Music Vehicular Deaths #10 - Bessie Smith

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Having just finished a countdown of music plane crash victims, it's time to turn our attention to the road, with Music Vehicular Deaths. #10 kicks the series off with Bessie Smith. Blues singer Bessie Smith's career lasted from 1912 until 1937, when a car in which she was a passenger crashed outside of Clarksdale, Mississippi. Smith's lover, Richard Morgan, was driving the Packard when he misjudged the speed of a slow moving truck ahead of the couple and attempted to pass, clipping, at speed, the left side of the truck. The truck's tailgate sheared off the Packard's wooden roof, with Smith taking the full brunt of the impact (Morgan was unharmed.) Dr. Hugh Smith was first on the scene, and while Bessie Smith's right arm was nearly fully severed at the elbow (he estimated that the singer had lost nearly a half pint of blood,) Dr. Smith attributed Bessie Smith's death to the right side of her body being nearly crushed. Bessie Smith was taken to G.T. Thomas Afro-American Hospital, where she never regained consciousness. Her grave remained unmarked until 1970, when her housekeeper, Juanita Green, and Janis Joplin paid for a headstone. Bessie Smith was the premier female blues singer of the 1920's and 30's. She is in the Rock and Roll, Blues, Big Band and Jazz, and Nesuhi Ertegen Jazz Halls of Fame. Three of her songs are in the Grammy Hall of Fame, and her song "Downhearted Blues" is in both the National Recording Registry and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In 1992, she was honored with a postage stamp, and was portrayed by Queen Latifah in the 2015 film, Bessie. (Info verified by Wikipedia)