RARE Early "Ma" Rainey Portrait Disc Paramount 78rpm Shellac Dream Blues

$

199

RARE FIND!!! EARLY “Ma” Rainey Paramount Portrait Disc. FIRST PRESSING. This was discovered mixed in with a professional musician’s collection from the 1920s. This musician performed with Harry James’! Fresh discovery!! Own a piece of history!!

Up for auction is this incredibly rare 78rpm record. This is the first pressing of Paramount’s “MA” Rainey (Dream Blues/Lost Wondering Blues). This record was discovered among a stack of Edison Diamond Discs!! Among approx 50+ Diamond discs, were about a dozen 78rpm shellac records from the 1920s. The collection belonged to a professional musician by the name of Bill Luther.

The original owner of this disc:

Bill was a professional saxophone player, listed as playing Tenor Sax (sitting next to Alto Saxophonist, Claude Lakey)  that performed with the Harry James Orchestra. Bill would eventually leave the life of professional touring and became a master machinist that worked in a brain research lab in California that sent the last monkey into space with NASA. The Edison player and collection of discs, along with the 78s that were mixed into the collection are from Bill’s personal collection. It is remarkable to think about a budding musician back in the 1920’s that would have really cherished the unique and innovative musical approach of “Ma” Rainey at the time.

Who is “Ma” Rainey?

Gertrude “Ma” Rainey was born on April 26, 1886. Her father would have been born into slavery in 1860 in Georgia. From the most humble beginnings you could possibly imagine, “Ma” Rainey would become one of the most influential American blues singer and early blues recording artist of all time. Dubbed the “Mother of the Blues”, she bridged earlier vaudeville and the authentic expression of southern blues, influencing a generation of blues singers. Rainey is purported to have actually named the genre she was so famously known for, “The Blues”.

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 her early recordings. She recorded with Thomas Dorsey, Tampa Red, and Louis Armstrong, and she toured and recorded with the Georgia Jazz Band.

Legacy and honors

As quoted from Wikipedia: Ma Rainey created what is now known as "classic blues" while also portraying black life like never before. As a musical innovator she built on the minstrelsy and vaudeville performative traditions with comedic timing and a hybrid of American blues traditions she encountered in her vast tours across the country. She helped to pioneer a genre that appealed to North and South, rural and urban audiences.

Her signature low and gravelly voice sung with Rainey's gusto and authoritative style inspired imitators from Louis Armstrong, Janis Joplin and Bonnie Raitt among others.

In her lyrics, Rainey portrayed the black female experience like few others of the time reflecting a wide range of emotions and experiences. In her 1999 book Blues Legacies and Black Feminism, Angela Davis wrote that Rainey's songs are full of women who “explicitly celebrate their right to conduct themselves as expansively and even as undesirably as men".In her songs, she and other black women sleep around for revenge, drink and party all night and generally live lives that "transgressed these ideas of white middle class female respectability" The portrayals of black female sexuality, including those bucking heteronormative standards, fought ideas of what a woman should be and inspired Alice Walker in developing her characters for The Color Purple. Bragging about sexual escapades was popular in men's songs at the time but her use of these themes in her works established her as both fiercely independent and fearless and many have drawn connections between her use of these themes and their modern use in Hip-Hop.

Rainey was also a fashion icon who pioneered flashy, expensive costuming in her performances, wearing ostrich plumes, satin gowns, sequins, gold necklaces, diamond tiaras, and gold teeth.

Rainey was inducted into the Blues Foundation's Hall of Fame in 1983 and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990. In 1994, the U.S. Post Office issued a 29-cent commemorative postage stamp honoring her. In 2004, "See See Rider Blues" (performed in 1924) was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame and was added to the National Recording Registry by the National Recording Preservation Board of the Library of Congress.

  There was also a small museum opened in Columbus in 2007 to honor Ma Rainey's legacy. It is in the very house that she had built for her mother and later lived in from 1935 until her death in 1939.

The first annual Ma Rainey International Blues Festival was held in April 2016 in Columbus, Georgia, near the home that Rainey owned and lived in at the time of her death. In 2017, the Rainey-McCullers School of the Arts opened in Columbus, Georgia, named in honor of Rainey and author Carson McCullers.

“Ma” Rainey in pop-culture:

In 1932 Sterling A. Brown wrote a poem “Ma Rainey”, about how “When Ma Rainey / comes to town” people everywhere would hear her sing. In 1981, Sandra Lieb wrote the first full-length book about Rainey, ‘Mother of the Blues: A Study of May Rainey.’

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, a 1982 play by August Wilson, is a fictionalized account of a recording of her song of the same title set in 1927. Theresa Merritt and Whoopi Goldberg starred as Rainey in the Original and Revival Broadway productions, respectively. Viola Davis portrayed Rainey in the 2020 film adaptation of the play that was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress. Mo'Nique played Rainey in the 2015 television film ‘Bessie’ about the lift of Bessie Smith, for which she earned a nomination for Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a LImited Series or Movie.

This Recording and Disc Condition:

The 78rpm that you are bidding on here was “Ma” Rainey’s SECOND recording session EVER! She signed with Paramount, and had her first session in Chicago in December of 1923. This Disc that you are bidding on is an original pressing from her second session in March of 1924 just a month before her younger sister Essie was murdered in Detroit, MI. The album incorrectly states “Two Guitar Accompaniment”. The Pruitt Twins - Miles Pruitt performed on Banjo while Milas Pruitt performed on Guitar.

This disc is in nice original condition, considering it is nearly a 100 years old!! I have not had this professionally graded, however based on my research I might suggest that this would come in around a There are lights surface scuffs and scratches. The label on the ‘Dream Blues’ side is in beautiful condition. The colors are still pretty fresh and unfaded. The label on the ‘Lost Wondering Blues’ side does have a few nicks and scratches in it as you will see in the photos, and is a bit faded. Because I have not had this professionally graded, I’ll invite you to refer to the images I have taken showing a close up of the disc from several angles.

Don't miss out on an opportunity to own a truly rare piece of American Music History. Finding an original First Pressing as old as this, in this condition is absolutely not something you will commonly find! And considering the profound impact "Ma" Rainey had on the musical world this would be a highlight piece for any collection. Good luck and happy bidding! ;o) Below you will find Youtube clips I found that provide the recordings of this album.

Ma Rainey - Dream Blues (1924)

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Ma Rainey - Lost Wandering Blues (1924)

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