Though her recording profession lasted simply 5 years, blues singer Ma Rainey created a legacy that reaches far past music. But when there’s a easy technique to sum up Ma Rainey’s significance, merely look to her nickname: “Mother of the Blues.”
The daughter of minstrel performers, Ma Rainey (born Gertrude Pridgett) acquired her begin as a singer and dancer in stage tent exhibits. Her star started to rise in 1900 on the age of 14, when she began to carry out alongside Black vaudeville acts. By the point she married William “Pa” Rainey in 1904 and adopted her illustrious stage title, Ma was one of many South’s hottest vaudeville stars.
Hearken to the perfect of Ma Rainey proper now.
Conventional vaudeville throughout this era featured comedic pantomime and complicated dancing and singing. However after stumbling upon the blues whereas touring the South, Rainey labored the music into her repertoire. It gave her performances a mixture of provincial and cosmopolitan. Ma and Pa Rainey toured with the Rabbit Foot Minstrel at cabarets and tent exhibits within the South, finally touting themselves the “Assassinators of the Blues” throughout their time with Tolliver’s Circus and Musical Extravaganza.
Ma Rainey, blues singer
Rainey seamlessly transitioned from conventional vaudeville act to blues singer. Her voice had a uncommon energy, delight, and vitality. She enraptured audiences together with her “moaning” singing method and charming disposition on stage. However it was her potential to seize the essence of the blues that made her one of many style’s first huge superstars.
After her marriage to Pa resulted in 1916, Ma started touring together with her personal band, “Madam Gertrude Ma Rainey and her Georgia Smart Sets.” On account of her success on tour, her solo exhibits turned built-in in 1917. This allowed white audiences to listen to songs of the Black southern expertise, together with tales of household life (“Jelly Bean Blues”) and race-fueled incarceration (“Chain Gang Blues”). Ma’s independence allowed her to carve out the house to be aesthetically genuine as nicely. Recognized for her effervescent persona each on and off stage, she typically wearing lengthy robes and glowing diamonds. She had gold caps on her enamel, which have been mentioned to gleam as she sang. Each her work and individualized expression captures Black pleasure in an unapologetic package deal. It’s maybe essentially the most enduring facet of her legacy.
Her songs, which have been typically self-penned, typically painting the topic as immovable and resilient regardless of adversity. As you may anticipate of basic blues, Ma’s songs take care of heartbreak, love, and intercourse. She croons a few nerve-racking relationship on “Those All Night Long Blues.” She plots revenge towards an ex-flame in each “Oh Papa Blues” and “Rough and Tumble Blues.” On the latter, she sings about murdering her lover’s mistresses. (“Miss Shorty Toad and my man was shimmying down to the floor, I got rough and killed three women ‘fore police got the news.”)
Ma Rainey was additionally unapologetic about her bisexuality, which might change into a trademark of her lyrical content material throughout her solo years. Whereas it was by no means overtly mentioned, she referenced her queerness with out concern of repercussion. Ma alludes to her affinity for same-sex relationships in “Prove it on Me Blues.” (“Went out last night with a crowd of my friends / They must have been women, ‘cause I don’t like no men.”) She additionally subtly references lesbianism and cross-dressing in “Shave ‘Em Dry Blues.” Given the region of America where Ma’s profession thrived – the place civil rights and equality hardly appeared like a chance – a Black girl singing a few taboo topic akin to sexuality was revolutionary.
The Paramount years
By the point she signed to Paramount Information in 1923, Ma Rainey was already a music business veteran. Her time on the highway meant that when she went into the recording studio, it was with a no-nonsense professionalism. When it was time to report, Ma labored with The Georgia Jazz Band, pianist Thomas A. Dorsey, and trumpeter Louis Armstrong, whose distinct vocal model is alleged to be influenced by Rainey. He’s not the one one. Different pre-Forties Black blues vocalists like Bessie Smith and Huge Joe Williams clearly took components of her model. The truth is, hear to simply about any jazz and rock singer right now and also you’ll hear traces of Ma Rainey.
For Paramount, Rainey minimize race data, music catered particularly to African-Individuals. To start with, the label’s objective was to supply music as cheaply as attainable, leading to data with poor manufacturing and sound. On account of Paramount’s below-average recording strategies and shellac high quality, Rainey’s recordings have been heavily-grainy and muffled. The deficiencies in her sound might have taken a toll on her reputation and mainstream notoriety.
Even so, she recorded virtually 100 songs in 5 years, together with the jazzy “Bo-Weavil Blues” and “See See Rider,” a tune about an untrue lover. (The latter was lined by Elvis Presley and The Animals many years after its authentic launch.) And what she lacked in sound high quality, she made up for in true blues angle. Ma didn’t enable Paramount to dictate her sound – she stayed true to herself, absolutely commanding the style and its attributes regardless of what the label might have needed. By this level, although, stay recordings have been more and more on their method out in favor of pre-made recordings. By 1928, her Vaudevillan model was not thought of en vogue by Paramount, and her contract was terminated.
Rainey returned to the stay efficiency circuit within the early Thirties, however the financial impression of The Nice Despair was devastating. She retired from the music scene in 1935. Till her dying in 1939, she poured her coronary heart into managing three theaters within the metropolis she claimed was her birthplace: Columbus, Georgia. (There’s some debate about her birthplace, with researchers discovering proof that she might have been born in Alabama.)
The legacy of Ma Rainey
Within the many years following her dying, Ma Rainey’s life and work have confirmed to be influential for not simply musicians. Writers, poets, and authors have taken inspiration too. Alice Walker reportedly used her music as a mannequin of Black femininity and womanhood when writing her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Coloration Purple. Impressed by Rainey’s music, poet Langston Hughes introduced facets of Black-led musical genres into his work. Playwright August Wilson first staged the Tony Award-nominated play Ma Rainey’s Black Backside in 1982. (A Netflix adaptation was launched in 2020, starring Oscar winner Viola Davis as Rainey, in addition to Chadwick Boseman in his remaining position.)
What did these artists discover so inspirational about Ma Rainey? Through the use of her artwork for self-expression, Ma Rainey modified the way in which Black artists convey themselves by their work. She was happy with her identification, uniqueness, and expertise. Extra importantly, she was unafraid of creating positive everybody else knew it. Her music might not be as well-known as a few of her contemporaries, nevertheless it ought to be. “The Mother of the Blues” was an unapologetic icon, and even many years later, she continues to pave the way in which for Black expression.
This text was first printed in 2020. We’re republishing it right now in celebration of Ma Rainey’s birthday. Hearken to the perfect of Ma Rainey proper now.
