Tribute to blues legend scheduled in Franklin

  • 2024-02-14
An organization in Franklin is planning a special event to celebrate an extraordinary icon in music.

The Williamson County Performing Arts Center is honoring Women’s History Month by presenting “The Lady and the Empress.” The production is a one-person show performed, as well as created, by Doris Fields, who has a four-piece backing band. Fields’ show honors the life, times, and work of Bessie Smith, a 1920s blues artist who earned the title the “Empress of the Blues.”

Bessie Smith was a native of Chattanooga, and the 1930’s most popular female blues artist. She was a major influence on both jazz vocalists and other blues singers, and was inducted into the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame in 1989.

Fields’ performance details Bessie Smith’s life, from her start in Chattanooga and the performances she gave at the tent shows in the South, to her success in Harlem. The show is 90-minutes long, and is both educational and entertaining. Audiences will hear some of Smith’s greatest songs, including “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out,” and “T’ain’t Nobody’s Business If I Do.”

Doris Fields will appear on March 3, from 3.00pm until 5.00pm, at the Williamson County Performing Arts Center at Academy Park, located at 112 Everbright Avenue in Franklin. Organizers of events of this kind will often work with poster printing to create advertising for the occasion.