Ma Rainey

Born Gertrude Malissa Nix Pridgett, Rainey would go on to become one of America's most influential blues singers, a key player in the Harlem Renaissance and an important mentor and inspiration to many singers that followed.

On April 15, 1894, Bessie Smith was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Her parents and brother had died by the time Smith was nine, leaving her sister Viola as the caretaker. Therefore, Smith had a "wretched childhood" and never received an…