August 8, 1970: Janis Joplin Bought a Headstone for Bessie Smith

On August 8, 1970, Janis Joplin bought a headstone for the grave of her greatest influence Bessie Smith at the Mont Lawn Cemetery in Philadelphia. The blues singer’s grave was unmarked until that time. Smith was one of the most popular blues singers of the 1920s and 1930s, but sadly died in a car crash in 1937.

During an interview in 1969 with the Hit Parader magazine, Joplin discussed the strong impact of Smith and other blues artists in shaping her own style: “Back in Port Arthur, I’d heard some Lead Belly records, and, well, if the blues syndrome is true, I guess it’s true about me…So I began listening to blues and folk music. I bought Bessie Smith and Odetta records, and one night, I was at this party and I did an imitation of Odetta. I’d never sung before, and I came out with this huge voice.”

Here’s the article the appeared in the New York Times, Aug 9 1970;

PHILADELPHIA, Aug. 8 (AP) —Janis Joplin, the blues‐rock singer, and Juanita Green, a registered nurse from Philadelphia shared the cost of a stone for the “Empress of the Blues,” whose grave lay un marked for more than 30 years.

A gray‐black stone was un veiled yesterday on the grave of Bessie Smith, who died in an auto accident in 1937. Only grass had marked her grave in Mount Lawn Cemetery in near by Sharon Hill because her ‘family did not have enough money to buy a tombstone for her.

Miss Joplin and Juanita Green, who met Bessie Smith at the old Lincoln Theater in the 1930s here, donated the stone after a woman had written to The Philadelphia Inquirer's Ac tion Line asking about the un marked grave.

About 50 admirers gathered at the graveside for the dedication of the stone, inscribed with the words, “The Greatest Blues Singer in the World Will Never Stop Singing—Bessie Smith‐1895‐1937.” 

The epitaph was written by jazz historian John Hammon, who as a young recording engineer with Columbia Studios did a record session with Bessie Smith. The blues singer's career skyrocketed in the 1920's when she reportedly was earning $2,500 a week and re cording such songs as “Gimme a Pigfoot,” “Nobody Knows You” and “Money Blues.” Her first recording, “Downhearted Blues,” cut in 1923, was a smash hit.