Ma Rainey

Infobox musical artist
Name = Ma Rainey


Landscape = MaRaineyParamount.jpg
Background = solo_singer
Birth_name = Gertrude Malissa Nix Pridgett
Born = birth date|1886|4|26Note: this is the usually stated date, although there is some evidence she was in fact born in 1882 - see talk page.]
Columbus, Georgia, USA
Died = death date and age|1939|12|22|1886|4|26
Columbus, Georgia, USA
Genre = Blues
Years_active = 1900–1933
Occupation = Vocalist
Label = Paramount
Associated_acts = Rainey & Rainey, Assassinators of the Blues
Rabbit Foot Minstrels
Past_members =

Gertrude Malissa Nix Pridgett Rainey, better known as Ma Rainey (April 26, 1886Note: this is the usually stated date, although there is some evidence she was in fact born in 1882 - see talk page.] – December 22, 1939), was one of the earliest known American professional blues singers and one of the first generation of such singers to record.cite book | last=Southern | first=Eileen | authorlink=Eileen Southern | year=1997 | title=The Music of Black Americans: A History |edition=3rd edition | publisher=W. W. Norton & Company | isbn=0-393-97141-4] She was billed as The Mother of the Blues. She did much to develop and popularize the form and was an important influence on younger blues women, such as Bessie Smith, and their careers.

Career

Rainey was born in Columbus, Georgia. [ [http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=pis&GRid=2477&PIgrid=2477&PIcrid=36417&PIpi=82955& Find a Grave: Gertrude "Ma" Rainey] ] She first appeared on stage in Columbus in "A Bunch of Blackberries" at fourteen. She then joined a traveling vaudeville troupe, the Rabbit Foot Minstrels. After hearing a sad song sung a cappella by a local girl in a small town in Missouri in 1902, she started performing in a this style, and claimed that she was the one who named it "blues."

In the one known interview she did, Rainey told the following story, In 1902 "a girl from town... came to the tent one morning and began to sing about the "man" who left her. The song was so strange and poignant that it attracted much attention,and Rainey learned the song fron the visitor, and used it soon afterwards in her "act"." Audiences reacted strongly to the song. [American Negro Songs and Spirituals John W. Work Crown Publishers page 326]

She married fellow vaudeville singer William "Pa" Rainey in 1904, billing herself from that point as "Ma" Rainey. She later had an unknown number of children, one of which being "Clyde Rainey", who served in the USA Navy. "Ma and Pa" pair toured with the Rabbit Foot Minstrels as "Rainey & Rainey, Assassinators of the Blues", singing a mix of blues and popular songs. In 1912, she took the young Bessie Smith into the Rabbit Foot Minstrels, trained her, and worked with her until Smith left in 1915.

Also known, though less discussed, is the fact that she was bisexual. [cite web | url=http://www.lambda.net/~maximum/rainey.html | title=The Ma Rainey page | publisher=lambda.net | date=1997 | accessdate=2007-02-28] She was arrested in Chicago in 1925 for hosting an ‘indecent party’ with a room full of semi-naked women. Rainey celebrated the lesbian lifestyle in "Prove It On Me Blues", which presented a cross-dressing, man-hating persona that was quite distinct from her regular public

Quotation
:Went out last night with a crowd of my friends,:They must have been women, 'cause I don't like no men.:It's true I wear a collar and a tie, Make the wind blow all the time:They say I do it, ain't nobody caught me, Sure got to prove it on me.|Ma Rainey|Prove It On Me [cite video | url=http://jazz-on-line.com/ram/PAR20665-2.ram | title=Prove It On Me | medium=Audio | format=RAM | year=Recorded in 1928 | people=Ma Rainey | location=www.jazz-on-line.com | accessdate=2007-02-28]

In most of her songs, Ma projected herself as a passionate and often mistreated lover of men. In private, her preference was for young men. The poet Sterling Brown tells of approaching her as a fan with the musicologist John Work. She immediately propositioned them as she was having trouble with her young musicians. Brown wrote a moving poem about Ma Rainey and her huge popularity with Southern audiences. [ [http://www.poetryoutloud.org/poems/poem.html?id=177006 Poetry Out Loud] ]

Ma Rainey was already a veteran performer with decades of touring in African-American shows in the U.S. Southern States when she made her first recordings in 1923. Rainey signed with Paramount Records and, between 1923 and 1928, she recorded 100 songs, including the classics "C.C. Rider" (aka "See See Rider") and "Jelly Bean Blues", the humorous "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom", and the deep blues "Bo Weavil Blues". In her career, Rainey was backed by such noted jazz musicians as cornet players Louis Armstrong and Tommy Ladnier, pianists Fletcher Henderson and Lovie Austin, saxophonist Coleman Hawkins, and clarinetist Buster Bailey. Rainey recorded two vocal duets with Papa Charlie Jackson in 1928, which proved to be her last recordings; Paramount terminated her contract soon afterwards, claiming that her material had gone out of fashion. [Barlow, William. "Looking Up At Down": The Emergence of Blues Culture". Temple University Press (1989), p. 164. ISBN 0-87722-583-4.]

Rainey's career dried up in the 1930s--as did the career of just about every other classic female blues singers of the previous decade. But her earnings were enough that she was able to retire from performing in 1933. [Santelli, Robert. "The Big Book of Blues", Penguin Books, page 387, (2001) - ISBN 0141001453]

Death

Rainey returned to her hometown, Columbus, Georgia, where she ran two theaters, "The Lyric" and "The Airdrome", [Lieb, Sandra R. "Mother of the Blues: A Study of Ma Rainey", Univ of Massachusetts Press, Page 1, (1981) - ISBN 0870233947] until her death from a heart attack in 1939. [Santelli, Robert. "The Big Book of Blues", Penguin Books, page 387] She was inducted into the Blues Foundation's Hall of Fame in 1983, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990. [ [http://www.rockhall.com/inductee/ma-rainey Ma Rainey Induction Year: 1990] ]

Legacy

One year after Rainey's death, blues singer and guitarist Memphis Minnie recorded a tribute. [ Memphis Minnie "Ma Rainey". OK 08511]

French singer/song writer Francis Cabrel refers to Ma Rainey in the song "Cent Ans de Plus" on the 1999 album "Hors-Saison". Cabrel cites the artist as one of a number of blues influences, including Charley Patton, Son House, Blind Lemon, Robert Johnson, Howlin' Wolf, Blind Blake, Willie Dixon, and Blues Boy Willie, whose father toured with Rainey.

American singer/songwriter Bob Dylan refers to Ma Rainey in the song "Tombstone Blues" on his 1965 album, "Highway 61 Revisited."

The 1982 August Wilson play "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom" took its title from her song of the same name recorded before 1928, which ostensibly refers to the Black Bottom dance of the time.

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

In 2004, her song "See See Rider Blues" (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. [ [http://www.loc.gov/rr/record/nrpb/nrpb-2004reg.html 2004 National Recording Registry choices] ] The board selects songs in an annual basis that are "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

One known strand of her bloodline exists to this day, five generations later, amongst todays youth, though he wishes to remain unknown by this face, somehow, people still know who he is and where he came from.

Footnotes

References

*cite book |last=Lieb |first=Sandra |coauthors= |year=1981 |title=Mother of the Blues: A Study of Ma Rainey |location= |publisher=Univ. of Massachusetts Press |isbn=0870233343
*cite book |last=Davis |first=Angela Y. |coauthors= |year=1998 |title=Blues Legacies and Black Feminism |location= |publisher=Pantheon |isbn=067945005X

External links

* [http://www.aaregistry.com/african_american_history/165/Ma_Rainey_pioneer__who_nurtured_the_Blues Gertrude “Ma” Rainey] African American Registry
*allmusic|11:3xftxqw5ldhe|Gertrude “Ma” Rainey
* [http://www.paramountshome.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=PagEd&file=index&topic_id=5&page_id=84 Gertrude Pridgett “Ma” Rainey] at Paramount Records
* [http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-876&sug=y Gertrude “Ma” Rainey] at the New Georgia Encyclopedia
* http://www.bluesimages.com/images/museum_images/poster_ma_rainey_FULL.jpg