Ma Rainey

CTL-E-6116 · Person · musician · 1886–1939

VERIFIED evidence grade — build store (JSON graph)

Combined Graph record U-07333 · provenance: build store (JSON graph), record CTL-E-6116.

Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, born Gertrude Pridgett on April 26, 1886, in Columbus, Georgia — a birth year and place some researchers dispute — was an American blues singer billed as the "Mother of the Blues". She began performing as a teenager, married William "Pa" Rainey in 1904, and toured with the Rabbit Foot Minstrels before the pair billed themselves as Rainey and Rainey, Assassinators of the Blues. The New Georgia Encyclopedia credits her with helping establish classic blues as a staple of American musical life and with linking country blues to the urban blues of the 1920s. Signing with Paramount Records, she made her first recordings in December 1923 and produced more than 100 recordings over five years, including "Bo-Weevil Blues", "Moonshine Blues" and "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom" (1927), accompanied at times by Louis Armstrong and her own Georgia Jazz Band. From 1924 she toured the Theater Owners Booking Association circuit in the South and Midwest. Paramount dropped her in 1928; she later retired to Georgia, where she ran theatres, and died on December 22, 1939. She entered the Blues Hall of Fame in 1983 and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1990.

The record

• Also known as: Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, Gertrude Pridgett, Madame Rainey

Notes

Staged 2026-10-16 under CTL-GOV-006 (Scan Tail Wave 4 — 747 Program, Wave 11; fourth Scan Tail packet at the founder's 40-record size). Gate A (2026-10-16): no Ma Rainey entity in the live graph at 3,763 entities (exact / normalized / alias match + token containment; CLEAR). ID CTL-E-6116 free. Supply: 747 Supply Ledger, Tier 4 — Scan Tail Wave 3 packet ordered reserve, position 31 of 35 (corpus-gap-candidates-2026-10-15.json ranked clean survivor #1971). The scan supplied the NAME STRING ONLY; no fact in this record is sourced to it (CTL-GOV-004). SCOPE GATE: PASS — Chicago-linked canon record — a Georgia and Southern touring artist whose Paramount recordings were made in Chicago from December 1923; canon after the packet's Chicago anchor (Leake). Vital status: Deceased: Gertrude Pridgett Rainey, born April 26, 1886 (disputed — see conflicts), died December 22, 1939, aged 53; the New Georgia Encyclopedia gives heart disease as the cause (accessed 2026-10-16). Death place conflicts between Columbus and Rome, Georgia — shown in conflicts, not blended. STATISTICS — STATISTICS (sourced, dated): Rainey produced more than 100 recordings in her five years with Paramount, 1923–1928 (New Georgia Encyclopedia; Wikipedia, both accessed 2026-10-16), and Wikipedia reports TOBA touring earnings of $350 a week at her peak. CONFLICT SHOWN, NOT BLENDED: the recording count is also given as 'almost 100 records' in the 2023 Grammy Lifetime Achievement announcement quoted by Wikipedia, whose own discography table lists 94 titles; her birth is given as April 26, 1886, Columbus, Georgia by most sources, but the 1900 census indicates September 1882 in Alabama (Wikipedia, citing Eagle and LeBlanc); her death place is given as Columbus in Wikipedia's infobox and as Rome, Georgia in several reference works; and her retirement is dated 1933 by the New Georgia Encyclopedia against touring until 1935 in Wikipedia's account. MEDIA: photo HELD (Photograph captioned "Rainey in 1917" on the Wikipedia biography page for Ma Rainey — a later PHOTO-001 pass to verify source, credit, and rights; no license claimed here. — named candidate only; file-level rights verification per CTL-PHOTO-001 still required; no license claimed); chart FILLED (charts/chart-ctl-e-6116-ma-rainey.svg); video HELD (no matching-entity CTL Short or verified-rights archival video staged); audio HELD (no rights-cleared matching-entity audio staged); map N/A (person record). MEDIA LAYER (staged 2026-10-16; full per-asset PHOTO-001 records + embed specs in the packet's staged JSON, Drive packet folder): map = N/A (Persons carry no map in the packet standard.) | visual_assets = HELD: | chart = FILLED (CTL-created chart (black / deep red / gold) built only from this record's sourced statistics and timeline fact) | video = HELD (No matching-entity CTL Short or verified-rights archival video staged.) | audio = HELD (No rights-cleared matching-entity audio staged.)

Relationships

• Bessie Smith — related to
  Smith joined Rainey's troupe in Chattanooga (1912 per the New Georgia Encyclopedia); the Encyclopedia cautions that Rainey's influence on Smith's style has been exaggerated, so the relation is typed related_to, not mentorship.
• Louis Armstrong — collaborated with
  Armstrong accompanied Rainey on 1924 recordings including 'Jelly Bean Blues' and 'See See Rider'.
• Theatre Owners Booking Association — affiliated with
  From 1924 Rainey toured the Theater Owners Booking Association (TOBA) circuit in the South and Midwest, accompanied by Thomas Dorsey's band, continuing on and off until 1928. The TOBA record CTL-E-6041 already exists in the graph.

Sources

• New Georgia Encyclopedia, "Gertrude 'Ma' Rainey" (published 2003, updated 2024-07-02; accessed 2026-10-16) — styled 'Mother of the Blues'; born April 26, 1886, Columbus, Georgia; career began at fourteen; married William 'Pa' Rainey in 1904; Rabbit Foot Minstrels touring; Paramount association from December 1923 producing more than 100 recordings; Louis Armstrong accompaniment; Paramount dropped her in 1928; died of heart disease in 1939, aged 53; Blues Hall of Fame 1983, Rock & Roll Hall of Fame 1990, Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award 2023 — https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/arts-culture/gertrude-ma-rainey-1886-1939 (primary source · build store)
• Wikipedia, "Ma Rainey" (accessed 2026-10-16) — full name Gertrude Pridgett; TOBA tour beginning 1924 with Thomas Dorsey's Wildcats Jazz Band, continuing on and off until 1928; first eight recordings made in Chicago in December 1923; birth-date uncertainty (1900 census indicating September 1882 in Alabama, per researchers Eagle and LeBlanc); theatre proprietorship in Columbus and Rome, Georgia; discography table listing 94 recorded titles — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ma_Rainey (build store)

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Record CTL-E-6116 · Combined Graph record U-07333 · CultureTechLens Knowledge Graph · 2 sources · 3 mapped relationships.
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Researched and maintained by the CultureTechLens research program · CultureTechLens Combined Graph, Release 2026-11-04. Corrections are public: the corrections log.

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