By all appearances she led a rough life, but she knew exactly who she was and she was always well grounded. She began performing at age 14, and she made her living in show business thereafter. But she invested her money, and she was able to retire comfortably during the Great Depression. According to a profile in the New Georgia Encyclopedia by N. Lee Orr of Georgia State University in Atlanta, she "was one of the first women to incorporate blues into minstrel and vaudeville stage shows, blending styles from country blues, early jazz, and her own personal musical idiom." Orr says:
In December 1923 Rainey began a five-year association with Paramount, becoming one of the first women to record the blues professionally, eventually producing more than 100 recordings of her own compositions with some of the finest musicians of the day. Her early discs — Bo-weavil Blues (1923) and Moonshine Blues (1923) — soon spread her reputation outside the South. Louis Armstrong accompanied her in Jelly Bean Blues (1924), and later her Georgia Jazz Band included at different times Tommy Ladnier, Joe Smith, and Coleman Hawkins. One of the few times her flair for comedy comes through is in her widely popular Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (1927). Although these recordings scarcely do her vocal style justice, they do give a sense of her raw, "moaning" style and her exquisite phrasing. Her songs and vocal style reveal her deep connection with the pain of jealousy, poverty, sexual abuse, and loneliness of sharecroppers and southern blacks.Here's something I really respect. She didn't let the ups and downs of show biz get to her, and she didn't blow the money she earned in the good days. Orr picks up the rest of the story:
Changing urban musical tastes began diminishing her appeal, and in 1928 Paramount dropped her, claiming that her "down-home material has gone out of fashion." The Great Depression further eroded her audiences, and she retired in 1933 to Columbus and Rome [Ga.], where she managed two theaters she had bought with her earnings.Somewhere I've read she was a homeowner and she was active in her church in Columbus. She died of a heart attack at the age of 53 in 1939.
First, a tribute by Memphis Minnie, a famous blues singer in her own right. It was recorded in 1940, the year after Rainey's death.
"Ma Rainey's Black Bottom" was named for a dance, one of several we've read about in Vera Lee's "Black and White" that crossed over from the African American community to a somewhat uncomprehending white America. First we'll watch a 1920s-vintage movie about the dance.
Then we'll listen to "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom," recorded in Chicago in 1928 by the artist and her a pickup band, which was made up of members of the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra, at the time the top jazz band anywhere. To open a new window and follow the lyrics, click here. Try to ignore the stereotypes and the guy who shouts "Now Ma Rainey's going to show you her black bottom!" and listen to the music (scroll down and click on title).
No. On second thought, don't try to ignore the stereotypes. You can't. But remember Ma Rainey was 14 when she first sang professionally, and she did what she had to do in order to keep her career going. By the 1920s, she was deservedly considered one of America's top musicians.
We'll listen to "Booze and Blues" recorded in New York, Oct. 15 1924, by Ma Rainey and Her Georgia Band, Howard Scott (cornet), Charlie Green (trombone), Don Redman (clarinet), Fletcher Henderson (piano) and Kaiser Marshall (drums). The photo shows :
Among the people she also recorded with were Louis Armstrong and Thomas A. Dorsey, in the 20s a blues artist known as "Georgia Tom." We'll hear "Blame it on the Blues" by Rainey and Dorsey. He later became music minister at Chicago's Pilgrim Baptist Church and a revered gospel musician. This is one of the relatively few recordings of his earlier blues.
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