When Bessie Smith died in 1937 her family couldn't afford a headstone. Somehow, this highly influential singer's grave remained unmarked until 1970 when Janis Joplin paid for one to be erected. John Hamman wrote the extremely fitting epitaph "The Greatest Blues Singer in the World Will Never Stop Singing."
Joplin, along with nurse Juanita Green (per The New York Times), paid for the gravestone,
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