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Making Ma Rainey She changed popular music forever, but the “Mother of the Blues” is not the household name she deserves to be.   Netflix’s recent star-studded release, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, adapted from the Pulitzer-winning dramatist August Wilson’s 1982 play, brings one of the US’s first professional blues singers back into the cultural sphere. The larger than life, gold tooth-wearing Ma Rainey, famed “Mother of the Blues”, is played with regal poise by Viola Davis, who fires off pointed retorts from beneath an impenetrable mask of make-up. Known for her thunderou...

Published: December 21, 2020 at 5:16 pm “They don’t care nothin’ about me. All they want is my voice.” These are the words Ma Rainey uses to describe her white record producers in new Netflix film Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, based on the life of trailblazing blues singer Gertrude Pridgett. With her carefully coiffed hair, bright make-up and trademarked gold teeth – Rainey (played by Viola Davis) is a vibrant figure with a powerful stage presence. But it is her voice – and not just the one she uses for singing – that shines through the story, as she pushed back against...