(spoilers)
OK. this is going to be the shortest review you have ever read.....
How can one take this movie seriously when Bessie Smith's greatest song. "Nobody Knows You" (When You're Down and Out" isn't in the movie!!!!!!!!!(or did I sleep through it?)
I first heard of Bessie Smith through the John Hammond sessions sparked by The 1960's Spencer Davis Group's version of the song, sung by Stevie Winwood. Maybe it was a copyright thing like in the Jimi Hendrix bio, but I doubt it as the song is so old. This would be like the George Gershwin Story without Rhapsody in Blue! Or Billy Holiday bio without Strange Fruit! Finally, this quote from Wiki:
"Bessie Smith recorded the song with instrumental accompaniment, including a small trumpet section. When Smith's record was released on September 13, 1929 (a Friday), the lyrics turned out to be oddly prophetic. The New York stock market had reached an all-time high less than two weeks earlier, only to go into its biggest decline two weeks later in the Wall Street Crash of 1929, which signaled the beginning of the ten-year Great Depression.
Bessie Smith's "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out" became one of her biggest hits, but was released before "race records" were tracked by record industry publications, such as Billboard magazine.
*******Today, it "more than any other, is the song that most people associate with Bessie Smith".[3]******
Q.L was fine as an actress. she can sing and did a reasonable Smith impression, but when all is said and done (according to THIS HBO movie, nothing much happens to Bessie, esp compared to Billy Holiday, or Ray Charles etc. etc Lost her mother, raised by a tyrannical older sister, otherwise not much real drama. The only nod to the dramatic is when her husband leaves her and takes their adopted son away, and of course the haunted locked refrigerator!!
Not very much the scheme of things to sing the blues about
OK. this is going to be the shortest review you have ever read.....
How can one take this movie seriously when Bessie Smith's greatest song. "Nobody Knows You" (When You're Down and Out" isn't in the movie!!!!!!!!!(or did I sleep through it?)
I first heard of Bessie Smith through the John Hammond sessions sparked by The 1960's Spencer Davis Group's version of the song, sung by Stevie Winwood. Maybe it was a copyright thing like in the Jimi Hendrix bio, but I doubt it as the song is so old. This would be like the George Gershwin Story without Rhapsody in Blue! Or Billy Holiday bio without Strange Fruit! Finally, this quote from Wiki:
"Bessie Smith recorded the song with instrumental accompaniment, including a small trumpet section. When Smith's record was released on September 13, 1929 (a Friday), the lyrics turned out to be oddly prophetic. The New York stock market had reached an all-time high less than two weeks earlier, only to go into its biggest decline two weeks later in the Wall Street Crash of 1929, which signaled the beginning of the ten-year Great Depression.
Bessie Smith's "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out" became one of her biggest hits, but was released before "race records" were tracked by record industry publications, such as Billboard magazine.
*******Today, it "more than any other, is the song that most people associate with Bessie Smith".[3]******
Q.L was fine as an actress. she can sing and did a reasonable Smith impression, but when all is said and done (according to THIS HBO movie, nothing much happens to Bessie, esp compared to Billy Holiday, or Ray Charles etc. etc Lost her mother, raised by a tyrannical older sister, otherwise not much real drama. The only nod to the dramatic is when her husband leaves her and takes their adopted son away, and of course the haunted locked refrigerator!!
Not very much the scheme of things to sing the blues about