William Christopher Handy

Woodlawn Cemetery • Crematory • Conservancy, New York, NY

Fisk University

The origins of the blues are also closely related to the religious music of the Afro-American community, the spirituals. The first appearance of the blues is often dated to after the ending of slavery and, later, the development of juke joints. It is associated with the newly acquired freedom of the former slaves.

Jack Geem. 1923–1937

“Jack Gee owned a laundromat in Philadelphia Died at the age of 84 on June 6, 1973; Jack, Jr., worked as a bartender in Philadelphia, where he died in the 1990s.”

August Wilson based his 1982 play on the real-life 1920s blues singer Ma Rainey, who really did record her first tracks in a Chicago recording studio for Paramount Records. So, yes, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom is based on a true story, in that Ma Rainey was a real person, but most of the actual plot is fictional.

William “Pa” Rainey

Deceased (1894–1937)

43 years (1894–1937)

Overall, the movie stays true to the emotional core of Smith’s story, but not necessarily to all the details as they happened. Bessie has been in development for more than two decades, giving Latifah plenty of time to get comfortable in Bessie Smith’s shoes.

Curious if Ma Rainey killed Toledo? No, she did not. The movie takes a sharp turn while the Trumpeter Levee, one of the band members, kills Toledo. Toledo, their manager, did not give them their deserved chance and instead, he asked a group of white musicians to record the song that Levee gave to Toledo.

mother of the blues

The first, and more explicit, of the two is Levee (Chadwick Boseman) dramatically stabbing Toledo (Glynn Turman) for standing on his shoe. Of course, the real reason Levee is lashing out is because of the violence he witnessed as a boy, in seeing his mother’s rape and his father’s murder at the hands of white men.

The Oscar-winning actress became larger than life Ma Rainey with the help of gold teeth, charcoal-like makeup, and a wig made of horsehair. When Viola Davis committed to playing the trailblazing blues singer of “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” she was uncompromising in her demand for historical accuracy.

Because the film takes place in the humidity-ladened Chicago summer, “sweat was going to be almost like another character in the movie,” said Lopez-Rivera. ‘ which was actually the reference Viola used to give me.” And Ma’s perspiration was part of the story.

Gertrude “Ma” Rainey, the real-life Southern singer played by Viola Davis, demands what’s owed to her as she sings the blues in Netflix’s “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” (now streaming). “They don’t care nothing about me,” Ma says in the film. “All they want is my voice.” In the George C.

Sylvester (Played by Dusan Brown) Sylvester is Ma Rainey’s nephew. She wants him to do the intro for her song “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” but the band and producer disagree because Sylvester has a stutter.

No. The movie is based on August Wilson’s 1982 play of the same name. It is one title in the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright’s series of ten plays that are collectively known as The Pittsburgh Cycle (or the American Century Cycle) and center on African American experiences in each decade of the 20th Century.

While Ma did live in Chicago in 1927, had relationships with women, and traveled with a band, all of the characters in the play — Dussie Mae (Taylour Paige), Butler (Colman Domingo), Slow Drag (Michael Potts), Toledo (Glynn Turman), Sylvester (Dusan Brown), Sturdyvant (Jonny Coyne), and Levee (Chadwick Boseman) — are …

When Viola Davis committed to playing the trailblazing blues singer of “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” she was uncompromising in her demand for historical accuracy.