Ma Rainey's Black Bottom

Rainey, Ma

album cover

The Mother of the Blues at Her Best

Ma Rainey comes through louder and clearer than any other blues singer of the 1920s. Though her recordings have the staticky veneer that plagues everything from the era, Rainey somehow pierces the noise. A veteran who'd been belting for more than twenty years before her voice was captured for posterity, she dispenses risqué notions and wronged-woman blues with wry and worldly inflections, a mixture of growls and shouts that just about everyone after her copied.

Rainey (1886–1939) matters because she was among the first blues artists to develop more than a regional following: Through grueling road-work as a part of circuses and minstrel shows, she and her husband—who billed themselves as the "Assassinators of the Blues"—became well-known performers throughout the South. This made Ma Rainey a powerful influence: Bessie Smith, the so-called Queen of the Blues, heard (and openly imitated) Rainey. (According to one legend, Smith took lessons from her.)

Rainey is also significant because of the joy on display here—she's one of the few early recording artists whose personality comes through. Where others froze when the primitive machines started up, she camped and hollered the same way she would in a nightclub. Her tunes recorded between 1924 and 1928 are distinguished by a cheeky irreverence and great spirit. Her big voice bellowing, she tells stories about those crazy men who've let her down, enjoys the double-entendre talk about her "Black Bottom"—which, of course, is a dance. Her delight is more than contagious—it's a part of the animating force handed down through generations as the blues.

Genre: Blues
Released: 1975, Yazoo
Key Tracks: "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom," "Don't Fish in My Sea," "Stack O'Lee Blues."
Catalog Choice: Complete Recorded Works, Vol. 4.
Next Stop: Bessie Smith: The Essential Bessie Smith (see p. 715)
After That: Ida Cox (with Coleman Hawkins): Blues for Rampart Street.
Book Pages: 628–629