Picture a performer in ostrich plumes, a satin gown, layers of gold necklaces, a diamond tiara, and a smile that flashes gold teeth. It sounds like a modern pop or hip-hop entrance, but this is the 1920s, and the woman on stage is Gertrude Ma Rainey, the Mother of the Blues. She claimed a birth in Columbus, Georgia, in April 1886, though the 1900 census points to September 1882 in Alabama, an early sign of a woman actively managing her own image. She was performing in talent shows by 12 to 14, married William Pa Rainey in 1904, and toured with the Rabbit's Foot Company as a comedian, jubilee singer, and cakewalk performer, while a sorrowful song she heard in a Missouri tent show in 1902 slowly redirected her act toward the music she would name the blues.

This episode looks at how Rainey synthesized rural folk expression into a theatrical ge ...