Ma Rainey

• Born: April 26, 1886
• Birthplace: Columbus, Georgia
• Died: December 22, 1939
• Place of death: Columbus, Georgia

Blues singer

Rainey dominated the early development of the blues as a form of mainstream popular music. She provided a link from the rural origins of folk expression to the more popular classic style of the 1920s. Her music and lyrics resonated with fans as she explored issues of violence against women, sexuality, unfaithfulness, and other topics taboo at the time.

Areas of achievement: Entertainment: minstrelsy; Music: blues; Women’s rights

Early Life

Ma Rainey was born Gertrude Melissa Nix Pridgett on April 26, 1886, in Columbus, Georgia, the second of five children. Her parents, Thomas Pridgett and Ella Allen, had just moved from Alabama. Her first known performance took place in her early teens at a local revue, a few years after the death of her father. She married singer-dancer-comedian William “Pa” Rainey, a regular on the traveling tent-show circuit, on February 2, 1904. Rainey began her training regimen for the entertainment industry during this time with the Rabbit’s Foot Minstrels. The Raineys also worked in the Moses Stokes Traveling Show and Tolliver’s Circus and Musical Extravaganza, as well as other companies.

During the 1900s, Rainey began to use an early form of the blues in her act. This embryonic stage had evolved from field hollers, religious spirituals, chain-gang chants, and work songs from the last decade of the previous century. It is possible that Bessie Smith and Rainey worked together as early as 1912, when Smith was hired into the Moses Stokes troupe as a dancer. Smith’s brother Clarence had been with the show for eight years. Smith and Rainey most certainly had met by the year 1916 in Tolliver’s Circus. In 1912, W. C. Handy’s “The Memphis Blues” was published and helped bring blues music into the mainstream. Appreciation for Rainey began to increase with the popularity of the genre. From 1914 to 1916, Ma and Pa Rainey were billed as “Rainey and Rainey, Assassinators of the Blues,” when they were with Tolliver’s Circus. At the end of this stretch, the Raineys decided to go their separate ways; Rainey formed her own group of musicians and performed as Madame Gertrude Ma Rainey and Her Georgia Smart Sets.

Life’s Work

Rainey developed a reputable blues repertoire during the years that she toured with the various tent shows. Taking a cue from Mamie Smith, who recorded a blues song in February 1920, Rainey made her first recording in December 1923 for Paramount Records, singing with the backup group Lovie Austin and Her Blues Serenaders. Rainey recorded ten songs in that session and, in doing so, made the leap from a regional musical sensation to a blues artist of a more national standing. In her March 1924 session, the Pruitt Twins—Miles Pruitt on banjo and Milas Pruitt on guitar—provided the accompaniment. In late 1924, Rainey recorded with Fletcher Henderson (piano), Don Redman (clarinet), and Louis Armstrong (cornet). In her later sessions, Thomas A. Dorsey (piano) and Tampa Red (guitar) also provided accompaniment.

Rainey had begun touring the Midwest and the South with Dorsey, also known as Georgia Tom Dorsey, in 1924, when he formed the Wildcats Jazz Band as Rainey’s backup group. He served as the band’s director and pianist. Dorsey worked with Rainey until the end of the decade, except for the two years, 1926–28, when he was recovering from a nervous breakdown.

Domestic violence was a topic that Rainey did not avoid. “Black Eye Blues,” written by Dorsey, who eventually turned to composing music of a more religious nature, describes marital abuse and cheating and promises payback for the physical cruelty. Rainey’s bisexuality found expression in her 1928 track “Prove It on Me Blues.” She also covers the subject of being gay in a Dorsey song titled “Sissy Blues.”

At the close of the 1920s, recording opportunities for Black American artists diminished significantly for several reasons, not least of which was the stock market crash of 1929. Rainey kept touring during the early 1930s but retired in 1935 after the death of her sister and, a few months later, her mother, settling in her hometown of Columbus, Georgia. She owned two theaters in Georgia, which kept her occupied during her retirement. In December 1939, Rainey suffered a fatal heart attack.

Significance

Rainey underwent an arduous apprenticeship in the blues during her early years on the touring tent-show circuit. She established a form of the blues that appealed to the general public. Her version of the blues spoke of injustices to women: “Misery Blues,” for example, recounts the betrayal of marital intentions. “Moonshine Blues” bemoans the departure of a husband, leaving a wife alone. Quite a few of her recorded songs deal with themes of unfaithfulness or separation. Rainey’s blues were the blues of the people; they suffered the same indignities and misfortunes as the characters in her songs. In recognition of her musical legacy, she was posthumously honored with the Grammy Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2023.

Bibliography

Davis, Angela Y. Blues Legacies and Black Feminism. New York: Vintage Books, 1998.

Jackson, Buzzy. “Bad Women—The Early Years: Mamie Desdoumes, Sophie Tucker, Mamie Smith, and Ma Rainey.” In A Bad Woman Feeling Good: Blues and the Women Who Sing Them. New York: W. W. Norton, 2005.

Lieb, Sandra. Mother of the Blues: A Study of Ma Rainey. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1981.

"Ma Rainey Receives the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2023 Grammys." Recording Academy Grammy Awards, 15 Feb. 2023, www.grammy.com/news/ma-rainey-lifetime-achievement-award-2023-grammys. Accessed 17 Mar. 2023.

Tracy, Steven C. “A Reconsideration: Hearing Ma Rainey.” MELUS 14, no. 1 (Spring, 1987): 85-90.