Ma Rainey - The Essential Recordings

These almost ghostly, otherworldly missives from another age still have the power to entrance after all this time, and are at the heart of all our modern music - the beginnings of Rock 'n' Roll, Soul, Jazz, and R 'n' B are all here. Ma Rainey was inducted into The Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in 1990, while the bawdy 'Black Bottom' not only inspired a dance craze, but also a successful Broadway musical in the 1980s and one in London in 2016, a fitting tribute to this seminally influential artist.