Gertrude Pridgett was born in 1886 in Columbus, Georgia, maybe. According to one census, she was born in Alabama four years earlier. In any case, by 1904 she married William “Pa” Rainey and began life as Ma Rainey, touring musician. They played minstrel shows, juke joints, and the like. By 1914, they were billed as Rainey and Rainey, Assassinators of the Blues. In 1916, Ma would strike out on her own, soon hiring future stars in their own right like Louis Armstrong, Thomas Dorsey, Coleman Hawkins, Kid Ory, and a dancer (and later singer of great renown) Bessie Smith, to perform with her band.
Rainey would record over 100 sides for Chicago-based Paramount Records and become a popular performer and recording artist. All of this despite the fact that in the heavy discriminatory climate of early 20th century America, Ma was big and brash and female and black and gay. She was an elite and influential composer, coming up with the lyrics and melodies for her songs, that vacillated between the saucy and the heartbreaking. She was the crucial bridge between field, minstrel, and vaudeville songs and what is now known as classic blues. She was the boss, a real original, a folk artist, a blues artist, and a scintillating performer.
Rainey would be posthumously inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame and Rock ’n Roll Hall of Fame. Her last home is now a museum in Columbus. August Wilson wrote a 1982 play Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, about a fictionalized day in her life in Chicago, that would later become a George C. Wolfe-directed Academy Award-winning movie of the same name. She won the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2023. Heck, they even put her on a U.S. Postage Stamp in 1994. Despite it all, Ma Rainey is still a bit of a mystery and not talked about enough in music circles. Charlie Apicella and friends are trying to change that.
Apicella is a New York-based blues guitarist, who plays primarily with the band Charlie Apicella & Iron City and puts on educational youth programs through Blues Alive. He received a Masterworks Arts grant, through the help of the North Jersey Blues Society, and will put on three shows called Ma Rainey and the Living Tradition of the Blues in the month of November. On November 7, he’ll perform a duo show with singer Beareather Reddy at Factory Records in Dover, New Jersey. The next day, they’ll play with Avery Sharpe and Steve Johns in a quartet configuration and participate in a panel at the Brooklyn Folk Festival. On November 22, the larger band will headline the Reading Blues Festival. At the first two shows, Florene Dawkins, the force behind The Ma Rainey House and Blues Museum, will be presented with a lifetime achievement award for her work as a folklorist by Apicella and Cristy Benvenutti, the President of the North Jersey Blues Society. Apicella has spent countless hours transcribing Rainey’s music and has plans for future shows.
Ma Rainey died at age 53 in 1939, but her substantial legacy lives on, with all blues, folk, and jazz artists and fans owing her a debt of gratitude.
"Ma Rainey's Black Bottom":
Ma Rainey "See See Rider Blues":
Charlie Apicella and band - "I'm Ready":
Ma Rainey's Black Bottom - Netflix movie trailer:
