Bessie Smith was a revolutionary person during her time period. She marked the beginning of a new singing style. She was even nick-named, the "Empress of the Blues". She was said to have a "huge sweeping voice" that was capable of creating strength and also tenderness. By the end of her career she had made up to 160 recordings. She was also famous for her ability to carry out the precise meaning of a line by using just one discrete syllable or change in sound. She was also known for being able to express her feelings by "bending" a note or making it sound differently then we would generally expect.
Bessie Smith's career began when she was "discovered" by the famous, Ma Rainey who was the first known "classic" blues singer. Her first recording,, "Down Hearted Blues", which was released in 1923, was an immediate success, although it was released without any special promotion. It had sold over two million copies by the end of it's first year being released which was a remarkable amount for that period in time. In the mid-twenties she toured the entire south and most of the major northern cities. On the performance bills, she was always featured as the "star attraction".
During this decade, Bessie Smith became the most highly paid black entertainer in the country. She was being paid $1500 per week, while her records remained popular. Bessie Smith recorded with many jazz geniuses such as Louis Armstrong, Fletcher Henderson, Sidney Bechet, and Joe Smith. She helped them by influencing them just as they had influenced her. Although she was an amazing jazz artist, she also performed in a short movie called The St. Louis Blues (1929) which was apparently a "must-see" film.
Throughout her singing career she was recognized as a strong and independent African-American woman with a tremendous amount of talent and determination. She also expressed a great deal of dignity in her culture and ethnicity. Her strong voice helped her to reshape or revolutionize the blues world. She had to go against very tough competition, but she was able to overcome that and "turn heads" with her popular styles that were released during this decade. Many jazz masters of her time said "she could project a song more forcibly to large audiences than any other blues singer in the days before microphones and audio amplification". She constantly created new melodies or changed and modified existing ones by concentrating on pitches and notes that were rested within the loudest tones of her voice.

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