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Play Guide - The Devil's Music

January 30, 2013 by Corey Atkins, Artistic Associate-Engagement in Play Guides

To view the Play Guide, click on the related file link below!

You don’t earn the title “Empress of the Blues” without leaving your mark, and that couldn’t be more true of American musical legend Bessie Smith. It’s fitting that as our country celebrates Black History Month this seminal figure graces the Allen stage; all contemporary American popular music can trace its roots to the Blues, and Bessie brought the Blues into the mainstream. Hers is a true rags-to-riches story: though she was born into poverty in the south she rose to the heights of fame, making the equivalent of $25,000 a week at the peak of her career. But her path was anything but smooth. Known for her hard-drinking, free-loving, no-holds-barred lifestyle, Bessie Smith and her music confronted—and broke down—barriers of race, gender and sexuality in ways that, arguably, no one before her had.

In this issue of the CPH Play Guide, you’ll discover Bessie’s custom-made railroad car, as well as other less luxurious facts of life for African American touring artists in the 1920s; step into a side of the Harlem Renaissance you never knew existed; and explore the sexy secrets of the blues lifestyle and lyrics. Once you’ve read the Play Guide, pass it on to friends—believe us, there’s plenty to talk about!

And if you want more, be sure to RSVP for our InsideCPH event, “The Devil’s Music: Selling a Song,” on February 25th (more on that in the Guide). Then we’ll see you at the Allen Theatre for some red hot blues with The Devil’s Music: The Life and Blues of Bessie Smith.

To view the Play Guide, click on the related file link below!