Guest Chaney Posted July 1, 2003 Report Posted July 1, 2003 UP Thanks for posting that Chris. Good stuff. Quote
RonF Posted July 2, 2003 Report Posted July 2, 2003 FYI Fresh Air today - Tue. July 1, 2003 Fresh Air runs at 6 PM out here....just wrapped up. Good interview Chris! Fascinating! Only problem was - it was too damned short! Quote
BruceH Posted July 2, 2003 Report Posted July 2, 2003 Chris! I heard your Fresh Air interview today in the early afternoon---very good interview. Congrats on the new edition of your book. I taped the interview off the air, so I will no doubt be listening to it in my car over and over again in the coming weeks. (Perhaps it's the American in me, but many things sound better in a car.) Quote
.:.impossible Posted July 2, 2003 Report Posted July 2, 2003 I had no idea you were going to be on the radio today, but I happened to tune in. It was 15 minutes into the interview before any mention of the book or an author and I kept wondering if it was you! Sure enough! Congratulations Chris. I really enjoyed listening. P.S. For some reason, I always imagined that you had an accent! Quote
Christiern Posted July 2, 2003 Author Report Posted July 2, 2003 P.S. For some reason, I always imagined that you had an accent! There was a time when you would have been right. Actually, I still--but with increasing rarity--get my Vs and Ws mixed up. I used to drink whee-O and ginger while watching TWhee, but I was never known to exclaim "Vot a svinging band it iss dis Bassie!" BTW There was also a time when I thought the No Standing sign meant that one could not stand and wait for a bus--I used to stand against a building until the bus was almost there, then run out to catch it! And I was 27 years old! End of true confessions. Quote
Christiern Posted July 21, 2003 Author Report Posted July 21, 2003 More shameless self-promotion... Rocky Sullivans Quote
Rooster_Ties Posted July 21, 2003 Report Posted July 21, 2003 FYI Fresh Air today - Tue. July 1, 2003 I missed this the first time, but thankfully NPR has so much archive material available on-line. Here's what might be a more direct link to the interview, which I'm listening to now. http://freshair.npr.org/day_fa.jhtml?displ...Date=07/01/2003 Thanks Chris!! Quote
shawn·m Posted September 30, 2003 Report Posted September 30, 2003 Chris, I picked up The Complete Recordings Vol. 1 and I’m enjoying them immensely. It’s doubtful that I would’ve given Ms. Smith a serious listen if it weren’t for your “Bessie.” By the way, did you happen to notice the other “BS” review was stripped from Amazon? Whew! I no longer feel the need to post a user review just to provide counterpoint. My wife thought it unlikely a strong-willed individual, like Bessie, would submit to Gee’s mistreatment. I, on the other hand, was dumfounded as to how the sisters could destroy the memorabilia trunk’s contents. I suppose both cases underscore folk’s unpredictable behavior when family is involved. Can you recommend which of the remaining volumes will offer the most variety by comparison to Vol. 1? Quote
Christiern Posted September 30, 2003 Author Report Posted September 30, 2003 Can you recommend which of the remaining volumes will offer the most variety by comparison to Vol. 1? Assuming that you are referring to the Columbia sets (Frog is also putting out a complete set with, I understand, great sound by John R. T.), I recommend Volume 2 because it contains her extraordinary collaborations with Louis Armstrong. It's a tough question for me to answer, because I embrace it all. Volume 5 contains less music, since the second disc is devoted to about 70 minutes of my interviews with Ruby Walker Smith, but it includes the soundtrack performance of "St. Louis Blues," from the 1929 film, the last session (with swing era musicians), and two alternate takes with Armstrong. Since you have read the book, it might interest you to hear Ruby tell some of the stories contained in it--she does a far better job than I could hope to. Your wife's observation is an interesting one. I once asked Genya Ravan why so many female singers put up with abusive husbands and boyfriends. Her explanation was that the abuse works as a balance, of sorts! She told me that "a girl can get tired of being waited on hand to foot. When you are the star of the show, you only have to hint that you want something, and someone's off trying to find it for you. After you go through a lot of that, it's kinda nice to come home to a guy who isn't at your feet." Different strokes, eh? Quote
shawn·m Posted September 30, 2003 Report Posted September 30, 2003 Yes, it’s the Columbia series. Alright then, Vol. 2 followed by Vol. 5 it is! Interesting what Genya said. Especially since it flies in the face of self-indulgence. Maybe it’s a kind of defense mechanism: Keeping the world at bay by holding on to a shred of pre-fame reality? I’ll have to get sls’s attention on this thread… Quote
shawn·m Posted December 9, 2003 Report Posted December 9, 2003 As you can see, sls declined to voice her thoughts. Volume II freshly obtained as an early x-mas gift. Thanks for the pointers, Chris. Quote
sheldonm Posted January 16, 2004 Report Posted January 16, 2004 The interview with Ruby is a trip, very interesting, amusing and a little "R" rated at times, but a great companion to Chris's book. Mark Quote
EKE BBB Posted January 28, 2004 Report Posted January 28, 2004 Just finished the book. All I can say is that, after reading Chris Albertson´s "Bessie" I will never be able to listen to Bessie´s recordings the same way! It´s an interesting and well documented research, full of first-hand interviews (wow, Ruby had an amazing memory). But, furthermore, it´s written with much more than great respect and appreciation for Bessie: I would say it´s a "love affair". Besides the technical and critical (in a good sense, of course ) comments on Bessie´s recording dates and gigs, you find many, many wonderful anecdotes, many personal affairs, narrated with innocence, naivety... (sorry if these are not apropiate English words to express it) The best jazz/blues biography I´ve ever read, for sure! Well, pardon my impetuosity. I´m not a critic, so I only dare say it´s been the most interesting and fascinating one... I highly recommend it! (and I don´t get any commission from Chris, don´t you think... ) Quote
Christiern Posted January 28, 2004 Author Report Posted January 28, 2004 Thank you for the kind words, EKE BBB. Quote
Dmitry Posted February 7, 2004 Report Posted February 7, 2004 Chris, I'm sure you are aware of the 1959 Bessie biography by Paul Oliver. Was that the 1st book dedicated to her? What do you think of it? Quote
Christiern Posted February 7, 2004 Author Report Posted February 7, 2004 (edited) Yes, I have the book and don't think much of it. It is a slim volume that contains many factual errors (including her christened name and birth date!) and is largely based on her discography. Discographies reflect an important facet in the career of someone like Bessie Smith, but to base a biography upon such information is to account only for a few hours of a life that spanned many years--in this case, four and a half decades. I was, quite frankly, amazed when I read the book, because Oliver enjoyed a good reputation as a blues scholar--I really did not expect his research to be so shallow. He suggests that--at the time of writing--very few people were around to fill in the gaps, yet, in regard to personal accounts, he relied only on old interviews he had done with visiting musicians like Jack Teagarden and Big Bill Broonzy. The book perpetuates all the myths, although it comes close to the truth when he deals with the most prominent one: Bessie's death. Still, it was not very difficult for me to find people with intimate first-hand knowledge of Bessie (including a detailed eyewitness account of the accident scene) when I started my book a decade later. As for Oliver's biography being the first, I believe that is probably so, at least the first to appear in book form. There was a man named Bucklin ("Buck") Moon who in the 1940s-50s wrote articles about Bessie with such enthusiasm that I (and others, I'm sure) fully expected him to come out with the first book. Buck passed away before he could undertake such a project. His wife, Ann Curtis Brown, a literary agent, represented Lil Armstrong and me in the late 1960s, when we worked on Lil's biography. Bottom line, had Oliver done his research properly, there would have been no need for my book. Edited February 7, 2004 by Christiern Quote
sheldonm Posted February 7, 2004 Report Posted February 7, 2004 I know Buck wrote for the Record Changer magazine in the late 40' and early fifties. He may have wrote for some others. Mark Quote
sheldonm Posted February 7, 2004 Report Posted February 7, 2004 ....or should I have said "He may have writen for others???" Quote
Christiern Posted February 7, 2004 Author Report Posted February 7, 2004 Yes, Buck contributed to Bill Grauer's Record Changer magazine. He apparently had an abiding interest in African-American arts and people, in general. Click here for details. Quote
Christiern Posted June 16, 2005 Author Report Posted June 16, 2005 (edited) And now also available in paperback... Some reviews Edited June 16, 2005 by Christiern Quote
Fer Urbina Posted September 14, 2007 Report Posted September 14, 2007 For any Londoners around here, in Love Joys, in Charing Cross Road right opposite Maccaris, they have copies of Chris Albertson's Bessie in paperback, for £3.99 F Quote
_forumlogo.png.a607ef20a6e0c299ab2aa6443aa1f32e.png)
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.