The Concordian

Issue date: 2/25/09 Section: Arts & Entertainment

Media Credit: Steven Wilder Davis Lady D sang and told stories in character as legendary blue singer Bessie Smith. [Click to enlarge]

If she wasn't the original Bessie Smith, she was as close as it gets here at Concord.

When Lady D took the Subway Stage last Tuesday with her keyboardist Robert Gray, students in the audience were taken back in time to the 1930's when the original Mistress of The Blues Bessie Smith was the most soulful voice in the country.

Lady D gave a presentation in character as Bessie Smith and told audience members a little history behind the genre of the blues and African American music in the first half of the 20th century and sang songs throughout, backed up by a keyboard and a drum machine.

Lady D laughed throughout as she told Bessie Smith's story of growing up with Jim Crow laws in the south before moving into Harlem during the Great Depression.
"Those were hard times," she said, "but they was good times, too!"

She spoke and sang about movements such as the Harlem Renaissance and sang classic blues tunes like "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out" along the way.
"Things was happening in Harlem then," she told the crowd, "and it looked like colored folks was leading the way!"
At the end of the show, Lady D took questions from audience members both as herself and in character as Bessie Smith.

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