“Billie, you’re a genius,” wrote songwriter Stephin Merritt of the band the Magnetic Fields, “enough to be a fool.” The “Billie” in question, jazz singer Billie Holiday, is remembered almost equally ...

Ma Rainey was a real person. One of our earliest professional blues singers, she performed and recorded throughout the 1920s and 1930s, and her popularity and folksy style earned her the title “Mother ...