YEAR
1989
INDUCTED BY
Anita Baker
CATEGORY
Early Influences
The Empress of the Blues’ reign was definitive, unprecedented and glorious.
Bessie Smith was rare for many reasons—her musical apprenticeship under Ma Rainey, her songs about liberated women, her plainspoken style that foreshadowed rap—but nothing distinguished her more than her voice.
Bessie Smith
HALL OF FAME
ESSAY
By Chris Albertson
She showed me the air and taught me how to fill it,” said Janis Joplin of Bessie Smith, whose potent voice and distinct style continue to inspire new generations of vocalists fifty-one years after her death.
“I know that people don’t sing like they used to,” Alberta Hunter said in a 1978 interview. “I mean, styles keep changing, but Bessie had something in her voice, something in her delivery that tugged at your soul and inspired you to sing.”
