At the risk of lowering the tone, I've always enjoyed Bonnie's earthiness too. A couple of wonderful sayings of hers spring to mind; the first, which may be apocryphal, has her arriving at a party with the words "I don't want to see any faces here that I haven't sat on."
The other is from a joint gig with John Lee Hooker, not so many years ago, which I saw on telly. Between songs, she gazed at him admiringly and said to the audience "Gee, he's lookin' good ain't he." Short pause, before turning back to him with "You must be gettin' some on a regular basis, John Lee!" Bessie Smith would have been proud of her! Azeem in London
