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Making Ma Rainey
She changed popular music forever, but the “Mother of the Blues” is not the household name she deserves to be.
 
Netflix’s recent star-studded release,
Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, adapted from the Pulitzer-winning dramatist August Wilson’s 1982 play, brings one of the US’s first professional blues singers back into the cultural sphere. The larger than life, gold tooth-wearing Ma Rainey, famed “Mother of the Blues”, is played with regal poise by Viola Davis, who fires off pointed retorts from beneath an impenetrable mask of make-up.
Known for her thunderous, moaning voice, sharp comic timing and compelling stage presence, Rainey was a pioneer of early blues music who opened the way for many rebellious, unconventional musicians who followed her. As blues laid the foundations for much of Western music, it is not overblown to say that, without Rainey, pop culture as we know it would be considerably different. But despite her in ....

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