Living blues Pitts Wiley’s Waiting for Bessie Smith BY JOHNETTE RODRIGUEZ

In a world where vinyl recordings, cassette tapes, and CDs exist, it’s hard to imagine not being able to hear the voice of one of the most acclaimed singers of the early 20th century: Sissieretta Jones, who lived from early childhood in Providence and died here (poverty-stricken) in June, 1933. The local NAACP president, William Freeman, assisted her financially in those last years of poverty and illness, but the black community at the time didn’t full appreciate the amazing artist they had in their midst until she was gone.

Playwright/actor/director Ricardo Pitts-Wiley has set his new piece, Waiting for Bessie Smith, in the winter months of ’33-’34, following Sissieretta’s death. It’s the midst of the Depression, a time of great change and struggle for many people in this country, most especially its black citizens. It’s an intense period of migration from the agrarian South to the industrial North for many black families seeking work, and it’s a time of searching for a better life in the North for many black musicians.

Such is the case for Mississippi Willie (played by guitarist Paul Williams) and Providence club owner Chatty, short for Chattanooga (played by Raidge). Willie’s friend Ella Lou (Kim Trusty) is the daughter of a local preacher, but she sneaks off to Chatty’s club to hear the blues. Paul Bisch as Piano Eddy rounds out the cast of Waiting for Bessie Smith.

And waiting they are. Seen in rehearsal last week, the play centers around these four characters waiting for the blues diva Bessie to arrive, though her train from New York must get through a snowstorm. Chatty had known Bessie back in Tennessee and has invited her to come to Providence as a balm for the community’s grief over Sissieretta. In the course of the play, we learn quite a bit about Ella Lou, Willie, and Chatty, though very little about the taciturn Eddy (except that he can pound out a mean blues accompaniment for Trusty and Williams). And we get to hear more than a dozen songs a la Bessie Smith from the always-soulful Ms. Trusty.

"It was almost like creating mini-concerts within the play," Pitts-Wiley admitted, explaining that there are three- and four-song sequences inserted into the narrative. "Ultimately it had to evolve into what a Bessie Smith show would have been like. Plus, you couldn’t lose Sissieretta Jones in it."

Though she married while still a teenager (14 or 15) and had a child who died as a toddler, Jones was a classically trained singer (perhaps at the New England Conservatory of Music, most certainly at the Providence Academy of Music) who went on to sing for presidents and heads of state in Europe and the US. She was heralded at "world fairs" in Toronto and Pittsburgh, at Madison Square Garden, and the White House, all in 1892, and in a concert with Antonin Dvorak in 1894. But despite consistently strong reviews of her work (one reviewer compared her to an Italian opera singer of the time, Adelina Patti, calling her the "Black Patti," a name that stuck with her the rest of her life), her career was seriously mismanaged by her husband (whom she divorced in 1898) and another promoter. In order to support her mother and herself, she toured with a company called Black Patti’s Troubadours from 1896-1913.

In Pitts-Wiley’s play, Ella Lou had known Sissieretta and been inspired by her to take her own singing seriously. Chatty had landed in Providence on his way back from apple-picking in Maine and stayed here because "any place that could produce that beautiful kind of sound is a place I’d want to be." Chatty also refers to hearing Sissieretta’s version of "Ave Maria" this way: "She sang in a language I didn’t understand but it sounded like it was something important that I could have if I wanted it."

Pitts-Wiley has researched contemporary reviews of Jones, and he has concluded that she had a one-of-a-kind voice, like Maria Callas or Placido Domingo, as well as the pervasive cultural presence of such singers: "She was a phenom for sure." But despite her aspirations to sing Verdi at the Met, it would be almost 50 years before the racial barrier that excluded her was broken by Marion Anderson.

"I had these personalities that were bigger than life — Sissieretta and Bessie Smith," Pitts-Wiley explained, "but I didn’t need to bring them on stage."

A large visual image of Sissieretta will sit stage right, a memorial within the plot-line of the play. And, in addition to the live music, a few recordings will be heard under the dialogue (Marion Anderson’s "Ave Maria," for example).

Raidge slips right into Chatty’s shoes, as a man who has seen hard times but can’t fail to be lifted up by the power of music. Williams tells Willie’s story of being in a black regiment in World War I and sharing his music with thousands of other black men from all over the country. And Trusty gives us the spunk and sass of a young woman like Ella Lou, plus lending her smoke-and-honey voice to songs like "Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out," "T’ain’t Nobody’s Business If I Do," "Wasted-Life Blues," "Pig Foot and a Bottle of Beer," "A Good Man Is Hard to Find," and "After You’ve Gone."

Waiting for Bessie Smith is 90 minutes jam-packed with memorable characters, unforgettable music, and history that should be re-remembered. Performances are on Saturday, January 31 at 8 p.m. and on Sunday, February 1 at 3 p.m. at the URI Feinstein Providence campus. Call 277-5000.