Bessie and the Dancing Sheiks

Here is a rare publicity photo from 1924, showing Ruby Walker (Bessie's niece through marriage) glancing up at her aunt, 'Empress of the Blues,' Bessie Smith (1894 - 1937). The three gentlemen seated in front were known as the Dancing Sheiks with Arthur "Eggie" Pitts in the middle, a man whose affection both Ruby and Bessie sought and received. Pitts was a dancer from Detroit whose often shaved head earned him the nickname "Eggie." Primarily a tap dancer Pitts also did juggling and headed up the Dancing Sheiks, who were a song and dance trio.

When Bessie set out on tour in 1924, she took her niece with her, putting her to work assisting with elaborate costume changes and performing dance routines during intermissions. During a visit to Bessie's hometown in Chattanooga, Tennessee, a pushy man who tried to hassle Ruby was knocked unconscious by Bessie after he ignored her warning to cease and desist. Hours later when the women were leaving, he jumped out of the bushes and stuck a knife in Bessie's side. She chased him for three blocks before allowing the knife to be removed, and had to be hospitalized. Bessie survived this incident. She died in 1937, in a car accident.

Ruby Walker (1903 - 1977), who was Bessie's niece through marriage eventually became a blues singer. Within months of Bessie's death in 1937, Ruby changed her last name to Smith and began cutting records very much in the manner of her famous aunt. Ruby's first recording sessions took place in 1938. In addition to a cover of Bessie's famous "Send Me to the 'Lectric Chair," she sang "Dream Man Blues," "Selfish Blues," "Flyin' Mosquito Blues," and "Draggin' My Heart Around," an Alex Hill composition which had been introduced eight years earlier by Fats Waller. On March 9, 1939 Ruby sang "He's Mine, All Mine" and Bessie Smith's "Back Water Blues" with an orchestra under the direction of James P. Johnson, who had accompanied Bessie on the original recording of "Back Water" in 1927. In December, 1941 Ruby sang "Why Don't You Love Me Anymore?" and "Harlem Gin Blues" with a band led by pianist Sammy Price. In August 1946 and January 1947 she recorded a total of eight titles with ex-Fats Waller sax and clarinet man Gene "Honeybear" Sedric, still channeling the Bessie Smith sound at times. Ruby Walker Smith passed away in Anaheim, California on March 24, 1977.

Sources: paramounts.org; allmusic.com, arwulf