DEVILS MUSIC
Sexy and racy, blues singer Bessie Smith was the definition of a Red Hot Mamma and the most successful entertainer of her time. On the eve of her tragic death in 1937, Bessie takes center stage in The Devil’s Music: The Life and Blues of Bessie Smith and tells the story of her amazing life and career, her loves and losses. Put your troubles aside and soak up the blues as Bessie Smith comes to life and sings the songs that made her so unforgettable, including “St. Louis Blues,” “Need a Little Sugar in My Bowl,” and “Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out.”
"Miche Braden delivers a powerhouse performance, doing a brassy, melodic turn as a lusty, hard-drinking, irrepressible Bessie Smith. Braden fully commands the stage, sassing the audience and sashaying around like the hard-living prima donna Smith was. Joe Brancato's artful direction and Braden's charisma and honesty of emotion keep the energy flowing." -- Associated Press
"When Miche Braden sings, The Devil's Music: The Life & Blues Of Bessie Smith' delivers a little bit of heaven." -- Time Out New York
Without resorting to imitation, singer-actress Miche Braden captures the spirit and the greater truth of Smith's "life and blues." Ms. Braden gives us Bessie unbound and unrepentant. -- Will Friedwald, Wall St Journal.
"When Miche Braden plants herself at the front of the stage, shimmies a little and sings the blues, The Devil's Music: The Life & Blues Of Bessie Smith finds its reason for being. As Bessie, Ms. Braden has the requisite big voice and her committed performance gives you glimmers of what the bawdy-talking, hooch-swilling Bessie must have been like. Ms. Braden keeps The Devil's Music consistently entertaining." --The New York Times
"Angelo Parra's play, directed by Joe Brancato, begins as the great American singer and her three-man band straggle into an after-hours club in Memphis for a night of music-making, heavy drinking, and storytelling. Miche Braden plays Smith with the requisite verve, swagger, and bawdiness."-- The New Yorker
