Fresh Air, Chris Albertson and Rhodessa Jones

By: Terry Gross

Narrated by: Terry Gross

Writer and producer Chris Albertson and performance artist and writer Rhodessa Jones on this edition of Fresh Air. Chris Albertson is considered an authority on blues singer Bessie Smith. His 1971 biography of Smith has been reissued in a new revised and expanded edition. It's called Bessie and it contains new details on Smith's early years, new interview material, and a chapter devoted to responses to the original publication. Rhodessa Jones is Co-Artistic director of the San Francisco performance company Cultural Odyssey. She is also founder and director of the Medea Project: Theater for Incarcerated Women a performance workshop for women in prison in which she helps them develop and stage works based on their own stories. Jones' solo performance works include Hot Flashes, Power Surges, and Private Summers, and Big Butt Girls, Hard-Headed Women. Jones is the subject of the book, Imagining Medea: Rhodessa Jones and Theater for Incarcerated Women. (Broadcast Date: July 1, 2003)Want more Fresh Air?

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