Oh those sultry, steamy, sensual dirty blues. How many innuendos can Bessie Smith place into one suggestive song without being brutally obvious? She is certainly not wanting sugar in the "crystalline sweet" sense, and with lyrics that state she "needs a little hot dog between her rolls", the insinuation is anything but subtle. (According to the 1001 songs book, it was the dirty Blues that gave birth to the euphemism of Rock & Roll, the name for a genre that the book calls the "illegitimate child of the blues")
Accompanied by nothing more than a piano, it's Bessie Smith's passionate and bellowing voice that stands front and center in this lascivious song of desire. It's an interesting melody, and a perfect example of the dirty blues genre, but I did not enjoy it as much as I did her "St. Louis Blues" ( the other tune of hers to make the list). I will give it a reluctant worth hearing, for the simple fact all the sexual innuendos are quite amusing.
