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    SIGNED limited edition 12" vinyl version, including liner notes insert with lyrics and photos. Also included: One black and gold oval sticker and positive vibes. Photography by Kielinski Photographers. Design by M Slater. Pressed at Softwax Record Pressing in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

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    Limited edition CD version in sleeve designed by M Slater. Photography by Kielinski Photographers. Also included: One black and gold oval sticker and positive vibes.

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about

"Dear Bessie" was written by Yolanda Wisher.

lyrics

I remember how I got started with you. It had to be watching The Color Purple one time while I was still in high school. I was fascinated by the scene in which Shug Avery is taking a bath after she has shown up at Mister’s and Celie’s home. There was music in the background--a fluttery wail of blues that seemed cranked up against heavy static. I coined it “bathtub music.” I went out and bought some of that music with your name on it. I played it when I was in the tub. I wanted it to make me renewed like it made Shug Avery. Perhaps in my idealism, I thought I would leap out of the tub “after I was ailin” and bring the house down in some juke joint, grown woman, musk strutting out of my pores.

But the tape only comes out once in a while now. I used it in a class to let my students hear what the blues sounded like. I always thought your voice was too rough. I preferred Billie! In some ways you reminded me of my great aunts down at “the club” guzzling corn liquor into the late hours of the night--humming church songs over games of pinochle. You know--I’m ashamed to say it--but that used to embarrass me. I didn’t understand what there was to be cherished when I was about 13 or 14 years old. That humming, your washboard voice, is the voice that steered me into womanhood. How could I deny something like that is beyond me...sometimes shit you learn at school makes everything at home look like shoes stuffed with newspaper.

But you could not stay out of my mind for too long--I was intrigued when I read somewhere that James Baldwin had left Paris for the Swiss Alps with only his typewriter and one of your records. To the rhythms of your voice, he wrote Go Tell It on the Mountain. Visiting with my friend Tonya two nights ago, I learned that Langston Hughes traveled with his record player and several of your recordings. These “learned” men were supposedly moved to words by your phrasing. You didn’t need high falutin orchestra arrangements--they say you just got up there and sang. You lived a fast life--drinkin, fist-fightin, lovin men and women--it absolutely amazes me how you struggled to live free in the 1920s--a Black woman.

Last week, Tonya and I were in the car on our way to the Good Will when a special interview with Aretha Franklin came on NPR. They played the very first song she recorded with Columbia Records--I think it’s called “Today I Sing the Blues.” Something happened to us when that song came on. We were looking out the windshield, and it was as if we were both looking back through time, and we could see you up there on a little bitty stage--big, full bodied woman wearin yo plumes with the nerve to wear red and sweatin devils cuz of the heat up there. Child, let me tell you how all I could hear was you in Aretha’s fresh out of church voice--even now when I listen to Mary J. Blige or Whitney, I hear you. Now I understand how it must have been some stompin up in Harlem when you sang. People hangin out of windows like wet nylons cuz they could still hear you from miles and miles. If I had been there--I think I would--yes, I certainly would--throw myself to the floor to feel the vibration of your voice on my body.

They say the crash mangled one of your arms. You bled to death out there with your lover. I think of Osiris--those spread parts all over the universe. How many more pieces of Black women lay across the earth awaiting recognition. I aim to find them and try to collect them into one body.

credits

from Doublehanded Suite, released May 21, 2022
Yolanda Wisher, vocals.

Executive Producer: Yolanda Palacio. Co-Executive Producer: Mark Palacio. Recorded by Yolanda Wisher. Mixed by Michael Cumming. Mastered by Tom Scheponik.

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Yolanda Wisher & The Afroeaters Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Yolanda Wisher & The Afroeaters is a Philly-based blues and jazz band fronted by a poet.

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