Biography
Ruby Walker entered the world in New York City on August 24, 1903, as the niece by marriage of Bessie Smith, the Empress of the Blues. Early attempts to secure her own recording dates in 1926 foundered when her aunt overshadowed the effort and actively discouraged independent releases. Although the sides Ruby eventually cut merit attention, the real historical trove lies in the candid, hour-plus conversation she granted historian Chris Albertson; that interview appeared on the final volume of Columbia’s complete Bessie Smith edition during the 1990s. Both the interview and Albertson’s book Bessie overflow with unvarnished recollections of drinking, revelry, sexual escapades, physical confrontations, and the lived experience of the blues, furnishing essential background for the recorded work of both women.
Ruby first encountered Bessie in Philadelphia and heard her sing at the 132nd Street Harlem residence of Jack Gee’s mother shortly before Bessie’s February 1923 debut sessions with pianist and producer Clarence Williams. When Bessie launched her 1924 tour, she brought Ruby along, assigning her duties that included rapid costume changes and dance interludes between acts. In 1925 the pair prepared for an engagement at Birmingham, Alabama’s Frolic Theater by attending the final night of Ma Rainey’s production; Ruby’s eyewitness account of the backstage meeting between Rainey and Smith has become a foundational anecdote in their shared mythology.
Road life remained harsh and unpredictable, yet Bessie continued routing her tent show across the country and kept Ruby in the entourage. During a stop in Chattanooga, Tennessee, Bessie felled a persistent harasser who had ignored her order to leave Ruby alone; hours later the same man lunged from cover and plunged a knife into Bessie’s side. She pursued him three blocks before permitting removal of the blade and required hospitalization. Ruby later watched a parallel scene unfold in a 1937 Harlem bar when Bessie responded to another insult by delivering a direct kick to the offender’s groin.
In Atlanta, Georgia, Bessie publicly rejected the rear entrance of a whites-only theater where she was booked; meanwhile Ruby landed in jail after police discovered the gallon of bootleg liquor she had procured for her aunt. Bessie herself was jailed there following a violent clash with a jealous chorus girl who had shredded Ruby’s new dancing shoes. In 1926 Bessie added Lillian Simpson, an ex-schoolmate of Ruby’s, to the chorus line; by year’s end Simpson had joined the roster of Bessie’s female lovers. The affair, begun in Tennessee, concluded in St. Louis with Simpson’s suicide attempt in January 1927. Shortly afterward Bessie led her circle of women through a circuit of Detroit, Michigan, buffet flats—after-hours clubs known for live sex performances—leaving Ruby to preserve those details on tape.
Jack Gee’s reputation rests on repeated physical abuse, chronic infidelity, and the diversion of Bessie’s earnings to advance the career of his paramour Gertrude Saunders. The marriage collapsed during a run at Indianapolis, Indiana’s Wallace Theater. After Bessie abandoned the engagement, Gee pressured Ruby into impersonating her aunt onstage: “They padded me up and put me onstage. I went along with it only because Bessie wasn’t there, she was very jealous at the time, and she didn’t want anybody to sing that was halfway good. Someone must have told her about me singing in Indianapolis because she came back, and ran me offstage.” When Gee finally departed, he compelled Ruby to join the Gertrude Saunders troupe; she remained until 1935, when Saunders’s final insult prompted her exit.
Months after Bessie’s 1937 death, Ruby adopted the surname Smith and began recording in a style modeled on her aunt. Her initial sessions occurred in 1938 and yielded a version of Bessie’s “Send Me to the ’Lectric Chair” along with “Dream Man Blues,” “Selfish Blues,” “Flyin’ Mosquito Blues,” and Alex Hill’s “Draggin’ My Heart Around,” the same piece Fats Waller had introduced eight years earlier. On March 9, 1939, Ruby alternated with Anna Robinson on “He’s Mine, All Mine” and Bessie’s “Back Water Blues,” backed by an orchestra directed by James P. Johnson, the pianist who had accompanied the original 1927 recording. In December 1941 she cut “Why Don’t You Love Me Anymore?” and “Harlem Gin Blues” with Sammy Price’s band. Between August 1946 and January 1947 she recorded eight additional titles with Gene “Honeybear” Sedric, the former Fats Waller saxophonist and clarinetist; at moments she echoed Bessie directly, at others she adopted the lighter approach associated with Una Mae Carlisle or anticipated the phrasing Billie Holiday would popularize a decade later. Ruby Walker Smith died in Anaheim, California, on March 24, 1977.
Ruby first encountered Bessie in Philadelphia and heard her sing at the 132nd Street Harlem residence of Jack Gee’s mother shortly before Bessie’s February 1923 debut sessions with pianist and producer Clarence Williams. When Bessie launched her 1924 tour, she brought Ruby along, assigning her duties that included rapid costume changes and dance interludes between acts. In 1925 the pair prepared for an engagement at Birmingham, Alabama’s Frolic Theater by attending the final night of Ma Rainey’s production; Ruby’s eyewitness account of the backstage meeting between Rainey and Smith has become a foundational anecdote in their shared mythology.
Road life remained harsh and unpredictable, yet Bessie continued routing her tent show across the country and kept Ruby in the entourage. During a stop in Chattanooga, Tennessee, Bessie felled a persistent harasser who had ignored her order to leave Ruby alone; hours later the same man lunged from cover and plunged a knife into Bessie’s side. She pursued him three blocks before permitting removal of the blade and required hospitalization. Ruby later watched a parallel scene unfold in a 1937 Harlem bar when Bessie responded to another insult by delivering a direct kick to the offender’s groin.
In Atlanta, Georgia, Bessie publicly rejected the rear entrance of a whites-only theater where she was booked; meanwhile Ruby landed in jail after police discovered the gallon of bootleg liquor she had procured for her aunt. Bessie herself was jailed there following a violent clash with a jealous chorus girl who had shredded Ruby’s new dancing shoes. In 1926 Bessie added Lillian Simpson, an ex-schoolmate of Ruby’s, to the chorus line; by year’s end Simpson had joined the roster of Bessie’s female lovers. The affair, begun in Tennessee, concluded in St. Louis with Simpson’s suicide attempt in January 1927. Shortly afterward Bessie led her circle of women through a circuit of Detroit, Michigan, buffet flats—after-hours clubs known for live sex performances—leaving Ruby to preserve those details on tape.
Jack Gee’s reputation rests on repeated physical abuse, chronic infidelity, and the diversion of Bessie’s earnings to advance the career of his paramour Gertrude Saunders. The marriage collapsed during a run at Indianapolis, Indiana’s Wallace Theater. After Bessie abandoned the engagement, Gee pressured Ruby into impersonating her aunt onstage: “They padded me up and put me onstage. I went along with it only because Bessie wasn’t there, she was very jealous at the time, and she didn’t want anybody to sing that was halfway good. Someone must have told her about me singing in Indianapolis because she came back, and ran me offstage.” When Gee finally departed, he compelled Ruby to join the Gertrude Saunders troupe; she remained until 1935, when Saunders’s final insult prompted her exit.
Months after Bessie’s 1937 death, Ruby adopted the surname Smith and began recording in a style modeled on her aunt. Her initial sessions occurred in 1938 and yielded a version of Bessie’s “Send Me to the ’Lectric Chair” along with “Dream Man Blues,” “Selfish Blues,” “Flyin’ Mosquito Blues,” and Alex Hill’s “Draggin’ My Heart Around,” the same piece Fats Waller had introduced eight years earlier. On March 9, 1939, Ruby alternated with Anna Robinson on “He’s Mine, All Mine” and Bessie’s “Back Water Blues,” backed by an orchestra directed by James P. Johnson, the pianist who had accompanied the original 1927 recording. In December 1941 she cut “Why Don’t You Love Me Anymore?” and “Harlem Gin Blues” with Sammy Price’s band. Between August 1946 and January 1947 she recorded eight additional titles with Gene “Honeybear” Sedric, the former Fats Waller saxophonist and clarinetist; at moments she echoed Bessie directly, at others she adopted the lighter approach associated with Una Mae Carlisle or anticipated the phrasing Billie Holiday would popularize a decade later. Ruby Walker Smith died in Anaheim, California, on March 24, 1977.