The Words and Songs of Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday, and Nina Simone: Sound Motion, Blues Spirit, and African Memory (Studies in African American History and Culture)

279 Pages·2007·1.28 MB·English

by  Melanie E. Bratcher

Studies in African American
History and Culture
Edited by
Graham Hodges
Colgate University
A Routledge Series
Studies in African American
History and Culture
Graham Hodges, General Editor
Contesting the Terrain of the Courting Communities
Ivory Tower Black Female Nationalism and
Spiritual Leadership of African- “Syncre-Nationalism” in the
American Women in the Academy Nineteenth-Century North
Rochelle Garner Kathy L. Glass
Post-Soul Black Cinema The Selling of Civil Rights
Discontinuities, Innovations, and The Student Nonviolent Coordinating
Breakpoints, 1970–1995 Committee and the Use of Public
William R. Grant, IV Relations
Vanessa Murphree
The Mysterious Voodoo Queen,
Marie Laveaux Black Liberation in the Midwest
A Study of Powerful Female Leadership The Struggle in St. Louis, Missouri,
in Nineteenth-Century New Orleans 1964–1970
Ina Johanna Fandrich Kenneth S. Jolly
Race and Masculinity in When to Stop the Cheering?
Contemporary American Prison The Black Press, the Black Community,
Narratives and the Integration of Professional
Auli Ek Baseball
Brian Carroll
Swinging the Vernacular
Jazz and African American Modernist The Rise and Fall of the Garvey
Literature Movement in the Urban South,
Michael Borshuk 1918–1942
Claudrena N. Harold
Boys, Boyz, Bois
An Ethics of Black Masculinity in Film The Black Panthers in the Midwest
and Popular Media The Community Programs and
Keith M. Harris Services of the Black Panther Party in
Milwaukee, 1966–1977
Movement Matters
Andrew Witt
American Antiapartheid Activism and
the Rise of Multicultural Politics Words and Songs of Bessie Smith,
David L. Hostetter Billie Holiday, and Nina Simone
Sound Motion, Blues Spirit, and
Slavery, Southern Culture,
African Memory
and Education in Little Dixie,
Melanie E. Bratcher
Missouri, 1820–1860
Jeffrey C. Stone
Words and Songs of Bessie Smith,
Billie Holiday, and Nina Simone
Sound Motion, Blues Spirit, and African Memory
Melanie E. Bratcher
Routledge
New York & London
Routledge Routledge
Taylor & Francis Group Taylor & Francis Group
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Library of Congress Cataloging‑in‑Publication Data
Bratcher, Melanie E.
Words and songs of Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday, and Nina Simone : sound motion,
blues spirit, and African memory / by Melanie E. Bratcher.
p. cm. ‑‑ (Studies in African American history and culture)
Includes bibliographical references (p. ), discography (p. ), and index.
ISBN 0‑415‑98029‑1
1. African Americans‑‑Music‑‑History and criticism. 2. Blues (Music)‑‑History
and criticism. 3. Smith, Bessie, 1894‑1937‑‑Criticism and interpretation.
4. Holiday, Billie, 1915‑1959‑‑Criticism and interpretation. 5. Simone, Nina,
1933‑2003‑‑Criticism and interpretation. I. Title.
ML3479.B73 2007
782.421643092’396073‑‑dc22 2007004906
Visit the Taylor & Francis Web site at
http://www.taylorandfrancis.com
and the Routledge Web site at
http://www.routledge.com
ISBN 0-203-94202-7 Master e-book ISBN
Contents
List of Figures vii
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xvii
Chapter One
Introduction 1
Chapter Two
Catching the Blues Spirit 13
Chapter Three
Musing African Memory 25
Chapter Four
Three Women 49
Chapter Five
Sound Motion and Spirit 87
Chapter Six
Summary and Conclusion 133
Appendix One
Discography 141
v
vi Contents
Appendix Two
Life Profile Matrix 145
Appendix Three
Life Profile Matrix: Analytical Categories Quantified per Singer 155
Appendix Four
Life Profile Matrix: Analytical Categories Thematically Qualified 159
Appendix Five
Life Profile/Song Matrices 163
Appendix Six
Discography of Selected Song Performances on CD 169
Appendix Seven
Selected Songs/Prevalent Themes Matrices 171
Appendix Eight
Explanation of Nzuri Model Contexts 183
Appendix Nine
Application of Nzuri to Selected Song Performances 187
Permissions 205
Notes 209
Bibliography 223
Glossary 241
Suggested Readings 251
Index 255
List of Figures
Figure 4.1: Prevalent Themes: Flow of Discussion in Chapter Four 50
Figure 4.2: Incarceration: Flow of Discussion 52
Figure 5.1: The Welsh Asante Nzuri Model 88
vii

Preface
Personal Journey
The personal journey I am being drawn through presents itself as a helix
of memories about a magnolia-adorned maternal grandmother and about
songs that made me cry, laugh, feel, and analyze. I find myself actively
seeking a career(s) in jazz/blues performance and academia/teaching. I am
drawn on by destiny within these two realms. All great teachers do what
they teach.
My first encounter with singing took place in Vicksburg, Mississippi,
when I was five years old. As I remember it, Grandma and I were visiting
family there when one Sunday she and several other elder women ushered
me into a church. Promptly upon entrance, I was seated diagonally behind
the pulpit with the other children in the children’s choir. All of the chil-
dren sat together there. We had to sing, and I did not know the songs or
what else was expected of me. Amazingly, the melodies overtook me as I
hummed along. The words never really came, but the sound of the music
and the movements of the other children and the congregation lulled me
away from my fear of being in front of the congregation, charged with the
responsibility to sing. That is really all I remember about that experience
in terms of my participation. But something metaphysical resides in that
memory space now.
There was the feeling of opening my mouth and letting out sounds,
unintelligible words to me then, but sounds that went along with the words
and sounds everyone else was making. Though I knew only Grandma, I
felt at home in the church. And I loved the feeling of singing, making music
with my voice—in a way, rendering life. I felt vital and included and pow-
erful. I never sang the words, but musicality had begun for me. The meta-
physical memory now is the warmth that comes to me when I conjure up
that scene. It is as if I were simultaneously in the choir singing and also in
ix