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Mother of the Blues
Sandra R. Lieb
其他書名
A Study of Ma Rainey
出版University of Massachusetts Press, 1981
主題Biography & Autobiography / GeneralMusic / Genres & Styles / BluesMUSIC / Musical Instruments / GeneralMusic / Individual Composer & Musician
ISBN08702333439780870233340
URLhttp://books.google.com.hk/books?id=3HsIAQAAMAAJ&hl=&source=gbs_api
註釋"Ma" Rainey (Gertrude Pridgett, 1886-1939) was America's first major woman blues singer. Recording star, songwriter, actress, dancer, and comedienne, she was one of the greatest blues artists of the 1920s, reaching a wide audience of both blacks and whites through her immensely successful recordings and stage performances. A central if long-overlooked figure in black culture, she was highly respected by her blues contemporaries and has had great influence on singers and musicians throughout the twentieth century. Although she wrote and performed all types of music, Rainey was a pioneer of the classic blues, a synthesis of country blues, black minstrelsy, and vaudeville performed almost exclusively by women. Despite some commercial influences, her recorded songs drew heavily on black folk culture for attitudes about men, women, and especially love, articulating a clearly female perspective and showing a stronger affinity to these folk traditions than the work of any other contemporary female blues artist of equal stature. This book provides the first substantive biographical study of Rainey, accurate transcriptions for seventy-four of her recorded song lyrics (verified by Library of Congress documents), an examination of her recording style, and a scholarly analysis of women's lives as reflected in blues lyrics. In addition to Rainey's love songs, which show women responding assertively to mistreatment by men, the author discusses her songs of comedy and cynicism, which place the women narrators in broader social and communal environments.