Adams, Chelsea

Description

RE-CREATING THE MOTHER OF THE BLUES: MUSICAL PRESENCE IN AUGUST WILSON'S MA RAINEY'S BLACK BOTTOM by Chelsea June Adams A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree MASTER OF ARTS IN ENGLISH WEBER STATE UNIVERSITY Ogden, Utah April, 18,2016 Approved of Dr. Hal Crimmel Dr. Mahalingam Subbiah Adams 1 Chelsea Adams MENG Thesis Dr. Crimmel 4-11-16 Re-Creating the Mother of the Blues: Musical Presence in August Wilson's Ma Rainey 's Black Bottom August Wilson's Ma Rainey's Black Bottom offers a unique, fictional look into a day in the life of Ma Rainey and the blues musicians in her band. Wilson's version of Ma Rainey fulfills expectations of the many accounts of Gertrude "Ma" Rainey as a woman who was fiercely independent and an advocate for blues music and the topics it bridged, the people who played it, and the communities of people that it could help to empower if the blues were sung in its intended form. Rainey's character in the play is a porAugust Wilson's Ma Rainey's Black Bottom offers a unique, fictional look into a day in the life of Ma Rainey and the blues musicians in her band. ... In order to illuminate the importance of Wilson's song choices in the play, even the songs that are just briefly mentioned and never heard on stage, I will show that Wilson, through his own admissions, strove to put black culture--particularly blues culture--on stage as he wrote Main Rainey's Black Bottom.

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Weber State University - Stewart Library

Record Harvested From

Mountain West Digital Library