Biography
Bessie Johnson headed the Memphis Sanctified Singers, a group whose roster also included Melinda Taylor and Sally Sumler, when the ensemble cut several sides for Victor in the latter half of the 1920s. Although a number of those sides appeared under the billing Bessie Johnson & Her Sanctified Singers, the 1952 Anthology of American Folk Music compiled by Harry Smith identified the performers as the Memphis Sanctified Singers. Every one of the six sides the group recorded is contained in the Document collection Memphis Gospel: Complete Works (1927-1929). The singers likewise took part in multiple recordings by the Elders McIntorsh and Edwards' Sanctified Singers, another act represented on the same set.