Black Bottom

The classic blues belter had been singing for two decades before she ever put her voice on record, and it shows on these recordings from the mid- to late '20s. The archetypal blues shouter, Rainey had a voice whose depth and strength is startling and sometimes alarming, even on these scratchy old recordings--one can only imagine what she must have sounded like in real life. Her backup musicians include such notables as pianist Fletcher Henderson, trombonist Charlie Green, guitarist Tampa Red, and trombonist Kid Ory, all performing fairly straightforward 12-bar blues. It's not the material here that's notable, so much as Rainey's voice, a voice that has informed the work of female blues singers ever since. --Genevieve Williams