Summary: <br> <br> <br> Bessie Smith performing W.C. Handy’s St. Louis Blues in a 16-minute movie of that name, filmed in 1929. It is the only known movie of Empress Smith” <br> <br> <br> <br> Today we celebrate the birth – on April 15, 1894, 125 years ago today, in Chattanooga, Tennessee – of the American contralto Bessie Smith.<br> <br> <br> <br> <a href="https://d3fr1q02b1tb0i.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/15061349/BessieSmith.jpg" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"></a>Bessie Smith<br> <br> <br> <br> We Reflect on “GOAT”<br> <br> <br> <br> When I was growing up, the word “goat” had two distinct meanings. First, there was the animal: a quadruped mammal, a member of the family Bovidae and subfamily Caprinae. There are presently over 300 distinct breeds of goat, both wild and domesticated. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, in 2011 there were more than 924 million goats alive across the planet. (One can only wonder why there hasn’t been a more recent census.)<br> <br> <br> <br> When I was growing up, the second meaning of the word “goat” was a loser: a derisive term for an athlete who, as a result of some monumentally boneheaded mistake, was responsible for his or her team’s loss. For example: Mike Torres, the Boston Red Sox pitcher who gave up a three-run homer to light-hitting, New York Yankee second baseman Bucky Dent in a one-game playoff following the 1978 regular season; or Bill Buckner, the Boston Red Sox first baseman who booted an easy grounder to lose game six of the 1986 World Series against the New York Mets; or Dan Duquette, general manager of the Boston Red Sox (is there a pattern here?) who in 1996 let pitcher Roger Clemens leave the team as a free agent, claiming that Clemens was in “the twilight of his career.” After leaving the Red Sox, Clemens went on to win four more Cy Young Awards, 2 World Series Titles, and 162 more games. Some twilight.<br> <br> <br> <br> Amazingly, the word “goat” has undergone a 180-degree shift in meaning in recent years, as the acronym G.O.A.T. has come to refer to the “greatest of all time.” <br> <br> <br> <br> By what standard(s) should anyone be considered the “greatest of all time” are entirely subjective. For example, should numbers/statistics be the sole determining factor in choosing a “greatest of all time”, or should intangibles factor in, and – if so – what intangibles?<br> <br> <br> <br> <a href="https://d3fr1q02b1tb0i.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/15061459/Babe-Ruth.jpg" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"></a>George Herman ‘Babe’ Ruth (1895-1948)<br> <br> <br> <br> I’ll admit that I’m an “intangibles” sort of guy, and therefore I will introduce a criterion without which no one should be considered a G.O.A.T. That criterion is that true G.O.A.T.-hood requires not just great stats, but that the individual in question should have redefined the game for everyone who followed. Based on my criterion, determining the greatest baseball player of all time is easy: he is Babe Ruth, because more than anyone else, it was George Herman Ruth (1895-1948) – the Babe, the Great Bambino, the Sultan of Swat, the Big Bam – whose style of play laid the groundwork for the game as we understand it today. Based on my criterion, determining the greatest basketball player of all time is not easy, because so many great players have contributed so many different things to the game. <br> <br> <br> <br> (Speaking of old-style goats – meaning losers – let us not for a moment forget Harry Frazee, the owner of – yes – the Boston Red Sox who sold Ruth to the New York Yankees in 1919 and having done so, initiated the “Curse of the Bambino”, Boston’s World Series draught between 1918 and 2004!)<br> <br> <br> <br> Does the concept of G.O.A.T. have any relevance to the world of the music beyond idle,
