Ma Rainey Songs and Albums

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Bessie Smith was known as the “Empress of the Blues,” so it’s only fitting that her mentor and senior, Ma Rainey, should be forever remembered as “The Mother of the Blues.” Ma Rainey was born Gertrude Pridgett in Columbus, Georgia, in 1886. She acquired the moniker, “Ma,” after she married William “Pa” Rainey in 1904.

Rainey began performing music when she was 12-years-old, and she and her husband eventually became members of the legendary touring ensemble, F.S. Walcott’s Rabbit’s Foot Minstrels. From 1914, the Raineys became known as “Rainey and Rainey, Assassins of the Blues.” Ma Rainey eventually met Bessie Smith, and she acted as a mentor for the younger singer.

Mamie Smith became the first African-American woman to make a blues record in 1920, and the sensation that her recording, “Crazy Blues,” stirred led to record companies searching out other African-American blues singers. Paramount discovered Rainey in1923, and enabled her to make her first recordings. She went to Chicago in late 1923 to make her first record “Bad Luck Blues,” Bo-Weevil Blues,” and “Moonshine Blues.”

Rainey would record over 100 sides for Paramount over the next five years. She was marketed as “Mother of the Blues” among other tags. In 1924, she recorded with the young Louis Armstrong on “See See Rider Blues,” “Jelly Bean Blues,” and “Countin’ the Blues.”

As the Thirties approached, Rainey’s brand of Vaudeville blues was beginning to lose popularity, and Paramount failed to renew her recording contract. Rainey died in Rome, Georgia, in 1939, of a heart attack.

Ma Rainey’s best recordings can be found on the following compilations: “Ma Rainey” (1974), “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” (1975), and “The Best of Gertrude “Ma” Rainey-Mother of the Blues” (2004).