Review

Lucille Bogan was an African-American blues singer of the 1920s and 1930s, when the genre was first emerging. She became known for the references to sex in her songs, many of which she composed and wrote herself, which were explicit in contrast to those of others and other colleagues who opted for double entendres.

Justifications

• Lucille Bogan, known as Bessie Jackson, is one of the blues singers who stood out in the years of consolidation and expansion of this genre.
• She is considered one of the main exponents of the so-called dirty blues, who wrote and sang about the lives of marginalised people, sex, prostitution, male abuse and addictions, in songs that defied moral barriers.
• In 2022 she was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame.

Biography

She was born in Mississippi sometime in the late 19th century. She grew up in Birmingham, Alabama, where she met Nazareth Lee Bogan, a local railroader whom he would marry in 1914.  
Little is known of her career until she began recording vaudeville-type songs for Okeh Records in New York in 1923. Later that year, she recorded Pawn Shop Blues in Atlanta, Georgia. This was the first time a black blues artist was recorded outside New York or Chicago.  
Bogan's recordings from 1923-1935 for OKeh, Paramount, Brunswick, Banner, Melotone and other labels featured several notable accompanists, including WillEzell, Tampa Red and Walter Roland.  
From 1933 onwards she was in New York and recorded most of the songs that made her famous, but this time under the pseudonym Bessie Jackson.  
Among her influential records that have been revived by later artists are the first version of Black Angel Blues (later recorded by Tampa Red and Robert Nighthawk, and by B.B. King as Sweet Little Angel), Sloppy Drunk Blues (Leroy Carr, Sonny Boy Williamson, Jimmy Rogers and others), and Tricks Ain't Walking No More (Memphis Minnie). 
She was one of the leading exponents of the so-called dirty blues, who wrote and sang about the lives of marginalised people, sex, prostitution, male abuse and addiction in songs that defied moral boundaries. 
One of her most controversial songs was B.D. Woman's Blues (1935), where B.D. is short for Bull Dyke (slang for lesbian with masculine traits). Some verses of the song say "Coming a time, B.D, women ain't gonna need no men / They got a head like a sweet angel and they walk just like a natural man / They can lay their jive just like a natural man".

De otra canción, Shave ‘EmDry, grabada en Nueva York en 1935, se conservan dos versiones, una mucho más atrevida que la otra, grabada probablemente sin intención de comercializarla. En ella dice cosas como “tengo pezones en las tetas, / tan grandes como las yemas de mis pulgares, / tengo algo entre las piernas / que haría que un muerto se viniera”. [Para la traducción:I got nipples on my titties, / Big as the end of my thumb, / I got somethin between my legs / That'll make a dead-man come.] 
No hay constancia de que volviera a grabar después de 1935. Pasó sus últimos años en Los Ángeles (California), según algunas fuentes, ocupándose de la carrera musical de su hijo, y murió allí en 1949, víctima de un fallo cardiaco. 
En 2022, después de años de olvido, fue incluida en el Salón de la Fama del Blues (Blues Hall of Fame). con el argumento de que "Bogan grabó algunas de las canciones de blues más memorables de la era anterior a la Segunda Guerra Mundial, incluidas algunas que fueron hitos en el blues y algunas que continúan reverdeciendo su reputación décadas después de su muerte".[Para la traducción: "Bogan recorded some of the most memorable blues songs of the pre-World War II era, including some that were landmarks in blues and some that continue to sensationalize her reputation decades after her death".] 

Of another song, Shave 'Em Dry, recorded in New York in 1935, two versions survive, one much more daring than the other, probably recorded with no intention of commercialising it. In it she says things like "I got nipples on my titties, / Big as the end of my thumb, / I got somethin between my legs / That'll make a dead-man come". 
There is no record of her recording again after 1935. She spent her last years in Los Angeles (California), according to some sources, looking after her son's musical career, and died there in 1949 of heart failure. 
In 2022, after years of neglect, she was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame on the grounds that  "Bogan recorded some of the most memorable blues songs of the pre-World War II era, including some that were landmarks in blues and some that continue to sensationalize her reputation decades after her death".

Works

Bibliography

Béthune, Christian (2018). Blues, féminisme et société Le cas de Lucille Bogan, Rosières-en-Haye: CamionBlanc.  
Lucille Bogan. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucille_Bogan  (13/11/2022)  

Williamson, Nigel (2007). The Rough Guide to the Blues. ISBN 978-1-8-4353-519-5

Didactic approach

- Es importante para el estudiante acercarse a las mentes revolucionarias a lo largo de la historia. En este caso, Lucille Bogan es una mujer  afroamericana con cultura musical y compositora que desarrolla una producción artística en un momento en el que no era común atribuir a una mujer la capacidad de crear artísticamente y, además, destapar tabúes al hablar de los roles de la mujer en la sociedad.  
 - Interdisciplinarmente, puede estudiarse junto a la asignatura de Música. 

- It is important for the student to approach revolutionary minds throughout History. In this case, Lucille Bogan is an African-American woman with musical culture and a composer who developed an artistic production at a time when it was not common to attribute the ability to create artistically  to a woman and, in addition, to uncover taboos when talking about women's roles in society.  
 - Interdisciplinary, it can be studied together with the subject of Music.

Documents