Staging the Blues

<div>Singing was just one element of blues performance in the early twentieth century. Ma Rainey Bessie Smith and other classic blues singers also tapped joked and flaunted extravagant costumes on tent show and black vaudeville stages. The press even described these women as actresses long before they achieved worldwide fame for their musical recordings. In <i>Staging the Blues</i> Paige A. McGinley shows that even though folklorists record producers and festival promoters set the theatricality of early blues aside in favor of notions of authenticity it remained creatively vibrant throughout the twentieth century. Highlighting performances by Rainey Smith Lead Belly Sister Rosetta Tharpe Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee in small Mississippi towns Harlem theaters and the industrial British North this pioneering study foregrounds virtuoso blues artists who used the conventions of the theater including dance comedy and costume to stage black mobility to challenge narratives of racial authenticity and to fight for racial and economic justice.<br></div>