The songwriter who popularized the blues form, W.C. Handy, published “St. Louis Blues” in 1914. It’s a slinky, haunting piece with a middle section that shifts into a tango rhythm, and most of the people who heard Bessie Smith’s recording in 1925 would have recognized it as a standard. They’d also have recognized Smith as an enormous star: “the Empress of the Blues.” But nobody was ready for her rendition, which stripped the song down to a raw, boastful, desperate performance, a chilling series of harmonium drones (played by Fred Longshaw) and painterly cornet flourishes by then up-and-coming jazz musician Louis Armstrong. Smith wields every phrase of the song like a butterfly knife, and who she cuts with it shifts from line to line — herself, the man who betrayed her, the “St. Louis Woman” whose arms he’s in now and the world to which she wants to make it absolutely clear what has happened.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNWs0LsimFs]