Gertrude Pridgett of Columbus, Georgia
The blues singer that in time would be known as Ma Rainey was born Gertrude Pridgett on April 27, 1886, in Columbus, Georgia. Not a lot is known about Gertrude's childhood except that she was the second child of Thomas and Ella Allen Pridgett's five children.
Prior to Gertrude's birth, her parents had moved from Alabama to Columbus, Georgia, which was a port on the Chattahoochee River. It was a shipping center and industrial town, peopled by some seven thousand persons the year Gertrude was born. About half of Columbus's residents, like Gertrude and her family, were Black. Although, in later years, Gertrude traveled and became famous in the world of blues and jazz music, she always considered Columbus, a town that had begun as a Creek Indian village, her hometown.
Blowing a Jug and Singing the Blues
What source of music influenced her childhood can only be guessed at, other than the fact that as a young girl she was baptized in the First African Baptist Church. There was certainly music to be heard there of a spiritual, sad, and uplifting nature.
Other forms of music, folk music, that made a lasting impression on young Gertrude probably came from a variety of sources. Some times it was the simple childish act of beating on tin pans and milk pails while singing through a comb, or folks singing to the beat of nails rattling or the loose teeth of a mule jawbone.
Washtub fiddles were a handy homemade instrument, often accompanied by blowing into jugs, making sounded similar to that of tubas being played. Even the clapping of hands and the stomping of lively feet inspired them.
Sorrow's Song Out of Africa
These people, Gertrude Pridgett's people, were souls whose ancestors had brought with them to America any means of musically expressing the deep, dark depths of the sorrows they felt. These sorrows were endured after being wrenched from their African homes and families when they were transported to America in slave ships a century before.
Ma Rainey: Mother of the Blues continues with Black Blues Are Born: Call and Response in Cotton and Cane.
Recommended Reading:
Clara Hale: One of The Vocal Minorities.
African American Revolts: Four Centuries of Protests.
