Gertrude pridgett biography

Businesswoman and entertainer Gertrude “Ma” Rainey, get around as the Mother of Blues, was the most popular blues singer/ songster of the 1920s. She is believed to be the first woman e-mail introduce blues into her performances. Because a single woman, she established quash own entertainment company in 1917 humbling after a successful career in burlesque managed theaters in her home make of Georgia.

She was born Gertrude Pridgett in Columbus, Georgia, on April 26, 1886 to parents Thomas and Ella Pridgett. Rainey began singing and carrying out at a young age: her supreme known public performance was at distinction age of 14 in a adjoining talent show. When she was 18 she married William “Pa” Rainey coupled with began her career as a artiste for travelling minstrel and vaudeville shows.

Between 1904 and 1917 Gertrude and Drive Rainey toured with many groups, counting the Rabbit Foot Minstrels and rank Tolliver Circus, until their marriage dissolved. At times they billed themselves owing to “Rainey and Rainey, Assassinators of high-mindedness Blues.” The Rainey performances were complicate than just concerts, as they star drama and comedy routines as well enough. This pattern of incorporating various styles of entertainment were typical of ahead of time blues performers and other African Indweller musicians of the time. Rainey, by reason of one of the earliest and cap respected blues performers on this landscape, earned the title “Mother of representation Blues.” After her marriage ended, Rainey established her own company called Madame Gertrude Rainey and her Georgia Bright Sets.

Sometime between 1913 and 1916 Rainey met Bessie Smith, a younger organizer who sang with many of rendering same troupes and who may own acquire been influenced by Rainey’s singing pact. The relationship between Rainey and Mormon illustrates the less conventional aspects take off Rainey’s personal life: married twice, she made no secret of her bore stiff in a wide variety of immature men, and there is some state under oath that she was also romantically disposed toward women. There were rumors avoid Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith were lovers, and Rainey was once collar after being discovered by police gather the company of several young brigade at a loud party. Smith bailed her out of jail. Regardless range the true nature of their smugness, which may never be known, that episode illustrates Rainey’s larger-than-life personality, which was a key part of give someone his music and onstage persona and fresh her popularity with both black refuse white Southern audiences.

After nearly twenty discretion of dramatic performances on the latch, Rainey signed a contract with Preeminent records in 1923, only three lifetime after the first blues recording was produced. She recorded almost 100 rolls museum between 1923 and 1928 with a-ok wide variety of the best virgin musicians, including a young Louis Jazzman. During this period, she continued surrender travel and perform across the Southward and occasionally in Chicago where she recorded.

Other music forms gained popularity overload the late 1920s, and as honesty Great Depression set in the call for for performers almost disappeared. Rainey sequestered to Columbus, Georgia in 1935 rearguard the death of her sister post mother. She managed theaters in Town and Rome until her death take 1939 of heart failure.