Why this Columbus native is getting a special Grammy award for lifetime achievement

She died 84 years ago when women and people of color weren’t given opportunity and credit as today, but Ma Rainey’s hard work and talent received more recognition Thursday.

Rainey, the Columbus native known as the “Mother of the Blues,” is among the 2023 Recording Academy Lifetime Achievement Award recipients. The honor is one of the special merit Grammys the academy announces in advance of the annual ceremony celebrating the recording industry’s top artists. This year’s ceremony will be Feb. 5.

The other Lifetime Achievement Award recipients this year are Bobby McFerrin, Nirvana, Nile Rodgers, Slick Rick “The Ruler,” The Supremes, and Ann Wilson and Nancy Wilson of Heart.

Rainey (1886-1939), born Gertrude Pridgett, is credited with nearly 100 recordings on the Paramount label. The Ma Rainey House & Museum of the Blues is in the family home, 805 Fifth Ave., in downtown Columbus, a few blocks from the Springer Opera House, where she made her performing debut at age 14.

Thursday’s news might prompt more folks to visit the museum, its director said.

“I am always so grateful of all the recognition that Ma Rainey receives,” museum director Florene Dawkins told the Ledger-Enquirer in an email. “. . . In her heyday, she wasn’t recognized for her musical genius. I am excited that the Grammys is giving her some of her just dues.”

In its news release, the Recording Academy says Rainey “was known for her deep voice and mesmerizing stage presence that drew packed audiences in the early twentieth century. A songwriter as well as a performer, her lyrics and melodies reflected her experiences as an independent, openly bisexual African-American woman. Rainey signed a recording contract with Paramount Records in 1923, making her one of the earliest recorded blues musicians. Between 1923 and 1928, she recorded almost 100 records, many of them national hits that are now part of the American musical canon. Her 1924 recording of ‘See See Rider Blues’ (for which she was accompanied by a young Louis Armstrong) was added to the Library of Congress’s National Recording Registry in 2004.”

In 2020, the movie “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” debuted on Netflix. It was the final film featuring meteoric Chadwick Boseman, who died that year from colon cancer at 43. It also features Viola Davis, the first Black woman to win the Triple Crown of acting awards, in another critically acclaimed performance. The film, based on August Wilson’s play, is co-produced by another superstar actor, Denzel Washington.

The Rainey-McCullers School of the Arts, a Muscogee County school for students in grades 6-12, is named in honor of Ma Rainey and the late author Carson McCullers, who also is a Columbus native.