"Ma" Rainey

"Ma" Rainey (born Gertrude Malissa Nix Pridgett; c. April 26, 1886 –

December 22, 1939 was one of the earliest known American professional

blues singers and one of the first generation of such singers to record. She

was billed as The Mother of the Blues.

She began performing as a young teenager (between the ages of 12 and 14),

and performed under the name Ma Rainey after she and Will Rainey were

married in 1904. They toured with the Rabbit Foot Minstrels and later formed

their own group called Rainey and Rainey, Assassinators of the Blues. From

the time of her first recording in 1923 to five years later, Ma Rainey made

over 100 recordings, including "Bo-weevil Blues" (1923), "Moonshine Blues"

(1923), "See See Rider" (1924), "Black Bottom" (1927), and "Soon This

Morning" (1927).

Ma Rainey was known for her very powerful vocal abilities, energetic

disposition, majestic phrasing, and a ‘moaning’ style of singing. Her powerful

voice was never adequately captured on her records, due to her recording

exclusively for Paramount, which was at the time known for its below-

average recording techniques and poor shellac quality. However, Rainey's

other qualities are present and most evident in her early recordings, Bo-

weevil Blues and Moonshine Blues.

Rainey recorded with Louis Armstrong in addition to touring and recording with the Georgia Jazz Band. She continued to tour until 1935 when she

retired to her hometown.

Life and career

Gertrude Pridgett claimed to have been born on April 26, 1886 (beginning with the 1910 census taken April 25, 1910) in Columbus, Georgia. (This

can be questioned, however, as the 1900 census listing indicates she may have been born in September 1882 in Alabama.) She was the second of

five children of Thomas and Ella (née Allen) Pridgett, fromAlabama. She had at least two brothers and a sister named Malissa, with whom Gertrude

was later confused in some sources.

She came onto the performance scene at a talent show in Columbus, Georgia when she was 12–14 years old. A member of the First African Baptist

Church, she began performing in Black minstrel show tents. She later claimed that she was first exposed to blues music around 1902. She formed

the Alabama Fun Makers Company with her husband Will Rainey, but in 1906 they both joined Pat Chappelle's much larger and more popular

Rabbit's Foot Company, where they were billed together as "Black Face Song and Dance Comedians, Jubilee Singers [and] Cake Walkers".In 1910,

she was described as "Mrs. Gertrude Rainey, our coon shouter",and she continued with the Rabbit's Foot Company after it was taken over by new

owner F. S. Wolcott in 1912. From 1914, the Raineys were billed as Rainey and Rainey, Assassinators of the Blues. Wintering in New Orleans, she

met musicians including Joe "King" Oliver, Louis Armstrong, Sidney Bechet and Pops Foster. Blues music increased in popularity and Ma Rainey

became well known. Around this time, Rainey met Bessie Smith, a young blues singer who was also making a name for herself. A story later

developed that Rainey kidnapped Smith, making her join the Rabbit Foot Minstrels, and teaching her to sing the blues. This was disputed by Smith's

sister-in-law Maud Smith.

From the late 1910s, there was an increasing demand for recordings by black musicians. In 1920, Mamie Smith was the first black woman to record

a record. In 1923, Rainey was discovered by Paramount Recordsproducer J. Mayo Williams. She signed a recording contract with Paramount, and in

December she made her first eight recordings in Chicago. These included the songs "Bad Luck Blues", "Bo-Weevil Blues" and "Moonshine

Blues". She made more than 100 more over the next five years, which brought her fame beyond the South. Paramount marketed her

extensively, calling her "the Mother of the Blues", "the Songbird of the South", "the Gold-Neck Woman of the Blues" and "the Paramount Wildcat".

In 1924 she made some recordings with Louis Armstrong, including "Jelly Bean Blues", "Countin' the Blues" and "See, See Rider". In the same

year she embarked on a tour of the Theater Owners Booking Association (TOBA) throughout the South and Midwestern United States, singing both

for black and white audiences. She was accompanied by bandleader and pianist Thomas Dorsey, and the band he assembled called the Wildcats

Jazz Band. They began their tour with an appearance in Chicago in April 1924 and continued, on and off, until 1928.[18] Dorsey left the group in

1926 due to ill health and was replaced as pianist by Lillian Hardaway Henderson, the wife of Rainey's cornetist Fuller Henderson, who became the

band's leader. Some of Rainey's lyrics contain open references to lesbianism or bisexuality. For example, a 1928 song, "Prove It on Me", states:

They said I do it, ain't nobody caught me. Sure got to prove it on me. Went out last night with a crowd of my friends. They must've been women,

cause I don't like no men

According to the website queerculturalcenter.org, the lyrics refer to an incident in 1925 in which Rainey was "arrested for taking part in an orgy at

[her] home involving women in her chorus. "Prove It on Me" further alludes to presumed lesbian behavior, "It's true I wear a collar and a tie... Talk

to the gals just like any old man.

Political activist and scholar Angela Y. Davis notes: "'Prove It on Me' is a cultural precursor to the lesbian cultural movement of the 1970s, which

began to crystallize around the performance and recording of lesbian-affirming songs." Towards the end of the 1920s, live vaudeville went into

decline, being replaced by radio and recordings. Her career was not immediately affected and continued recording with Paramount and earned

enough money touring to buy a bus with her name on it. In 1928, she worked with Dorsey again and recording 20 songs, before Paramount finished

her contract. Her style of blues was no longer considered fashionable by the label.

Death

In 1935, Rainey returned to her hometown, Columbus, Georgia, where she ran two theaters, "The Lyric" and "The Airdrome",until her death from a

heart attack in 1939 at age 53 in Rome, Georgia.

Legacy

In 1983, Rainey was inducted into the Blues Foundation's Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990.

Bob Dylan refers to Rainey in the song "Tombstone Blues" on his 1965 album Highway 61 Revisited, in which she is intimate with Beethoven ("Ma

Rainey and Beethoven once unwrapped their bedroll").

In 1981 Sandra Lieb wrote the first full-length book about Rainey, Mother of the Blues: a Study of Ma Rainey.

Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, a 1982 play by August Wilson, is a fictionalized account of the recording of her song of the same name in December

1927.

Poet Sterling A. Brown wrote a poem entitled "Ma Rainey" in 1932 about how "When Ma Rainey/Comes to town" people everywhere would hear her

sing.

In 1994, the U.S. Post Office issued a Rainey 29-cent commemorative postage stamp.

In 2004, "See See Rider Blues" (written in 1925) was inducted in the Grammy Hall of Fame, and was included by the National Recording

Preservation Board in the Library of Congress' National Recording Registry in 2004.

Academy Award winner Mo'Nique played Ma Rainey in the 2015 film Bessie.