Ma Rainey

Gertrude Pridgett Rainey, known as Ma Rainey, was the 'Mother of the Blues' and one of the earliest professional blues performers. She began performing in tent shows and vaudeville circuits across the South as a teenager around 1900, and by her own account first encountered the blues sung by a young woman in a Missouri tent show around 1902. She married performer Will 'Pa' Rainey and they toured together for years with the Rabbit Foot Minstrels and other shows, mentoring the young Bessie Smith along the way. She recorded 94 sides for Paramount Records between 1923 and 1928, accompanied by some of some of the leading jazz musicians of the era including Louis Armstrong, Coleman Hawkins, and Fletcher Henderson. Her voice was earthier and more country-inflected than Bessie Smith's, and her recordings ('See See Rider,' 'Bo Weavil Blues,' 'Prove It on Me') document the blues at its earliest commercial stage. She retired to Columbus, Georgia, where she operated two theaters until her death in 1939.