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Bessie Smith - The Complete Recordings, Vol. 5

Track listing:
Volume 1
  1. Need A Little Sugar In My Bowl 2:49
  2. Safety Mama 3:26
  3. Do Your Duty 3:26
  4. Gimme A Pigfoot 3:30
  5. Take Me For A Buggy Ride 2:37
  6. I'm Down In The Dumps 3:12
  7. The Yellow Dog Blues 3:18
  8. Soft Pedal Blues 3:22
  9. Nashville Women's Blues 3:18
  10. Careless Love Blues 3:29
  11. Muddy Water (A Mississippi Moan) 3:15
  12. St. Louis Blues Soundtrack - Band Intro 0:44
  13. St. Louis Blues Soundtrack - Crap Game 5:42
  14. St. Louis Blues Soundtrack - St. Louis Blues 8:19
Volume 2
  1. Bessie Disappears - Bessie Smith & Ruby Smith 4:50
  2. Waldorf-Astoria Party - Bessie Smith & Ruby Smith 7:15
  3. Bessie & Jack, I - Bessie Smith & Ruby Smith 2:52
  4. Bessie & Jack Ii; Bessie & The Ladies - Bessie Smith & Ruby Smith 10:23
  5. Life On The Road, I - Bessie Smith & Ruby Smith 11:14
  6. Life On The Road, Ii - Bessie Smith & Ruby Smith 14:02
  7. Life On The Road, Iii - Bessie Smith & Ruby Smith, Bessie & Gertrude Saunders 21:18

Notes

May 6, 1925 - Nov 24, 1933

Bessie Smith cut 160 sides for the Columbia and OKeh labels between 1923 and 1933, and the four previous two-CD/cassette box sets of her complete recordings released in the 1990s covered 154 of them, which introduces the question, what can a fifth two-CD/cassette box set contain in addition to the remaining six cuts? First, there are five previously unreleased alternate takes; second, there is the 15-minute low-fi soundtrack to the two-reel short St. Louis Blues, which constitutes the only film of Smith; and third, taking up all of the second CD/cassette, there are 72 minutes of interview tapes of Ruby Smith, Bessie Smith's niece, who traveled as part of her show. The box contains a "Parental Advisory -- Explicit Lyrics" warning because of the nature of Ruby Smith's reminiscences. You won't learn much about Bessie Smith's music from her niece's remarks, but you will learn a lot about her sexual preferences.