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Full Moon on Progress Street series 2 follows on from the first series (available on 麻豆社 Sounds), taking a close look at key moments and music to reveal the hidden lives and interests of more of the most important Black female artists of the 20th century 鈥� Sarah Vaughan, Ma Rainey, Abbey Lincoln, Bessie Smith and Josephine Baker. Dr Rommi Smith, lifelong jazz and blues listener, takes us on a journey into the creative life of each artist, reappraising what we think we know about them from popular culture. Each essay 'flips-the-script', to show a different hidden story. All of these iconic women are broadly misrepresented - history and popular perception airbrushing their interests, politics, activism, sexualities, creative legacies and passions.

Essay 4

Ma Rainey - 'The Mother of the Blues' 鈥� was the mentor and rumoured lover of Bessie Smith, The Empress of the Blues. Rainey was a trailblazer, who in 1927 recorded 鈥渢he lesbian anthem鈥� Prove it On Me Blues. In this essay, Rommi argues that Rainey was performing 鈥渁 woman鈥檚 right to define her own sexuality鈥� five decades before the second wave feminist movement. This essay examines Rainey鈥檚 repertoire and recordings as an expression of sexual freedom and liberty. Track list: Prove it On Me Blues, See See Rider and Hear Me Talking to You.

Dr Rommi Smith is a writer, broadcaster and academic. Winner of the Northern Writers Prize for Poetry, Rommi has been awarded prestigious fellowships, residencies and commissions, from organisations and institutions ranging from the 麻豆社 to The British Council. In 2025, she was appointed a judge for the Forward Prizes for Poetry. Rommi is the inaugural British Parliamentary Writer-in-Residence. She was Writer-in-Residence for Keats鈥� House, the Wordsworth Trust and most recently, the inaugural Writer-in-Residence for Harewood House, writing in response to its exhibition about Jane Austen & JMW Turner. She is a librettist, collaborating often with the composer Roderick Williams. Rommi was commissioned by Lubaina Himid/the ICA to create Tracing the Thin Black Line (a new performance work marking the 40th anniversary of the exhibition The Thin Black Line). The work premiered at the Institute of Contemporary Art in 2025. Her academic scholarship centres jazz and blues women and civil rights. She is honoured to have interviewed leading contemporary musicians, from Dr. Dianne Reeves to Dr. Esperanza Spalding, Professor Terri Lyne Carrington to Cassandra Wilson, as part her academic research. Rommi鈥檚 work is published by, amongst others, Routledge and New York University Press. A collection of poems inspired by her research is forthcoming.

www.rommi-smith.co.uk

Writer and presenter, Dr Rommi Smith
Producer, Polly Thomas
Sound designer, Paul Cargill
Exec producer, Chantal Herbert
A Thomas Carter Projects production for 麻豆社 Radio 3.