This is Side Door, a podcast from the Smithsonian with support from PRX. I'm Lizzy Peabody. In 15 In 1959, Blues was in a funk. The Empress of Blues,

Bessie Smith had died a generation earlier. Here she is singing the Blues Standard,

Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out.

It's mighty without a doubt.

Nobody knows you when you

helling now

and so the one of the main questions was well where is the state of blues and who are going to be Bessie's successors.

This is Theo Gonzalez-Zalvez.

And I'm a curator at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History.

And Theo says in the blues world,

a name on the tip of many tongues was Barbara Dane a promising new blues talent blues since my daddy went away.

In 1959, she was the subject of an eight page feature in Ebony magazine.

At the time, Ebony was the culture magazine

for African Americans.

Here's how that article began.

As the rich white spotlight sweeps over the face

with the fresh scrubbed look, the girl seems startling blonde, especially when that powerful

dusky alto voice begins to moan of trouble, two-time and men and freedom.

She is singing the blues.

Just as Bessie Swift sung them, and Mama Yancey and Lizzie Miles, and Ma Rainey.

But she is white. You heard that right.

that right.

...