Irene Britton Smith

Irene was born December 22, 1907 in Chicago. At the American Conservatory she studied with Stella Roberts and Leo Sowerby, she also received her Bachelor of Music degree there in 1943. For more than 40 years she taught in Chicago's elementary schools, she specialized in Phonovisual approach to teaching reading. She got her Masters of Music degree at DePaul University under Leon Stein. Before she completed it though she worked in composition at The Juilliard School of Music with Vittorio Giannini. During the summer she worked with Irving fine at the Berkshire Music Center in 1950, Wayne Barlow at the Eastman School of Music, and with Nadi Boulanger at the American Conservatory in Fontainebleau, France in 1958. Some of the things that she has composed herself are Sinfonietta in three movements for orchestra in 1956, Fairest Lord Jesus in 1945, a long with many many more. She died on Feb. 15 1997, so you can see she lived to be 92 and has accomplished a lot of things in her lifetime that are still known today.

http://africlassical.blogspot.com/2007/12/irene-britton-smith-1907-1999-african.html

Bessie Smith "Nobody knows you when you're down and out" 1929. The song has an ABA form. There is an band in the background; sounds like a banjo and trumpet. There are 3 verses and a chorus and also an bridge when the trumpet is playing by himself. The song is about how a man has left her and how she feels now that he is gone.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MzU8xM99Uo