Ma Rainey
In Breckenridge, Texas
1922
Before, during, and after her five-year recording stint with Paramount, Ma Rainey toured with her performing ensemble of musicians, dancers, and comedians. She sometimes entertained in Black theaters, but more often set up her big tent for Black audiences in small cities and towns mostly in the South. Curious Whites sometimes attended. She sang, danced, did comedy skits, and even performed in blackface, invariably earning rave reviews.
That is how she ended up in the small town of Breckenridge, Texas, in 1922.
Breckenridge about the time Ma Rainey came to town. Photo by Basil Clemons, Bowman collection.
It was the touring and performing business, not royalties and record sales from her Paramount recordings, that was the bread-and-butter income for Rainey and her entertainers. In fact, members of her touring band rarely got into a recording studio, given that most of the musicians used on her records were professionals from the Chicago area.
In the 1920s, singers and musicians viewed their 78 records more as status symbols and advertising artifacts to attract the public to their live shows, rather than seeing them as significant streams of income. Hence, they were happy to stay on the road to earn real money.
In 1922, the year before “Madam” Ma Rainey recorded Moonshine Blues at her first Paramount session, “Madam’s Broadway Strutters” found themselves in Breckinridge, as part of the “John T. Wortham Shows”.
The Wortham shows—essentially carnivals—that toured the country by railroad had been in business since 1910. The enterprise had been started by Clarence A. Wortham, who died unexpectedly in 1921, with his brother John taking it over.
Bowman collection
Unlike many carnival operations that had seedy reputations, the Wortham brothers worked to ensure theirs were safe and provided quality family entertainment: no “hoochie-koochie”; no live snake eating; and no dope, narcotics, or liquor.
Sometimes as many as seven shows at one time were traveling under the Wortham banner. A given show might have up to 500 employees on the payroll, and fill twenty- five rail cars. Smaller tent shows such as Ma Rainey’s often chose to join Wortham for a particular tour.
On March 22, 1922, The Mexia Evening News in Texas carried this item:
“DIXIELAND”
In his “Dixieland” with the John T. Wortham shows, R.H. Cobb has gathered together a number of the most talented negro performers in America. This minstrel company is headed by Mme. Rainey, the great ‘blues” singer, who has played all the bigtime vaudeville circuits, and Ezekill Hill, “Little Zeke,” the negro comedian and dancer extraordinary. A notable feature of “Dixieland” is the jazz orchestra directed by Prof. Snapp, the noted colored pianist.
Rainey used different names for her traveling shows. This was about the time when she was trying to break into New York and the northern markets, so the name “Broadway Strutters” may have reflected that.
The photographs below were taken when the John T. Wortham Shows set up their tents in 1922, for an engagement in Breckenridge, a small Texas oil boom town west of Fort Worth. The tour in Texas must have been a long one because Rainey was still in the state in early 1923.
Luckily for us, an excellent local Breckenridge photographer, Basil Clemons (1887-1964), was on hand to photograph the Wortham show performers, including the thirty-six-year old Ma Rainey and her entertainers. The photo of Rainey and her band inside the tent is inscribed “Ma Rainey’s Jazz Hounds”, a common name for her backup musicians—although sometimes they morphed into her “Georgia Wildcat Band” or the “Wildcats Jazz Band”.
Ma Rainey was born in Columbus, Georgia, in 1886. Despite the constant time she spent on the road as an entertainer, Georgia would remain her home and base of operations throughout her life. So it is interesting that in 1921, the year before Rainey packed her bags for Texas, another tent show, also from Georgia, would be performing not just in Texas, but specifically in Breckenridge.
H.W. Campbell’s United Shows opened its Texas tour in February featuring a “Wild West Show” theme, featuring cowboy acts, a Black band wearing calvary uniforms, White musicians, bucking broncos, and bear acts. It stressed “no girl shows” and “no graft”.
Present once again, ready to greet a new tent show arriving in Breckenridge, was the wonderful town photographer Basil Clemons. His photographs illustrate the novelty of traveling performers—such as Ma Rainey— arriving in a small, booming, oil town in Texas, where horses still outnumbered cars.
The above photographs of both the Ma Rainey show and the H.W. Campbell show in Breckenridge are part of the Basil Clemons Photograph Collection, University of Texas at Arlington Libraries.
