Queer Ancestor Spotlight: Ma Rainey
Born Gertrude Pridgett on April 26, 1886 in Columbus, Georgia Ma Rainey would grow to become the “Mother of the Blues” and one of the first blues singers to be recorded.
Photo of Ma Rainey in 1917
Ma Rainey got her start as a teenager performing in minstrel shows. After she married Will “Pa” Rainey they started their own traveling minstrel troupe. She was first exposed to the blues style of music while traveling around the South and began to adopt it into her own style. Her theatrical performances eventually caught the attention of Paramount who would offer a record deal. Ma recorded over 100 records in the span of five years.
Her lyrics are renowned for how she - both explicitly and implicitly - addresses homosexuality/bisexuality and black female sexual agency. The blues allowed a certain level of freedom for marginalized communities to express themselves in a common language and some of Ma Rainey’s songs very clearly address her attraction to women:
They said I do it, ain't nobody caught me.
Sure got to prove it on me.
Went out last night with a crowd of my friends.
They must've been women, 'cause I don't like no men.
Many queer and musical historians take these lyrics from her 1928 song ‘Prove It on Me’ as a direct reference to an incident in 1925 where Ma Rainey was arrested for hosting an orgy in her home involving the women in her chorus. (Fellow bisexual blues singer, Bessie Smith, bailed her out of jail the following morning.)
As interest in the blues faded Ma Rainey returned to her home in Georgia. She had always been in charge of her own finances and put those skills to work by opening three theatres: the Lyric, the Airdrome, and the Liberty Theatre. She ran these theatres until she died of a heart attack in 1939.
