And when I finished, he says to me, he says, 'My God, I ain't never heard a woman sing the blues like you sing the blues before in my life.

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Bessie Smith's version of St Louis Blues was even filmed in a kind of predecessor of today's music videos - she acts out the part of a woman knocked to the ground by a two-timing boyfriend, and then moves to a bar to sing the blues.

BBC: WC Handy's Memphis Blues: The Song of 1912