‘Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom’ is a Hard, Fast Lesson on the Blues

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom drags to a different beat, and no one has any other choice but to drag on with her. Expertly performed, directed, and produced, this film brings Broadway back at a time when the world so desperately misses the stage. A thick molasses of blues that conducts like a musical, every word is a rhythm, and the actors step in impeccable time. This production is a hard, fast lesson on the broken heart of the blues.     “You sing ’cause that’s a way of understanding life.” The play turned feature film is based on the mother of the Blues herself Gertrude Pridgett better known as Ma Rainey. Her music was the essence of southern grit, style, and experience. Her parents were part of a traveling minstrel show in the late 1800s which is where she may have gotten her desire to perform. Ma Rainey told every last bit of her story through music – keepin it ahunnit about poverty, sex, prison, magic, superstition, drinking and the whiles of her travels. Let’s just say, there is no Lizzo without Ma Rainey, there is no Rihanna without this mother of Blues hands down. The film captured not only the essence of Ma, but of Blues and the black experience to a T. This is the essence of August Wilson’s plays.  

Image courtesy of Netflix via IMDB

We begin with dogs barking and two black boys running through the dark woods, you think – dang we starting like this? The boys emerge at a long line leading to a large white tent among the trees and a feeling…