Gertrude "Ma" Rainey was undoubtedly one of the greatest blues performers of all time, and she's
been immortalized in the award-winning film Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, starring Viola Davis. But
what do we know about the real woman behind the legend? Here's the untold truth of Ma Rainey.
Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, born Gertrude Malissa Nix Pridgett, was by her own account born on April 26,
1886, in Columbus, Georgia. But according to the New York Times,
a census taken in 1900 lists her birthday as September 1882 and her birthplace as
Alabama. Rainey was one of five children, and her parents were both minstrel troupers.
According to the NAACP, Rainey began singing when she was 12 years old, but her family is
known to have said that Rainey was "singing as soon as she was talking," and very soon,
she was performing. Her first known show was at Columbus' Springer Opera House in 1900,
where Rainey sang and danced in a local talent show.
Soon after her first performance,
Rainey started traveling and performing in minstrel and vaudeville shows.
Before long, Gertrude caught the attention of another traveling showman,
William "Pa" Rainey, played by Charles S. Dutton in HBO's Bessie.
They married in 1904. They soon started touring together, billing themselves
as "Rainey and Rainey, Assassinators of the Blues," joining up with many different groups.
According to the Oxford African American Studies Center, Rainey toured with Pa until their marriage
ended in 1916. And all throughout this time, she was developing the classic blues singing,
contributing directly to its evolution. According to Deep Blues by Robert Palmer, Rainey became
exposed to blues for the first time in 1902 in a small Missouri town, when she heard a girl near
the tent singing a song about how her man left her that was, quote, "strange and poignant."
As Ma Rainey toured, she developed her version of the blues, blending
together early jazz and country blues with her own musical style.
According to jazz historian and author Dan Morgenstern, quoted in the Chicago Tribune,
"What today is called 'classic' blues style came into being when young Gertrude Rainey,
impressed and moved by her first encounter with country blues, made this 'folk' music
part of her more sophisticated, professional performance routine."
According to Rainey's pianist and music director "Georgia Tom" Dorsey,
"Ma had the audience in the palm of her hand. [...] When Ma had sung her
last number and the grand finale, we took seven [curtain] calls."
Rainey's performances were so staggering that Paramount rushed to sign her and get
her into a recording studio. By 1923, when she'd been signed by Paramount Records,
she'd be billed as the "Mother of the Blues."
The audio recordings of Ma Rainey don't really do her justice. Her live performances, however,
were reportedly unforgettable. Wearing elegant sequin gowns along with diamonds and necklaces,
including her trademark necklace made out of $20 gold coins that earned her the nickname
"The Golden Necklace of the Blues," Rainey had a commanding hold over her audience.
According to the book Staging the Blues: From Tent Shows to Tourism,
Rainey also knew how to make an entrance, as demonstrated in HBO's Bessie,
in which Monique played Rainey. She would even sometimes begin her stage shows by
being wheeled out inside a giant prop Victrola she would emerge from at the song's climax.
It's unclear exactly when or in which minstrel troupe, but sometime between 1913 and 1916,
Rainey became acquainted with fellow singer Bessie Smith,
played by Queen Latifah in HBO's Bessie. Smith joined the troupe that Rainey was traveling with,
and the two became fast friends, changing Smith's life forever.
According to the New York Times, at the time, Smith was only performing as a chorus girl,
but Rainey quickly took her under her wing. Rainey liked Smith and taught her about life on the road
in addition to giving her music lessons. However, the two women ultimately ended up with different
styles. While Rainey's voice was striking and raw, Smith was comparatively more subtle and earthy.
It's also likely that Rainey and Smith had a romantic relationship, like the one Ma has
with the fictional "Dussie" in Ma Rainey's Black Bottom. They were both openly queer,
and according to the book Mother of the Blues: A Study of Ma Rainey, one of Rainey's guitarists
once said that based on the way they talked, it seemed like Rainey was "courtin' Bessie."
Even before Paramount signed her in 1923, Ma Rainey was wildly popular.
By 1917, her shows were completely packed, sometimes not just by all-Black audiences.
Some of her shows were integrated, with half of the tent reserved for Black people
and half of the tent reserved for white people. And selling out integrated shows
wasn't a usual occurrence during that time, especially in the Jim Crow South.
If there was overflow, sometimes people sat in mixed audiences because nothing was
worth missing her performance. Her songs were full of heartbreak and abandonment,
and sometimes when she moaned, audiences moaned along with her. According to Atlas Obscura,
sometimes Rainey was also hired by white people to play quieter private parties.
"He's been my manager for six years and the only time he had
me over to his house was to sing for some of his white friends."
"Huh. I know how they do."
During the Great Depression, entertainers were hit with financial difficulties,
but blues performers especially suffered as new styles of jazz started to become
more popular and record companies dropped blues performers in search of more profit.
According to Women & Music: A History by Karin Pendle, Paramount refused to renew
Rainey's contract because they claimed that "her style of down-home singing and
the blues had gone out of fashion." By that point, vaudeville circuits
had also started to decline, and Rainey resorted to playing primarily tent shows.
Despite this, her career was not immediately affected, and she was earning enough to continue
touring in her own bus, complete with her name painted on the side. But ultimately, Rainey was
unwilling to adapt her style to fit in with the fads that the record companies were interested in.
After her sister and mother died, Rainey retired from music,
returning to her hometown of Columbus, Georgia, in 1935. She invested in several movie theaters,
in addition to devoting herself to church and charity work.
Unfortunately, Rainey's life was cut tragically short in 1939, when she died of a heart attack
in Rome, Georgia, on December 22 at the age of 53. Despite everything she'd accomplished,
her death certificate and local obituaries listed her occupation as "housekeeper."
Ma Rainey's legacy can't be understated. Within one year of her death, Memphis Minnie recorded
the first tribute song to Rainey, proclaiming in the lyrics that "she was the best blues
singer [...] I ever heard." In addition to her influence on Bessie Smith, her records inspired
generations of musicians like Billie Holiday, Dinah Washington, Big Mama Thornton, and Koko
Taylor. Janis Joplin also adored Ma Rainey as a blues pioneer and listened to her avidly.
Rainey's influence also rippled through the literary world. Poets such as Sterling
Allen Brown and Langston Hughes refer to her in their writings.
And her life is the topic of the 1982 play Ma Rainey's Black Bottom by August Wilson,
although the play is not an entirely biographical depiction.
Rainey wouldn't be inducted into the Blues Foundation Hall of Fame until 1983, and in 1990,
she was also inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as an early influence. Her Columbus house
also has historical landmark status and is home to The Gertrude "Ma" Rainey House & Blues Museum.
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