Gertrude Rainey was one of the earliest African-American professional blues singers. She bridged earlier vaudeville and the authentic expression of southern blues. Rainey recorded with Thomas Dorsey and Louis Armstrong, and she toured and recorded with the Georgia Jazz Band.
About Ma Rainey in brief
Gertrude Rainey was one of the earliest African-American professional blues singers. She bridged earlier vaudeville and the authentic expression of southern blues. Rainey recorded with Thomas Dorsey and Louis Armstrong, and she toured and recorded with the Georgia Jazz Band. She toured until 1935, when she largely retired from performing and continued as a theater impresario in her hometown of Columbus, Georgia until her death three years later. She was known for her powerful vocal abilities, energetic disposition, majestic phrasing, and a \”moaning\” style of singing. She claims she created the term “blues” when asked what kind of song she was singing. Her first recording was made in 1923 and she made more than 100 recordings over the next five years, including \”Bo-Weevil Blues\” and \”Moonshine Blues” She was the second of five children of Thomas and Ella Pridgett, from Alabama.
She had at least two brothers and a sister, Malissa, with whom Gertrud was later confused by some writers. The 1900 census indicates she was born in September 1882 in Alabama, and researchers Bob Eagle and Eric LeBlanc suggest that her birthplace was in Russell County, Alabama. In February of 1904 Ma Rainey married William \”Pa\” Rainey when she was 18 years old. She later claimed that she was first exposed to blues music around 1902. She formed the Alabama Fun Makers Company with her husband, Will Rainey, but in 1906 they both joined Pat Chappelle’s much larger and more popular Rabbit’s Foot Company, in which they were billed together as \”Black Face Song and Dance Comedians, Jubilee Singers Cake Walkers\”. In 1910, she was described as \”Mrs. Gert rimey, our coon shouter\”.
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This page is based on the article Ma Rainey published in Wikipedia (as of Nov. 30, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
