Personnel includes: Bessie Smith (vocals); Fletcher Henderson, Irving Johns, Jimmy Jones, Clarence Williams (piano); Buddy Christian (banjo); Ernest Elliot.

Includes liner notes by Anatol Schenker.

Personnel: Bessie Smith (vocals, accordion); Buddy Christian (banjo); Ernest Elliott (clarinet); Clarence Williams, Fletcher Henderson, Irving Johns, Jimmy Jones (piano).

Liner Note Author: Anatol Schenker.

Recording information: New York, NY (02/16/1923-10/04/1923).

This document of Smith's first year in the studio reveals a blues giant in full command of her talents. And while later dates -- especially the epochal 1925 sessions with Louis Armstrong -- offer more in the way of the era's horn-blowing royalty, these early sides nicely showcase Smith in the unadorned company of a variety of top pianists like Clarence Williams and Fletcher Henderson. The Empress of the Blues flexes her vocal muscle throughout, ranging from Broadway fare like "Baby Won't You Please Come Home" to the dark-hued rumblings of "Graveyard Dream Blues." She also revels in the provocative ambiguities of "Nobody in Town Can Bake a Sweet Jelly Roll" and puts her stamp on the future blues warhorse "'Tain't Nobody's Bizness If I Do." From the opening strain of her first best-seller, "Downhearted Blues," until the end of the disc, lovers of classic female blues will find plenty here to keep them enthralled. ~ Stephen Cook

This is volume one of a made-in-France version of the more familiar Columbia/Legacy Smith reissues, a single disc collection that duplicates the first 23 chronologically arranged tracks on the American THE COMPLETE RECORDINGS VOL. 1. The liner notes are pretty perfunctory compared to the American set (an essay by Bessie biographer Chris Albertson) and the sound here isn't as good as Legacy's digital restoration, although it's certainly listenable. Those limitations acknowledged, however, this is still great, timeless great music--even at this early stage, Smith was indisputably the Empress of the Blues. The most interesting track here is probably "T'Ain't Nobody's Biz-Ness If I Do" (20 years before Billie Holiday), although just about everything here is rewarding; it's particularly fascinating to hear Bessie growing more assured as the set progresses.