JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Blues legend Gertrude “Ma” Rainey electrified Jacksonville’s LaVilla district in the early 1900s, building her reputation as the “Mother of the Blues” while breaking barriers as an openly bisexual performer.
Ma Rainey began performing in talent shows and church minstrel shows as a teenager in Columbus, Georgia. When she met her first husband, they formed a group known as the “Alabama Fun Makers Company,” before joining Jacksonville native Patrick Chappelle’s Rabbit’s Foot Company in 1906, which was based in LaVilla.
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As a Rabbit’s Foot performer, Ma Rainey gained popularity as one of the best singers in the region. She would often have three to four encores a night at the Globe Theater, which is now the Clara White Mission building on Ashley Street.
In 1910, Frank Crowd opened the Globe Theatre, then Ma Rainey and her husband, Pa Rainey, joined Crowd’s Globe Stock Company.
The Jaxson said that an observer stated that “the female member of the team caught the house from the go and kept them with her.”
In 1923, Ma Rainey was found by Jay Mayo “Ink” Williams, a producer with Paramount Records and signed a deal. She recorded nearly 10 tracks that same year and over 100 tracks in her first five years with the label, including some with big names like Louis Armstrong.
Her songwriting was known for its depiction of life from the perspective of a woman struggling with heartbreak, depression, and other maladies.
Ma Rainey openly sang about her bisexuality. While it wasn’t the focus of her music, there are at least three songs that reference it. The most popular example are the lyrics from “Prove It On Me Blues” (1928).
Billboard posted an article in 2017 about at five times she expressed her queerness in song.
“Where she went, I don’t know, I mean to follow everywhere she goes; Folks say I’m crooked. I didn’t know where she took it, I want the whole world to know.
I went out last night with a crowd of my friends, it must’ve been women, ‘cause I don’t like no men. Wear my clothes just like a fan, talk to the gals just like any old man."
Robert Philipson directed the 2011 documentary, “T’Ain’t Nobody’s Bizness: Queer Blues Divas of the 1920s, told Collector’s Weekly that is important that she did this given the times.
“That’s a handful out of hundreds and hundreds of blues songs that were recorded. The fact that there were recorded. The fact that there were any was remarkable, given the times. You certainly never saw it in any part of American culture,” Philipson said.
In 1925, Ma Rainey was arrested in her home in Harlem for having a lesbian sex party. Her protege, Bessie Smith, bailed her out of jail the next morning.
PBS said Ma Rainey and Smith were part of an extensive circle of queer Black women in Harlem. While many were married to me, they had affairs with other women, and presented a lesbian life and sensibility to the outside world.
In 1935, she returned to Georgia, where he operated three theatres until she died in 1939 from heart disease at 53 years old.
She was inducted into the Blues Foundation’s Hall of Fame in 1983 and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990.
In 2020, Netflix released Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, based on August Wilson’s play of the same name.
Ma Rainey is referred to as “Mother of the Blues,” the Songbird of the South," the “Gold-Neck Woman of the Blues,” and the “Paramount Wildcat.”