Ma RainEY IS Mother OF BLUES POPOLOGIST® NFT

Gertrude "Ma" Rainey

(April 26, 1886 – December 22, 1939) was an influential American blues singer and early blues recording artist. Dubbed the "Mother of the Blues", she bridged earlier vaudeville and the authentic expression of southern blues, influencing a generation of blues singers.[5]

Gertrude Pridgett began performing as a teenager and became known as "Ma" Rainey after her marriage to Will "Pa" Rainey in 1904. They toured with the Rabbit Foot Minstrels and later formed their own group, Rainey and Rainey, Assassinators of the Blues. Her first recording was made in 1923. In the following five years, she made over 100 recordings, including "Bo-Weevil Blues" (1923), "Moonshine Blues" (1923), "See See Rider Blues" (1924), "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom" (1927), and "Soon This Morning" (1927).[6]

Rainey was known for her powerful vocal abilities, energetic disposition, majestic phrasing, and a "moaning" style of singing. Her qualities are present and most evident in her early recordings "Bo-Weevil Blues" and "Moonshine Blues".

Rainey recorded with Thomas Dorsey and Louis Armstrong, and she toured and recorded with the Georgia Jazz Band. She toured until 1935, when she largely retired from performing and continued as a theater impresario in her hometown of Columbus, Georgia, until her death four years later.[1]

Gertrude “Ma” Rainey was, without any exaggeration, an icon. This is the true story of her life: how she became the “Mother of the Blues”, to the new Netflix film about her, starring Oscar-winner Viola Davis and Chadwick Boseman. Chicago, 1927. A recording session. Tensions rise between Ma Rainey, her ambitious horn player and the white management determined to control the uncontrollable "Mother of the Blues". The film is based on Pulitzer Prize winner August Wilson's play, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom.

Who REALLY Was Ma Rainey?

Ma Rainey was the first popular stage entertainer to incorporate authentic blues into her song repertoire. She performed during the first three decades of the 20th century and enjoyed mass popularity during the blues craze of the 1920s. Rainey's music has served as inspiration for such poets as Langston Hughes. Described by African American poet Sterling Brown in Black Culture and Black Consciousness as "a person of the folk," Rainey recorded in various musical settings and exhibited the influence of genuine rural blues. She is widely recognized as the first great female blues vocalist.

Early Career

Rainey was born Gertrude Pridgett on April 26, 1886, in Columbus, Georgia, to minstrel troupers Thomas Pridgett, Sr. and Ella Allen-Pridgett. Rainey worked at the Springer Opera House in 1900, performing as a singer and dancer in the local talent show, "A Bunch of Blackberries." On February 2, 1904, Pridgett married comedy songster William "Pa" Rainey. Billed as "Ma" and "Pa" Rainey the couple toured Southern tent shows and cabarets. Though she did not hear blues in Columbus, Rainey's extensive travels had, by 1905, brought her into contact with authentic country blues, which she worked into her song repertoire. "Her ability to capture the mood and essence of Black rural southern life of the 1920s," noted Daphane Harrison in Black Pearls: Blues Queens "quickly endeared her to throngs of followers throughout the South."

While performing with the Moses Stokes troupe in 1912, the Raineys were introduced to the show's newly recruited dancer, Bessie Smith. Eight years Smith's senior, Rainey quickly befriended the young performer. Despite earlier historical accounts crediting Rainey as Smith's vocal coach, it has been generally agreed by modern scholars that Rainey played less of a role in the shaping of Smith's singing style. "Ma Rainey probably did pass some of her singing experience on to Bessie," explained Chris Albertson in the liner notes to Giants of Jazz, "but the instruction must have been rudimentary. Though they shared an extraordinary command of the idiom, the two women delivered their messages in styles and voices that were dissimilar and manifestly personal."

READ MORE: Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey Forged a Powerful Friendship That Helped Bring Blues to the Mainstream

Blues Star

Around 1915, the Raineys toured with Fat Chappelle's Rabbit Foot Minstrels. Afterward, they were billed as the "Assassinators of the Blues" with Tolliver's Circus and Musical Extravaganza. Separated from her husband in 1916, Rainey subsequently toured with her own band, Madam Gertrude Ma Rainey and Her Georgia Smart Sets, featuring a chorus line and a Cotton Blossoms Show, and Donald McGregor's Carnival Show.

The POPOLOGY® BOOK OF POP Royalty Pages Celebrity Trading Card NFT 8xjTfUHJ1gchKTX3W9RfBX1XwaWJMsKZjqZo5wXrvFxp

Media Literacy Never Looked So Beautiful!

The Isley Brothers BOOK OF POP NFT

Considered as one of the most important and influential groups of the last half-century.

The Isley Brothers are an American musical group

originally from Cincinnati, Ohio, that started as a vocal trio consisting of brothers O'Kelly Isley Jr., Rudolph Isley and Ronald Isley in the 1950s.

With a career spanning over seven decades, the group has enjoyed one of the "longest, most influential, and most diverse careers in the pantheon of popular music".[1]

Together with a fourth brother, Vernon, the group performed gospel music until Vernon's death a few years after its formation. After moving to the New York City area in the late 1950s, the group had their first successes during these early years, first coming to prominence in 1959 with their fourth single, "Shout", written by the three brothers. Initially a modest charted single, the song eventually sold over a million copies. In the 1960s, the group recorded songs for a variety of labels, including the top 20 single "Twist and Shout" and the Motown single "This Old Heart of Mine (Is Weak for You)", before recording and issuing the Grammy Award-winning hit "It's Your Thing" on their own label, T-Neck Records.

Influenced by gospel and doo-wop music, the group began experimenting with different musical styles incorporating elements of rock and funk as well as pop balladry. The inclusion of younger brothers Ernie Isley (lead guitar, drums) and Marvin Isley (bass guitar), and Rudolph's brother-in-law Chris Jasper (keyboards, synthesizers), in 1973 turned the original vocal trio into a complete band and reached the height of their success. For the next full decade, they recorded a string of top-selling albums from 3 + 3 to Between the Sheets, including the number one album The Heat Is On.

The six-member band splintered in 1983, with Ernie, Marvin, and Chris Jasper forming the short-lived spinoff group Isley-Jasper-Isley. The oldest member, O'Kelly, died in 1986 and Rudolph and Ronald released a pair of albums as a duo before Rudolph retired to a life in the Christian ministry in 1989. Ronald reconvened the group two years later in 1991 with Ernie and Marvin; five years later, in 1996, Marvin Isley left the group due to complications of diabetes. The remaining duo of Ronald and Ernie achieved mainstream success with the albums Mission to Please (1996), Eternal(2001) and Body Kiss (2003). Eternal spawned the top twenty hit "Contagious". As of 2019, the Isley Brothers continue to perform under the lineup of Ronald and Ernie.

The Isley Brothers have sold over 18 million units in the United States alone.[9] They have had several hit songs including four Top 10 singles on the United States Billboard chart. With their first major hit charting in 1959 ("Shout"), and their last one in 2001 ("Contagious"), they are among the few groups ever to have hit the Billboard Hot 100 with new music in five different decades. Sixteen of their albums charted in the Top 40 and thirteen of those albums have been certified gold, platinum or multi-platinum by the RIAA. The brothers have been honored by several musical institutions, including the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which inducted them in 1992.[10] Five years later, they were added to Hollywood's Rockwalk, and in 2003 they were inducted to the Vocal Group Hall of Fame.[11] They received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2014.[12]