Ma Rainey, “Mother of the Blues”
Ma Rainey, also known as the “Mother of the Blues, is an historic Black music icon whom I imagine most of you, much like me, have never heard. She was a songwriter, singer, dancer, and businesswoman, amongst other things.
I pride myself on knowing music history. I love all genres of music. I recently took a class at Clemson on the history of music in America. I love singers like Etta James, Billie Holiday, and Nina Simone. But as I dug a little deeper I found that Alice Walker based the Color Purple character Shug Avery on the life of a woman named Ma Rainey. Janis Joplin, Bonnie Raitt, and Louie Armstrong, as well as others, named that woman, this Ma Rainey, as their musical influence. Yet, somehow, I have never heard of Gertrude Pridgett better known as Ma Rainey, the “Mother of the Blues”.
Who is Ma Rainey and why has she been hidden for so long? It is believed that she was born in 1886 in Columbus, GA. She developed a talent for singing at a young age and began singing with traveling vaudeville shows, carnivals, and performing in Honkey Tonks. Known at that time as “the Black Nightingale” she soon discovered her style – the Blues. Upon her induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, they wrote, “Ma Rainey may not have been the first woman to sing the Blues, but she might as well have. Her sturdy, tough vocals wiped away any memory of other Blues singers. Whatever you heard before, it was not the Blues—because no one else sang the Blues like Ma Rainey.”
She became known as Ma Rainey when she married another traveling performer named Pa Rainey although they divorced after a few years. They were part of a group called the Rabbit Hills Minstrels, but it was Ma Rainey that the audience came to hear. She had a way of connecting with an audience: she was a performer in every sense of the word. She was a large woman with gold teeth wearing ostrich feathers, sequined gowns, and diamond tiaras. She had a deep, moanful, gritty voice that captivated her audiences. She wrote many songs about life as a Black woman, about men, and her sexuality as a bisexual woman.
Her popularity was then noted by Paramount Records, who signed her to record in Chicago in 1927. Paramount recorded her under what was known in the industry as race records. These were recording industry categories for music recorded and marketed towards a Black audience and music under this label included genres popularized by this audience like Blues, Jazz, and Gospel, among others. Race records would later become known as Rhythm and Blues. In this system, Black American stars were often exploited: they were poorly paid and many signed away the ownership of their songs and future royalties to white producers and record companies. Of the 94 songs Ma recorded in the 1920s, many were national hits. Unfortunately, Paramount Records went bankrupt leaving the crude and technically poor recordings behind. In the 1960s her discography was reissued by Milestone and Biograph, however, the original static and noise can often be heard. An quick search will allow you to listen to some of Ma Rainey’s music and see her perform. In 1935 Ma returned to Georgia, where she owned two theaters. She lived a modest life there until she died in 1939.
Playwright August Wilson listened to a recording of her singing the song Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. He was fascinated and wanted to learn more about her story. Ma Rainey's Black Bottom would become August Wilson's first Broadway hit and part of his ten-play series The American Century Cycle depicting Black American life over a series of ten decades in the US. While the play depicts a recording session with Ma Rainey, the story is fictional; however, the character of Ma Rainey and the challenges she faced were very real.
Playwright August Wilson, winner of two Pulitzer Prize awards
After premiering at the Yale Repertory Theatre in April 1984, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom opened on Broadway at the Cort Theatre on October 11, 1984. Directed by Lloyd Richards, the production starred Theresa Merritt and Charles S. Dutton. A Broadway revival starring Whoopi Goldberg opened at the Royale Theatre on February 6, 2003. On December 18, 2020, a film adaptation of Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, starring Viola Davis and Anderson’s own Chadwick Boseman, premiered on Netflix.
The question on many minds is what exactly is the “black bottom” to which the song refers. One article explained that it did not refer to Ma Rainey’s rear end, although it does allude to that. The play title refers to a song written by Ma Rainey about a popular dance. The song’s lyrics end with “I done shown ya’ll my black bottom; You ought to learn that dance.” In fact, the Black Bottom is a jazz dance that originated in the Black community in the rural South. By 1907, it was being danced all around the South, showcasing the influence of African dance aesthetics. Jazz pianist and composer Jelly Roll Morton immortalized the dance in his composition “Black Bottom Stomp”, which became a national craze in the 1920s and was popular in both the United States and abroad in Europe.
While Wilson’s play does not cover all of Ma Rainey’s life, it allows us a glimpse into the history of Ma Rainey, the Blues, dance, and some of the challenges faced by Black musicians and Black women. Costanza Romero, artist and wife of August Wilson explained, “August, while seeking out all the beauty, the struggle, the truths and wisdoms in African American Culture mined the larger themes that make us all human. How can we ever forget the powerful poetry in his plays depicting love, honor, duty, betrayal, forgiveness…?”
The arts today help connect audiences to history through storytelling, songs, dance, poetry, and more. A play such as RENT brings the AIDS epidemic in our country to light; Women of Lockerbie shares the story of the horrific plane crash over Scotland; Hamilton brings the history of early America; a play such as Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom explores Black life in the 1920s. One of Market Theatre’s values is “We believe theatre has the power to better our community by inspiring empathy and giving artists, audiences, and students alike the ability to see the world through someone else’s eyes” – we see that value in grand display with this production of Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.
