Bessie Smith

female blues singer

who has ever lived.

hit the theatre circuit 巡回演出

at the age of eighteen

touring in minstrel吟游歌手 shows and cabarets.

on the same bill節(jié)目單 with legendary傳奇的 singer

rock legend

segued from dancing to singing ?無(wú)間斷繼續(xù)

her talents drew（draw拉出，吸引 n有吸引力的人） large audiences

create her own show

extravagant?鋪張的

as many as 40 people

in a cast演員陣容

segregation 種族隔離was the norm準(zhǔn)則

black rooming houses 黑人公寓

theatrical rooming houses when they stayed

railroad car（房車(chē)？）

their home away from home

be enormous for the time

be pulling in(入賬) (the unheard of) sum of 2000 dollars a week.

Just the whole idea that

be able to make live at that time.

emancipated被解放的 women to me

feminist女權(quán)主義者

hard- drinking/promiscuous淫亂的/ violent ?暴力的 life

she sang about in the blues

because she lived it.

get the sense

despite all of this, this was a woman who's going to overcome it and she did.

by the early 1920s, .....discovered her

best-selling blues artist of her time.

make recordings

tunes曲調(diào)

business mind

in the aisle

sell merchandise商品

travelling market place

that sb got his stuff

that's where sb plant

be cut short by a car crash

at the age of

lay in a enormous plot空地

buy her a headstone ?墓碑

several decades later

swagger 昂首闊步

a credible booming低沉有回響的 voice

rock and roll is rhythm and blues that came from the blues of Bessie Smith