Bessie Smith Movie St. Louis Blues (1929)

This Bessie Smith documentary produced by The Biography Channel (Bio.) offers a short overview of Bessie's life and death. It touches on her early days with Ma Rainey to traveling the country during segregation and eventually being discovered by Columbia Records.

Queen Latifah portrays legendary blues singer Bessie Smith, who rose to fame in the 1920s and earned the nickname "The Empress of the Blues." A pioneer of the Jazz Age, Smith was also a bisexual.