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Ma Rainey
Gertrude "Ma" Rainey ( Pridgett; April 26, 1886 – December 22, 1939) was an American blues singer and influential early blues recording artist. Dubbed the "Mother of the Blues", she bridged earlier vaudeville and the authentic expression of southern blues, influencing a generation of blues singers. Gertrude Pridgett began performing as a teenager and became known as "Ma" Rainey after her marriage to Will "Pa" Rainey in 1904. They toured with the Rabbit Foot Minstrels and later formed their own group, ''Rainey and Rainey, Assassinators of the Blues''. Her first recording was made in 1923. In the following five years, she made over 100 recordings, including " Bo-Weevil Blues" (1923), "Moonshine Blues" (1923), " See See Rider Blues" (1925), "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom" (1927), and "Soon This Morning" (1927). Rainey was known for her powerful vocal abilities, energetic disposition, majestic phrasing, and a "moaning" style of singing. Her qualities are present and most evident in h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Columbus, Georgia
Columbus is a consolidated city-county located on the west-central border of the U.S. state of Georgia. Columbus lies on the Chattahoochee River directly across from Phenix City, Alabama. It is the county seat of Muscogee County, with which it officially merged in 1970. Columbus is the second-largest city in Georgia (after Atlanta), and fields the state's fourth-largest metropolitan area. At the 2020 census, Columbus had a population of 206,922, with 328,883 in the Columbus metropolitan area. The metro area joins the nearby Alabama cities of Auburn, Alabama, Auburn and Opelika, Alabama, Opelika to form the Columbus–Auburn–Opelika, GA–AL CSA, Columbus–Auburn–Opelika Combined Statistical Area, which had an estimated population of 486,645 in 2019. Columbus lies southwest of Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Minstrel Show
The minstrel show, also called minstrelsy, was an American form of racist theatrical entertainment developed in the early 19th century. Each show consisted of comic skits, variety acts, dancing, and music performances that depicted people specifically of African descent. The shows were performed by mostly white people wearing blackface make-up for the purpose of playing the role of black people. There were also some African-American performers and black-only minstrel groups that formed and toured. Minstrel shows caricatured black people as dim-witted, lazy, buffoonish, superstitious, and happy-go-lucky.The Coon Character , Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia, Ferris State University. Retrieved 29 January 2016.John Kenrick ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Midwest
The Midwestern United States, also referred to as the Midwest or the American Midwest, is one of four Census Bureau Region, census regions of the United States Census Bureau (also known as "Region 2"). It occupies the northern central part of the United States. It was officially named the North Central Region by the Census Bureau until 1984. It is between the Northeastern United States and the Western United States, with Canada to the north and the Southern United States to the south. The Census Bureau's definition consists of 12 states in the north central United States: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, and Wisconsin. The region generally lies on the broad Interior Plain between the states occupying the Appalachian Mountains, Appalachian Mountain range and the states occupying the Rocky Mountains, Rocky Mountain range. Major rivers in the region include, from east to west, the Ohio River, the Upper Mis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Theater Owners Booking Association
Theatre Owners Booking Association, or T.O.B.A., was the vaudeville circuit for African American performers in the 1920s. The theaters mostly had white owners, though there were exceptions, including the recently restored Morton Theater in Athens, Georgia, originally operated by "Pinky" Monroe Morton, and Douglass Theatre in Macon, Georgia owned and operated by Charles Henry Douglass. Theater owners booked jazz and blues musicians and singers, comedians, and other performers, including the classically trained, such as operatic soprano Sissieretta Jones, known as "The Black Patti", for black audiences. History The association was established following the work of vaudeville performer Sherman H. Dudley. By 1909, Dudley was commonly known as the "Lone Star Comedian" and had begun an attempt to have a black-owned and operated string of venues around the United States. By 1911, Dudley was based in Washington, D.C. as general manager and treasurer of the Colored Actors' Union, and set ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chicago, Illinois
(''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = United States , subdivision_type1 = State , subdivision_type2 = Counties , subdivision_name1 = Illinois , subdivision_name2 = Cook and DuPage , established_title = Settled , established_date = , established_title2 = Incorporated (city) , established_date2 = , founder = Jean Baptiste Point du Sable , government_type = Mayor–council , governing_body = Chicago City Council , leader_title = Mayor , leader_name = Lori Lightfoot ( D) , leader_title1 = City Clerk , leader_name1 = Anna Valencia ( D) , unit_pref = Imperial , area_footnotes = , ar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mamie Smith
Mamie Smith (née Robinson; May 26, 1891 – September 16, 1946) was an American vaudeville singer, dancer, pianist, and actress. As a vaudeville singer she performed in multiple styles, including jazz and blues. In 1920, she entered blues history as the first African American artist to make vocal blues recordings. Willie "The Lion" Smith (no relation) described the background of that recording in his autobiography, ''Music on My Mind'' (1964). Early life Robinson was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1891. The year of her birth has previously been given as 1883, but in 2018, researcher John Jeremiah Sullivan discovered her birth certificate stating she was born in Cincinnati in 1891. When she was around 10 years old, she found work touring with a white act, the Four Dancing Mitchells. As a teenager, she danced in Salem Tutt Whitney's ''Smart Set''. In 1913, she left the Tutt Brothers to sing in clubs in Harlem and married William "Smitty" Smith, a singer. Musical career On Februar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pops Foster
George Murphy "Pops" Foster (May 19, 1892 – October 30, 1969) was an American jazz musician, best known for his vigorous slap bass playing of the string bass. He also played the tuba and trumpet professionally. Biography Foster was born to Charley and Annie Foster, who "was nearly fullblooded Cherokee," on a plantation near McCall in Ascension Parish near Donaldsonville in south Louisiana, United States. His family moved to New Orleans when he was about 10 years of age. His older brother, Willard Foster, began playing banjo and guitar; George started out on a cello then switched to string bass. Foster married twice: to Bertha Foster in 1912 and Alma Foster in 1936. Pops Foster was playing professionally by 1907 and worked with Jack Carey, Kid Ory, Armand Piron, King Oliver and other prominent hot bands of the era. In 1921, he moved to St. Louis, Missouri, to play with the Charlie Creath and Dewey Jackson bands, in which he would be active for much of the decade. H ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sidney Bechet
Sidney Bechet (May 14, 1897 – May 14, 1959) was an American jazz saxophonist, clarinetist, and composer. He was one of the first important soloists in jazz, and first recorded several months before trumpeter Louis Armstrong. His erratic temperament hampered his career, and not until the late 1940s did he earn wide acclaim. Bechet spent much of his later life in France. Biography Early life Bechet was born in New Orleans in 1897 to a middle-class Creole of color family. Bechet's father Omar was both a shoemaker and a flute player, and all four of his brothers were musicians as well. His older brother, Leonard Victor Bechet, was a full-time dentist and a part-time trombonist and bandleader. Bechet learned and mastered several musical instruments that were kept around the house (he began on the cornet), mostly by teaching himself; he decided to specialize in the clarinet (which he played almost exclusively until about 1919). At the age of six, he started to perform with h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joe "King" Oliver
Joseph Nathan "King" Oliver (December 19, 1881 – April 8/10, 1938) was an American jazz cornet player and bandleader. He was particularly recognized for his playing style and his pioneering use of mutes in jazz. Also a notable composer, he wrote many tunes still played today, including "Dippermouth Blues", "Sweet Like This", "Canal Street Blues", and " Doctor Jazz". He was the mentor and teacher of Louis Armstrong. His influence was such that Armstrong claimed, "if it had not been for Joe Oliver, Jazz would not be what it is today." Biography Life Joseph Nathan Oliver was born in Aben, Louisiana, near Donaldsonville in Ascension Parish to Nathan Oliver and Virginia "Jinnie" Jones. He claimed 1881 as his year of birth in his draft registration in September 1918 (two months before the end of World War I) but that year is open to debate, with some census records and other sources suggesting 1884 or 1885 as his true year of birth. He moved to New Orleans in his youth. He firs ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New Orleans
New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans Merriam-Webster. ; french: La Nouvelle-Orléans , es, Nueva Orleans) is a consolidated city-parish located along the Mississippi River in the southeastern region of the of Louisiana. With a population of 383,997 according to the 2020 U.S. census, it is the [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Coon Song
Coon songs were a genre of music that presented a stereotype of black people. They were popular in the United States and Australia from around 1880 to 1920, though the earliest such songs date from minstrel shows as far back as 1848, when they were not yet identified with "coon" epithet. The genre became extremely popular, with white and black men giving performances in blackface and making recordings. Women known as coon shouters also gained popularity in the genre. Rise and fall from popularity Although the word "coon" is now regarded as racist, according to Stuart Flexner, "coon" was short for " raccoon", and it meant a frontier rustic (someone who may wear a coonskin cap) by 1832. By 1840 it also meant a Whig as the Whig Party was keen to be associated with rural white common people. At that time, "coon" was typically used to refer someone white, and a coon song referred to a Whig song. it was only in 1848 when the first clear case of using "coon" to refer to a black perso ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
