As History reports, Smith died after sustaining terrible injuries in a road collision in Mississippi in 1937, aged around 43. Her funeral took place on October 4 that year, and around 7,000 people gathered to honor her life. She is buried in Pennsylvania, but Smith’s grave lacked a headstone until 1970 when Janis Joplin ensured that it was marked in a manner that befitted the blues titan.
Joplin, along with nurse Juanita Green (per The New York Times), paid for the gravestone, which was unveiled that August. Smith’s family, the newspaper reported, couldn’t afford a stone at the time of her burial. John Hammon, a jazz historian who had worked with Smith, chose the wording for it: “The Greatest Blues Singer in the World Will Never Stop Singing.” A fitting tribute and a wonderful way to draw further attention to Smith’s music, ensuring that she will indeed never stop singing.
Just months after the stone was installed, UDiscoverMusic states, singer-songwriter Dory Previn’s “Mythical Kings and Iguanas” album was released, featuring the song “Stone for Bessie Smith.” It spoke of this act and the tragic death of Joplin herself, who was just 27 when she died that October.
