Gertrude "Ma" Rainey (née Pridgett; April 26, 1886 – December 22, 1939)[1][2][3] was an American blues singer and influential early-blues recording artist.

[5] Rainey was known for her powerful vocal abilities, energetic disposition, majestic phrasing, and a "moaning" style of singing.

[6] Rainey also collaborated with Thomas Dorsey, Tampa Red, and Louis Armstrong, and toured and recorded with the Georgia Jazz Band.

Touring until 1935, she then largely retired from performing and continued as a theater impresario in her hometown of Columbus, Georgia, until her death four years later.

[13] She formed the Alabama Fun Makers Company with her husband, Will Rainey, but in 1906 they both joined Pat Chappelle's much larger and more popular Rabbit's Foot Company, where they were billed together as "Black Face Song and Dance Comedians, Jubilee Singers [and] Cake Walkers".

[1] Rainey said she found "Blues Music" when she was in Missouri one night performing, and a girl introduced her to a sad song about a man leaving a woman.

Wintering in New Orleans, she met numerous musicians, including Joe "King" Oliver, Louis Armstrong, Sidney Bechet and Pops Foster.

[22] In the same year, she embarked on a tour of the Theater Owners Booking Association (TOBA) in the South and Midwest of the United States, singing for black and white audiences.

[28] According to the Queer Cultural Center's website, the lyrics refer to an incident in 1925 in which Rainey was "arrested for taking part in an orgy at [her] home involving women in her chorus".

"[30] At the time, an ad for the song embraced the genderbending outlined in the lyrics and featured Rainey in a three-piece suit, mingling with women while a police officer lurks nearby.

[31] Throughout the 1920s, Ma Rainey had a reputation for being one of the most dynamic performers in the United States due in large part to her songwriting, showmanship and voice.

[31] Her signature low and gravelly voice sung with Rainey's gusto and authoritative style inspired imitators from Louis Armstrong, Janis Joplin and Bonnie Raitt among others.

In her 1999 book Blues Legacies and Black Feminism, Angela Davis wrote that Rainey's songs are full of women who "explicitly celebrate their right to conduct themselves as expansively and even as undesirably as men".

[39] The portrayals of black female sexuality, including those bucking heteronormative standards, fought ideas of what a woman should be and inspired Alice Walker in developing her characters for The Color Purple.

[45][46] In 2017, the Rainey-McCullers School of the Arts opened in Columbus, Georgia, named in honor of Rainey and author Carson McCullers.

[49] Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, a 1982 play by August Wilson, is a fictionalized account of a recording of her song of the same title set in 1927.

Theresa Merritt and Whoopi Goldberg starred as Rainey in the Original and Revival Broadway productions, respectively.

Viola Davis portrayed Rainey in the 2020 film adaptation of the play and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress.