I feel like posting a bit of classic blues today, so here’s the inimitable Gertrude “Ma” Rainey way back in 1928. Ma Rainey was one of the very first professional blues singers. She started performing as a teenager around the turn of the last century, so by the time she started making records in the 1920s she had already developed a mature style. Owing to the limitations of recording technology the lyrics of much of her large repertoire are virtually inaudible on disc, but here’s a superb example of her style. She may have been no oil painting, but boy could she sing the blues…

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