Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-t5tsf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-13T00:53:59.644Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Bessie Smith's ‘Back-Water Blues’: the story behind the song

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2007

DAVID EVANS
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

‘Back-Water Blues’, composed by Bessie Smith and recorded by her on 17 February 1927, has long been associated in the popular mind and even by some writers with the great flood of the lower Mississippi River and its tributaries that occurred that year. This is historically problematical because that flood began two months after Smith recorded her song. Through an examination of Smith's touring itinerary, the testimony of fellow entertainers who toured with her, newspaper reports, and other documents, it can be shown that the song was composed about a flood of the Cumberland River that struck Nashville, Tennessee, on Christmas morning, 1926. The lyrics of the song are interpreted with respect to the events of that flood.

Type
Articles
Information
Popular Music , Volume 26 , Issue 1 , January 2007 , pp. 97 - 116
Copyright
2007 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)