Journal Article

Staging the Blues: From Tent Shows to Tourism

Smith, Peter Dunbaugh

2015

Overview

After a brief, but requisite, historical summary of African-American theater, McGinley sets the stage for her analysis by focusing on the careers of blues pioneers Ma Rainey (1886-1939) and Bessie Smith (1894-1937), performers whose public personae, staging, and musical styles were largely defined through purposeful theatrical constructions. While simultaneously embodying Lomax's newly envisioned folk-blues tradition through these constructed presentations, Ledbetter's insistence on including elements of dance, comedy and other vaudeville conventions in his act served not only to protest his unequal power relations with Lomax, but also contributed to the maintenance and transmission of earlier theatrical traditions-practices acquired through Ledbetter's prior stage experience-as an essential element of blues performance style. By presenting particular performers and specific situations, McGinley provides her readers with persuasive anecdotes, building an inductive claim that the blues' generative theatrical traditions persevered even during those historic periods when it had faded as a popular music style and became viewed as a folk tradition.

• Publisher: College of William and Mary, Department of Theatre and Speech
• Subject: Authenticity / Folklore / Genre / Musical styles / Rainey, Gertrude (Ma) (1886-1939) / Smith, Bessie (1894?-1937) / Tharpe, Sister Rosetta / Tourism / Traditions / Vaudeville