At a young age, Bessie Smith started to sing and signed a contract with Columbia Records in 1923. She was soon among the highest-paid black performers of her day with hits like “Downhearted Blues.” However by the end of the 1920s, her success had diminished. Smith’s career, however, started to stagnate at the height of her prominence, due in part to the financial devastation of the Great Depression and a transition in social values. She and her husband Gee split permanently in 1929, and Smith had stopped working with Columbia completely by the end of 1931.Smith, however, as a devoted singer, adapted her range and continued to tour. In 1933, producer John Hammond contacted Smith to make new records, which pointed to the coming Swing Era. Smith was en route to a show in Memphis, Tennessee, on September 26, 1937, with her longtime friend, Richard Morgan, when he sidetracked a truck and lost control of their vehicle. Smith was thrown out of the car and seriously wounded. She died in a hospital in Clarkdale, Mississippi, from her wounds. She was forty-three. A week later in Philadelphia, Smith’s funeral was held, with thousands coming to pay their respects. In Sharon Hill, Pennsylvania, she was buried at Mount Lawn Cemetery.