Notes Introduction 1. Ma Rainey, “Ma Rainey’s Mystery Record,” 1923. Reissued, Ma Rainey: Complete Recorded Works in Chronological Order volume 1, Document Records, DOCD-5581, 1998. 2. The Reverend Dr. Jeremiah Wright, The National Press Club, Washington, DC (April 28, 2008). 3. Ibid. 4. Ma Rainey’s Mystery Record. 5. Ma Rainey, “ Blues, Oh Blues,” “Ma Rainey Mother of the Blues, 1927.” Reissued, JSP Records, 2007. JSP7793D. 6. Rod Gruver, “The Blues as a Secular Religion,” in Write Me A Few of Your Lines, ed. Steven C. Tracy (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1999), 224. 7. Ibid., 224. 8. James Cone, Spirituals and the Blues: An Interpretation (New York: The Seabury Press, 1972), 111. 9. Ibid., 112, 109. 10. Garon, Blues and the Poetic Spirit (San Francisco: City Lights, 1975 and 1996), 148. 11. Ibid., 148. 12. Jon Michael Spencer, Blues and Evil (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1993), 69. 13. Charles Keil, Urban Blues (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966), 148. 14. Ibid., 147. 15. Shawn Copeland, “Theology at the Crossroads: A Meditation on the Blues,” in Uncommon Faithfulness: The Black Catholic Experience, ed. M. Shawn Copeland, with LaReine-Marie Mosley and Albert Raboteau (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2009). 16. Bessie Smith, “Blue, Blue.” Reissued,1993 Bessie Smith The Complete Recordings, Vol. 4, Columbia/Legacy 52838. 17. Bluesman J. D. Miller spoke of a “blues slant.” Quoted in Paul Oliver, ed., Conversations with the Blues (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1965), 125. 188 Notes 18. Quoted in Paul Oliver, Conversations with the Blues, 176. 19. W. C. Handy, Father of the Blues: An Autobiography (Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 1941), 74. 20. Angela Davis, Blues Legacies and Black Feminism (New York: Pantheon Books, 1998), 128. 21. Handy, quoted in Nat Shapiro and Nat Hentoff, eds, Hear Me Talkin’ to Ya: The Story of Jazz as Told by the Men Who Made It (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1955), 252. 22. Quoted in Robert Palmer, Deep Blues (New York: Penguin books, 1981), 59–60. Chapter 1 1. Maime Smith, Complete Recorded Works volume 1, Document Records, DOCD-5357, 1995. 2. Perry Bradford, Born with the Blues (New York: Oak Publications Inc., 1965), 125. 3. Bradford, Born with the Blues, 116, 119 4. Ibid 125 . 5. Hunter, quoted in Chris Albertson, Bessie, revised and expanded ed. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), 24. 6. Spivey, quoted in Giles Oakley, The Devil’s Music: A History of the Blues, 2nd ed., updated (London: Da Capo Press, 1997), 84. 7. Bradford, Born with the Blues, 118. 8. Lawrence Levine notes how “phenomenal” these record sales were, given the black population at the time. Black Culture and Black Consciousness Afro-American Folk Thought from Slavery to Freedom, 30th anniversary ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 225. 9. Richard Wright, 12 Million Black Voices (New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 1941), 128. 10. Quoted in Paul Oliver, Conversation with the Blues (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1965), 20. 11. Quoted in Oliver, Conversation with the Blues, 20. 12. Levine, Black Culture and Black Consciousness, 157. 13. From this point forward, when I speak of Africa I am referring to West African traditions, unless otherwise noted. 14. Samuel A. Floyd Jr., The Power of Black Music: Interpreting Its History from Africa to the United States (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 32. 15. Giles Oakely, Devils Music, 136. 16. Wright, 12 Million Black Voices, 100. 17. Ida Cox, “Pink Slip Blues,” Vocalian 05258, 1939. 18. Big Bill Broonzy, “The Young Big Bill Broonzy 1928-1935,” Shananchie Entertainment, 2005 19. Bertha, “Chippie”; Hill, “Trouble in Mind,” Circle J1003A, c. 1946. 20. Big Bill Broonzy, “Trouble in Mind,” version 2. 21. Paul Oliver, The Story of the Blues (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1969), 3. Notes 189 22. Leon F. Litwack, Trouble in Mind: Black Southerners in the Age of Jim Crow (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1998), 436. 23. This manual would later become a fuller text entitled, “the Negro in Etiquette.” 24. Victoria W. Wolcott, Remaking Respectability: African American Women in Interwar Detroit (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001), 16. 25. Litwack, Trouble in Mind, 436. 26. Johnson, quoted in Giles Oakely, The Devil’s Music, 197. 27. Otis Harris, “Waking Blues,” quoted in Paul Oliver, Blues Fell This Morning: Meaning in the Blues (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1960), 284. 28. Samuel A. Floyd Jr., The Power of Black Music, 77. 29. Stephen Henderson, Understanding the New Black Poetry: Black Speech and Black Music as Poetic References (New York: Morrow, 1973), 44. 30. Levine, Black Culture and black Consciousness, 297. 31. Bessie Smith, “Downhearted Blues”; Columbia A3844-D, 1923. Remastered, “Bessie Smith: Queen of the Blues,” JSP Records JSP929A, 2006. 32. Patricia Hill Collins, Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment, 2nd ed. (New York: Routledge Press, 2000), 34. 33. Henry Louis Gates Jr., The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of African- American Literary Criticism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), xxiv. Description of signifying as a trope is informed by Gates’s complete discussion in this text. 34. Samuel A. Floyd Jr., The Power of Black Music, 8. 35. Ibid., 78. 36. Frank Walker, quoted in Nat Shapiro and Nat Hentoff, eds, Hear Me Talkin’ to Ya: The Story of Jazz as Told by the Men Who Made It (New York: Dover Publications Inc., 1955), 240. 37. Newbell Niles Puckett, Folk Beliefs of the Southern Negro (Kissinger Publishing’s Rare Reprints, Whitefish MT, 1925), 243. 38. Chris Albertson, Bessie, 38. 39. Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God (New York: Perennial Classics, 1990 originally published by J.P. Lippincott, Inc. 1937), 104. 40. In John F. Callahan, ed., The Collected Essays of Ralph Ellison (New York: The Modern Library, 2003), 155–188. 41. Smith, “Moan You Mourners,” Columbia 14538-D, 1930. Reissued on The World’s Greatest Blues Singer, Columbia CG 33, 1972. 42. This analysis of laments draws upon that of Emilie Townes, as found in the chapter “The Formfulness of Communal Lament,” in Breaking the Fine Raine of Death:African American Health Issues and a Womanist Ethic of CareI (New York: Continuum, 1998). 43. Charles Keil, Urban Blues, 114–142. 44. T-Bone Walker, quoted in Shapiro and Hentoff, Hear Me Talkin’ to Ya, 250–251. 45. Carl Van Vechten, quoted in Levine, Black Culture and Black Consciousness, 235. 46. Baker, quoted in Shapiro and Hentoff, Hear Me Talkin’ to Ya, 243. 190 Notes 47. Rainey, “Toad Frog Blues,” Paramount 12242, 1924. Reissued on Ma Rainey: Mother of the Blues, JSP Records, 2007 JSP7793B, 2007. 48. Hunter, quoted in Shapiro and Hentoff, Hear Me Talkn’ to Ya, 246. 49. Hooker, quoted in Oliver, Conversation with the Blues, 171, 180. 50. Handy, quoted in Shapiro and Hentoff, Hear Me Talkn’ to Ya,, 252. 51. Angela Davis, Blues Legacies and Black Feminism, 8. 52. James Cone, Spirituals and the Blues, 112. Cone says he is indebted to C. E. Lincoln for this phrase. n9, 152. 53. Lawrence Levine, Black Culture and Black Consciousness, 237. 54. Jon Michael Spencer, Blues and Evil, xxvi. 55. Ibid. 56. Trixie Smith, “Praying Blues,” Paramount Records. 57. Ma Rainey, “Ma Rainey’s Mystery Record.” 58. Julio Finn, The Bluesman: The Musical Heritage of Black Men and Women in the Americas (New York: Interlink Books, 1992), 6. 59. Spencer refers to the”shadow side of blues.” Blues and Evil, 72, 74. 60. Julio Finn, The Bluesman, 6. 61. Smith, Red Mountain Blues, Columbia, 1925. Reissued JSP Records, JSP929D, 2006. 62. Rainey, “Lawd Send Me A Man Blues,” Paramount 12227, 1924. Reissued Ma Rainey Mother of the Blues, JSP Records, JSP7793A, 2007. 63. Ma Rainey, “Ma Rainey’s Mystery Record.” Chapter 2 1. Sterling Brown, “Ma Rainey,” in Blues Poems, ed. by Kevin Young (New York: Albert A. Knopf, Everyman’s Library, 2003), 33. 2. Ida Cox, “Wild Women Don’t Have the Blues,” Paramount, 1924. Reissued Ida Cox Complete Recorded Works 1923–1938, Volume 2, 1924–1925. Document Records DOCD-5323, 1995. 3. Shapiro and Hentoff, Hear Me Talkin’ to Ya, 249. 4. Giles Oakley, The Devil’s Music: A History of the Blues (London: Da Capo Press, 1997), 103. 5. Sterling Brown, Ma Rainey, 33. 6. See Hazel V. Carby’s discussion in “They Put a Spell on You,” in Carby, Cultures in Babylon: Black Britain and African America (New York: Verso, 1999), 52. 7. Shapiro and Hentoff, Hear Me Talkin’ to Ya, 214. 8. Ibid., 247. 9. Anna Julia Cooper, A Voice from the South, with an introduction by Mary Helen Washington (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988; originally printed 1892), 27. 10. In 1900, only 2 percent of the black population lived outside of the South. By the end of the Great Migrations, six decades later, 6 million southern black people had migrated to the North, which meant that 47 percent of black America now lived outside of the South. Notes 191 11. Quoted in Victoria Wolcott, Remaking Respectability: African American Women in Interwar Detroit (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001), 15. 12. I take this term “moral panic” from Hazel V. Carby in her discussion of the northern black “bourgeois” culture that emerged during the time of the Great Migrations. See Carby, “Policing the Black Woman’s Body in an Urban Context,” in Cultures in Babylon: Black Britain and African America (New York: Verso, 1999), 22. 13. Virginia W. Broughton, “The Social Status of the Colored Women and Its Betterment,” in The United Negro: His Problems and His Progress, ed. I. Garland Penn and J. W. E. Bowen (Atlanta: D. E.