Paramounts Chronologically

Ma Rainey | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (August 26, 1994)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Black Swan
• ASIN: B00005YO49
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Vinyl
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,678,778 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Ma Rainey's Early Recordings, April 1, 2011

By 

Robin Friedman (Washington, D.C. United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Paramounts Chronologically 1923-1924 (Audio CD)

In the late 1980s, a small ambitious record company acquired the "Black Swan" trademark, belonging to the first African American owned record label together with the leasing rights to all the music recorded by the classic blues singer Gertrude, "Ma" Rainey on the long defunct Paramount label. Black Swan reissued Ma Rainey's recordings on five CDs The Black Swan recordings are themselves now rare, but Rainey's work is available on a number of other CDs and compilations. I acquired two of the Black Swan CDs many years ago and have returned to them to rehear Ma Rainey.

Rainey (1896 -- 1939)had an extensive live performing career in vaudville and tent shows before she was signed with great fanfare to a recording contract by Paramount in 1923. As is well known, Paramount's recording equipment was highly defective. All reissues suffer from surface noise, scratches, hisses, and poor sound. It is a price that must be paid to hear Ma Rainey. The volume reviewed here is Black Swan's compilation of Rainey's earliest recordings, beginning in December, 1923 and concluding in May, 1924. It consists of 20 tracks, including three duplicate takes, for a total of 17 songs. Some of these works are among Rainey's best recorded performances.

Besides' Rainey's singing, these recordings feature highly gifted early blues and jazz musicians. With the exception of two songs, all the tracks feature accompaniment that includes pianist Lovie Austin and her backup band the "Blues Serenaders" which included cornetist Tommy Ladnier. Austin (1887 -1972) was, for her time, a rarity as a woman blues pianist. She was college-educated and recorded with many early blues singers. She also wrote or arranged many Rainey songs. (Rainey wrote many herself) Tommy Ladnier (1900-1939) was an outstanding cornetist who came close to the level of Louis Armstrong. Two of the songs on this CD, "Lost Wandering Blues" and "Dream Blues" feature the accompanyment of the Pruitt Twins of Kansas City on guitar and banjo rather than Austin and her combo. These two songs have a much more countrified feel than their companions.

Ma Rainey sang many songs about relationships with men with a mixture of sadness, humor, and strength. Among her best and most popular songs, this CD includes her first recording, "Bad Luck Blues" together with what became classic recordings of "Bo-Weavil Blues", "Moonshine Blues" and "Walking Blues" among others. Rainey is credited with writing "Moonshine Blues" and the song was later covered by Bessie Smith. The song expresses the anger of a jilted woman who has turned to drink but who promises herself to forswear liquor and move ahead with her life. Bessie Smith also covered Rainey's recording and composition of "Bo-Weevil Blues" where the singer declaims in her loneliness and humor:

"I went downtown and bought me a hat,
I brought it back home, I laid it on the shelf,
And looked at my bed,
I's getting tired of sleeping by myself."

Rainey's song "Walking Blues" tells of a jilted wandering woman, "walked and walked till I walked and walked till I almost lost my mind, hey, hey, hey," who makes a determined journey to walk to San Antonio to find her former lover.

Besides blues, Rainey also recorded vaudeville, ragtime material which are generally more uptempo than the blues numbers. The nonblues songs on this CD include, "Honey, Where You Been So Long", "Ya Do-Do", and a novelty, "Those Dogs of Mine" in which the singer complains of the corns on her feet to tunes and lyrics suggestive of a lost romance.

At the time of these Black Swan reissues in the 1980s I was heavily interested in the music of the great classical woman blues singers, including Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Clara Smith. With the interlude of these years, I soon returned to my great musical love of classical music. I still love and revisit the blues. The language of music and of the heart is broad and rests uneasily with divisions. There is much to be learned about music -- playing and singing with passion and soul -- from Ma Rainey. I hope to return to her again. In revisiting Ma Rainey, I learned a great deal from a 1981 book by Sandra Lieb, "Mother of the Blues", Mother of the Blues: A Study of Ma Rainey. Readers interested in a thorough study of Rainey and her art will benefit from Lieb's book.

Robin Friedman