Anybody doing Bessie Smith tunes?

[FenderBoy]

I've been in touch with a female keyboardist and singer recently and we're pretty excited about getting together to do some Bessie with HER...not me...on vocals....and with none of the usual guitar breaks but mimicks of Bessie style horns instead on guitar.
I've always thought Bessie Smith was really somethin'. But, let me tell you...them horn scales are strangely unfamiliar and just enough out of my usual box to be a tad confusing. Still doing it that way though.

Anyway, I'm just curious if anybody is performing Bessie Smith stuff and with what kind of arrangements.

[Annie D.]

SHIPWRECK BLUES (B. Smith)

Captain, tell your men to get on board
I sure see 'em just pull into another shore

I'm dreary in mind and I'm so worried in heart
Oh the best of friends sho' has got to part

Blow your whistle captain, so your men'll know what to do
Blow your whistle captain, so your men'll know what to do
When a woman gets dreary ain't no tellin' what she won't do

It's cloudy outdoors as can be
Oh it's cloudy as can be
That's the time I need my good man with me

It's rainin' and it's stormin' on the sea
It's rainin', it's stormin' on the sea
I feel like somebody has shipwrecked poor me

*********************************

(She's got some vewwy vewwy lewd tunes that are fun, too)
Keep it simple and do it lots slower than you feel it should be so's your singer has time to put ev'rthing into it. Then kick it out on the next tune. Think scratchy 78's and jukejoints. ma 2 cents. ( i know nuttin')

[FenderBoy]

Lewd?

HA!
That's funny.
I thought she was singing about pastry and bacon most of the time!

[NeoFauve]

Pastry and bacon?
That sounds more like lard.

[Annie D.]

Lollipops and round steak and how the milkman brings fresh cream every morning.

[FenderBoy]

All right, Annie. I'm starting to sweat. OK?

[dafack01]

I'm not going.

[FenderBoy]

I'm not going.

?????????

[Annie D.]

lightweights...sheesh!


Google on her lyrics (ok she didn't "write" lots of them).


"You got the gospel on the radio
And the gospel on tv..."

Yehey, yehey, yehey, yehey, yehey... :wail2

[FenderBoy]

I just don't understand. Why does Bessie sing about a deep sea diver?
I didn't know Lloyd Bridges was alive when she was doin' the circuit.

[Annie D.]

He may have been alive "Because" she was doin' the circuit when his pappy was feelin' his oats.

Daddy, fall down wit' me... (oops, I don't think that was Bessie, 'cause that's ME)

[FenderBoy]

Daddy, fall down wit me?....Oh yeah. How could I forget so easily? Dick Van Dyke fell down quite a lot. Musta been him.