Bessie Smith and the Riverside Hotel Bessie Smith was probably the world’s most famous female blues singer during her time. Sadly, in 1937, she was seriously injured in a car wreck near Clarksdale, MS. She was taken to the GT Thomas Hospital for African Americans, where she would soon pass away. Several years later, that hospital would be converted to the Riverside Hotel...where many of the best names in blues history would go on to stay. Today, the room where Bessie Smith died is preserved as a

Bessie Smith: The Empress Who Sang Her Pain into Power Known as The Empress of the Blues, Bessie Smith was more than a singer, she was a cultural force who turned her struggles into timeless art. Rising from poverty in the early 1900s, she became the highest-paid Black entertainer of her time, giving voice to the pain, love, and resilience of an entire generation. Her powerful, soul-stirring voice on hits like Downhearted Blues and Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out shaped the foundation