What was ma raineys real name

Her shrewd business sense and determination to avoid the financial pitfalls of other performers mark her out as a difficult diva. For them, Rainey is little more than a cash machine, even if she is one of the most popular entertainers of the time. As she notes , "They don't care nothing about me. All they want is my voice. As the play depicts, musical tastes were indeed changing.

Rainey effectively retired in , returning home to Georgia where she managed local theaters until her death in Learn about the real inspiration behind the movie about the Pentagon Papers.

Smith's meeting with "The Mother of the Blues" early in her career changed their lives — and music — forever. After a deal went sour, the automotive brands went head-to-head at Le Mans in When Rainey was arrested for hosting and taking part in a same-sex orgy at her home in , it was Smith who bailed her out the following morning.

Ma Rainey chats with an unidentified man circa Ma Rainey was a performer, a recording artist, a bandleader, a mentor and a touring artist and, in her final years, a venue owner. She spent to running three theatres in her hometown of Columbus, Georgia: the Lyric, the Airdrome, and the Liberty Theatre.

Ma Rainey was married to the aforementioned Pa Rainey, but had numerous affairs with women, many of who were fellow female jazz and blues singers of the Harlem Renaissance. Last December, Netflix released the film Ma Rainey's Black Bottom , a drama adapted from a play of the same name written by late Pulitzer-winning playwright August Wilson. Watching Viola depict Ma, it's clear the Oscar-winning actress did a lot of preparation.

Although Viola worried she wouldn't be able to sing well enough to play the iconic "Mother of Blues," after reading the script she knew she had to get involved. And he humanizes us. And he allows us to talk. Her costar, the late Chadwick Boseman , has earned many awards and nods this season for his role, including a Golden Globe, a Screen Actors Guild award, and an Oscar nomination.

Like Viola, the real Ma Rainey was an incredibly gifted performer. Though, per The Guardian , records suggest Ma was born in Alabama in September of , the singer herself often said she was born on April 26, in Columbus, Georgia. When she was just a teenager, Gertrude started traveling with vaudeville acts, which New York Times jazz critic Giovanni Russonello describes as "cabaret-like shows that developed out of minstrelsy in the mids and catered largely to white audiences.

Inspired by the performer, she allegedly started singing the same song as an encore at her own shows. Soon after, in , Ma married her husband, William "Pa" Rainey. In , Ma became one of the first Black artists signed to Paramount, and she made her first of roughly recordings. For much of the s, Ma lived in Chicago and performed at house parties and concerts around the city while recording tracks for Paramount.

It was unapologetic. It was just music point blank to your soul. It was how she was feeling. Like the blues is your story, she told her story.

Rainey is believed to have remarried, though little is known about her second husband. She is also rumoured to have had relationships with women including Smith. According to the New York Times, on one occasion Rainey was caught by police in a sexual dalliance with some of her female dancers in Chicago. Smith had to bail her out of jail. Her lyrics were also out and proud.