 Ma Rainey, whose popularity in the South was unrivaled, was little known in the cities of the North until 1923, when she made her first recordings.She and Bessie Smith brought about a change in the style of the classic blues, as audiences came to prefer their rougher, earthier sound to that of the lighter-voiced, more refined blues singers who had preceded them on record.Rainey recorded over 100 songs, 24 of them her own compositions.