Gertrude "Ma" Rainey (born Gertrude Pridgett; April 26, 1886 – December 22, 1939) was an American blues singer and an important early blues recording artist. She was called the "Mother of the Blues" because she connected earlier vaudeville performances with the true sounds of southern blues. Her work influenced many blues singers. Rainey was known for her strong voice, lively energy, and a special way of singing that included a "moaning" style. These qualities are clearly heard in her early songs, "Bo-Weevil Blues" and "Moonshine Blues."

Gertrude Pridgett started performing when she was a teenager. After marrying Will "Pa" Rainey in 1904, she became known as "Ma" Rainey. She toured with the Rabbit Foot Minstrels and later created her own group, Rainey and Rainey, Assassinators of the Blues. Her first recording was made in 1923. Over the next five years, she recorded more than 100 songs, including "Bo-Weevil Blues" (1923), "Moonshine Blues" (1923), "See See Rider Blues" (1925), the classic blues song "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom" (1927), and "Soon This Morning" (1927).

Rainey worked with musicians such as Thomas Dorsey, Tampa Red, and Louis Armstrong. She also performed and recorded with the Georgia Jazz Band. She continued touring until 1935, then mostly stopped performing. She later worked as a theater organizer in her hometown of Columbus, Georgia, until her death in 1939. After her death, she was added to the Blues Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. She has been shown in movies, including the 2020 Academy Award-winning film Ma Rainey's Black Bottom. In 2023, she was honored with the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

Early life

There is disagreement about when Gertrude Pridgett was born. Some records say she was born in 1882, while most records state she was born on April 26, 1886. Pridgett said she was born on April 26, 1886, in Columbus, Georgia. However, the 1900 census lists her birth as September 1882 in Alabama. Researchers Bob Eagle and Eric LeBlanc believe she was born in Russell County, Alabama. She was the second child of Thomas and Ella (née Allen) Pridgett, who lived in Alabama. She had at least two brothers and one sister, Malissa Pridgett Nix.

In February 1904, Gertrude married William "Pa" Rainey. She used the stage name "Ma Rainey," which was inspired by her husband's nickname, "Pa."

Early career

Pridgett started her career as a performer at a talent show in Columbus, Georgia, when she was about 12 to 14 years old. A member of the First African Baptist Church, she performed in black minstrel shows. She later said she first heard blues music around 1902. She started the Alabama Fun Makers Company with her husband, Will Rainey, but in 1906 they both joined Pat Chappelle’s larger and more popular Rabbit’s Foot Company. There, they were called "Black Face Song and Dance Comedians, Jubilee Singers [and] Cake Walkers." In 1910, she was described as "Mrs. Gertrude Rainey, our coon shouter." She stayed with the Rabbit’s Foot Company after it was taken over by F. S. Wolcott in 1912. Rainey said she found "Blues Music" while performing in Missouri one night, when a girl introduced her to a sad song about a man leaving a woman. Rainey learned the song’s lyrics and added it to her performances. Rainey claimed she created the term "blues" when asked what kind of song she was singing.

Beginning in 1914, the Raineys were billed as Rainey and Rainey, Assassinators of the Blues. Spending winters in New Orleans, she met many musicians, including Joe "King" Oliver, Louis Armstrong, Sidney Bechet, and Pops Foster. As blues music became more popular, she became well known. Around this time, she met Bessie Smith, a young blues singer who was also gaining fame. A story later claimed Rainey kidnapped Smith, forced her to join the Rabbit’s Foot Minstrels, and taught her to sing the blues. This story was disputed by Smith’s sister-in-law, Maud Smith.

Recording career

In the late 1910s, more people wanted to hear recordings by Black musicians. In 1920, Mamie Smith became the first Black woman to be recorded. In 1923, Ma Rainey was discovered by J. Mayo Williams, a producer from Paramount Records. She signed a recording contract with Paramount and made her first eight recordings in Chicago in December 1923. These recordings included "Bad Luck Blues," "Bo-Weevil Blues," and "Moonshine Blues." Over the next five years, she made more than 100 other recordings, which helped her gain fame beyond the South. Paramount Records promoted her widely, 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, Rainey recorded with Louis Armstrong on songs like "Jelly Bean Blues," "Countin' the Blues," and "See, See Rider." That same year, she began a tour with the Theater Owners Booking Association (TOBA) in the South and Midwest of the United States. She performed for Black and white audiences and was joined by Thomas Dorsey, a bandleader and pianist, and his group, the Wildcats Jazz Band. Their tour started in Chicago in April 1924 and continued until 1928. In 1926, Dorsey left the group due to health issues and was replaced by Lillian Hardaway Henderson, the wife of Rainey's cornetist, Fuller Henderson, who became the band's leader.

Some of Rainey's songs mention love affairs with men, but a few also include references to lesbianism or bisexuality. For example, her 1928 song "Prove It on Me" is linked to an event in 1925 when she was "arrested for taking part in an orgy at [her] home involving women in her chorus," according to the Queer Cultural Center's website. Scholar Angela Y. Davis noted that this song is an early example of music that supports lesbian culture, which became more prominent in the 1970s. At the time, an advertisement for the song showed Rainey wearing a three-piece suit, surrounded by women, with a police officer nearby.

Unlike many blues singers of her time, Rainey wrote at least one-third of the songs she performed, including "Moonshine Blues" and "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom," which became classic blues standards. Throughout the 1920s, she was known as one of the most talented performers in the United States because of her songwriting, stage presence, and voice. During her TOBA tours, she and her band earned $350 each week, which was double what Bessie Brown and George Williams earned but less than what Bessie Smith eventually earned.

By the late 1920s, live vaudeville performances declined as radio and recordings became more popular. Ma Rainey and Pa Rainey adopted a son named Danny, who later joined their musical act. Rainey also developed a close relationship with Bessie Smith, and some people believed their connection was romantic. It was also said that Smith once helped Rainey get out of jail. Ma Rainey and Pa Rainey separated in 1916.

In 1930, Rainey released the song "Black Eye Blues," which told the fictional story of a woman named Miss Nancy who suffered abuse from her husband's violence and cheating. In 1935, she returned to her hometown of Columbus, Georgia, and became the owner of three theaters: the Liberty in Columbus and the Lyric and Airdrome in Rome, Georgia. She died of a heart attack in 1939.

Legacy and honors

Ma Rainey helped create a style of music now called "classic blues" and showed the lives of African Americans in new ways. As a musical innovator, she used elements from minstrelsy and vaudeville performances, adding humor and mixing different American blues traditions she saw during her many tours across the country. Her work helped start a music style that became popular in both the North and South, in both rural and city areas.

Ma Rainey had a deep, rough voice that she used in a strong and confident way. This style influenced many musicians, including Louis Armstrong, Janis Joplin, and Bonnie Raitt.

In her songs, Ma Rainey described the lives and feelings of African American women in ways that few others did at the time. In her 1999 book Blues Legacies and Black Feminism, Angela Davis wrote that Rainey's songs showed women who "explicitly celebrate their right to conduct themselves as expansively and even as undesirably as men." Her songs included stories of African American women who challenged traditional ideas about how women should behave, such as by having relationships for revenge, drinking, and partying. These portrayals of African American women's lives, including those that challenged common ideas about gender and sexuality, inspired Alice Walker when she created characters for The Color Purple. While men's songs often included stories about sexual experiences, Ma Rainey's use of these themes made her seem strong and independent. Many people have connected her use of these themes to how they appear in modern Hip-Hop music.

Ma Rainey was also known for her fashion. She wore bright, expensive clothing during her performances, including ostrich feathers, shiny gowns, sequins, gold necklaces, diamond crowns, and gold teeth.

Ma Rainey was added to the Blues Foundation's Hall of Fame in 1983 and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990. In 1994, the U.S. Post Office released a 29-cent stamp to honor her. In 2004, her song "See See Rider Blues" (recorded in 1924) was added to the Grammy Hall of Fame and the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress.

A small museum dedicated to Ma Rainey opened in Columbus in 2007 in the house she built for her mother and later lived in from 1935 until her death in 1939.

The first Ma Rainey International Blues Festival was held in April 2016 in Columbus, Georgia, near the home where she lived when she died. In 2017, the Rainey-McCullers School of the Arts opened in Columbus, Georgia, named after Ma Rainey and author Carson McCullers.

In 2023, Ma Rainey received a posthumous Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. The announcement praised her "deep voice and mesmerizing stage presence" and noted that she "recorded almost 100 records, many of them national hits that are now part of the American musical canon."

In popular culture

Sterling A. Brown wrote the poem "Ma Rainey" in 1932, describing how people would hear her sing when she came to town. In 1981, Sandra Lieb published the first full-length book about Rainey, titled Mother of the Blues: A Study of Ma Rainey.

August Wilson wrote the 1982 play Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, which is a made-up story based on a real recording of Rainey's song of the same name from 1927. Theresa Merritt played Rainey in the original Broadway production, and Whoopi Goldberg portrayed her in the revival. Viola Davis played Rainey in the 2020 film version of the play and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress.

In the 2015 television film Bessie, which tells the story of singer Bessie Smith, Mo'Nique played Rainey. She was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Limited Series or Movie.

Discography

This table lists all 94 recordings made by Ma Rainey. Each entry shows the years the recordings were made, the title of the collection, and the company that released it.

• 1923-28 – Mother Of The Blues (5xCD) (JSP, 2007)
• 1923-24 – Complete Recorded Works in Order by When They Were Made, Volume 1 (Document Recs, 1997)
• 1924-25 – Complete Recorded Works in Order by When They Were Made, Volume 2 (Document Recs, 1997)
• 1925-26 – Complete Recorded Works in Order by When They Were Made, Volume 3 (Document Recs, 1997)
• 1926-27 – Complete Recorded Works in Order by When They Were Made, Volume 4 (Document Recs, 1997)
• 1928-00 – Complete 1928 Sessions in Order by When They Were Made, Volume 4 (Document Recs, 1993)

The table can be sorted by clicking on the labels. To return to order by when the recordings were made, click the "#" label.

The dates when the recordings were made are estimated. The classification system, created by Sandra Lieb, groups songs mainly by their musical form. Songs that have some parts of a twelve-bar blues structure but also other elements are grouped as mixtures of blues and popular songs. Songs that do not follow a twelve-bar or eight-bar structure are grouped as non-blues.