Muscogee County GaArchives Photo Person.....Rainey, Ma (Gertrude Prigett) ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/ga/gafiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Christine Thacker http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00033.html#0008100 April 23, 2007, 10:19 pm Source: Special Sesquicentennial II, Ledger-Enquirer, Sunday, April 23, 1978, Pg S-26 Name: Ma (Gertrude Prigett) Rainey Photo can be seen at: http://www.usgwarchives.net/ga/muscogee/photos/rainey12645gph.jpg Image file size: 58.9 Kb Ma Rainey By Lisa Battle Ledger Staff Writer "Trust no man no further than your eyes can see… -Ma Rainey The sound is honkey tonk. The voice is easy, straightforward, gravelly now and then, and sometimes with a little catch. As she moves along, she talks to the women in her audience: "Take Ma Rainey's advice . . . trust NO man . . . not even your own." The piano picks up the melody and the song resumes, a cheerful recitation of a raw deal: "I trusted mine with my best friend But that was . . . the end of the end . . ." Straining to hear the words' on the scratchy vintage record, one catches a hint of why Columbus-born Ma Rainey, mother of the Blues, became a star. Friendllness humor and a kind of exuberant joy in life, even in its crummy aspects, must have reached out and warmedher audiences. "She lifted folks' spirit," says a longtime fan. Americus blues and gospel singer Pearly Brown heard her - "when I was a little boy. She could sing. Oh Lord knows she could sing." Brown, 65, heard another musical great from Georgia: Cuthbert's Fletcher Henderson, pianist, band leader, jazz arranger for Benny Goodman and the Dorsey brothers. , Brown said he shared a program once with Henderson: "He was a friendly fellow. . ." Photos and stories about Ma Rainey are easier to come by than those of Henderson. The photos show the famed flamboyance, the glittering gold coin necklaces, the diamonds in her hair and on her plump fingers. The inner splendor shines through the luminous dark eyes, the warm kindly smile softening the rough features. Mrs. Thomas Pridgett, widow of Ma Rainey's brother, and Mrs. Charlie Nix, who married Ma's nephew, agree with Brown about the voice and style that dazzled audiences from the Deep South to Mexico. They recall it as a heavy voice, a voice just right for her songs of hurt and trouble and she sang with all she had. "She was a very sweet person. She was kind to everybody," Mrs. Pridgett mused. "I think everybody loved her." The Mother of the Blues was born Gertrude Pridgett on April 27, 1886, second of five children. Her childhood is mostly mystery but Hettie Jones in "Big Star Fallin' Mama" (Viking Press) writes that Ma's brother said her vocal gifts showed early. She was baptized at First African Baptist Church, made her debut in 1900 at the Springer Opera House at the age of 14, appearing in a talent show entitled "The Bunch of Blackberries." . As an inland river town, Columbus got its share of cultural happenings and various kinds of entertainment and it was on the minstrel circuit. Gertrude must have kept singing after her appearance at the Springer because in the next few years she somehow caught the eye of a minstrel show manager, William "Pa" Rainey. They married on Feb. 2, 1904, and 18-year-old Gertrude became "Ma" Rainey and star of the Rabbit Foot Minstrel. The newlyweds began their travels. For 35 years, folks in the south, midwest and even in Mexico flocked to see and hear the Columbus singer. Some of their early routines, Hettie Jones reports, included dancing and humorous talk, along with the singing. (Knock knock knock knock) Who's that knocking on that door? It's me, baby. Me who? Well you know I'm your wife. Whaa ? Wife ? Yeh! Ain't that awful? I don't let no woman quit me but one time. I just one little time, just one time! The Rabbit Foot Minstrel featured acrobats, contortionists, deformed people advertised as freaks, dancers--and bands. As Ma began to write and deliver the blues, ahe was backed by some of the south's top musicans who honed their skills working and practicing and training together. Many became the 20th century's first jazz musicians. Ma Rainey appeared with shows like Toliver's Circus and Musical Extravaganza and wintered with the shows in New Orleans. She hired veteran musicians who worked the saloons and dance halls of Storyville, the city's red light district. She met Louis Armstrong who later appeared on some of her records. The South was a world of poverty and restrictions for blacks in the first years of the 20th century. Hettie Jones notes that Georgia's separate and unequal education policies supplied 20 cents for black schools to every 80 cents for white. For Ma Rainey's people, these were years of entering white homes and businesses through rear doors, of drinking from fountains labeled "colored." For real and sometimes fancied crimes there were chain gangs and lynchings. Ma Rainey sang: . " . . . many days of sorrow, many nights of woe Many days of sorrow, many nights of woe, And a ball and chain, everywhere I go. It was early this morning that I had my trial It was early this morning that I had my trial. Ninety days on the county road, and the judge didn't even smile. She sang for the woman whose man did her wrong. "Lord it aint no maybe about my man being' rough Lord it aint no maybe about my man being' rough But when it comes to loving' he sure can strut his stuff. "You buse me and mistreat me, you throw me round and beat me Still I'm gonna hang around . . ." Hettie Jones shares a memory of jazz pianist Mary Louis Williams, a kid in Pittsburgh when she slipped into a little theater and heard the singer. "Ma was loaded with real diamonds . . . her hair was wild and she had gold teeth." But Jones says, the trappings were just dazzle for the audience. Ma was a star but hers was no luxury life. She sang in theaters, like Columbus' old Dream Theater, but she sang, too, in schools, barns and dance halls, rattling over railroad tracks to engagements. She didn't just sing about trouble. She cared about troubled people. Jones quotes an apparent news report: "Ma Rainey is sponsoring a midnight ramble this week in Nashville Tenn. for the benfit of the flood sufferers in Alabama. It is just like big-hearted Ma Rainey to do this humane thing. .. At 38, a legend among her own. Gertrude Pridgett was "discovered" in 1924 by Paramount recording scouts. The company hailed their find: "Discovered at Last - MA RAINEY - Mother of the Blues." Moving into New York and Chicago, the singer made about 90 records. Ma's sister- in-law. Mrs. Pridgett, says she and her late husband had a stack of them but visitors over the years helped themselves and the stock is gone. Ma Raine, by now sometimes accorded the title Madame, came home in 1935 after a sister died. She settled in a house she'd built for her family. First African choir director Laura Haybood remembers walking by the house on her way to teach school. She'd see the singer sitting on the porch. "We said 'Good Morning.' She was always friendly but I just knew her at a distance. She was 'the great Ma Rainey.' The singer joined Friendship Baptist Church, where her brother Thomas was a deacon. A good businesswoman, according to Jones, she bought and operated two theaters in Rome, Ga. At 50, she'd stopped singing regularly. Three years -later, three days before Christmas 1939, she died. Jones notes her occupation was listed as housekeeper. She is buried in Porterdale Cemetery. . . . Four days after Christmas in 1952. Fletcher Henderson died. Born 12 years after Ma Rainey. he'd come from a very different background. A son of teachers, he majored in math and chemistry and studied music at Atlanta University, did post graduate study in New York City. In 1920, he took a part-time job playing with famed cornetist-band leader- composer ("St. Louis Blues") W.C.Handy. He later worked as house pianist with Black Swan Records, gathered a group of musicians to accompany Ethel Waters and toured with the singer. Henderson had his own band' at New York's "Club Alabam" in 1923, also played at Roseland on Broadway. He played piano on records with the Empress of the Blues, Bessie Smith. toured with top musicians like Dixieland trombonist J.C. Higginbotham. Martin Williams in "Where's the Melody?" (Pantheon) says Henderson was "one of the first to arrive at a style for big band jazz . . . Henderson's style was evolved chiefly by arranger Don Redman . . . ." During the '30s, Henderson wrote arrangements for bands like Isham Jones and the Dorsey Brothers. His most celebrated arrangements include "Blue Skies" and "Sometimes I'm Happy." He played and arranged for Benny Goodman, had a hit in the disc "Stealin' Apples." He played engagements in Chicago in the mid-40s, toured again with Waters. He and J.P. Johnson wrote the score for "Jazz Train." Columbus singer Fredye Marshall, who had a glittering international career before returning to live in Columbus, starred in "Jazz Train" in London. She remembers some of the songs being changed but Henderson's arrangements were "Wonderful." One of his friends, jazz impressario John Hammond described him as "a genteel and gentle man." Hammond said the Cuthbert musician should have made a fortune, based on his early success as a band leader and the social acceptance that his educational background gave him. He apparently had a poor business head and a nature ill-disposed to amassing wealth. "His easy going nature made for a loose and happily swinging group of topflight instrumentalists who could not have tolerated the kind of discipline "imposed by musicians like Duke Ellington," Hammond once wrote. Leonard Feather in Encyclopedia of Jazz says Henderson's main legacy to jazz is his work as an arranger. Downbeat magazine polls named him top arranger for 1938 through 1940. Henderson suffered a stroke just before Christmas in 1950 and was bedridden most of the last two years of his life. He died at 54 on Dec. 29, 1952, in New York City. Trombonist Paul VanderGheynst, director of jazz studies at Columbus College, calls Henderson "one of the significant figures for his time - he was a primary figure. " Henderson's body, like Ma Rainey's, rests in his native soil. He is buried in Cuthbert's Greenwood Cemetery, next to his parents. Special Sesquicentennial Supplement II Ledger- Enquirer, Sunday, April 23, 1978. S-23. File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/ga/muscogee/photos/rainey12645gph.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/gafiles/ File size: 11.1 Kb