Ma Rainey

Gertrude “Ma” Rainey is a pivotal figure in the history of American music. She was the first person to ever perform blues and the first internationally known African American female blues singer. Her music acted as inspiration for many distinguished figures during the Harlem Renaissance, and continues to influence contemporary music and art. A single source of blues music cannot be traced, but Ma Rainey is rightfully credited with introducing it to the world. Hence the reason she was dubbed as “The

Firstly, Brown’s “Ma Rainey” uses the music of the blues to address hardship, a thematic centrality of the musical genre. The poem references “Backwater Blues,” beginning with the following line: “It rained fo’ days an’ de skies was dark as night” (42). This imagery of a tempest symbolizes a state of internal or external unrest. In the unabridged version of “Backwater Blues,” the preceding line is immediately repeated; repetition works to establish and reinforce a mood consisting of people quite

artist may be going through at the time. Two women who dominate this style of music are Gertrude “Ma” Rainey and Bessie Smith. As stated by “Gay & Lesbian Biography”, “The careers of Rainey and Smith are closely interwoven.” Ma Rainey is a woman who is admired for both her amazing vocals and her ability to entertain. Bessie Smith is a woman who started off as a background dancer for her peer Ma Rainey, but then went on to emulate her by outdoing her success. Both women are very talented musicians

Professor House Did Angela Davis get it wrong? As a consequence of slavery and segregation, Angela Y. Davis contends in ''Blues Legacies and Black Feminism,'' her study of the recordings of Billie Holiday and the blues vaudevillians Gertrude (Ma) Rainey and Bessie Smith, ''black social consciousness has been overdetermined by race,'' with too little attention paid to sex and virtually none to class. Davis, a professor of something called the ''history of consciousness'' at the University of

Evolution of the Characters in The Color Purple   The most important aspect of The Color Purple is the growth and maturity of each individual. There is a huge transition of many of the characters from the beginning to the end of the novel.  This evolution of the characters is a recurring theme that runs throughout the novel and can be tracked by Celie’s letters.  The women struggle  for freedom in a society where they are inferior to men.  Towards the end of the novel one can sense the slow

don 't sing to feel better. You sing 'cause that 's a way of understanding life.” CUTLER: “That’s right. You get that understanding and you done got a grip on life to where you can hold your head up and go on to see what else life got to offer.” MA RAINEY: “The blues help you get out of bed in the morning. You get up knowing you aint alone. Tire’s something else in the world. Something’s been added by that song. This be an empty world without the blues. I take that emptiness and try to fill it up

Personal Biography: Gertrude Pridgett, aka Ma Rainey, was born on April 26, 1886 to minstrel troupers Thomas Pridgett and Ella Allen-Pridgett in Colombia, Georgia. She was the second of five children and spent most of her childhood taking care of her siblings while her parents were performing. She began to develop her talent as a child under the guidance of her parents, who were performers themselves. She was introduced very early on to show business, and despite the hardship and discrimination

catharsis of these emotions" (Poetics). Ma Rainey's Black Bottom is a play written by August Wilson, that takes place in a studio in the 1920's over the course of an afternoon. The core of this play is the band members discussing amongst one another about the struggle that they as African-Americans have endured against whites and about the current situation of prejudice African-Americans face in American society. The emotional impact of racial conflict

In Sterling Brown’s “Ma Rainey,” Brown describes the significance of blues music in rural black culture. Using dialect and rhythm, Brown manages to show the way blues music reaches its intended audience without breaking from the language said audience would use to describe this. In this way, Brown creates a poem which does not simply describe its subject, but celebrates it fully, and associates itself not with white literature describing black Americans but with what could be called black American

In the play Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom August Wilson has many characters with many different personalities, which leads to a lot of conflict between the characters. The play is mostly about power struggles between characters in the play. The conflicts that the characters are fighting about are related to the power struggles between members of the band and the producers in charge of the recording studio. There are so many different power struggles that take place throughout the play, and they have a