(ThyBlackMan.com) When I think about the roots of blues music—the raw honesty, the pain wrapped in poetry, the joy carved out of hardship—I think of Ma Rainey. Her voice was more than a sound; it was ...

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 ...

The real Rainey would be out of a job just a year later: classic blues was fading in popularity in favor of swing jazz, and the advent of talking pictures had dented the centrality of live ...