"MA" RAINEY

Rainey (1886-1939) was born Gertrude Pridgett in Columbus, Georgia, to parents who performed in minstrel shows. Her stage career started when she was 14, and in 1902, she heard her first blues song at a theater in St. Louis. She adopted the blues style for her shows, and quickly made it her own. After her marriage to traveling entertainer Will "Pa" Rainey in 1904, the couple toured throughout the southern United States as "Ma & Pa Rainey and Assassinators of the Blues." Rainey did not sign a recording contract until 1923, and she released over 100 songs during a six-year recording career. In a few short years, Rainey led the transformation of Paramount Records from a subsidiary of a furniture company into a major record label. She continued working until 1935 when her mother and sister died, and she retired to Columbus, Georgia, where she managed to build and operate two theaters from savings during her active years. The “Mother of the Blues” accessorized with sequins, diamonds and her trademark necklace made of gold coins. She performed with Louis Armstrong, Bessie Smith, and Thomas Dorsey. Ma Rainey died at the end of 1939 from heart disease, and was inducted into the Blues Foundation's Hall of Fame in 1983, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990 as an "early influence.”

Reference Lieb, Sandra R. Mother of the Blues: A Study of Ma Rainey. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1981.

OTIS REDDING

Redding (1941-1967) was born in Dawson, Georgia, and began his career as a singer and musician in the choir of his father’s church. After a singing and recording career during the early 1960s ant touring the U.S., Canada, Europe, and the Caribbean,, he spent a week on a houseboat in San Francisco between performances there, listening to the new Beatles' Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album. It was this experience that inspired him to write his greatest hit "(Sittin' On) The Dock Of The Bay". The year 1968 was destined to be the greatest year of his success with appearances slated at such locations as New York's Philharmonic Hall and Washington's Constitution Hall. Redding was booked for several major television network appearances including The Ed Sullivan Show, The Smothers Brothers Show, and a television special in which he would star. He was president of his own publishing firm and had business interests in real estate, investments, stocks, and bonds. However, his future was cut short when his private plane crashed into a lake in Madison, Wisconsin, in December 1967.

“SISTER ROSETTA THARPE”

Tharpe (1915-1973) was born Rosetta Nubin in Cotton Plant, Arkansas. She began her singing career in the South and Midwest with her mother, who was a traveling evangelist. In the late 1920s they settled in Chicago, where Rosetta had originally made her debut singing and playing guitar at the age of six. Rosetta moved to New York City in the mid-1930s, and in 1938 she recorded three hit songs. It was then that she began billing herself as Sister Rosetta Tharpe. She performed with Benny Goodman during the late-30s and early-40s. When Tharpe and Marie Knight began recording blues during the early 1950s, many of their fans felt betrayed. Though Rosetta returned to her gospel singing, she never again regained the popularity and success she had enjoyed earlier except when she toured Europe with Muddy Waters in the 1960s; otherwise she was relegated to playing in small churches throughout the country. She suffered a stroke in 1970 and lost the use of her legs, but continued to sing and tour. One of America's most popular gospel singers, Sister Rosetta is remembered for her powerful voice, natural flamboyance and pioneering spirit.