Blues musician Charlie Apicella’s formula for success is simple: He awakens every day creating music to make Ma Rainey proud. Apicella never met Rainey, who died in 1939, but he said it is impossible ...

The inaugural production held in Madison Arts Center’s new cabaret space is the third in Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Company’s August Wilson’s American Century Cycle Experience, “Ma Rainey’s Black ...

(ThyBlackMan.com) When I think about the roots of blues music—the raw honesty, the pain wrapped in poetry, the joy carved out of hardship—I think of Ma Rainey. Her voice was more than a sound; it was ...