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Ma Rainey (1886 - 1939)
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 Blues
Legacies and Black Feminism : Gertrude 'Ma' Rainey, Bessie Smith,
and Billie Holiday by Angela Y. Davis
The
female blues singers of the 1920s, Gertrude "Ma" Rainey,
and Bessie Smith, not only invented a musical genre, but they also
became models of how African American women could become
economically independent in a culture that had not previously
allowed it. Both Smith and Rainey composed, arranged, and managed
their own road bands. Angela Y. Davis's study emphasizes the
impact that these singers, and later Billie Holiday, had on the
poor and working-class communities from which they came. The
artists addressed radical subjects such as physical and economic
abuse, race relations, and female sexual power, including
lesbianism. Ma Rainey was well known as a lover of women as well
as men, and her song "Prove It on Me" describes a butch
woman who dresses like a man and dates women. Blues Legacies
and Black Feminism places the fluid sexuality of these women
within a larger context of African American artists' attempts to
subvert and recreate America.
 Ma
Rainey
Ma Rainey
The Mother of the Blues
was 38 when she finally began recording, but she'd incorporated
the blues into her traveling stage shows since 1902. When she did
hit the studio, the results were a high point of 1920s classic
female blues. Rainey combined a husky voice with the songbook of a
minstrel and a booming delivery. Her lyrics ranged from topical
songs about Southern life to personal songs of loneliness and
depression. Her original classic "See See Rider Blues,"
complete with rarely heard introduction, features jazz greats
Louis Armstrong, Fletcher Henderson, and Buster Bailey, and the
grim "Slave to the Blues" includes Joe Smith and Coleman
Hawkins. Ragtime guitarist Blind Blake and hokum-blues duo Georgia
Tom and Tampa Red also contribute. --Marc Greilsamer
![Mother Of The Blues 1923-1928 [IMPORT]](../images2/cover_rainey5.gif) Mother
Of The Blues 1923-1928
Ma Rainey
Ma Rainey didn't have a
voice that was strong or beautiful as her protégée Bessie Smith,
but she had a deep feeling for the sad songs she performed and I
found this ancient recordings very moving! It was still a
early age for recordings so technically speaking this recordings
are very bad but they have they own charm in spite of
that. love this album and found myself humming the
tunes very often. -- Anonymous Review
Ma Rainey's Collected Works:
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By Tom
Sullivan
Excerpt:
Gertrude Pridgett was born on April 26, 1886 in
Columbus, Georgia. Her parents, Thomas and Ella Pridgett, had both
performed in minstrel shows and are credited with inspiring
Gertrude's interest in the field of entertainment. Her stage
career got its start with a song and dance troupe when she was
only 14. In 1902, she heard her first blues song at a theater in
St. Louis. She adopted the blues style for her shows, and quickly
made it her own.
Pridgett married traveling entertainer Will
"Pa" Rainey in 1904. Together they toured throughout the
southern United States as "Ma & Pa Rainey and
Assassinators of the Blues." Ma would later become a solo act
with a number of addenda to her name, such as "Paramount
Wildcat" and "Gold Necklace Woman of the Blues."
From humble beginnings, she went on to become
the top recording artist for Paramount Records, and is generally
credited with the rise in popularity of blues music in America at
the beginning of the 20th century. Today, Ma Rainey is known as
the "Mother of the Blues." Also known, though less
discussed, is that she was bisexual. Rainey never shied away from
her feelings in her music...
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From blueflamecafe.com
Excerpt:
Along with Bessie
Smith, Gertrude "Ma" Rainey is regarded as the best
of the 1920s classic blues singers. She was most likely the first
woman to incorporate blues into minstrel and vaudeville stage
shows, perhaps as early as 1902. Rainey is often called the Mother
of the Blues since she inspired many of the female blues singers
who followed her. Her influence was profound, despite the fact
that before her recording debut she rarely performed outside the
South.
Rainey's vocal delivery was closer to the raw, earthy blues style
of Southern country blues artists than the more urbanized,
cabaret-like presentation of the female blues singers who began
recording in the early '20s. On her best records Rainey sang with
a rootsy, homespun authenticity. Thus, Rainey is the all-important
connection between male-dominated country blues and
female-dominated urban blues in the 1920s...
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From redhotjazz.com
Gertrude Pridgett was born into a showbiz family
that performed in minstrel shows, She first appeared onstage in
1900 singing, dancing in minstrel and vaudeville stage revues. In
1902 she married the song and dance man William "Pa"
Rainey and from then on became known as Ma Rainey. The couple
formed a song and dance act that included Blues and popular songs.
They toured the country, but primarily the South and became a
popular attraction as part of Tolliver's Circus, The Musical
Extravaganza, and The Rabbit Foot Minstrels, where Rainey
befriended a young Bessie
Smith. In the 1920s Rainey was a solo star of the T.O.B.A.
vaudeville circuit. It was not until 1923 that Ma Rainey signed a
recording contract with Paramount...
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by Lea Gilmore, mojoworkin.com
Ma had an interesting relationship with the
young Bessie Smith. Bessie joined the Rabbit Foot Minstrels in
1914 and Ma supposedly was her coach.
Both were reported as being bisexual, but an
affair between the two has never been proven. Although there were
many singers during this period singing the same style of music,
Bessie was her only rival. The two supposedly shared a love-hate
relationship...
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Excerpt:
If Bessie
Smith is the acknowledged "Queen of the Blues," then
Gertrude "Ma" Rainey is the undisputed "Mother of
the Blues." As music historian Chris Albertson has written,
"If there was another woman who sang the blues before Rainey,
nobody remembered hearing her." Rainey fostered the blues
idiom, and she did so by linking the earthy spirit of country
blues with the classic style and delivery of Bessie
Smith. She often played with such outstanding jazz
accompanists as Louis
Armstrong and Fletcher Henderson, but she was more at home
fronting a jugband or washboard band...
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Names Index:
A B
C D
E F
G H
I J
K L
M N
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Q R
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Index |
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