ARTIST	SONG	ALBUM
Ma Rainey	Lost Wandering Blues	Mother of the Blues: The Complete Paramount Recordings 1923–1928
David Sager	Discussion of Records II	Inerview
Ma Rainey	Dream Blues	Mother of the Blues: The Complete Paramount Recordings 1923–1928
Ma Rainey	Oh My Babe Blues	Mother of the Blues: The Complete Paramount Recordings 1923–1928
David Sager	More Song Discussion III	Inerview
Ma Rainey	Oh Papa Blues (tk. 1)	Mother of the Blues: The Complete Paramount Recordings 1923–1928
Ma Rainey	Misery Blues	Mother of the Blues: The Complete Paramount Recordings 1923–1928
David Sager	More Song Discussion IV	Interview
Ma Rainey	1 Army Camp Harmony Blues (tk. 1)	Mother of the Blues: The Complete Paramount Recordings 1923–1928
Ma Rainey	Daddy Goodbye	Mother of the Blues: The Complete Paramount Recordings 1923–1928
David Sager	More Song Discussion V - Tampa Red & Georgia Tom	Interview
Ma Rainey	Black Eye Blues (tk. 2)	Mother of the Blues: The Complete Paramount Recordings 1923–1928
Ma Rainey	Down In the Basement	Mother of the Blues: The Complete Paramount Recordings 1923–1928
David Sager	Ma's Last Years	Interview
Ma Rainey	Georgia Cake-Walk	Mother of the Blues: The Complete Paramount Recordings 1923–1928
Ma Rainey	Traveling Blues (tk. 1)	Mother of the Blues: The Complete Paramount Recordings 1923–1928
Doug Benson	Searching for 78's to Master	Interview
Ma Rainey	Victim Of The Blues	Mother of the Blues: The Complete Paramount Recordings 1923–1928
Ma Rainey	Deep Moaning Blues	Mother of the Blues: The Complete Paramount Recordings 1923–1928
Doug Benson	Combing Through the Discography	Interview
Ma Rainey	Blues The World Forgot - Part 1	Mother of the Blues: The Complete Paramount Recordings 1923–1928
Doug Benson	Transfering the Records	Interview
Ma Rainey	Black Cat Hoot Owl Blues	Mother of the Blues: The Complete Paramount Recordings 1923–1928
Doug Benson	More on Transfers and Mastering	Interview
Ma Rainey	Prove It On Me	Mother of the Blues: The Complete Paramount Recordings 1923–1928
Ma Rainey	Ma Rainey's Black Bottom	Blame It On The Blues
Ma Rainey	Challenges Mastering Paramount 78s	Interview
Ma Rainey	Hear Me Talking To You	Blame It On The Blues
Ma Rainey	Blame It On The Blues	Blame It On The Blues
Doug Benson	Length of the Project and Help from Collectors	Interview
Ma Rainey	Ma On Stage	Interview
Ma Rainey	Leaving This Morning	Mother of the Blues: The Complete Paramount Recordings 1923–1928
Ma Rainey	Black Eye Blues (tk. 2)	Mother of the Blues: The Complete Paramount Recordings 1923–1928
Doug Benson	Crossing Blues & Jazz	Interview
Ma Rainey	Chain Gang Blues	Mother of the Blues: The Complete Paramount Recordings 1923–1928
Ma Rainey	Big Boy Blues	Mother of the Blues: The Complete Paramount Recordings 1923–1928
Doug Benson	Getting to Know Ma Rainey & Some	Interview
Ma Rainey	Blues Oh Blues	Mother of the Blues: The Complete Paramount Recordings 1923–1928
Ma Rainey	Honey Where You Been So Long	Mother of the Blues: The Complete Paramount Recordings 1923–1928
Doug Benson	Final Thoughts	Interview

Show Notes: 

Today’s show revolves around a box set that I have been waiting years to finally come out, and it was worth the wait. Black Swan Records has finally released Mother of the Blues: The Complete Paramount Recordings 1923–1928, a 5-CD set collecting all of Ma Rainey’s recordings in stunning sound with a terrific booklet filled informative essays, gorgeous photos and other ephemera. Ma’s stature as giant of pre-war blues and her influence has never been doubt, but her wonderful recordings were handicapped by Paramount, who despite recording some of the era’s greatest blues artists, pressed records with very poor fidelity. It’s not hyperbole to say that this is the best sounding collection of Ma’s recordings by a good margin. It’s like a veil has been lifted and we are hearing her remarkable singing and her great bands in a whole new light. The biggest blues queens had sobriquet’s penned by the record labels; Bessie Smith was The Empress, Clara Smith Queen of the Moaners, Ida Cox the Uncrowned Queen of the Blues and Ma was the Mother of the Blues. As David Sager writes in the notes: “Yet, it was not undeserved: she was one of the first singers on the black vaudeville stage to feature blues, in addition to being more or less a decade older than most of the other blues divas of the day.” All of the above-mentioned Blues Queens had been on the black music circuit when the blues had yet to become the popular black music of the day but by all accounts, Ma was among the earliest, starting sometime around the turn of the century. Over the course of two shows we delve deep into Ma’s catalog, hearing classics and lesser-known gems. In addition, we chat with David Sager, who wrote the bulk of the notes, and Doug Benson who did the mastering. All of today’s notes come from the essay by David Sager.

The 1900 U. S. Census enumerates Gertrude Pridgett as being 17 years old, which makes 1882 her likely birth year. It also indicates that Gertrude was born in Russell County, Alabama, the oldest of four children. Around 1890, the family moved to Columbus, Georgia, a city that Ma would consider home for the rest of her life. In 1896, when Gertie was about 14 years old, her father died, putting additional financial strain on the Pridgett family. Gertie, being the oldest, was no doubt called upon to help her mother bolster the family’s income. Soon she began singing, at first around town, at arranged and staged amateur nights and publicity-gathering “ballyhoos,” which were hastily put on by local promoters who sought out local African American talent. It is believed that Gertie’s first appearances on stage took place at the local Springer Opera House, where she participated in a series of amateur shows that were titled “A Bunch O’ Blackberries.” Blues didn’t exist at the time and black and white performers where known as “coon shouters,” who, while wearing blackface makeup, performed ragtime-infused “coon songs.” Coon songs were composed by white Tin Pan Alley composers. The term “coon shouter” remained common until about 1916, when, thankfully, it was displaced by “blues singer.”

There exists no printed nor anecdotal evidence of Gertie’s career until her marriage, on February 2, 1904, to singer, dancer, and comedian William Rainey, whom she no doubt met while performing with a minstrel troupe led by one Moses Stokes. The cloudy path of the Raineys’ career grows clearer, thanks to an item in the Indianapolis Freeman of August 25, 1906, stating that they were directing and appearing with the Alabama Fun Makers Company. Later in 1906, the Raineys’ joined A Rabbit’s Foot Company, a traveling show managed by pioneering black show-biz entrepreneur Pat Chappelle. They were not yet known as “Pa” and “Ma,” their billing describing them as “Sketch Artists, Black Face Song and Dance Comedians, Jubilee Singers and Cake Walkers.” The Rabbit’s Foot Company primarily performed tent shows throughout Southern cities and small towns. During the spring of 1909, Will and Gertrude became part of Benbow’s Chocolate Drops. y the time they began their six-weeks engagement at Atlanta’s Luna Park Theater, Will and Gertrude, billed as “Rainey and Rainey,” had left Benbow and were with the Georgia Sunbeam Company. Gertie was still not featuring blues but continued to add syncopated Tin Pan Alley hits to her repertoire.

Like ships passing in the night, the Raineys’ traded venues with a young, and still inexperienced Bessie Smith. Will and Gertrude moved their act into Atlanta’s Arcade/81 Theatre, just as Bessie was headed for Luna Park in Atlanta. There is no evidence that the two had already met, although folklore asserts that the two were acquainted. Regardless of their previous meetings, Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith certainly knew each other by early September 1910, when they appeared in Memphis, at the Pekin Theater, as “The Three Trio.” The constant travel was apparently beginning to wear on Will Rainey. In early 1911, his weakened onstage presence provoked criticism from a writer for the Freeman who noted that while Gertie was a “great coon shouter,” the “gentleman should retire from the stage.” During a jaunt in the summer of 1913 that took the Raineys’ from Newport News, VA to New York and then to Chicago, Gertrude began to feature blues songs. The blues as a musical term was not widespread at this time. Rainey offered her own recollection of first learning about the blues, when she was interviewed by folklorist John W. Work III, during a 1930s engagement in Nashville where she recalled hearing the blues in n 1902 in a small town in Missouri where she was appearing with a show under a tent. She tells of a girl who came to the tent one morning and began to sing about the “man” who had left her. The song was so strange and poignant that it attracted much attention. “Ma” Rainey became so interested that she learned the song from the visitor, and used it soon afterwards in her “act” as an encore.

The next important move for the Raineys’ was during the summer of 1915, when they joined a tent show, known as Alexander Tolliver’s Smart Set touring company. Ma was already well-known enough to be considered the star of the show. The name “Smart Set” represented the finest in black vaudeville entertainment. They performed on a huge 40-foot stage, under a 160-foot round-top tent, with capacity for 3000. And thanks to Tolliver, we have the earliest known photograph of Ma Rainey, along with the only known photo of William “Pa” Rainey. It appeared in the Christmas Day 1915 issue of the Indianapolis Freeman. Below their portraits, Tolliver styled them as “Rainey and Rainey… Assassinators of Blues.”  The Smart Set also offered vestiges of the minstrel show, with Ma portraying “Aunt Nancy,” a stereotypical “colored mammy,” against a cottonfield backdrop. According to Bee Henderson, a chorus girl, Rainey would open the show in the “Mammy” persona, singing the “Cottonfield Blues.” he most vivid accounts we have of Ma Rainey, during this period, come from trombonist Clyde Bernhardt (1905-1986), who was twelve years old when the Smart Set visited his hometown: “The people were all so nice, especially Ma Rainey. She was then rated to be the greatest blues singer in the world. …Ma Rainey closed the show. When she was ready to go on, the great lady start[ed] singing in the wings and as the curtains opened, strutted out flashing those gold-plated teeth and her expensive gold necklace. She wore a long, gold silk gown that swept along the floor, gold slippers, and carried a sparkling rhinestone walking cane. Her hat was high and wide with large feathers stuck in it, had gold earrings dangling and diamond rings on all her fingers. When she got to center stage under those amber spotlights, the audience just went wild.”

The Raineys’ left Tolliver during the summer of 1917 and returned to Southern vaudeville. Shortly thereafter, Ma shared the bill with singer Edmonia Henderson, a Kentuckian and a future Paramount Records artist. She and Ma formed a lasting friendship. 1918 was a typically busy year for Ma, including a three-week stint in Birmingham, a return to the Arcade/81 Theatre in Atlanta, and a visit with her sister, back in Columbus. After a brief run with C. W. Park’s Colored Aristocrats, she formed her own company, under Parks’ management, called Madam Rainey’s Southern Beauty Show. It is unknown if Will was still traveling with his wife. William “Pa” Rainey died on June 29, 1919, while in Montgomery. Blues was on the rise and in 1915  W. C. Handy’s “St. Louis Blues” brought blues, as a genre, to its widest audience so far, becoming one of the most often performed songs of the 20th century. Around the time of Pa’s death, Ma joined up with yet another ensemble with the ubiquitous title “Smart Set.” During the autumn of 1920, touring with her Southern Beauties Company, which included future blues star Virginia Liston, Ma went from Newport News, to Chicago, and then a tour of the South, that took her to Dallas and Beaumont, Texas

By March 1922, Ma Rainey signed with white impresario John T. Wortham, to appear with her own minstrel company of 20, as part of Wortham’s Big Carnival. he Wortham carnivals were enormous affairs, which in addition to Ma’s minstrel company, included a musical revue of 20 additional performers and a circus sideshow. During one stay in Breckenridge, Texas, Ma’s troupe was photographed by Basil Clemons. Three images survive, one showing Ma, with her head held back and right hand pointed skyward, and Troy Snapp’s band, identified by Clemons as “Madam Rainey’s Jazz Hounds.” In August, Okeh invited Mamie Smith to return to the Okeh studio, with an all-black band in accompaniment, to wax Perry Bradford’s “Crazy Blues.” With its companion title, Bradford’s “It’s Right Here For You,” the disc sold like wildfire, erasing any lingering doubts on Okeh’s part that blues and jazz played by African American artists could make money and lots of it. By 1923, the enormous market for blues records was primed and ready for Ma’s entrance, late that year.

In November or early December 1923, after a rest, enjoying the familiar southern heat of Mexico, Ma headed north to Chicago, where she would make her recording debut. Supervising the sessions would be Mayo Williams who’s official title at Paramount was “Recording Director,” and he also acted as a talent scout. Both Richard M. Jones and Lovie Austin claimed to have recommended Ma Rainey to Paramount. But it is likely that Williams was already aware of Ma and her reputation, and at the urging of Edmonia Henderson, arranged for her travel to Chicago, to begin recording. Thomas Dorsey, one of the was on hand to assist Ma in rehearsing the numbers she would record. Dorsey was part of Williams’ stable of pianist/composers, along with Lovie Austin and John Erby, who would compose, rehearse, and arrange material for Paramount’s other blues women, like Ida Cox and Edmonia Henderson. Indeed, Dorsey, Erby, and Austin would all contribute work for Ma’s first session. Rainey’s becoming a Paramount artist came at a price: the diverse repertoire and styles she so expertly performed during her years in vaudeville vanished, at least on record, giving way to slow tempo blues. Ma Rainey would henceforth be touted as a “blues singer.”

Gratified by the success of Ma’s first batch of recordings, J. Mayo Williams arranged for Ma to tour on the still new circuit, known as the Theater Owners Booking Association (T.O.B.A.). October was a busy and eventful month for Ma. Following an appearance in Birmingham, she took the train to New York, for two recording sessions, set up by J. Mayo Williams, at Paramount’s Studio at 1140 Broadway. After years of traveling various circuits catering to black entertainment, Ma Rainey was now firmly ensconced in the hands of the Theater Owners Booking Agency, or T.O.B.A. However, she also continued to play independent engagements, such as fair and carnivals. 1926 found Ma at her professional peak, with a full schedule of theater and recording dates. In November Ma and her accompanists, guitarist Blind Blake and violinist Leroy Pickett, encountered something new at the recording studio. Gone were the tin recording horns, which had been replaced by a microphone, and the process went from acoustic to electric recording.

Although Ma Rainey could not see it coming, the infrastructure that helped keep black show business alive, namely the Theater Owners’ Booking Association, T.O.B.A., was beginning to show signs of erosion. Finally, in 1928 the encroaching decline became a stark concern for the agency, theater owners, and Paramount records. y autumn, theater tickets, ranging from 60 cents to a dollar, were swiftly becoming unaffordable, shutting out much of Ma’s core audience. Paramount executives undoubtedly took notice of the diminishing sales of Ma’s recordings, as well as its other blues stars, such as Ida Cox, and informed Ma that they would be dropping her from its roster. When queried years later, a former Paramount employee explained that Ma’s “downhome style had gone out of fashion.” In her book, Mother of the Blues: A Study of Ma Rainey, author Sandra Lieb tells us, “Ironically, 1928 was one of Ma’s finest years, both artistically and commercially.” Most of Ma’s 1928 recordings had her in the company of Thomas Dorsey, along with his frequent partner, guitarist “Tampa Red. Why Ma did not follow some of her Paramount cohorts, like Tampa Red and Georgia Tom, over to the Vocalion label, is a mystery. By 1930, Ma Rainey’s work was largely with fairs and carnivals in the Southwest, particularly in East Texas towns.

She sought relief from the rigors of her work by retreating to Matamoros, Mexico, where she had “retired” in the early 1920s. In 1935, while visiting nearby Brownsville, Texas, she received word from home that her sister, Malissa, had died. By 19345 she had retired. There are only a few scraps of evidence marking happenings in Gertrude’s life from 1935 to 1939. Perhaps the last news mention of Ma during her lifetime involves the altruistic efforts of music critic and civil rights activist John Hammond, who, in December 1939, was “en route to South Carolina, to try and persuade “Ma” Rainey to come out of retirement and sing for the jitterbugs.” Hammond was in the throes of assembling two concerts to be held at Carnegie Hall, titled From Spirituals to Swing. The concerts were held on the 23rd and 24th of December. On December 22, one day before From Spirituals to Swing, at 9:40 pm, she passed away.