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I hate to see that evening sun go down
I hate to see that evening sun go down
‘Cause, my baby, he’s gone left this town

Released in 1929, St. Louis Blues is a short film featuring blues legend Bessie Smith and an all-African-American cast.  Songwriter W.C. Handy was the musical director of the film.  To my knowledge it is Bessie Smith’s only known film appearance.

Bessie Smith – St. Louis Blues (Smith’s performance):

The power and pure feeling  in her singing voice as she belts out the title track  of the movie St. Louis Blues is incredible.

Wikipedia:

“Saint Louis Blues” is a popular American song composed by W. C. Handy in the blues style. It remains a fundamental part of jazz musicians’ repertoire. It was also one of the first blues songs to succeed as a pop song. It has been performed by numerous musicians of all styles from Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith to Count Basie, Glenn Miller, Guy Lombardo, and the Boston Pops Orchestra. It has been called “the jazzman’s Hamlet“.  Published in September 1914 by Handy’s own company, it later gained such popularity that it inspired the dance step the “Foxtrot”.

The version with Bessie Smith and Louis Armstrong on cornet was inducted in the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1993.

The Movie, St. Louis Blues  (it’s a two-reel short).

Bessie Smith finds her gambler lover Jimmy messin’ with a pretty, younger woman.  He leaves and this makes Bessie to pour herself a drink and sing the title song.  It is a small but entertaining movie. Well worth your time.

The film is about 16 minutes long.

In 2006, this version was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”.

Part 1:

part 2:

It was in 1929 that Kenneth W. Adams and W.C. Handy made a short film treatment based on Handy’s famous song St. Louis Blues. The film company Phototone hired Dudley Murphy to direct a two-reel short.  W.C. Handy suggested Bessie Smith  to be the star of the film. Bessie Smith had recently  had a big hit in 1925 with her recording of St. Louis Blues (w/Louis Armstrong on cornet).

The film was shot in June of 1929 in Astoria, Long Island and was shown between the years 1929 to 1932.  The short has a great jazz band that includes, James P. Johnson on piano, Thomas Morris and Joe Smith on cornet, as well as the Hall Johnson Choir.  The co-stars were dancer/actor Jimmy Mordecai as Bessie’s good for nothing boyfriend and Isabel Washington Powell as the other woman.

St. Louis Blues, lyrics:

I hate to see that evening sun go down
I hate to see that evening sun go down
‘Cause, my baby, he’s gone left this town

Feelin’ tomorrow like I feel today
If I’m feelin’ tomorrow like I feel today
I’ll pack my truck and make my give-a-way

St. Louis woman with her diamond ring
Pulls that man around by her
If it wasn’t for her and her
That man I love would have gone nowhere, nowhere

I got the St. Louis Blues
Blues as I can be
That man’s got a heart like a rock cast in the sea
Or else he wouldn’t have gone so far from me

I love my baby like a school boy loves his pie
Like a Kentucky colonel loves his mint’n rye
I love my man till the day I die

by W.C. Handy

– Hallgeir

Sources: Wikipedia, IMDB, Redhotjazz.com