You're listening to the sultry sounds of singer Gertrude Pridgett. But she's better known as "Ma Rainey: The Mother of the Blues."
 
She recorded over 100 cuts for Paramount Records, including this song, "Black Eye Blues."
 

  • The flamboyant African American singer was born in Columbus, Georgia in 1886. Ma Rainey worked with a number of blues greats, including Louis Armstrong.
  • But on this day, in 1939, Rainey passed away in Rome, Georgia at the age of 53.  And now, The Ma  Rainey House and Blues Museum in Columbus carries on the memory of the trail-blazing vocalist.

 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VW0NWfv9Z_Y