessie was paid, first and foremost, for being unhappy on record, and she honestly earned every cent of that pay. Her backing musicians may not have always been taking this idea of unhappiness too seriously — as evidenced by their occasional cheesy insertion of phrases from Chopin's 'Funeral March' into the playing — but she herself was dedicated to it at every session, no matter what her own private circumstances were at the time.

Two major piece of news are in order. First, starting from the third track of the second disc, Bes­sie enters the advanced age of electrical recording; some of her contemporaries had to adjust their style in order to sing into the microphone, but Bessie seemed to latch on to the new technique im­mediately — in fact, celebrating it with her biggest band and her liveliest song so far: 'Cake Wal­kin' Babies (From Home)'. This is pretty much the only example of Bessie's cakewalk that you can hear, but a prime one; her «rocking» numbers, few as they were, shook the floor with more power than any other kind of music at the time, and it is great to hear her singing captured so ma­gnificently with the new recording technology.

Second, the collection includes the several sides Bessie recorded in January 1925 with Louis Ar­mstrong, including the famous 'St. Louis Blues' and the less famous, but, in my opinion, far more subtle and touching 'You've Been A Good Ole Wagon'. The latter is an old vaudeville tune on the unhappy consequences of impotence, but Bessie insists on turning it from an overtly comic num­ber into a tale of personal grief. (Then again, surely it is no laughing matter when the man «done broke down» — if you're going to dump him for that reason, a little sympathy may not hurt).

That said, it has generally been recogni­zed, and I subscribe to the recognition, that Armstrong's backing did not gel ideally with Bessie's singing, or, at least, that these particular tracks are not all that «cornet-important» when compa­red to songs recorded with Joe Smith, Bessie's regular player (no personal relation, though). Louis is technically perfect as usual, but he may be just a tad too happy with his instrument where Bessie would need a more somber manner of playing. Had they spent more time together, he would pro­bably have adjusted better to her style — but even as it is, we got ourselves a one-of-a-kind memento of two giants together at their respective peaks.

Other than that, there are no big surprises, and, as usual, 37 songs in chronological order make it hard to see the inspired masterpieces from simply solid workmanship, but time has ensured that, eighty years from then, not a single one of them comes across as crappy or tasteless. And it was a good idea to make the final break with 'I've Been Mistreated (And I Don't Like It)', the most open­ly aggressive and threatening tune out of the bunch — if the last half-dozen tracks made the mistake of lulling you, the last one will punch you in the guts and leave you aching for more.

Bessie Smith: Complete Recordings Vol. 1

BESSIE SMITH: THE COMPLETE RECORDINGS, VOL. 1 (1923-1924)

CD I: 1) Downhearted Blues; 2) Gulf Coast Blues; 3) Aggravatin' Papa; 4) Beale Street Mama; 5) Baby Won't You Please Come Home; 6) Oh! Daddy Blues; 7) 'Tain't Nobody's Bizness If I Do; 8) Keeps On A-Rainin' (Papa, He Can't Make No Time); 9) Mama's Got The Blues; 10) Outside Of That; 11) Bleeding Hearted Blues; 12) Lady Luck Blues; 13) Yodling Blues; 14) Midnight Blues; 15) If You Don't, I Know Who Will; 16) Nobody In Town Can Bake A Sweet Jelly Roll Like Mine; 17) Jailhouse Blues; 18) St. Louis Gal; 19) Sam Jones Blues; CD II: 1) Graveyard Dream Blues; 2) Cemetery Blues; 3) Far Away Blues; 4) I'm Going Back To My Used To Be; 5) Whoa, Tillie, Take Your Time; 6) My Sweetie Went Away; 7) Any Woman's Blues; 8) Chicago Bound Blues; 9) Mistreatin' Daddy; 10) Frosty Morning Blues; 11) Haunted House Blues; 12) Eavesdropper's Blues; 13) Easy Come, Easy Go Blues; 14) Sorrowful Blues; 15) Pinchbacks — Take 'Em Away!; 16) Rocking Chair Blues; 17) Ticket Agent, Ease Your Win­dow Down; 18) Bo Weavil Blues; 19) Hateful Blues.

Typically, one's acquaintance with the «urban blues» of the roaring decade begins with Bessie Smith — and, also typically, ends there, because it takes the modern listener a long time to get settled into that creaky, hissy, monotonous, faraway groove, and not everyone can make it at all, much less become interested in exploring that groove even further. Still, it is not very difficult to understand what exactly was it that charmed audiences back then in this kind of music — and what it is that makes the retro-fan share the same sentiments almost a century later.

It is much harder to understand and explain what it is, exactly, that sets Bessie Smith so far apart from all the other innumerable «blues queens» of the day: Ma Rainey, Mamie Smith, Clara Smith, Alberta Hunter, Lucille He­gamin, Ida Cox, Sippie Wallace... the list is really endless, and all of them were first-rate entertainers in their own right. And yet, it is not just some arbitrary histori­an's choice that randomly picked Bessie from this crowd and set her on a particularly impressive pedestal. The fact is that the blues boom of the 1920s did not properly set in until the arrival of Bessie, and, even though she was far from the first blues queen to appear on record (Mamie Smith had her beat by three years at least), it was she that, almost overnight, turned the blues re­cording business from a modest kingdom into a huge empire — rightfully earning the title of «Em­press Of The Blues», under which she was billed throughout most of the decade.

The reason certainly does not lie in the music, or the arrangements. Song-wise, Bessie was recor­ding more or less the same compositions as everyone else — sometimes borrowing songs that had already become hits with her competition, sometimes giving them away, according to the co­mmon rules of the trade. As for the accompaniment, it is certainly hard to complain: almost from the beginning, after a brief stint with pianist and (rather ruthless) promo man Clarence Williams, her main partner was Fletcher Henderson, one of the biggest piano men of the decade, whose tire­less «flourishing» graces a lot of these tracks and seriously raises the stakes in the beauty depart­ment. But still, there is no denying that many blues queens back then got prime backing from dex­terous jazz and blues musicians.

Obviously, the public was buying not because it wanted to hear more of Fletcher Henderson, but because it needed all the magic it could get from Bessie herself. So, what was that magic, and can we still perceive it, being so far removed from its time?

The way I see it, Bessie represented the first step on a long emotional journey whose purpose is to free performing art from its performing conventions and to imbue it with realistic emotion. When you listen to the other «queens» of the time, what you get is essentially show-biz. Now do not get me wrong: when you listen to Bessie, what you get is also show-biz. But the first show-biz is show-biz presented as show-biz, whereas Bessie's show-biz is awesomely more life-like. Roughly speaking, she sings it like she means it, while such performers as Mamie Smith or Alberta Hunter would sing it like they were expected to sing it.

This point will become very simple and obvious if, for instance, one listens to Alberta Hunter's 'Downhearted Blues' and Bessie's rendition of the same song — her very first recorded side — in a row. Hunter is cute, elegant, and pleasant; she hits all the right notes, but, essentially, sounds like she is mostly doing it just for the applause. Her 'gee, but it's hard to love someone, when that someone don't love you' certainly does not sound like it is really coming from someone in painful love with someone else. Bessie, ditching the lightweight vaudeville horns, with nothing but Cla­rence Williams' minimalistic piano behind her back, takes it to a whole different level. It is not just that her voice is deeper and stronger; it is that she really modulates it to fit the lyrics and the general mood, actually putting the blues back into the blues where the blues belong.

Formally, much of this is still «vaudeville» rather than true blues, but emotionally, this is troubled music, and even though Bessie's own troubled times, aside from some tumultu­ous personal rela­tions, ended pretty soon after she began her recording career, this never impacted her ability to deliver music that people could properly relate to, rather than just use it for parties. Can people still relate to it? Well, take my own case: while I have learned to enjoy female urban blues as such, almost none of it has managed to seriously stick in my mind — and yet, at the same time, 'Downhearted Blues', 'Gulf Coast Blues', 'Baby Won't You Please Come Home', the absolutely powerhouse 'Tain't Nobody's Bizness If I Do' (a classic that nearly every bluesman has performed since and not a single one has performed better), 'Lady Luck Blues' — these are just some of the tunes from this first volume of recordings that have struck a deep chord with me.

Keep in mind that I mentioned «first step»: in 1923, «emotional» blues singing was too young yet to include screaming one's head off, going from shrill to hushed in a matter of seconds, or ad-lib­bing whatever impulse came into your head like crazy. The inexperienced listener should not be ex­pecting a Janis Joplin here, or an Aretha Franklin, or even a Billie Holiday, even though all three were clearly indebted to Bessie, directly or indirectly (and Billie, in particular, used to sing quite a bit of Bessie's material). In essence, this is traditional, gimmick-free singing — but very human, very approachable, and, while we're at it, quite powerful: most of the «strong, indepen­dent» women of the more recent eras of pop music really sound like vague, insecure bimbos next to the strength and confidence that Smith exudes on almost every performance.

Obviously, the Complete Recordings series, even for giants like Bessie, are overkill, and she does not always sing with the same level of intensity, not to mention that much of the material just does not have any pre-written hooks to latch on to. There is also a horrendous recording that, for some stupid marketing reason, pairs Bessie with Clara Smith, a decent performer in her own rights — but together they form The Hungry Cat Duo, singing so drastically off-key that the only purpose of it must have been to imply that they should never be put on the same record again.

But this is obligatory nitpicking — when you strive for completism, you should know beforehand that not everything is going to be great. On the positive side, these cannot even be called the for­mative years: Bessie was just as fantastic on her first records as she was on her last — fresher, in fact, and with an overall higher proportion of truly timeless classics. Only historians need access to all the 38 tracks on here, but regular music lovers who do not have access to at least a dozen have missed a good friend. Thumbs up.