The original blues: the emergence of the blues in African American vaudeville 9781496810038, 9781496810045, 9781496810052, 9781496810069, 9781496810021, 1496810023

Table of contents :
Saloon-theaters and park pavilions : the birth of southern vaudeville, 1899-1909
The death of J. Ed Green and the birth of State Street vaudeville
The life, death, and untold legacy of Bluesman Butler "String Beans" May
Male blues singers in southern vaudeville
The rise of the blues queen : female blues pioneers in southern vaudeville
Theater circuits, theater wars, and the formation of the T.O.B.A.
"Yours for business" : the commercialization of the blues, 1920-26.

Citation preview

THE ORIGINAL BLUES

THE ORIGINAL BLUES The Emergence of the Blues in African American Vaudeville Lynn Abbott and Doug Seroff University Press of Mississippi / Jackson

American Made Music Series Advisory Board

David Evans, General Editor Barry Jean Ancelet Edward A. Berlin Joyce J. Bolden Rob Bowman Susan C. Cook Curtis Ellison William Ferris John Edward Hasse Kip Lornell Bill Malone Eddie S. Meadows Manuel H. Peña Wayne D. Shirley Robert Walser

www.upress.state.ms.us The University Press of Mississippi is a member of the Association of American University Presses. Copyright © 2017 by University Press of Mississippi All rights reserved Manufactured in the United States of America First printing 2017 ∞ Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Abbott, Lynn, 1946– | Seroff, Doug. Title: The original blues : the emergence of the blues in African American vaudeville / Lynn Abbott and Doug Seroff. Description: Jackson : University Press of Mississippi, [2017] | Series: American made music series | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Description based on print version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed. Identifiers: LCCN 2016021457 (print) | LCCN 2016020375 (ebook) | ISBN 9781496810038 (epub single) | ISBN 9781496810045 (epub institutional) | ISBN 9781496810052 ( pdf single) | ISBN 9781496810069 (pdf institutional) | ISBN 9781496810021 (cloth : alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Blues (Music)—To 1931—History and criticism. | Vaudeville—United States—History and criticism. Classification: LCC ML3521 (print) | LCC ML3521 .A23 2017 (ebook) | DDC 781.64309/041—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016021457 British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data available

CONTENTS

vii

Acknowledgments

3

Introduction ◆  ◆  ◆

311

Notes

383

Bibliography

389

General Index

409

Song Index

417

Theater Index

7

CHAPTER ONE Saloon-Theaters and Park Pavilions: The Birth of Southern Vaudeville, 1899–1909

57

FIRST INTERLUDE The Death of J. Ed Green and the Birth of State Street Vaudeville

67

CHAPTER TWO The Life, Death, and Untold Legacy of Bluesman Butler “String Beans” May

125

CHAPTER THREE Male Blues Singers in Southern Vaudeville

161

CHAPTER FOUR The Rise of the Blues Queen: Female Blues Pioneers in Southern Vaudeville

231

SECOND INTERLUDE Theater Circuits, Theater Wars, and the Formation of the T.O.B.A.

249

CHAPTER FIVE “Yours for Business”: The Commercialization of the Blues, 1920–26

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The Original Blues is a detailed account of the appearance and popularization of the blues on the black professional stage. It commences with a survey of the black vaudeville platforms that took hold in the South at the end of the nineteenth century, and goes on to trace the evolution of the blues in black vaudeville, 1910–30, concluding with a consideration of how vaudeville blues helped shape the country blues guitar phenomenon. While The Original Blues is a self-contained work, it makes a logical companion to our first two books, Out of Sight and Ragged but Right. It was not our original intention, but we find ourselves completing what could be considered a trilogy, covering the development of black popular music from the period immediately preceding the appearance of ragtime to the full fruition and commercialization of the blues. Of course, we have only begun to tell the whole story; much ground is left to cover. The research that connects Out of Sight, Ragged but Right, and The Original Blues has consumed more than a quarter of a century. It has enabled a chronological perspective on the early blues—a counterpoint to retrospective analyses that use recordings from the 1920s as a touchstone.

Amistad Research Center, Tulane University, New Orleans. Bradley Memorial Library, Columbus, Georgia. Bull Street Library, Savannah, Georgia. Center for Popular Music, Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro. Earl K. Long Library, University of New Orleans. Institute for Jazz Studies, Rutgers University, Newark, New Jersey. Filson Historical Society, Louisville, Kentucky. Goodlettsville Public Library, Goodlettsville, Tennessee. Florida State Library and Archive, Tallahassee. Hogan Jazz Archive, Tulane University, New Orleans. Howard-Tilton Memorial Library, Tulane University, New Orleans. Jacksonville Public Library, Florida. John Hope and Aurelia Elizabeth Franklin Library, Fisk University, Nashville. Lila D. Bunch Library, Belmont University, Nashville. Louisiana Division, New Orleans Public Library. Louisiana State Museum, New Orleans. McWherter Library, University of Memphis. Memphis Public Library. Middle Georgia Regional Library, Macon. Nashville Room of the Nashville Public Library. Nassau County Public Library, Fernandina Beach Branch, Florida. Schomberg Research Center, New York City. Smathers Library, University of Florida, Gainesville.

◆  ◆  ◆

Research for The Original Blues involved pilgrimages to many different libraries and archives. We would like to acknowledge assistance received at:

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Acknowledgments

Tampa Bay History Center, Florida. Tennessee State Library and Archive, Nashville. Thomas G. Carpenter Library, University of North Florida, Jacksonville. University of South Florida Library, Tampa. Williams Research Center, New Orleans. We also wish to thank the many individuals who took time assisting us, including: Hayden Battle, Nicholas Benoit, Pen Bogert, Joey Brackner, Charles J. Elmore, Alaina Hebert, Vic Hobson, Jeanette Hunter, Muriel McDowell Jackson, Michael Jones, Annie Kemp, Johnny Maddox, Arely del Martinez, Tom McDermott, Roger Misiewicz, Michael Montgomery, Bruce Nemerov, Bruce Boyd Raeburn, Richard Raichelson, Keli Rylance, David Sager, Wayne D. Shirley, Richard Spottswood, Adam Swanson, Gaile Thomas, Kevin Williams, and Patti Windom.

We owe a particular debt of gratitude to David Evans for his advice and assistance, as well as for his informative reading of the manuscript. Wayne D. Shirley also contributed a valuable critical reading. Special thanks are due as well to Chris Ware for the cover design. Preliminary formulations of the research that culminated in The Original Blues have appeared in various journals and anthologies, including “Bessie Smith: The Early Years,” Blues & Rhythm: The Gospel Truth, no. 70 (June 1992); “‘They Cert’ly Sound Good to Me’: Sheet Music, Southern Vaudeville, and the Commercial Ascendancy of the Blues,” American Music 14, no. 4 (Winter 1996), reprinted in David Evans, ed., Ramblin’ on My Mind: New Perspectives on the Blues (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2008); and “The Life and Death of Pioneer Bluesman Butler ‘String Beans’ May,” Tributaries: Journal of the Alabama Folklife Association, no. 5 (2002).

THE ORIGINAL BLUES

INTRODUCTION

A

music and culture. Vernacular expressions and coded references excited howls of recognition, encouraging performers to dig deeper in the storehouse of shared cultural experience. This emboldened the coming generation of stage performers to unleash creative energies that accelerated the development of the blues. When southern vaudeville first gained traction at the end of the nineteenth century, ragtime coon songs were the popular fare; blues was not yet in sight. By 1910 there were racially insular black vaudeville theaters strung across the Southeast. The proliferation of these theaters created a safe haven for the rehabilitation of coon songs and the concrete formulation of blues songs appropriate for the professional platform. To assert that the blues was incubated in black southern vaudeville theaters is not hyperbole. Southern vaudeville theaters were part of the black community, not distinct from it; they were cultural landmarks in their various locales. Vibrant creative interchange between performers and local community audiences was an ongoing process. Performers were guided by the dynamic force of the audience. The “Stage” columns of the Indianapolis Freeman and other black weeklies contain a useful enumeration of songs favored by early blues pioneers. The mosaic repertoire of this transitional period, distilled from distinct yet interwoven compositional approaches, discourages attempts to identify defining characteristics. Unlike “Baby Seals Blues” and “The Memphis Blues,” which were conscious efforts

t the dawn of the twentieth century, vaudeville began to replace minstrelsy as America’s favorite form of stage entertainment. Segregation necessitated the creation of discrete racial vaudeville theaters. The African American vaudeville theater movement filled a void by providing the first professional platforms for black performers to present “worldly” entertainment to audiences of their own race. This movement had its greatest effect in the racially divided, Jim Crow South, the historic homeland of black vernacular song, dance, and humor. From tentative beginnings in saloons and parks, black southern vaudeville outlets grew into a network of free-standing, independent African American theaters. These little theaters represented an emerging entertainment market, and a rich new field of opportunity for aspiring young performers and entrepreneurs. The newly made dynamic of black theater entertainment for a black audience was amazingly liberating, as this 1909 commentary makes clear: “Don’t you know that you can enjoy yourself better, because the average colored performer can say things in that theater that place him three times funnier than he would be at a white house—he is natural there, and any one is a good deal better, whether singing, dancing or acting, when natural. Every slang phrase we understand, and of course he opens his heart to us, because he is among his own people.”1 Performers were far more “at home” in the absence of white folk; and audiences were validated by authentic representations of African American 3

4

Introduction

to construct a blues, roughly contemporaneous “ragtime-cum-blues” vehicles such as Shelton Brooks’s “Some of These Days,” Joe Jordan’s “Lovie Joe,” and even Chris Smith’s “I Got the Blues, But I’m Too Mean to Cry,” were not intended to be blues songs. These and other hits of the early southern vaudeville stage were integral to the ragtime genre; yet they represent an incremental transition, harboring presentiments of the blues, either in their formal structures, idiomatic conventions, or lyrics and phraseology.2 Between 1905 and 1908, social scientist Howard W. Odum collected “Negro folk songs” in Mississippi, Georgia, and Tennessee. He transcribed 115 songs and song fragments for a two-part essay which appeared in the Journal of American Folklore in 1911.3 Odum’s study has been called “the most important early account of blues.”4 His findings included many phrases that later became associated with blues tradition, such as “I’m going where the water drinks like wine,” “If you don’t want me, please don’t dog me around,” “I got the blues, but I’m too damn mean to cry,” and many more. However, in the course of his path-breaking research Odum apparently did not hear the word blues used as a musical term.5 While some of the songs he collected were infused with elements and characteristics of the blues, they apparently were not recognized as blues, either by the performers or by Odum. It remains an open question whether the disjointed blues phrases scattered among bits of forgotten doggerel and snatches of ragtime lyrics should, in retrospect, be classified as blues per se, or simply black folk song on the verge—or in the process—of becoming blues. It may be that Odum’s fieldwork provides a snapshot of the state of southern folk music in the moment before the embryonic folk lyrics he collected were formulated into fully realized blues songs.6 Odum’s survey flows chronologically into the earliest African American press reports of blues songs performed on southern vaudeville stages.

The southern folk songs he collected before 1909 are pregnant with the blues; stage reports in 1910 editions of the Indianapolis Freeman describe the blues emerged and denominated. Together, these two sources constitute sufficient evidence to tentatively proffer 1909 as the year “blues” came up for public recognition as a musical term and, by extension, the year blues music achieved a distinct, recognizable identity.7 Black vaudeville performers and songwriters of the era fitted up unpolished, fragmentary folk material for the professional platform. But the blues did not emerge onstage fully formed.8 The blues remained mutable and multiform long after it was institutionalized on the black professional stage. Gifted artists put their personal stamp on the blues songs they sang, and played a big part in the development of modern blues style. Black vaudeville served as a filtering agent through which the residue of nineteenth-century “Ethiopian minstrelsy” was eventually expunged. However, some of minstrelsy’s trappings were not immediately banished. In the context of insular southern vaudeville, certain vestiges of old racist stage conventions were subtly transformed into self-conscious jokes infused with innuendo. Blackface makeup was part of an old comedic formula. Black and white audiences were conditioned to expect it. Clearly, many black performers felt that the blackface mask still had useful purposes; some employed it with stunningly subversive effect. Blackface comedy was a prominent vehicle in the formative years of blues singing on the black professional stage. The amelioration of the lowly blues street song for use on the stage seems to have required a refractive channel; blackface makeup sometimes served that function. Despite seeming anomalies, the emergence of the blues in black vaudeville figured powerfully in reforming perceptions of black music and culture. The ascendance of “blues queens” signified a

Introduction

dramatic shift in the status of both African American vaudeville divas and the blues itself. The royal honorific indicated a step away from the blanket designation “coon shouter,” and also worked against the use of cork by female performers in black vaudeville. In 1911 a new generation of southern vaudevillians brought their bluesy style of entertainment to northern audiences, changing the course of black popular music and effectively nationalizing African American vaudeville activity. Efforts to consolidate and stabilize northern and southern theater circuits culminated in the formation of the Theater Owners Booking Association (T.O.B.A.) in 1921. This coincided with the inauguration of the “race record” industry. For the next several years the T.O.B.A. circuit featured touring companies headed by blues queens with records to promote. As the popularity of African American vaudeville began to wane, the race record industry shifted its emphasis from “vaudeville blues” to “country blues.” If the 1920s recording era was the most celebrated, remunerative period of vaudeville blues, the 1910s were arguably an even more creative decade, witnessing the emergence, popularization, and early development of the original blues in southern playhouses. Blues singers in black vaudeville were typically accompanied by piano, usually augmented by a trap drum kit, and sometimes a brass instrument. The guitar was not popular on the early African American professional stage. Nevertheless, the songs and styles of vaudeville blues singers left a deep impression on the first stars of the country blues. Adaptations of the music of the early black vaudeville stage are prominent in country blues recordings of the 1920s and 1930s. In his seminal book Big Road Blues, David Evans reflected that “The main aesthetic standard . . . for early folk blues was truth. But it was a truth based in . . . a kind of experience that was known to the singer and audience.”9 Likewise, the essence of the

blues in early black vaudeville was an honest, forthright expression of shared experience. Against the historical backdrop of “Ethiopian minstrelsy” and the coon song craze, the original blues signified a righteous compact between the performer and the black community audience, an entente that personified the triumph of the real over the false.10 When we began conducting the research for our books, few if any black community newspapers had been digitized. We spent many hours sitting in front of mechanical microfilm readers, pouring over extended runs of the Indianapolis Freeman, Chicago Defender, Pittsburgh Courier, Kansas City Call, Savannah Tribune, Louisiana Weekly, Nashville Globe, and other historical black community weeklies, generating voluminous stacks of photocopies. Systematically reviewing historical newspapers in this manner is a process of immersion. It helps put data and phenomena in a contextual perspective, and fosters objectivity by demolishing preconceptions. Newspaper reviews provided the fundamental substance for what we conceive as a document-driven study. Now that many African American newspapers can be accessed on searchable databases, we have been able to back-check and augment our original microfilm research with digital findings. We came to this study just too late to question actual participants in the black vaudeville phenomenon, who could have cleared up questions unanswered by the newspaper documentation and provided perspectives beyond the journalistic scope.11 On a brighter note, the exhaustive Document Records reissue project has allowed us easy access to a vast archive of commercial recordings from the 1920s vaudeville era. The Original Blues contains hundreds of references to historical sound recordings which are now largely accessible on several music streaming services. We encourage readers to use this resource to illuminate our text.

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CHAPTER ONE

Saloon-Theaters and Park Pavilions: The Birth of Southern Vaudeville, 1899–1909

T

variety of singers, dancers, comedians, vocal quartets, acrobats, contortionists, magicians, ventriloquists, wire walkers, fire eaters, and male and female impersonators to cross the stage in random procession. With an eye on late-breaking trends and fashions, performers regularly updated their acts, and theater managers repopulated their rosters every few weeks. The first commercial adventures in black southern vaudeville were in more than one respect experimental. While testing the waters for economic viability, investors struggled to identify their target audience. Some of the earliest venues were reserved exclusively for white patrons; others catered only to African Americans; and still others were “wide open” to all regardless of race. In time, these provisional platforms made way for southern vaudeville theaters dedicated to providing black variety entertainment exclusively for black audiences. These

he earliest black vaudeville shows in the South were staged in two types of venues: saloon-theaters and park pavilions. Musicians of both races had long provided entertainment at saloons and parks: playing for dances, picnics, holiday celebrations, sporting events, and general background ambience. The popularity of ragtime created a demand for a new kind of grassroots black southern vaudeville entertainment. This emerging field of opportunity attracted northern road-show veterans into southern cultural environs to produce the shows, manage the stages, and direct the bands and orchestras. They quickly formed working alliances with the rising generation of inspired young southern performers. The essence of vaudeville was a heightened atmosphere of variety and change. Performers held the boards for ten to twenty minutes and then quickly made way for the next act, allowing a wide 7

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The Birth of Southern Vaudeville, 1899–1909

theaters became the focal point for the professional adaptation of black folk music and dance. There was an “underground” aspect to this phenomenon, attached as it was to saloon culture. That any sense of its early history survives must be credited to the black weekly Indianapolis Freeman.1 Beginning in 1899 the Freeman published reports from cities scattered throughout the South, where aspiring black vaudeville performers and musicians were employed at saloon-theaters and park pavilions. Some locales left nothing more than one-shot announcements, like this 1902 report from Monroe, Louisiana: “Our town has been greatly enlivened by the opening of a new colored vaudeville show in the rear of the two Brothers saloon under the management of the late ‘Billy’ Nichols of King and Bush’s big colored minstrels.”2 Sporadic reports from Houston and Galveston, Texas, furnish an abbreviated sketch of early saloon-theater activity there. More substantial documentation accrued from saloon-theaters and park pavilions in Jacksonville, Tampa, and Fernandina, Florida; Savannah and Macon, Georgia; Louisville, Kentucky; New Orleans, Louisiana; and Memphis, Tennessee. These reports amount to a keyhole view of the original black southern vaudeville environment and its inhabitants.

Houston and Galveston During the last week of September 1899, Rusco and Holland’s Big Minstrel Festival played a one-night stand in Houston and found an after-hours oasis at the Little Solo saloon-theater: Mr. Wilson is proprietor of the “Solo,” one of the finest equipped saloons and theater annex in the South . . . the show was put on after hours for our special benefit. The company contains some of the

best in the profession. An original first part is set, showing Jas. Campbell in the middle, Buddy Glenn and Emmet Davis on bones and Chas. Williams and Aaron Nelson on tambos . . . Miss Willie Campbell’s “Bred in Ole Kaintuck” was fine. Chas. Williams’ “Bring You Back” was an encore producer. Sallie Cottrell sang “Write a Letter Home” pleasingly; our “Buddie” of course made us all laugh at “Close dem Windows.” Emmit Davis made a decided hit telling us in song of “Silver Slippers.” B. B., a former member of the Patti company [Black Patti Troubadours] closed the first part with, “When a Coon Sits in the Presidential Chair,” and was compelled to take a curtain call. The olio was strong, including Frederica Ward, male impersonator; Davis and Hayes, sketch artists and Chas. Williams, monologue artist. We were then invited to a spacious dance hall and fantastic toe movements were next on hand and a good old time was had by all the gang until early hours.3

It should come as no surprise that conventions of minstrelsy figured prominently in the offering. The earliest southern vaudeville platforms were largely populated by fugitives from itinerant minstrel companies. There was no prior history of black vaudeville to guide them. The rise of aspirational vaudeville shows corresponded with the desperate need for black popular performance venues in southern cities. While there was no sense of permanency in facilities such as the Little Solo Theater, vaudeville remained full of promise, a new avenue of opportunity. Among the performers at the Little Solo, comedian Buddie Glenn—“our ‘Buddie’”—appears to have been a native Texan.4 In Florida in 1905 he was heralded as the “Southern favorite” and “father of Negro comedy.”5 The performer identified as “B. B.” was Charles Wright, familiarly known as “Bee Bee, the ‘Coon’ shouter.”6 Willie Campbell, Fredricka Ward, and Sallie Cottrell were but three of the Little

The Birth of Southern Vaudeville, 1899–1909

Solo’s abundant complement of female performers.7 The theater also maintained an impressive band and orchestra, led respectively by R. J. “Dickie” Anderson and George B. Rhone, both of whom became stalwarts of tented minstrelsy.8 A pool table at the Little Solo harbored several resident hustlers: “Frank Itson, the champion pool player, would like to hear from some of the pool sharks of the east. Shorty George is still stepping into the money.”9 “Ed Ford and George Coleman are the coming pool sharks at the Little Solo theatre.”10 The Little Solo’s “theater annex” survived into the autumn of 1900.11 In October news came that “The employees at the Little Solo Theatre regret the death of the proprietor’s wife.”12 There were no further dispatches from Houston’s Little Solo saloon-theater. The Little Solo’s counterpart in Galveston was the Olympic saloon-theater. In February 1899 the Olympic flashed this news: “The Island City is still on the boom. Sherman Dudley, comedian, late of the team of Dudley & Harris, is with us and is doing his best to bring the Olympic theatre up to its old standard. We have a very good small orchestra of six pieces George Rhone, 1st violin; Ed Walker, 2nd violin; Geo. Davis, trombone; Walter Mitchell, cornet, and Leon Granger, pianist.”13 Sherman H. Dudley eventually moved into the national limelight, starring in 1904–12 editions of the legendary “Smart Set” Company.14 On September 8, 1900, a cataclysmic hurricane ravaged Galveston, leveling the Island City and killing thousands of its citizens. Surprisingly, the Olympic Theater appears to have reopened just six weeks later, and in December it resumed communication with the Freeman: “From the Olympic Theatre, Galveston, Tex.; R. L. Andrews, proprietor; P. C. Clark, manager; Buddie Glenn, stage manager. Johnny Green has closed after two successful weeks. Mr. Almo, the human alligator, and Mack Allen, the slack wire walker, are making hits nightly.

Indianapolis Freeman, December 22, 1900.

Terry C. Rogers, the mixologist, is alright. G. R. [sic] Rhone, the orchestra leader, says he was not lost in the storm.”15 On December 10, 1900, Lew Payton and Hattie Harris, “late of Harrison Bros. minstrels,” opened at the Olympic, and on January 4, 1901, they got married there.16 That week’s stage presentation featured a minstrel first part with six end men: Payton, Buddie Glenn, Sonny Marshall, Charles W. Bebee, George Helm, and E. B. Brown.17 Every evening before the show, Prof. R. J. Anderson’s brass band was “drawing large crowds” in front of the theater.18 Early in 1901, friends of the Olympic Theater sponsored a train excursion to Houston, to attend a performance of Rusco and Holland’s Minstrels.19

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The Birth of Southern Vaudeville, 1899–1909

In August the Olympic announced the opening of a new season of vaudeville, with Buddie Glenn as stage manager.20 However, no further news was relayed from the Olympic saloon-theater.

Jacksonville Reports of saloon-theater activity in Jacksonville started cropping up in the spring of 1899. Over the next few years, a tentative circuit of vaudeville platforms took shape in the region, connecting Jacksonville to Tampa in one direction and to Fernandina, Florida, and Savannah, Georgia, in the other. Jacksonville’s earliest saloon-theaters were located in the LaVilla community, a thriving black business and cultural center, birthplace of James Weldon Johnson and his brother J. Rosamond Johnson, and childhood home of A. Philip Randolph. LaVilla was also known for its saloons and houses of prostitution. One of the first black vaudeville venues in Jacksonville, the Excelsior Concert Hall and Saloon, was located at 125–127 Bridge (now Broad) Street, near the corner of Ward (now Houston), in LaVilla’s notorious old red-light district.21 The Excelsior Concert Hall’s proprietor, Pat Chappelle, was a Jacksonville native.22 Just prior to opening the Excelsior Concert Hall, he was managing August Blum’s saloon, on another corner of the same LaVilla intersection.23 Chappelle leased the 125–127 Bridge Street location, opening for business no later than March 1899. His concert hall reportedly seated 500 people, employed “only professional talent,” and “enjoyed a liberal patronage from both races.”24 In the fall of 1899 Chappelle suddenly abandoned the Excelsior Concert Hall and moved to Tampa. In the wake of his departure, white entrepreneurs Thomas Baxter and James E. Cashin took over the

Bridge Street location and renamed it the Exchange Garden Theater.25 Under their watch, the Exchange Garden remained a beacon of black vaudeville activity in Jacksonville for the next ten years. In the spring of 1900 they were featuring an all-star bill, rich in ragtime coon songs and comedy: Mr. Sam Robinson, one of our comedians is making a big hit nightly in his different specialties and doing his baton manipulations. He is par excellence. Billy Reeves, a natural born comedian is making a big hit singing “The Ghost of a Coon,” and his latest parody, “I am Happy When I’m By My Baby’s Side.” Miss Pauline [Crampton] is singing with great applause, “After All,” and “The Moth and the Flame.” Miss Carrie Hall the Queen of coon song singers, is making good with “Since You’s Got Money,” and “I’m Tired of Dodging dat Installment Man.” Mr. Jersey, our buck dancer never fails to please. Last but not least Mr. Clifford D. Brooks, who has been here some time is still a favorite is singing, with great effect this week, “The Blue and the Gray” and “My Lady Lou.” . . . This is the best colored vaudeville show in the South, as every member is a star in his or her line.26

Back at the Exchange Garden in 1902, Sam Robinson scored as “Ticklish Dan,” the drum major king: “He can imitate all the leading drum majors of the profession.”27 In November 1903 the Exchange Garden’s vaudeville show “concluded with a cake walk in which Dennis Mitchell and Florence Harris carried off the honors.”28 Dennis Mitchell was also a popular singer; in the spring of 1905 he was “making good singing Bob Russell’s latest songs, ‘Ragged, but Right’ and ‘You Got to Cut That Out.’”29 Mitchell’s cake walking partner, Florence “Flozo” Harris was better known as a contortionist, one of several performing on southern vaudeville platforms. In May 1905 Prof. C. E. Hawk, proprietor of Hawk’s Moving Picture Show, took the Exchange

The Birth of Southern Vaudeville, 1899–1909

Garden Theater stage and “made a grand display with his moving pictures.”30 An earlier report described: “Prof. C. E. Hawk of Atlanta, Ga. . . . the only young colored man that travels South with a clean up-to-date scenery of life moving pictures that will please any audience . . . Biblical, historical, sentimental, instructive from beginning to end . . . with a record from Frisco to Cuba.”31 Vocal quartets were a mainstay of turn-of-thecentury black entertainment, and they were very popular at the Exchange Garden Theater, as this November 24, 1900, report attests: “The Wig Wam quartette of Louisville, Ky, late of the Rusco & Holland Big Minstrel Festival opened here on the 12th inst., and is quite a card. The boys are in fine shape now and are compelled to respond to three and four encores. . . . James Smith the leader of the Wig Wam quartette, has made quite a reputation for himself singing ‘Just Because She Made Them Goo Goo Eyes,’ and ‘I Don’t Care if I Never Wake Up.’” The Exchange Garden even had its own “house” quartet: “The Exchange Quartette, one of the best in the business, can be heard rendering fresh harmonies once a week.”32 “This band of singers have been trained by our distinguished professor, J. M. Robinson Jr., and he needs to be praised for his thorough training.”33 Jacksonville city directories of 1902–05 identify Robinson as a “music teacher.”34 He was also a ragtime piano professor: “Prof. J. M. Robinson, Jr. has his audience with him when he plays his original ‘Rags.’ In this particular line he is a phenomenon.”35 “Prof. J. M. Robinson, Jr., director of the Exchange Theatre, has just received a bunch of the latest of Scott Joplin’s rags. He held his audience spellbound when he introduced the latest, ‘A Breeze From Alabama,’ dedicated to P. G. Lowery. All pianists that can interpret a different idea in characteristic piano playing will do well to write and order a few from John Stark & Son, Publisher, St. Louis, Mo.”36

A 1905 Exchange Garden Theater report claimed, “The late orchestra of Prof. J. M. Robinson and J. Haywood with their latest music selections, are bringing down the house nightly.”37 John C. Haywood, the theater’s violinist and assistant stage manager, was a native of Raleigh, North Carolina. He had previously served with the People’s Orchestra of Ohio and directed the “challenge orchestra of twelve pieces” with F. L. Mahara’s Operatic Minstrels.38 The Exchange Garden Theater almost always concluded its vaudeville entertainment with a short musical-dramatic skit. One popular skit for 1900 was Sam Robinson’s “Colored Sporting Life.” That fall they presented “Saw Dust Bill” with “telling effect. In this act Dan Roberts, who is playing the part of Saw Dust Bill, makes a daring leap from the balcony to the stage, which is quite a feat.”39 For about a year the Exchange Garden Theater drew competition from the Little Savoy Theater, which opened its doors on October 3, 1904, at 26 Bridge Street, catering exclusively to black clientele. The Little Savoy was originally operated by Martin J. O’Toole, a white man who also ran a grocery store at 22 Bridge Street.40 Another white man, William E. Gillick, whose background included theatrical experience in New York City, became the Little Savoy’s general manager, and in September 1905 he produced an “original melodrama” with the unlikely title, “Kit Carson, the Female Detective.”41 The Little Savoy was in its glory in the spring of 1905, when a reporter noted: [T]he rush for admittance is so great at times that we are afraid we will have some funeral expenses to pay. We are simply killing them and Mr. O. Tool [sic] the proprietor is burying them. Billie Reeves is making a decided hit with his latest coon song, “I Only Had a Dollar to My Name.” Miss Carrie Hall, the greatest coon song shouter of the age, is taking five and six encores nightly. . . . Pauline Crampton,

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The Birth of Southern Vaudeville, 1899–1909

everybody’s favorite, is also taking four and five encores. Miss Brown, the second Black Patti, is always in for her share of applause. Billy Bradley, New York’s favorite, is still getting his with his monologue and funny sayings. Will Goff Kennedy, our genial manager, has never had a chance to put a fine on any of his performers and is well pleased with his talent on and off the stage. Miss Louise Stevens, of the “Rabbit Foot” company, has signed for six weeks and is doing nicely. . . . Chink Floyd, the Southern comedian, after having a fuss with a friend fell asleep and while he was asleep stopped a brick with his jaw breaking it in three places. Pearl Woods is getting much better after a few weeks illness. She is better known as the talking machine as she can express a thousand words in ten seconds. . . . Little Baby Annie Jone [sic], the child wonder, is much improved after a severe spell of sickness. . . . we had the pleasure of enjoying ourselves immensely at the home of Miss Carrie Hall the southern coon song shouter, recently at a birthday dinner, which was par-excellence. After dinner we repaired to the cozy little parlor and entertained ourselves with song and dance. We all join in thanks to the hostess Miss Carrie Hall who spared no pains in making everything lovely.42

In addition to the Exchange Garden and Little Savoy theaters, there were early vaudeville platforms at three black parks in Jacksonville: Mason’s, Lincoln, and Roosevelt. The opening of Mason’s Colored Park at Jamison Avenue near Durkee for a season of vaudeville was announced in the Freeman of September 26, 1903. The following month news came that Walter Crampton had “taken the management of Mason’s Park” and was “booking people from all parts of the United States. He is a number one hustler and has some clever ideas in store for the future.”43 A November 14, 1903, report informed that, “Miss Carrie Hall, the ‘coon shouter,’ sets them

wild with her coon songs. . . . Prof. W. H. Dorsey is musical director, and that is sufficient.” In July 1905 players at the Little Savoy Theater revealed that they were “moonlighting” on the open-air stage at Roosevelt Park during the hot Florida summer: “[W]e play two performances every Sunday. We draw from 15,000 to 16,000 people. . . . Our comedians, Billy Reeves and Webster Williams are turning them away screaming. Nettie Borden, the little soubrette, is still holding her own. Will Goff Kennedy, our stage manager, says he has a good company and he will try hard to keep them together.”44 Lincoln Park was situated at the head of Highway Avenue, just west of McCoy’s Creek.45 On December 9, 1906, barnstorming southern vaudeville pioneers William H. Henderson and Beulah Washington got married at Lincoln Park, “before a public audience.” They continued touring as the Jolly Hendersons.46 During the summer of 1908 Lincoln Park was touted as “a second Coney Island.” The twenty-piece Enterprise Cornet Band under the direction of solo cornetist George Popirro was a “great drawing card.”47 The star comedians were Richmond (or Richard) “Poor Boy” Cross and Buddie Glenn.48 The female stars included Ada Harris and Virgie Deo. Of the other noteworthy participants, “Prof. Jno. C. Haywood is well and making the violin speak like a human. . . . L. D. Bradford is not well. He has a beautiful eye. It’s a perfect star-spangled banner. He got it through an accident in the play. . . . Still, he is holding up well.”49 At the time of his accident, Bradford was enacting the role of “One Long, Chinaman” in a musical comedy skit called “The Chinese Jungles,” with a chorus of ten singing girls. Sam Robinson played an Irish policeman: “They all like his work in the ‘cop biz.’”50 Jacksonville soon became a stronghold for a more modern brand of southern vaudeville, anchored

The Birth of Southern Vaudeville, 1899–1909

by Frank Crowd’s Globe Theater, 615 West Ashley Street. Originally from Boston, Crowd was an ambitious African American entrepreneur who came to Jacksonville around 1885. In 1908 he established the city’s first reputable black moving picture house, the Bijou. He also ran a “first class barber shop” and “an up-to-date shooting gallery.” Crowd installed a stage at the Bijou and introduced “light vaudeville,” to the extent that the facility and his resources allowed.51 In 1909 a white man, L. D. Joel, opened the better-equipped and better-financed Air Dome Theater directly adjacent to the Bijou, and began booking name vaudeville acts. The Bijou soon folded. Gamely, Frank Crowd recruited wealthy backers and remodeled the old Bijou, reopening on January 19, 1910, as the Globe Theater. In a published statement, he declared his intention to “give [the] race what is sadly needed before the footlights here, ‘native ideals’ and all modern appointments for the patrons’ comfort.”52 Crowd’s Globe Theater represented “one of the biggest remodeling jobs ever attempted in Jacksonville”: The first and second floors . . . were torn out and a balcony arranged in true theater style, with inclined floors, two private boxes seating six persons each, a stage large enough to group the largest traveling minstrel (first part). . . . The third floor over the stage was taken out, forming a tower. The curtains all drop. . . . Tungsten lighting system being used exclusively. . . . Six hundred comfortable theater chairs occupy the orchestra and dress circle space, while four hundred fill the balcony.53

Through the spring and summer of 1910, Joel and Crowd competed head-to-head for patronage. The Globe held its ground, and Joel eventually quit the city and relocated to Atlanta, where he established an important booking chain and theater circuit.

Tampa In Tampa, early black vaudeville activity emanated from William Fowler’s Central Saloon and Concert Hall at 302–304 Central Avenue. The Central was up and running by the summer of 1899, when Fowler announced in the mainstream Tampa Morning Tribune that he was offering the “Greatest Vaudeville Show on Earth.” He also let it be known that his Concert Hall was “WIDE OPEN” to “all law abiding citizens of South Florida.”54 Throughout that summer the Central Concert Hall’s vaudeville offerings were couched in the old three-part format of “Ethiopian minstrelsy,” but with up-to-date ragtime coon songs and vernacular dances finding expression throughout. Among the dances performed were a “Champion Buck Dance,” “Lightning Buck and Wing Dance,” “Georgia Brake Down Dance,” “Ragtime Dance,” and “Jennie Cooler Dance, double turn.”55 The “house” comedian was Arthur “Happy” Howe, who quickly earned a reputation as “a wild terror for all Southern comedians.”56 Over the course of his long run as leading comedian with the Rabbit’s Foot Company (1900–13), and his intermittent stints in southern saloon-theaters, colored parks, and vaudeville houses, Happy Howe set a tone in comedy coon songs that carried directly into the blues age. A string of ads in the Tampa Morning Tribune enumerated his offerings at the Central Concert Hall during the summer of 1899: “Original Laughing Song—One Morning in May”; “Old Age Specialty—Stick Dance”; “Chinese Act, Original, Introducing the Latest Chinese Ballads”; “Lightning Express Excursion, original,” and “his original specialty—Sugar Babe.”57 The fall of 1899 witnessed something of a “boom” in the city of Tampa. The “leading manufacturers of clear Havana cigars in the United States and Cuba” formed “a trust, with Tampa as the base of

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Tampa Morning Tribune, August 15, 1899.

Tampa Morning Tribune, August 29, 1899.

The Birth of Southern Vaudeville, 1899–1909

operations,” and the Morning Tribune of September 17, 1899, editorialized: “There is no longer any reason for doubting the future of Tampa. When it becomes the center of such an enterprise as a cigar trust, it becomes a city ‘built upon the rock.’ . . . You can take your faith and your money to Tampa. It has passed the experimental stage.” Pat Chappelle moved his concert-saloon business from Jacksonville to Tampa on the leading edge of this boom. On September 24, 1899, he and R. S. “Bob” Donaldson, “one of Florida’s most progressive Afro-American capitalists,” opened the Buckingham Theater Saloon, a “new vaudeville showhouse” at 416 Fifth Avenue, corner of Fourteenth Street, in the Fort Brooke community.58 The Freeman of October 14, 1899, described their immediate success in this location: “Tampa is a city which has a number of large cigar factories, their pay roll averages about $50,000 per week, among Cubans, Spaniards and Americans, and [Chappelle] has found business much better than in his former location [in Jacksonville].” Chappelle and Donaldson placed their first ad for the Buckingham Theater Saloon in the Tampa Morning Tribune of October 6, 1899, announcing an “Admission Free to All” policy that indicated their confidence in vaudeville as an inducement to patronage of their saloon. Like the Central Concert Hall, the Buckingham stood “wide open” to Tampa’s ethnically diverse citizenry, but with a caveat: “Special attention will be shown to white visitors.”59 At the head of the Buckingham’s roster of performers was Happy Howe, “the people’s favorite.” Also on board was Billy Cheatham, late of Cheatham Brothers’ Black Diamond Minstrels, which included ragtime pianist Tom Turpin and his protégé Louis Chauvin.60 Newcomers to the Buckingham during the final weeks of 1899 included Kittie Brown, “the renowned coon song and dance artist”; Jessie Thomas, “in her great boy impersonation”; and the

Tampa Morning Tribune, October 6, 1899.

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The Birth of Southern Vaudeville, 1899–1909

comedy team of Ernest Holmes and Clarence Bush, “just arrived from Mobile.”61 In January 1900 Central Concert Hall owner William Fowler announced a special appearance of his players at the Spanish Casino in Ybor City, in “the greatest Minstrel Festival ever produced in Tampa by Vaudeville Artists.” On the day of the show, Fowler sponsored a “Grand Parade at 12 Noon.”62 Not to be outdone, Chappelle and Donaldson advised the public to “Watch out for the Buckingham parade at 2 o’clock. Men dress[ed] in yellow coats, ladies riding in carriages, led by Master Arthur Howe, on horseback, with the Buckingham brass band.” After the parade, “if any one wants to see a first class vaudeville show by trained artists and people with reputations, they will see it at the Buckingham theater. . . . Our orchestra you all have heard, which is wintering here with the Cooper circus. They are Professor Carl Wood, violinist; Professor Parkhurst, cornet; Professor Shamber, flute and drums; Professor A. W. Ross, pianist. And this is no fake. See?”63 In December 1899 Chappelle and Donaldson opened a second vaudeville platform, the Mascotte Theater Saloon, at the corner of Polk and Pierce streets in Tampa “proper.”64 The Mascotte’s original bill included coon song singers and vernacular comedians backed by “a fine Orchestra, from Topeka, Kansas.” Advertising assured: “The best of order is always preserved, and there is no charge for admission. The very best of wines, liquors and cigars are served. Special attention to white patrons. No extra prices for refreshments in the hall.”65 From March through July 1900 the management shuttled players between the Buckingham and the Mascotte. In April A. W. Ross was leading the Mascotte orchestra, and the leader of the Buckingham orchestra was Joe Levy.66 One week later, Levy was at the Mascotte and Ross at the Buckingham.67 At the end of June, “Joe Levey, the famous rag time

Tampa Morning Tribune, December 5, 1899.

The Birth of Southern Vaudeville, 1899–1909

piano player” was back at the Buckingham.68 Meanwhile, it was reported that Levy would “soon publish some of his latest rag-time compositions.”69 During the spring of 1900, Clarence Bush served as stage manager at the Mascotte, where he performed “his original Louisiana buck dance” in a “plantation musical act.”70 Male impersonator Jessie Thomas and coon shouter Kittie Brown were also on the bill. Over at the Buckingham, James Carter was stage manager, and versatile comedian D. Ireland Thomas headed the bill, which included Joseph A. McMurray “in his original musical act.”71 At the Mascotte several weeks later, McMurray performed “My Money Never Gives Out” and “his own composition, The Gambling Coon.”72 Clarence Cissel, “blackface comedian,” and Augusta Mines, “soprano,” also appeared at the Mascotte and Buckingham theaters. Billed as “Colored Magnets,” they were an early model of the increasingly popular black vaudeville husband-and-wife stage team. An article of June 23, 1900, said they had toured “with such shows as the Black Patti Troubadours, and last season were headliners of the ‘Darktown Swells.’ . . . Mr. Cissel is a clever comedian, and has his own peculiar way of working, and his make up is entirely original. Miss Mines is the possessor of a very sweet voice, and can easily reach high C. They are at present filling a twelve weeks engagement at the Buckingham Theatre, Tampa, Fla.” On August 20, 1900, Chappelle and Donaldson premiered their new road show, A Rabbit’s Foot, in Paterson, New Jersey, only to close in Brooklyn, New York, four weeks later, “on account of poor business.”73 It was an inauspicious beginning for what proved to be one of the longest-running tented minstrel shows of the twentieth century.74 Chappelle and Donaldson’s partnership was an apparent casualty of that short-lived opening season. Back in Tampa, Pat and his brother James Chappelle took over the Buckingham Theater. A November 7, 1900, ad for

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Indianapolis Freeman, May 12, 1900. An accompanying paragraph explained: “The picture . . . shows D. Ireland Thomas and Jos. A. McMurray in their new act, entitled ‘Rapid Transit.’ They are at present playing dates in Florida. This being their 10th successful week at Chappelle and Donaldson’s Buckingham Theatre, Tampa, Fla. Mr. Thomas was with Melroy and Chandler’s Minstrels as stage manager last season, he will also be remembered with Mobile Minstrels, Great Southern Minstrels, Nashville Jubilee Singers and many other shows. These gentlemen are the composers of many songs, among their latest success is the beautiful proverbal [sic] ballad, ‘Time and Tide Waits for No One,’ which promises to become quite popular. Mr. McMurray is beyond a doubt one of the best musical comedians on the stage. He is the inventor of quite a number of novelty musical instruments.”

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Clarence Cissel and Augusta Mines, Indianapolis Freeman, December 29, 1900.

their “Grand Opening” promised “excellent performers direct from New York City,” including Florence Hines, “the queen of all ‘male’ impersonators.” Hines was a veteran of Sam T. Jack’s landmark Creole Burlesque Company and a living legend among black performers. The most prominent male impersonator on the incipient vaudeville stages of Florida and southern Georgia was Jessie Thomas. At the Mascotte Theater in July 1900 she sang a “hot combination,” “Baby Want More Milk” and “Happy Coons.”75 Later that fall she and Kittie Brown opened in Jacksonville with an act titled “The Rich and Poor Girls.”76 An April 5, 1902, correspondence from Tampa said, “Happy Jessie Thomas appears in a fetching costume of the latest in London ideas of dress and gives a male impersonation that reminds one of dear Flo Hines in the good old Creole days.” At the Domino Theater in Fernandina later that summer, a correspondent quipped, “Miss Jessie Thomas . . . is raising a mustache.”77

In November 1900 Pat Chappelle took possession of Will Fowler’s Central Concert Hall and reopened it as the Bijou Theater, offering “A big array of colored professional talent” and “special boxes for white patrons.”78 He hired D. Ireland Thomas as manager and installed an orchestra under Prof. C. A. Jones.79 In February 1902 Chappelle advised that he had “closed contracts to furnish attractions to all the Street Railway parks in the South,” and in March he announced the advent of the “Chappelle Bros. Circuit, which includes Tampa, Fla., Jacksonville, Fla., and Savannah, Ga.”80 Veteran minstrel performer Ben Hunn praised the “energy and pluck of Mr. Pat Chappelle” and his circuit initiative: I dare say he . . . is now doing more good for the colored performer than any other manager in the business. He has more people working at the Buckingham than any of the traveling colored companies carry. . . . [E]ver since I have been here everybody

The Birth of Southern Vaudeville, 1899–1909

has been paid every Wednesday at 12 o’clock. . . . Of course the Chappelle Bros. circuit can not pay the salaries that are paid by the [mainstream] Keith, Proctor and Orpheum circuits, but the performers will find the difference in the length of the engagement. . . . This is my first time in the South and I’m sorry I did not find this field before now.81

While attempting to expand his vaudeville holdings, Pat Chappelle continued to make improvements on A Rabbit’s Foot. The Buckingham doubled as a winter headquarters and rehearsal hall for this increasingly important touring company. A minstrel show atmosphere prevailed at the Buckingham during the spring of 1902 when Chappelle announced, “Our uniform brass band gives a street parade every Monday.”82 Meanwhile, R. S. Donaldson took control of the Mascotte Theater, operating it, for a while at least, as a simple saloon. He got some unwelcome press on January 16, 1901, when the Tampa Morning Tribune reported a “stabbing affray” over a crap game at “Bob Donaldson’s saloon.” That fall, when Chappelle left town with the second edition of A Rabbit’s Foot, Donaldson restored vaudeville to the Mascotte, with Fred Sulis at the piano and a roster of performers that included Kittie Brown and Jessie Thomas.83 Early in 1902 Tom Logan served as general manager of the Mascotte.84 Logan staged a skit said to be “head and shoulders above the average road attraction that visits our city. The first act depicts the ‘ups and downs’ of the average ‘Jig-walk’ [i.e., black] performer—his ‘flush times’ when the ‘Ghost’ walks, his ‘medium’ times between pay days, his ‘tough’ times when the manager has ‘ducked with the coin,’ and the ingenious plan they adopt to get back to ‘Good Old New York Town.’ All ends well, however, and the curtain falls on the Buffalo spread at the Douglass Club.”85 Later in 1902 Logan moved

on to Savannah, and vaudeville at the Mascotte was temporarily discontinued. Stage managers and musical directors were the blood and brains of the new southern vaudeville platforms. When Will Goff Kennedy and William H. Dorsey joined forces in 1904, they formed the greatest stage manager–music director team in southern vaudeville to date. Born in Nashville in 1879, Kennedy reportedly set out with a minstrel show at the age of sixteen. He rose to prominence as a baritone singer and then as a producer. Kennedy was managing the Buckingham Theater at the start of 1901 and was still there in the summer of 1902, when the Freeman noted, “W. Goff Kennedy has won considerable reputation as a music teacher.”86 Shortly thereafter, he was appointed stage manager of the third edition of the Rabbit’s Foot Company. Will Dorsey was born in Louisville, Kentucky, in 1878. In 1900 he was living with his mother in Louisville and working as a musician.87 In the spring of 1901 he directed “the Enterprise orchestra of 9 pieces” in conjunction with a stock company that included Will Able and Florence Hines.88 Dorsey left Louisville in the spring of 1902, surfacing in Tampa at Bob Donaldson’s Mascotte Theater in company with comedians Billy (also known as Will) Reeves and Chink Floyd. In May, Donaldson leveled charges against the three new arrivals: The crowning point of baseness and treachery, ingratitude and low cunning was reached last Monday when a lovely trio composed of one W. H. Dorsey, a pianist of Louisville, Ky., and a team of alleged “comedians” known as Reeves and Floyd, served me a trick that ought to go down on the tablets. . . . [T]hese three innocents abroad came to my office, received and signed for their salaries; attended rehearsal. . . . After receiving their money they (Reeves & Floyd) slipped away from town to go to Savannah to accept a date. . . .

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This man Dorsey, whose only grievance lies in the fact that I suggested he pay more attention to his work than to the mulatto lady patrons, entered into an abominable compact with these “Hamfat” actors (?) and without a moment’s warning, left my services. Nothing was known of this affair until nearly show time, when it was discovered that these three worthies had closed.89

Despite his bad beginning, Dorsey became an important creative influence in Florida’s fledgling black vaudeville theaters. He and Will Goff Kennedy may have first paired up at the Red Fox Music Hall in Tampa, which opened May 2, 1904, with a roster that included Carrie Hall, Billy Reeves, and “a chorus of six creole show girls.”90 Kennedy drew particular praise for his operatic duets with Sarah Price and his musical comedy skit, “O’Brien in Coon Town.”91 That fall Dorsey and Kennedy took up at the Little Savoy Theater in Jacksonville, where they stayed for a solid year: “Prof. Dorsey is doing his best on the white ivory and is playing everybody’s rags and a few of his own.”92 “Will Goff Kennedy, our good natured stage manager is trying by the application of intelligence, originality, energy, tact, common sense and the Golden Rule, to make the show a success.”93 In 1906, three years after Pat Chappelle closed the Buckingham Theater, Bob Donaldson reopened it as the Budweiser: “It has been rebuilt with a large stage 20 x 24 and a new gallery.”94 Donaldson brought in many familiar faces: “phenomenal female baritone” Pauline Crampton, “charming burlesque queen” Kittie Brown, Buddie Glenn, and Sarah Price; plus comedy team “Chintz” Moore and John H. Williams, “scoring a hit with ‘On the Rock Pile.’”95 To lead his orchestra and manage his stage, Donaldson tapped Will Dorsey and Will Goff Kennedy. That summer, Dorsey composed a new

march, “Tweed King,” which he dedicated to Kennedy.96 During the fall of 1906, Dorsey directed a twelve-piece orchestra at the Budweiser.97 At the end of the year, Donaldson reached into his deep reservoir of vaudeville performers and musicians to field the Florida Blossom Minstrel Company, packing them off to Georgia with Dorsey and Kennedy in charge of the band and stage.98 After one successful season, he sold the Florida Blossoms to fellow race businessman C. H. Douglass of Macon. Will Goff Kennedy continued in the tent show game, while Will Dorsey went on to join the promising black vaudeville theater scene in Chicago. These developments illustrate the ephemeral nature of the early saloon and park vaudeville platforms. The initial wave of southern vaudeville in Tampa, and elsewhere in Georgia and Florida, was closely associated with the major tented black minstrel organizations. A Rabbit’s Foot, Silas Green from New Orleans, and the Florida Blossom Minstrels were all piloted by entrepreneurs who had previously managed concert-saloons and park pavilions.

Fernandina At the turn of the century, Fernandina was a bustling Florida seaport town, situated about twenty miles north of Jacksonville, on Amelia Island. As described by a local historian: Fernandina was a major seaport and railroad terminus for shipping lumber, phosphate and naval stores throughout this country and all over the world. Foreign as well as American schooners clogged the waterfront, and it usually took 10 days to load the big ships with their cargo. The foreign ships paid off their crews here, knowing the money would be squandered on wine, women and song, so that sailors

The Birth of Southern Vaudeville, 1899–1909

returning home broke would have to sign on for another hitch. Fernandina catered to these seagoing customers with either 17, 20, 22 or 25 saloons at the time—the number depending upon which old-timer you interview. Most of the saloons were connected with a house of prostitution and thrived on the patronage of brawling sailors and waterfront roustabouts.99

North Second Street was the focal point of Fernandina’s storied saloon culture. Freeman reportage preserves the names of three saloon-theaters that staged black vaudeville shows in Fernandina: the Collie, the Domino, and the Gem. The Collie Theater, 123 North Second Street, issued a solitary report in January 1901 that indicated: “John M. Collie, sole owner; Joseph Martin, general manager, while Robert Marshall looks after the stage, head liners as follows: Henry Thomas, Thomas Breze, Miss Jennie Woodard, Amy Paris, Joseph Mitchell, C. B. Roberts, Theodore Johnson, Robert Smiley, Madame Ellis of New York City, pianist. . . . We also have our friend Richard H. Barnett, the little favorite singing comedian.”100 On May 3, 1902, a report from Tampa’s Mascotte Theater informed: “The Crosby’s, Oma and Harry; Jess Thomas, Paul Simmons, Payton and Harris and Fred Sulis left last week to open John Smith’s new theatre, Fernandina, Fla.”101 Two weeks later, the Freeman carried its initial report from Fernandina’s Domino Theater: One of the finest little vaudeville theatres in the south has just opened to a large business in Fernandino [sic], Fla. under the management of John Smith. It is . . . situated near the harbor and the audiences are all ofays, principally foreigners. The roster consists of Lew Peyton of the well known team of Peyton & Harris, stage manager; Harry Crosby of the team of the Crosbys is at present presiding at the

piano. . . . They are using the whole company in the first part. . . . Miss Oma Crosby holds the audience spellbound with her sweet rendition of “Mazy My Dusky Daisy.” The ghost walks promptly at Monday morning.102

At this point in its history, Fernandina had a majority black population. The performers at the Domino Theater were all African American, yet the Domino’s audience was “all ofays.”103 Before Florida gained statehood in 1845, Fernandina was a center of the African slave trade. Local slave traders became very wealthy, and a large African population existed on Amelia Island. “During the war the island became a sanctuary for blacks, finding safety there with the protection of Union troops. . . . Much of the white population had evacuated within the first year of the war, and so the population tilted heavily on the side of the black.”104 Confederate sentiment continued strong among whites in this region, long after the end of the war.105 The Domino Theater may have taken over the 123–125 North Second Street location previously tenanted by the Collie. On June 14, 1902, a Domino Theater reporter noted: The show opened this week with a minstrel first-part, closing with the finale, Uncle Tom’s Cabin for five minutes. Messrs. Lew Peyton and John W. Dennis, working extreme ends in the first part went in a roar from start to finish. Lew Peyton opened the olio with a popular coon song. Together with Miss Harris they keep them screaming with their big act. Johnson and Bluford have won admiration with a clever sketch, introducing Mr. Johnson’s acrobatic work and Miss Bluford’s coon shouting. Miss Oma Crosby is rendering descriptive songs this week and the audience shows its appreciation of her sweet voice and refined rendition of James T. Brymn’s “My Clo,” by repeated applause. The charming soubrette, Miss

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The Birth of Southern Vaudeville, 1899–1909 This portion of a 1903 Sanborn Insurance Map shows the saloon-theater location at 123–125 North Second Street, between Broome and Alachua streets, in Fernandina (Courtesy Marston Library, University of Florida, Gainesville).

Ida Larkins is the life of the company with clever dancing and elegant rendition of “Josephine My Joe.” Miss Jessie Thomas, the clever male impersonator is keeping them screaming with “Every Darkey Had a Raglan On.” Miss Thomas is undoubtedly one of the most clever colored male impersonators on the stage. The clever comedian John W. Dennis gets his singing “The Phrenologist Coon.” The show closes with a farce, “Miss Hannah From Savannah,” by the whole company. . . . Harry Crosby is still presiding at the piano and has won great praise for his excellent rendition of classic overtures.

The song “Hannah from Savannah,” which apparently served as the basis for the farce comedy skit staged by the Domino players, was first popularized by Aida Overton Walker in 1900, in Williams and Walker’s The Sons of Ham. In the spring of 1903, “Miss Hannah from Savannah” was again presented as a musical skit, “staged by Miss Vida DeVine, leaving them screaming. Which is a credit to our Domino Stock Co.”106 A skit by the same name “went big” at the Exchange Garden Theater in Jacksonville that fall.107 As late as the summer of 1908, at Ocmulgee Park in Macon, Georgia, veteran

The Birth of Southern Vaudeville, 1899–1909

Indianapolis Freeman, November 28, 1903.

comedy producer Carrie Hall presented “an up-todate version of ‘Hannah from Savannah,’ ably supported by our [stock] company.”108 Female minstrel “first parts” were popular on the early black vaudeville stage. The Domino presented “a lady first part” in November 1902, featuring Jessie Thomas as the interlocutor and Carrie Hall and Lillian Wheeler as the extreme ends: “Their humor was extremely entertaining. . . . During the performance, Messrs. W. H. Dorsey and S. B. Foster rendered the following numbers: ‘Wm. Tell’ overture; selections from ‘Il Trovatore,’ ‘Poet & Peasant.’”109 The Domino Theater reporter bragged that Dorsey’s orchestra was playing “the best music in the South. They render classic and popular overtures, characteristic, descriptive and rag-time selections, therefore being able to please everybody. They seem as much at home with the Wm. Tell overture as with ‘Sue’ Fred Stone’s latest rag.”110 Albert Carroll of New Orleans replaced Dorsey as music director at the Domino in May 1903.111 Over the next few weeks Carroll proved to be an “efficient pianist” and a “splendid acquisition.” Also at the Domino was “Miss Minnie Carroll . . . making

a hit with her male impersonations.”112 By May 1904 Albert Carroll had returned to hometown New Orleans to appear at that city’s Lincoln Park Auditorium.113 A few months later he was on the road again, with the Whitman Sisters New Orleans Troubadours.114 By the autumn of 1903, Fred Sulis had become musical director at the Domino Theater. Frederick Douglass Sulis was born “of musical parents” in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada.115 He received brief music training in New Bedford, Massachusetts, and in Boston, and then began traveling with concert companies in the East and Southeast, which brought him to Florida. In January 1899 Sulis was featured among the performers with Pat Chappelle’s Imperial Colored Minstrels, an itinerant show that preceded the famous Rabbit’s Foot Company.116 Sulis worked at the Mascotte Theater in Tampa from the fall of 1901 until April 1902, and then went directly to the Domino Theater in Fernandina. As musical director at the Domino, Sulis was at the piano when Carrie Hall, Pauline Crampton, Kittie Brown, and Bessie Gillam joined forces to sing

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“Hoodoodle Man.”117 Sulis remained at the Domino until December 1903, when the saloon-theater reported: “J. W. Smith, manager, closes December 19th, the house being sold to Mr. Martecia, a wealthy colored business man of Fernandina.”118 There was no further correspondence from the Domino Theater for a long while. Sulis dropped out of sight for a time, resurfacing in Cuba. The Freeman of August 4, 1906, made it known: The Indiana Vaudeville Theatre of Havana, Cuba is undergoing extensive alterations for the coming fall and winter season. The management will be ready to book first-class artists after September 1, in every capacity. Miss Tenia Mizell, recently of Key West, who is scoring nightly singing, “I’m Jealous of You” and “I’ll Be Back In a Minute But I Got to Go Now” and Fred Douglass Sulis, the efficient pianist are among the present attractions.119

Later that fall word came from Havana that, “F. D. Sulis is now at the Chicago Café, as are Miss G. Gilhams and Miss Anita Borden. They are much pleased with Cuba. . . . Kid Lawrence is ‘killing it’ with his new buck and wing dancing.”120 Another letter from the Indiana Vaudeville Company informed: The company entertains every night the best classes of all the nationalities and enjoys the distinction of playing some of the brightest, catchiest and legitimate acts and sketches ever played on any stage in Havana. Miss Tenia Gilliam and Miss Anita Borden are now featuring with great success “Our Heroes and Our Flag,” published by Messrs. Selig & Hirsekorn, of Brooklyn, N.Y. It goes big, especially with our American soldiers and audiences. . . . Miss Borden is also singing with big success, “Everybody Have a Good Old Time,” and “It’s Up to You to Move.” Miss

Gilliam is also working good, singing, “I’ll Be Back in a Minute, but I Got To Go Now,” and “I’d Like to Take You Home with Me.” . . . [Tenia Gilliam] says “Tom Logan, why don’t you drop a line or two? Myself and Sulis aren’t dead yet.” Sulis says, “Howdy” . . . Everybody is in good cheer, as business is somewhat improving, and we all look forward for a big season’s business, probably the best Havana has ever experienced. . . . [T]he Ghost certainly walks every week. We are expecting to have new faces shortly, but some of our old members will be returned.121

Sulis apparently did not return to the States for some time. On November 6, 1909, the Freeman relayed word from Cuba that “Prof. F. D. Sulis continues to entertain at Café Indiana. His favorite rag is ‘Oh You Kid,’ and say it is the best yet.” According to another 1909 report, “A great number of colored vaudevillians” had “found favor with Cuban audiences during the past two seasons,” including Florida saloon-theater veteran Pearl Woods; trading as “the Cuban Queen,” she was said to have “her own private carriage and two maids.”122 Another Fernandina vaudeville house, the Gem Theater, started sending reports to the Freeman early in 1903. Reports from the Gem continued into the spring of 1905. Richmond “Poor Boy” Cross was the original stage manager, and the lively show included “a very laughable act, ‘Aunt Dinah’s Picnic,’ which kept the audience in a roar of laughter from start to finish. Richmond Cross as Aunt Dinah cannot be excelled. Dick Simmons as the Bad Coon is phenomenal. Bob Batis plays ‘Ginger’ and keeps them laughing.”123 The Gem Theater Company fielded a baseball team known as the Fernandina Gems. A Freeman report described a game in which the Gems defeated a St. Augustine baseball club associated with the St. Augustine Concert Band, in town to give a concert at Amelia Beach. In the summer of

The Birth of Southern Vaudeville, 1899–1909

1903, while umpiring a game between the Fernandina Gems and the Palatka Baseball Club, vaudevillian Bob Russell “was struck by a foul ball and had the misfortune to have his right eye knocked out. He was well cared for by Dr. Richardson, who is doing all that he can to relieve him of his terrible agony. Miss Price, his partner, is heartbroken over the misfortune and has the sympathy of the Domino Company also the community at large. We trust he may enjoy a speedy recovery, as Bobbie [is] well liked by everyone that had dealings with him.”124 Russell went on to enjoy a long and illustrious career in black show business. He headed an eighteen-member vaudeville company during the 1920s T.O.B.A. era.125

Savannah Approximately one hundred miles up the coast from Fernandina, in Savannah, Georgia, black vaudevillians forged an early stage at Lincoln Park, a park for blacks only, located outside of the city limits, on the streetcar line.126 The park property was owned by the Savannah Electric Company, which ran the streetcars. On April 19, 1902, the black weekly Savannah Tribune announced the appointment of Tom Golden, an African American who owned a saloon and restaurant at 625 Bay Street, as manager of Lincoln Park. According to the Tribune, “All who know Mr. Golden is aware of the fact that he will maintain best order at the park.”127 The following week the Tribune said, “Mr. Thomas Golden has already gone to work to place Lincoln Park in first class condition. The grounds are neatly cleaned up, the fence white washed, the platform beautified and everything look attractive [sic]. The saloon is well stocked and everything that a person wants can be had.”128 The fact that liquor was available for purchase at Lincoln Park caused

some local people concern. Advertising always assured that “the best of order will be maintained.” In May 1902 the Freeman announced that Tom Golden had opened “the Workingmen’s Palace and Lincoln Park . . . with vaudeville attractions.”129 A vaudeville stage was in operation all through the summer and early autumn of 1902. William West was the original stage manager, and Prof. Ike Johnson was music director.130 In November the Freeman reported: “Tom Golden’s Minstrel and vaudeville company, under the management of Kirk Bane, have closed a successful season . . . having showed to over 200,000 people. . . . They will re-open on Easter Sunday.”131 The Savannah Tribune, whose editorials encouraged black commercial enterprise, initially expressed admiration for the business skills of saloon owner “Capt.” Tom Golden, and endorsed his management of Lincoln Park.132 Other Tribune editorials deplored the Jim Crow accommodations imposed at the mainstream Savannah Theater. The Tribune even refused to accept paid advertisements from the Savannah Theater, “unless the theatre managers would guarantee our people accommodation other than that of the peanut gallery.”133 Lincoln Park reopened in April 1903, with William Dorsey as musical director of the vaudeville stage. After weeks of hard labor and expenditure of many dollars . . . the gates of Lincoln Park were open to the public Easter Sunday . . . it looked as if the entire colored population was there. The afternoon performance was much enjoyed by the audience. . . . Billie Reeves and Shink [sic] Floyd, the favorite Southern comedians, had them roaring. Misses Kittie Brown and Tenia Gilliam came in for their share of the applause as did Messrs. William West, John Turner, Seamon Brown and James Austin. The performance was full of snap and ginger and reflects much credit

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on Mr. Reeves, the stage manager. The whole is under the management of Mr. Kirk Bane. Much credit is due him also for the masterly manner in which he handled the immense crowd. This is the only park in the city which colored people can attend. Mr. Tom Golden the proprietor, is much pleased.134

A highlight of the 1903 vaudeville season was the dramatic sketch “entitled ‘Peter Gray,’ revised by Billy Reeves. . . . Mrs. Gray, the part played by Miss Kittie Brown, was portrayed in an excellent and able manner. The four old friends of Peter Gray, Brothers Moonshine, Sunshine, Gibie Dam and Skibie, were played by Messrs. Reeves, Floyd, Brown and West.”135 Lincoln Park reopened for the 1904 season on Easter Sunday, April 3. The Freeman’s Savannah reporter disclosed: Our show is improving in every way; we play to S. R. O. houses every Sunday and Wednesdays. People enjoy the show sitting out side of the big pavilion. Mr. Golden has put three new attractions on the out side for his guests. . . . Brown and Brown starred the show. Jimmy Alton has arranged his new quartet singing, “Summer time in Dixieland.” Wm. West held the stage 40 minutes Sunday singing “Let the scabs go home,” taking six encores. I had to make an excuse for him to get off the stage.136

The Savannah Tribune of September 1, 1906, notified that the Savannah City Council was debating a new ordinance that would segregate seating on the city’s streetcars. Despite protests, the Jim Crow ordinance was passed into law. On September 15 the Tribune called for a boycott: “Let us walk! Walk! And save our nickels.” Savannah’s black citizens heeded the call: “This is the tenth day since the Savannah Electric Company has enforced the ‘Jim Crow’ law on its cars . . . ‘Lily White’ street cars are

among the popular sights these days, caused by the proud colored citizens who are determined not to be ‘Jim Crowed.’” Not only was Lincoln Park owned by the streetcar company; there was no convenient way to get to it other than by streetcar. Despite its shortcomings, the park was a much-needed refuge in a city that severely limited the personal liberties and leisure opportunities of its African American populace. Its amusement grounds had been a popular site for picnics, outings, and dances scheduled by social clubs, lodges, and labor unions, but the Tribune announced no such events at Lincoln Park for the remainder of 1906. Early in the spring of the following year, the Tribune published a lengthy editorial headed, “Under the Present Jim Crow Law, ‘Cut Out’ Lincoln Park”: “If this place is patronized, we would in a way sanction the present enforcement of the jim crow law and prove to the opposite race that we are void of the least pride, and we will be giving the street car company more power to further enforce this unnecessary law.”137 Lincoln Park vaudeville apparently survived the civil rights boycott. In 1919 the Tribune announced, “Lincoln Park will open this season under new management. . . . The park is being renovated throughout and will have a number of added attractions. The new management will maintain the best of order. A full orchestra has been organized for the entertainment of the patrons of the park, and vaudeville service will be put into effect.”138 Vaudeville shows at saloon-theaters in Savannah were inaugurated by Mrs. Josephine E. Stiles, “a colored lady with much business tact.”139 Stiles was born in 1871. By 1900 she was a divorcée, living with her one surviving child.140 According to the 1902 Savannah city directory, Stiles operated a restaurant and bar at 601 Bay Street. In June of that year the Freeman called attention to “Mrs. Josephine Stiles’ theatre” at that same Bay Street address, “doing a great

The Birth of Southern Vaudeville, 1899–1909

business under the management of Ben Hunn.”141 On the Fourth of July 1902, 800 people came out to witness the grand opening of “Stiles’ New Palace Theatre” at 10-12-14-16 West Broad Street, under the management of Lew Payton.142 Subsequent ads and news reports referred to this venue as the Grand Palace Theater. In 1902 Tom Logan came to Savannah to manage the Grand Palace Theater stage. Performer Billy Bradley wrote: The show is running nicely and is drawing crowded houses nightly. The Scotts are doing a red hot boxing act. Kid Alston, the favorite comedian is working with Carrie Smith and they are making a big hit with their “Dusky Maidens” duet. Grace Hoyt, the coon shouter has got the boys still with her. Tom Logan in his Chinese act assisted by Eva Leach and Maud Scott hold the audience spell bound. Ruth Spain comes in for her share of the applause. The whole company, including our manager and Mrs. Stiles, visited P. G. Lowery’s famous company and were in turn visited by Mr. Lowery. . . . Pat Chappelle and his “A Rabbit’s Foot” company were with us two days.143

“Departing from custom,” the Grand Palace Theater company proposed to present Bradbury’s Cantata of Queen Esther for their Christmas bill, “and anticipate larger crowds of the better element than have heretofore favored us.”144 In the meantime, the vaudeville program featured an array of coon shouters, ballad singers, and comedians, along with bone soloist Mossa Mann and “head balancer” Henry Black “in a real novelty act.”145 On May 23, 1903, the Freeman advertised: “For Sale—Grand Palace Theatre, 10, 12, 14 and 16 West Broad St., Savannah, Ga. Owing to the proprietress’ ill health, Miss J. E. Stiles will sell her beautiful theatre of 14 beautiful boxes, bar and café—building one block long. She has consented to go North for

Indianapolis Freeman, December 22, 1900.

medical treatment. She regrets very much to dispose of her beautiful and prosperous business but desires for some colored person to have it.” Josephine Stiles was heard from again when she opened the Pekin Theater in Savannah on Thanksgiving Day 1909.146 The opening bill was headed by the legendary Billy Kersands. A Tribune editorial published on January 1, 1910, allowed that “The Pekin was a success from its opening, and is

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Savannah Tribune, October 22, 1910.

giving those of our people who refuse to accept the accommodation of the peanut gallery, an opportunity of enjoying many of the best talent of the race.”147 Stiles’s Pekin Theater survived for two more decades.148

Macon About 165 miles inland from Savannah lies the town of Macon, Georgia. Ocmulgee Park, located fifteen minutes north of downtown Macon by streetcar, was originally accessible to all races.149 When a new

Two early views of the Ocmulgee Park Pavilion (Courtesy Middle Georgia Regional Library).

pavilion opened there on May 8, 1894, the inaugural event was a dance and festival of the Young Ladies’ Hebrew Aid Society.150 However, when C. H. Douglass leased the Ocmulgee Park Pavilion in 1905 for the purpose of presenting vaudeville entertainment, it was “devoted to the exclusive amusement of colored patrons.”151

The Birth of Southern Vaudeville, 1899–1909

Charles H. Douglass (Courtesy C. H. Douglass Business Records Collection, Middle Georgia Regional Library).

Charles Henry Douglass, born February 17, 1870, in Unionville, Bibb County, Georgia, was an African American entrepreneur whose legacy is still intact in the city of Macon.152 In a speech he gave in 1915 at the annual convention of the Negro Business League, Douglass recalled, “My first advent into the theatrical business was in 1904, when I leased and operated Ocmulgee Park Theatre. I did well at that and operated it two years, and then I sold my lease.”153 Freeman reportage indicates Douglass actually operated the vaudeville pavilion at Ocmulgee Park in 1905 and 1906.154 Like other southern vaudeville venues, the program at Ocmulgee Park tested the limits of variety entertainment. In 1905 the park played host to the “aerial acrobatic feats” of C. Johnson, the coon shouting of female impersonator Adam LaRose, the high-class vocal solos of Madame Price, the southern comedy of Sank Sims and Jimmy Dick (a.k.a. Fred Newsome), and the confrontational humor of

Indianapolis Freeman, May 7, 1904.

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husband-and-wife teams McNeil and McNeil, Porter and Porter, and others. One Sunday evening in June 1905, stage manager Edward C. Price (of the Boston, Massachusetts–based Two Jolly Prices) presented a “sacred concert consisting of moving pictures and illustrated songs that please them all.”155 The park reopened on Easter Sunday, April 15, 1906, featuring William Benbow’s Fun Factory Company with coon shouter Alberta Benbow. Montgomery, Alabama, native Will Benbow rode the breaking edge of the black vaudeville movement straight into the T.O.B.A. era. Pianist James Osborne served as Benbow’s musical director at Ocmulgee Park. In June the roster of performers included southern coon song specialist Carrie Hall, dancing comedian Sank Sims, and singing comedian John H. Williams. Later in the summer “dainty soubrette” Theresa Burroughs joined, singing “Sadie My Dusky Lady.” Comedian–stage manager Paul Carter performed “I’ll Be Back in a Minute But I Got to Go Now” and “I Don’t Know Where I’m Going But I Am on My Way.”156 Ocmulgee Park submitted no correspondence to the Freeman in 1907, but significant documentation accrued during the season of 1908, which began on Easter Sunday under the management of Charles Collier, who purchased the lease to the pavilion from C. H. Douglass.157 Collier was an African American native of Macon who had previously operated a successful grocery business.158 He assembled a formidable vaudeville show at Ocmulgee Park, under the management of Will Goff Kennedy: Theresa Burroughs “The Doll,” singing and dancing soubrette is a recent and valuable acquisition to our players. Amos Gilliard, trombone soloist, certainly made a decided hit this week with his solo, and is a valued member of our band, and orchestra. Chink Floyd, one of Macon’s favorite comedians, is once more back. His breakneck song and dance

is a scream, and the people never seem to tire of his comedy gyrations. . . . Carrie Hall is still in line, handing out fresh ones and getting a lion’s share of the applause. . . . The orchestra, under Piccolo Jones, far surpasses the regular road show orchestra. . . . The band of fourteen, under E. B. Dudley, is hard to beat. Charles Collier is certainly to be congratulated on securing such high-class entertainers.159

Collier was still in charge of Ocmulgee Park’s vaudeville pavilion on April 25, 1910, when those harbingers of the approaching blues age, William and Gertrude Rainey invaded Macon with their Georgia Sunbeams Company. The Raineys were just one hundred miles away from their Columbus, Georgia, home. Two weeks into their Macon engagement, they were “still drawing crowded houses at Ocmulgee Park”: Everything is fine and dandy . . . the company is setting them wild with our opening, “In the Hills of Arizona,” followed with our comedy men, Happy Howe and Chink Floyd. . . . Mrs. Gertrude Rainey follows with her new song, “That Fascinating Ragtime Glide.” She is holding her own as a sweet singer. The “Temptation Rag” is taking three to four encores nightly. Percy Williams, “The baby-face comedian,” is making good singing “Come After Breakfast, Bring Along Your Lunch and Leave Before Supper Time,” taking the house by storm. Rainey and Rainey that clever comedy team, are pleasing them all singing their own composition, “Baby, I have Brought You That Hambone Dat I found Last Year.” Finally the bill closes with a one-act comedy that pleases. . . . Our band is getting into great shape.160

The Raineys were not yet known as “Ma” and “Pa.” Having spent several seasons in itinerant minstrelsy, they were testing the waters of the new black southern vaudeville environment.

The Birth of Southern Vaudeville, 1899–1909

Ocmulgee Park featured vaudeville performances every night and every Sunday afternoon through the summer of 1910.161 The pit band consisted of Locke Lee, pianist and leader; Earl A. Greathouse, violinist; and Eddie Stamps, trap drummer. Among the star attractions, “coon shouter Miss Evaline [sic, Evelyn] White, who is the best in the business, brings the house down when she sings ‘Those Shaky Eyes.’”162 Southern comedian “Hambone” Jones was also on the bill at Ocmulgee Park that summer. In August, Happy Howe served as stage manager and shared the comedy roles with Fred Newsome (Jimmy Dick). The Ocmulgee Park stock company produced “A Filipino Misfit,” “introducing a musical mélange of wit and music. Miss Mamie Payne is doing the leading soubrette role and is making a decided hit with her superb acting and dancing. . . . Jimmie Dick is making good as the Governor and singing his new song entitled ‘Alabama Bound.’”163 When Ocmulgee Park closed for the season on September 26, 1910, the entire company, still under Charles Collier’s management, moved to Central City Park in Macon and conducted a tent show at the Colored Fair: “The opening day was quite a success, there being nearly 3,000 people on the grounds. . . . Miss Carrie Hall joined the company and made quite an addition to our show. . . . We close here and go to the Florida Colored State Fair at Jacksonville, Fla., on the 21st.”164 In April 1911, prior to the season’s opening, Douglass and Worthy’s Florida Blossoms Company used the Ocmulgee Park pavilion for rehearsals, fine-tuning their show under the scrutiny of stage manager Lonnie Fisher. When the park’s vaudeville season started, Collier turned the stage over to the highly capable Russell-Owens Stock Company, which consisted of eighteen accomplished vaudeville performers, including Bob Russell, Billy Owens, Marion Brooks, Sam Gray, Pauline Crampton, Willie

and Cora Glenn, Blanche Thompson, Theresa Burroughs, Speedy Smith, Jack “Ginger” Wiggins, and Tommy Parker. The company promised to present a different show each week, “up to and after Labor Day,” prompting a Freeman correspondent to observe: “Things will be lively in dear old Macon this summer.”165 Macon’s storied vaudeville theater history converges around the landmark Douglass Theater, established in 1911 or 1912 by C. H. Douglass; an anchor of the T.O.B.A. circuit during the 1920s, it remained in operation until 1973. Coon songs were the coin of the realm on Florida and Georgia’s turn-of-the-century black vaudeville stages, the dues required for progress in this rapidly expanding professional entertainment marketplace. Virtually no one escaped this exaction. The demand extended to performers whose stage specialties were decidedly in other lines. Celebrated contortionist Pearl Woods was said to have “developed into a coon song shouter and is taking three encores nightly singing ‘Furniture Man’ and ‘Bill Bailey Won’t You Please Come Home.’”166 Laura Logan, dubbed the “Creole Nightingale,” was typically characterized as an “operatic soprano,” but at Ocmulgee Park in June 1905, the theater reporter called her a “coon shouter and sweet soprano soubrette.”167 Male impersonator Jessie Thomas sang up-to-date coon songs in her male attire.168 Stage manager and tenor soloist Clifford D. Brooks was noted for his renditions of ballads such as “The Blue and the Gray.” However, an August 18, 1900, report from the Exchange Garden Theater revealed, “Cliff Brooks, our ballad songster, has grown somewhat ‘coonish’ and is ‘killing it’ with the coon song, ‘I Won’t Be Mean No More.’”169 Carrie Hall was the most famous of all coon shouters in the Florida-Georgia vaudeville matrix. The Exchange Garden Theater’s Freeman correspondent called her “the Queen of coon song

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singers,” and a letter from the Grand Palace Theater in Savannah judged her “second to none as a coon shouter.”170 Hall apparently exercised a special power over southern audiences: “Miss Carrie Hall, ‘the only one,’ is the same big hit, no matter when she appears. Others may come, others may go, but Carrie makes good forever.”171 Kittie Brown was another early southern vaudevillian who specialized in coon shouting. Before coming to vaudeville she had toured with Sam T. Jack’s Creole Company, the Black Patti Troubadours, and other big African American road shows.172 Between 1900 and 1906, on platforms from Tampa to Savannah, Brown “set the audience wild with her coon songs,” including “The Gambling Man,” “I Wants a Man Like Romeo,” “Wedding of a Chinee and a Coon,” and “In the Jungles I’m a Queen.”173 Comedian Billy Reeves, dubbed “the Southern favorite,” was a fixture in Florida and Georgia vaudeville.174 It was said that he “never fails to leave them with their mouths and eyes wide open.”175 Reeves maintained a large repertoire of coon songs. Various reports mention his parody titled “I Am Happy When I’m By My Baby’s Side,” as well as “The Ghost of a Coon,” “Every Race Has a Flag But the Coon,” and “The Congregation Will Please Keep Their Seats Kase Dis Bird Am Mine.”176 Pioneer southern comedian Chink Floyd also appeared on many vaudeville platforms during the early years. In 1901 at the Exchange Garden Theater in Jacksonville, he was “compelled to respond to two and three encores, singing ‘Every Coon Took a Window But Me.’”177 In 1905 Floyd was “cleaning up nightly singing his favorite, ‘All ’Round the Mountain, Darling Betsy’”—an early variant of “(Comin’ ’Round the Mountain) Charming Betsy,” which was recorded extensively by country musicians, and is closely associated with Grand Ole Opry legend Roy Acuff.178 The song is related to the African American spiritual hymn “Do Lord, Remember

Me,” and seems to have originated as a parody of that hymn. Chink Floyd’s “Darling Betsy” points to the transitional role of turn-of-the-century vaudeville platforms in the evolution of black popular music. The interbreeding of autochthonous and adapted matter was a fundamental aspect of early blues song construction and development. But there is no indication that any blues songs were performed on the saloon-theater or park pavilion stages of Georgia and Florida from 1899 to 1909. These platforms differed in many ways from the black vaudeville theaters they indirectly spawned. It was during the decade that followed, in theaters resolutely dedicated to providing a new style of black entertainment for black audiences, that coon shouters transformed themselves into blues singers.

Louisville Louisville, Kentucky, was an early incubator of black stage arts. A rich, continuous history of professional entertainers extends back to free black musician Henry Williams, who ran a dancing school and quadrille band in Louisville around 1834.179 Some of the performers and musicians who appeared on Louisville’s early vaudeville platforms had ties to the city’s distinguished nineteenth-century legacy of string and brass bands.180 At the turn of the century, every southern city had its own peculiar racial protocols, reflecting its history, politics, and traditions. In Louisville it was a time-honored practice for African American performers, bands, and orchestras to entertain at area springs, spas, and parks for white audiences. John H. Whallen was a dominant figure in Louisville’s entertainment world. Whallen owned the mainstream Buckingham Theater, and also headed the local Democratic Party machine. Historian

The Birth of Southern Vaudeville, 1899–1909

New York Clipper, March 5, 1892.

Pen Bogert has described him as “sort of a cross between P. T. Barnum and Boss Tweed.”181 A biographical sketch of Whallen on the front page of an 1892 edition of the New York Clipper confided that the “Buckingham Theatre—one of the largest, best and most complete of its kind . . . was not put where it is without many ups and downs and strange experiences. Running a show is not running with saints.”182 In 1892 Whallen and business partner Harry Martell organized the South Before the War Company, one of the most influential black “vaudevillized minstrel shows” of the 1890s.183 Before the close of the century, Whallen and his neighbor Lum Simons became partners in an amusement grounds on Simons’s property, known as Riverview Park. It was located at the end of Greenwood Road, “on the crest of a beautiful knoll overlooking the Ohio River.”184 The same site was later known as White

Louisville Courier-Journal, August 1, 1909. Advertised as “Colored Jubilee Singers,” Joe Clark Jr.’s performers were juxtaposed with a bill of white vaudevillians that included ragtime piano pioneer Ben Harney.

City, and still later as Riverside Park. Lum Simons’s Riverview Park was open to white people only, but many of Louisville’s African American performers and musicians entertained there. The well-known Clark family of black Louisville entertainers had a long relationship with Riverview Park. A 1904 Freeman note said, “Joe Clark, Jr. will have charge of Lum Simons’ Park this season.”185 A nearly identical report appeared ten years later: “Mr. Joe Clark will soon take charge of Mr. Lum Simons’ Amusement Park.”186 Joe Clark’s father Joseph Clark Sr., brother James Clark, sister Mollie Clark Robinson, uncle Eugene Clark, and cousin Robert Clark constituted Louisville’s first family of African American minstrelsy.187 Edith Wilson, a 1920s blues recording star who grew up in Louisville, recalled that in 1910, when she was thirteen years old, the Clark brothers introduced her to the professional stage:

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Jimmy Clark, and his brother, Joe Clark, put on shows and Jimmy played piano. Well, they had people come over to their house and rehearse, and I used to go play with his sister, and I’d hear these people rehearsing. . . . And I used to go in after they left and imitate them, you know, singing songs and stuff. And that’s how I got started in the business, really, because Jimmy said to me, “You sound good, come in and let me get you a key.” And I went in and he got me the key to songs, so after that, why, he used to come and ask me to sing. Then they were going to put on a show down at White City [a.k.a. Riverview] Park, and Joe was going to put the show on, so he asked me, “Will your mother let you work? If so, we’ll take you down to work in the show with us.” . . . So we got down there; they wouldn’t let us in because [my mother] didn’t have a pass. So they sent for the manager, and the manager came and brought her a pass and took her in and told her, “Come on in and look see.”188

The summer of 1900 brought news of black vaudeville activity at Kenwood and Jacob parks. Kenwood Park, at the end of the Third Street streetcar line, was featuring “The Bunch of Blackberries,” headed by Joe Anderson’s Klondyke String Band.189 The band consisted of Tom Lane and Dan Dickerson on first and second violin, with unknown others, probably including Joe Anderson: “Tom Lane and his violin solos are pleasing the audience immensely. Dan Dickerson is taking them off their feet singing ‘I Ain’t Got No Friends or Family Now.’”190 Additionally, Jim Watts “the rag-time singer” sang “I Am Certainly Living a Rag-Time Life.”191 Jacob Park, a segregated white park on Fourth Street, south of the city, presented black vaudeville bills headed by George W. Temple and Webster Williams, “the Two Smoky Mokes,” whose repertoire included two Irving Jones titles: “I Am Lending

Money to the Government Now” and “All Birds Look Like Chickens to Me.” Other performers at Jacob Park during the summer of 1900 included tambourine juggler James Anderson, comedian and buck dancer Perry Black, “rag-time singer” Dave English, and designated “coon song singer” Will Able.192 “Coon song singer” was hardly an adequate description of Louisville’s up-and-coming baritone balladeer Will Able. In 1902 he made a tour with the Breckenridge Jubilee Singers, headed by fellow Louisville native Steve Breckenridge. In October he “closed with the Breckenridge Jubilee Singers and is now in Chicago, Ill., visiting friends.”193 Back in Louisville in 1903, he spent the summer in vaudeville at Ninaweb Park: “Will Able, our descriptive vocalist, is up to date and presents all the latest ballads as fast as they are published.”194 In 1904 he sang at Louisville’s Metropolitan Club with Tony Jackson, and in 1906 he took over the management of Ninaweb Park. Ninaweb Park was located south of the Louisville city limits on Bluegrass Avenue, near Fourth Street, just north of present-day Iroquois Park.195 It was probably restricted to white patrons. A June 1, 1901, report disclosed: “The managers this season have been working white performers, but the people demanded the return of last year’s favorite, hence the change.” George W. Temple, “agent” of the park’s white owners, was “securing talent for summer work.”196 A few weeks later the Freeman reported: “Ninaweb Park goes big.”197 Ragtime features at Ninaweb Park during the summer of 1901 included George Temple singing “A Coon with the Raglan Craze” and “There’ll Be No Jonah Preachers Hangin’ Around”; John Tolliver, the “Hoosier whirlwind,” singing Irving Jones’s “Ragtime Millionaire”; “ragtime songstress” Carrie Smith; Master Jimmie, “the little coon songster”; and “ragtime comedians” Steve Breckenridge and Webster Williams singing “How De Do Man” and “Not with My Money.”198

The Birth of Southern Vaudeville, 1899–1909

During the summer seasons of 1903, 1904, and 1905, veteran performer Tom Logan had charge of the stage at Ninaweb Park. Critics acknowledged his “genius for stagecraft”: “Mr. Logan is an actor, a manager, a producer and a song writer of enviable repute.”199 Logan had ventured south as early as 1900, not long after returning from Australia with Ernest Hogan’s Minstrels.200 He served as stage manager for the second season of Pat Chappelle’s A Rabbit’s Foot Company before settling in Tampa in 1901. He managed the stage at the Mascotte and Buckingham theaters until early 1902, when he moved to Stiles’s Grand Palace Theater in Savannah, Georgia. Logan was also influential in Memphis and, in fact, throughout the young southern vaudeville universe. At Ninaweb Park in the waning days of the 1903 season, Logan took encores in the role of “Brother Jasper, deacon of Mt. Hepstirdam Baptist Church.”201 The park closed its season of 1903 on September 20, sending word that “Summers bros. proprietors, and Manager Tom Logan . . . have piloted a prosperous and pleasant season.”202 There was news that they would reopen the Ninaweb Park Theater on May 12, 1904. In the meantime, “Tom Logan and Miss Sarah Dunn were engaged as special features to strengthen an ‘Ofay’ show . . . at Jeffersonville, Ind.”203 Dunn was the maiden name of blues legend Sarah Martin; she was nineteen years old at the time of this engagement.204 Ninaweb Park opened its season of 1904 with crooner Will Able, sketch artists Charles and Dora Wilson, old man impersonator Billy Palm Carroll, vernacular dancer Rastus Brown, and the music and comedy team of Billy and Stella Harris Johnson, among others. On July 16 Logan noted: “So popular has this resort become that the management found it necessary to employ two orchestras. Prof. J. B. Tucker’s orchestra plays the show, while Prof. Tobe Brown’s orchestra renders selections

between specialties. . . . Prof. Tucker has composed a catchy rag which he has named ‘Pas Arnold’s Rag.’” Kentucky-bred veteran comedian Charles “Pas” Arnold was a cousin of Ernest Hogan; following his sudden death in Chicago in 1906, Arnold’s “remains were taken to his home at Bowling Green, Ky., for burial.”205 A visitor to Ninaweb Park during the summer of 1904 reported: Tom Logan . . . is stage manager at this beautiful South Louisville summer resort and it is “up to him” to secure the talent he needs and to put on an entirely new program on Monday of each week during the season, and it goes without the saying that he “makes good.” He is rigid and exacting, and his personality is conspicuously in evidence throughout. . . . Logan’s methods are entirely legitimate, his wit clean and wholesome. . . . The company’s program is adroitly balanced to please both those who fancy the Negro in plantation garb and those who like to see him do the “swell” or “straight” work. Tom Logan in the varied roles of legitimate actor, grotesque comedian, dramatist, song-writer, manager and producer is equally painstaking and loyal to the demands of art. The stage is elevated by the scholars who devote themselves to its betterment, and by the women who bring it to the sterling virtues of home and society. When you go to Louisville, look Tom up. He has flattering offers from “Black Patti’s Troubadours,” the “Smart Set” and other reputable contributions to travel but the Kentucky metropolis is loth [sic] to part with him. Louisville would not seem quite like Louisville with Tom Logan away.206

1905 was Logan’s final summer at Ninaweb Park, and his last on the southern routes. During the theatrical seasons of 1906 and 1907, he played character roles in Ernest Hogan’s Rufus Rastus and

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The Birth of Southern Vaudeville, 1899–1909

Will Able, Indianapolis Freeman, February 3, 1912.

S. H. Dudley’s “Smart Set” companies. Logan died in New York on August 18, 1908.207 Back in Kentucky, a 1906 report noted: “Will Able, since the departure of Tom Logan, is the dean of Louisville’s theatrical colony . . . blossoming out as a full-fledged manager. Last week he organized a well-rounded group of performers to fill a special engagement at French Lick Springs.”208 Able was last spotted in Louisville during the summer of 1908, in the cast of a musical comedy under rehearsal at the Masonic Theater. Ollie Powers was also in the cast, and Robert Motts and J. Ed Green were expected to drop down from Chicago for the opening night’s performance.209 Able and Powers were among several Louisvillians who invaded Chicago’s black cabarets. At the Pekin Cafe in 1910, Able teamed with Nettie

Lewis to sing “The Grizzly Bear,” “Honey Dear,” and “Silvery Moon.”210 Some of Louisville’s top black musicians also entertained at Ninaweb Park. During the summer of 1903, music for the vaudeville show was supplied by Ben “Footsie” Ball’s Peerless Orchestra, comprising Ben Ball, leader; Tobe Brown, cornet; John Embry, trombone; Ernest Kincade, trombone; and Edward “Uncle Ned” Taylor, bass fiddle.211 “Ernest Kincade’s trombone solos are well received, while Prof. Brown and his cornet selections are ever a source of satisfaction to lovers of good music. Uncle Ned Taylor and his cello are a valuable acquisition.”212 At the end of the 1903 season, Ball, Embry, and Taylor “accepted musician engagements for the winter at Chicago. Prof. T. B. Brown will continue as local band and orchestra leader. Ennis [sic] Kincade will join a traveling show.”213 Bandleader and cornet soloist T. B. Brown, also known as “Tobe,” was born Robert L. Brown in Kentucky, probably in 1859.214 A retrospective account traced his musical career back to Louisville’s celebrated Falls City Brass Band.215 In 1890 Brown relocated to Kansas City, where he and his wife established a popular dancing school and Brown led an orchestra and trained young musicians. Brown returned to Louisville in about 1895.216 A front-page feature in the Freeman of August 24, 1907, boasted of “Mr. Tobe Brown’s genius . . . A few weeks ago he played for the Owensboro [Kentucky] Chautauqua, the first Negro Chautauqua in this country. It was a grand success, and this was due largely through the music furnished by Brown’s orchestra and band concert music. He played some of the most high class music ever heard in that section and the applause given him and the orchestra showed the appreciation the citizens had for such a brilliant set of music makers.” In 1909, following a heated dispute with the white officials of the Louisville and Lexington fairs,

The Birth of Southern Vaudeville, 1899–1909 Detail of a 1905 Sanborn Insurance Map showing the corner of Ninth and Grayson streets, with C. C. Roth’s saloon divided in half, one half designated a saloon, and the other a restaurant.

Brown relocated to Chicago, where he became a member of Dave Peyton’s pit band at the New Grand Theater on State Street.217 In May 1918 Brown arrived in Chicago from Detroit, “looking the picture of health. He is engaged for the [Ben] Shook’s orchestra.”218 Like Ben Shook, Tobe Brown was musically active before the dawn of ragtime and survived to play a part in the birth of jazz.219 Trombonist John Embry, who was with Tobe Brown at Ninaweb Park in 1903, became a Louisville

mainstay. In 1919 Embry was heading his own band at the Hawaiian Gardens, Fourth and Broadway, with Clarence Rogers, string bass; Lockwood Lewis, saxophone; Lucien Brown, drums; Ralph Brown, clarinet; Hannibal Smith, piano; George Mitchell and Bobby Williams, trumpets.220 Along with its numerous park pavilions, Louisville had at least one saloon-theater that presented black vaudeville. The Blue Ribbon Theater opened in the summer of 1903 and sent sporadic

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correspondences to the Freeman until early 1906. The proprietor was identified as C. C. Roth, the owner of a saloon located on the southwest corner of Ninth and Grayson streets, apparently also the location of the Blue Ribbon Theater. In July 1903 Prof. Hollowell was the house pianist; performers included Joseph Clark, Jr., Nettie and Lovie Taylor, Rastus Brown, “child wonder” Chicita Porter, and Ford Lee, a “talented harpist.”221 Up-and-coming Louisville soubrette Ella Hoke broke into vaudeville at Roth’s Blue Ribbon saloon-theater.222 In January 1904 she celebrated her nineteenth birthday there: “Punch and egg nog were served by Jennings, the mixologist, while Abraham Cohen, the caterer, prepared the dinner. Specialties were volunteered by Hi Jerry Barnes, Benzonine Davis, John Goodloe, Rastus Roth, Robert Clark, Will Able and Baby Josh. An old fashioned ‘to-de-lo’ dance, led by Mr. Goodloe wound up the festivities.”223 Less festive news was released in April: “John Goodloe a local comedian has been indicted for an alleged attempt to shoot a fellow performer.”224 There was no follow-up. In November 1906 the Freeman announced: “Miss Ella Hoke and Mr. John Goodloe, late members of the stock company of the Blue Ribbon Theater, Louisville, were married a short time ago and for the present are resting in the Falls City [Louisville]. They expect to go on the road again after the holidays.”225 A few years later, when theaters offering black vaudeville entertainment for exclusively black audiences began sprouting like mushrooms across the Southeast, John and Ella Hoke Goodloe were among the first headliners. Among those attracted to Louisville’s heightened theatrical atmosphere was legendary New Orleans singer-pianist Tony Jackson, who was on the road in 1905 when he hit town and decided to “sojourn a while”:

The favorite headquarters of the theatrical folks when they come to Louisville is the Metropolitan Club, handsomely and comfortably established in an entire two-story brick house at 1116 W. Walnut street. All professionals of colored talent will meet with a hearty welcome, and find pleasure constantly on “tap.” Music, singing and dancing are provided every night with such entertainers as Prof. Tony Jackson, the famous lyric tenor, Will Able and John Page on the program. The club has been greatly improved under the management of John P. Thomas and George Watson. The complimentary testimonial to Prof. Tony Jackson at the Metropolitan, Saturday evening, March 11th, was a grand success. He came here with the Whitman Sisters, and attracting so much attention by his wonderful voice (ranging from prima donna soprano to deep baritone), he was persuaded to sojourn with us a while. He goes to New Orleans for a season.226

In 1910 former Memphis theater pioneer Alfred “Tick” Houston established the Houston Theater, later renamed the Ruby Theater, at 914 West Walnut Street, in what had previously been the black-owned Frontenac Hall and Club.227 A “statement of purpose” was published in the Freeman shortly after the theater opened for business: Negroes are segregated at white theaters, getting back seats at the best ones and at the leading vaudeville house the “brother” must sit in the gallery. Most of the Negroes of [Louisville] feel like resenting the stigma and patronizing theaters of their own, but the only trouble has been for some enterprising man to invest under the sole direction of colored people, using colored talent, the citizens of Louisville, we believe, will give it their support. We believe that a moral wave will soon spread over the country, urging Negroes to patronize their own playhouses.228

The Birth of Southern Vaudeville, 1899–1909

However, Houston sold out his interests in the theater before the end of the year. The Ruby Theater remained in operation until about 1918, reopening in January 1921 as the Lincoln Theater, an African American enterprise associated with the newly established Theater Owners Booking Association.229

New Orleans The first recognizable black vaudeville stage in New Orleans was at Lincoln Park, which opened in 1902 under the auspices of the Standard Brewing Company as “a colored summer resort for the purpose of furnishing amusement for colored people.”230 Accessible by streetcar from most sections of the city, the one square block park was bounded by Carrollton Avenue, Oleander, Short, and Forshey streets, in the upper reaches of the Gert Town community. A famous anecdote about jazz pioneer Buddy Bolden pointing his horn towards Lincoln Park and “calling his children home” has enshrined this otherwise obscure “resort” in the mythology of jazz creation.231 In 1905, however, Lincoln Park was more popularly known for its “flying jennies, balloon ascensions and numerous other attractions,” including vaudeville.232 The vaudeville shows were held in the Lincoln Park Auditorium. Remembered as a barnlike structure with kegs of beer lining the entranceway, it could accommodate over a thousand people, and standing-room-only was a “common thing.”233 When news from the Lincoln Park Auditorium first reached the Freeman in the spring of 1904, Clarence Bush’s Ragtime Opera Company was holding the boards.234 Writing in 1933, African American music historian E. Belfield Spriggins included Bush in an honor roll of piano professors—Tony Jackson, Albert Carroll, Arthur Campbell, Manuel Manetta, George W. Thomas, Clarence Williams, Richard M. Jones,

and others—who lit up the “night life as known in New Orleans a generation ago.”235 At the Lincoln Park Auditorium in 1904, Bush took “three or four encores nightly singing ‘Don’t Never Do Nothing For Nobody Dat Does Nothing For You.’”236 The 1904 edition of Bush’s Ragtime Opera Company was largely composed of New Orleans talent. The musical director was Albert Carroll; the orchestra leader was Joseph Palao, and the stage manager was John E. Lewis.237 Among the company’s “popular comedians and buck and wing dancers” was Anatole Pierre, “hitting them hard with ‘I’m just barely living dat’s all.’”238 When he returned to the park in 1905, Pierre made good singing “The Preacher and the Bear.”239 The female contingent of Bush’s Ragtime Opera Company included Emma Thornton, “the great Southern coon shouter”; Lelia Chapman, “the Louisiana nightingale”; and Viola Lewis, “the Crescent City soprano.”240 Emma Thornton and Lelia Chapman have been associated with the Buddy Bolden story as “part of Bolden’s ‘harem.’”241 Thornton was a seasonal favorite at Lincoln Park. With Bush’s company in 1904 she got “two and three encores nightly” singing “I’m a Little Jungle Queen.”242 Correspondence on May 27, 1905, informed that, “Emma Thornton, the queen o’ coon shouters is ‘mopping up’ singing ‘Scissors to Grind,’ ‘Make a Fuss Over Me’ and ‘Billy’”—three Tin Pan Alley publications from the previous year.243 By 1913 she was running the vaudeville routes as far as Indianapolis.244 The Lincoln Park Auditorium opened its season of 1905 under the management of a capable group of local race men: H. G. Cailloux, general business manager; Prof. John Robichaux, leader of orchestra; Joseph A. McMurray, stage manager; John E. Lewis, assistant manager; and Prof. George Moret, band master.245 Moret’s continued presence at the park is reflected in a 1907 report: “There is a free open-air

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Prof. George Moret (courtesy Hogan Jazz Archive, Tulane University).

concert in the evenings from 5 to 7:30, on the lawn, by the Excelsior Brass Band, under the leadership of Prof. Moret, with fifteen pieces.”246 Orchestra leader John Robichaux had been building a reputation in New Orleans and the Gulf South region since the early 1890s. At Lincoln Park his orchestra backed the vaudeville acts and played for special occasions. A 1904 advertisement for a “Grand Pic-Nic and Base Ball Game” on the combined grounds of Lincoln Park and Johnson Park trumpeted “Music by the Famous Robicheaux [sic] Orchestra.”247 And a 1907 advertisement for an “Excursion Pic-nic” at Lincoln Park emphasized a “Grand Band

Contest” between Prof. Robichaux’s Orchestra and Prof. Markham’s Orchestra of Shreveport.248 Robichaux still had charge of the orchestra at Lincoln Park in 1909, “doing justice to the public and themselves in executing the musical numbers of the program.” The Freeman of July 24, 1909, gave this roster and commentary: “Prof. J. P. Robichan [sic] . . . James Williams [sic], J. B. Delisle, Arthur Scott, Henry Kimball, Louis Contrell [sic], [and] Lorenzo Tio. They . . . don’t sing um, ‘but they play um,’ so get wise.”249 Stage manager Joseph A. McMurray was a veteran of Florida’s early vaudeville platforms. In addition to managing the Lincoln Park stage, he appeared in a farce comedy skit titled “Harvest Days in Musicville” singing “I May Be Crazy but I Ain’t No Fool.”250 He also served a turn as Lincoln Park’s Freeman correspondent, and in May 1905 sent news that Madame Magdalene Tartt, “better known as the ‘Black Swan,’” had been “added to the rest of the stars to shine with us.”251 Two weeks later McMurray assured that “the original black swan, in operatic selections sets the house crazy.”252 This notable black church-house prima donna was said to have hailed from Mobile, Alabama.253 The husband-and-wife comedy team of John and Rhoda McNeil spent much of the summer of 1905 at Lincoln Park, and made a hit singing “Dusky Maiden.” Rhoda McNeil was a native New Orleanian and a sister of road-show trombonist Alvin “Zoo” Robertson.254 On the road with the Coney Island Minstrels in 1907, the McNeils were “cleaning up nightly with their new act, ‘Wash Day in Coon Town.’”255 In 1919 they retired from the stage and settled in Los Angeles, where Rhoda’s mother was living.256 A 1925 correspondence assured that Rhoda was taking “an active part in church and social work,” while “Mack himself is holding down a good job in a department store.”257 Novelty acts at Lincoln Park between 1905 and 1909 included “Cyclops & Cyclo,” contortionists; William Cheri, a comic singer and acrobatic contortionist; and Lew and Joseph Watts, comedy acrobats and

The Birth of Southern Vaudeville, 1899–1909 (Courtesy Hogan Jazz Archive, Tulane University)

Madame Magdalene Tartt, Nashville Globe, October 6, 1911.

Left to right: Alvin “Zoo” (or “Zue”) Robertson with Rhoda and John McNeil, ca. 1915 (Courtesy Hogan Jazz Archive, Tulane University).

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Lew and Joseph Watts, Indianapolis Freeman, December 23, 1916.

slack wire walkers.258 Moving pictures were also in the novelty category, and as early as 1905 a Lincoln Park reporter assured: “Prof. A. A. Moncrief and his moving pictures, introducing the train robbers, is a decided hit.”259 In 1907 the local Labormen’s Social Club took a five-year lease on Lincoln Park.260 A note on September 7, 1907, said they would keep the park open all winter, with the “world’s greatest and most daring colored aeronaut, Jos. Haywood” making “his ‘death defying’ ascension in his balloon each week.”261 Haywood was also known as Buddy Bartley, a name that resonates in the literature of early New Orleans jazz.262 In addition to his balloon ascensions, Haywood doubled as a comedian on

the vaudeville stage and helped manage the park’s business affairs. In 1908 the Laborman’s Social Club united with the Tramps Social Club, “an organization composed of performers . . . who give balls and shows to replenish the treasury in order to assist in caring for the sick and burying the dead.”263 The season of 1909 opened under new general manager William Payton, a local saloon keeper, “well known in the amusement world.” Joseph Haywood ascended to superintendent, and Albert Carroll remained musical director.264 One of the most important acts to play Lincoln Park was the comedy team of Lew Kenner and John E. Lewis, the “Williams and Walker of the South.”265 Both men were native New Orleanians, friends from childhood days. Kenner was touted in 1901 as the “popular Garden district comedian and cakewalker.”266 In 1902 he made a tour from New Orleans to Baton Rouge and back with the Sunny South Minstrels, “getting three and four encores every night singing ‘I’ve Got Mine.’”267 John E. Lewis, who also made that tour, had gotten his start as a quartet singer. When he appeared with a male sextet at the Bienville Hotel Roof Garden in Mobile, Alabama, in the summer of 1901, the “ofays went wild over their peculiar way of singing coon songs.”268 At Lincoln Park in 1904, Lewis was billed as “the great southern tenor . . . going big singing ‘Nobody ever brings presents to me’ assisted by the famous Olympia quartette.”269 In 1905 Kenner came to Lincoln Park singing “Dat Ain’t Nothing but Talk.”270 In 1907 they formed the Kenner and Lewis Amusement Company, opening at Lincoln Park with sixteen performers, including William and Beulah Henderson, Effie Means, Emma Thornton, Homer Broadnax, and the Midnight Bells Quartette.271 In September 1908 the Kenner and Lewis Amusement Company returned to the Lincoln Park Auditorium for a four-week run, presenting dramas such as “In Cripple Creek” and others.272 Afterward, Kenner

The Birth of Southern Vaudeville, 1899–1909

Lew Kenner and John Lewis, Indianapolis Freeman, November 19, 1910.

and Lewis called rehearsals for a new show titled “Prince Bumpaka.”273 With Albert Carroll and Robichaux’s Orchestra in tow, they set off on a barnstorming tour of country towns between New Orleans and Jackson, Mississippi.274 Returning to New Orleans, Kenner and Lewis inaugurated the vaudeville stage at Dixie Park on Easter Sunday 1909.275 This new facility, situated in the 4500 block of Bienville Street, was designed to compete head-on with Lincoln Park. The music was furnished by Prof. Babb Frank’s Peerless Band.276 In mid-July, a New Orleans–based reporter told the Freeman: “Summer time is on and the two places for amusement of colored people, Lincoln Park and

Dixie Park, seem to be well patronized. The class of people who go to Lincoln Park and the class who goes to Dixie Park are said to be different in character, each side claiming to have the best class of people as patrons, and each claiming to be better prepared to give amusements.”277 The Kenner and Lewis Amusement Company stormed Dixie Park with one-act comedy skits such as “A Moonlight Frolic in Louisiana” and “Bad Riley.” The company was “composed of the best local talent in the city,” including the Midnight Bells Quartet; Abbie Pellebon, “queen of soubrettes”; Mildred Kernion, “the girl with the ziz”; Virginia Crawford, who would come to the blues forefront as Virginia Liston; Sweetie Matthews, “the people’s favorite soubrette,” who would soon join hands with vaudeville blues star Butler “String Beans” May; and “dainty little soubrette” Tillie Johnson, who was still appearing in black vaudeville in 1928 when she recorded blues titles for Gennett.278 To compete with the Kenner and Lewis Amusement Company at Dixie Park, Lincoln Park secured G. W. Allen’s Troubadours, a cutting-edge blackowned-and-operated itinerant vaudeville stock company with musical director Charles H. Hawkins and fourteen performers.279 Owner G. W. Allen was the self-styled “greatest ragtime singer of his race” and king of “low comedy actors and producers.”280 Like the Kenner and Lewis Amusement Company, Allen’s Troubadours specialized in farcical comedy skits. A May 15, 1909, report from Lincoln Park described “Buncoed in Louisiana,” in which “Hollow Head Zeke, on his arrival from Horseshoe Bend, Tenn., gets buncoed, but gets even at the lawn party.” Three weeks later they presented “Gimme My Money,” set in a saloon on Franklin Street, in the black nightlife section of New Orleans, and featuring such characters as “Gin Stick Mose,” “Tom Bad Eye,” “Bad Liquor Sam,” and “Mrs. Sukie Coal Chute.” Among the specialty acts was a “Hobo Quartet.”281

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On June 6, 1909, Allen’s Troubadours finished nine weeks at Lincoln Park and moved on to a threeweek stand under canvas in another section of the city.282 By the spring of 1910 they had made their way to Jacksonville, Florida, “playing nothing but colored theaters and parks.”283 Allen’s Troubadours were succeeded at Lincoln Park by the latest edition of Clarence Bush’s Ragtime Opera Company, featuring a one-act comedy, “The Jealous Woman.”284 It included such songs as “If There Ain’t No Chickens in Heaven I Don’t Want to Go There” sung by Sadie Perry and “Dat Lovin’ Rag” sung by the entire company.285 Also popular was “Davis, Hughes and Rozier, echo trio in ‘Take Your Hands Away’ and ‘Deed I Haven’t Dirtied Any Plate Today.’”286 As the summer of 1909 began to wane, the Big Five Minstrel Company took the stage at Lincoln Park, with a program that included “Ballads by Calvin Jackson, John Gale, Tony Jackson, Oscar Curry, Moses Graham.”287 Contemporaneous documents suggest that, in his time, legendary pianist Tony Jackson was more famous for his singing than his piano playing.288 Another one of the Big Five balladeers, Mose Graham, became known in the burgeoning black vaudeville world as the “two-story comedian.” In 1911, two years after showing at Lincoln Park, “Two-Story Mose Graham made quite a hit at the Star theater” in Washington, D.C., “singing his own composition entitled ‘I’m Going to Build a Whitewashed [sic] Station Just Two Miles from Glory, So the Black Man Can Have a Chance.’”289 After the summer of 1909, Freeman correspondence from Lincoln Park dried up, but the park remained open. In 1915 a New Orleans–based reporter for the Chicago Defender reminded readers of “Lincoln Park, the only summer resort and one of long standing. . . . Mr. Joseph Haywood (Budy Bodly) [sic], the manager, makes it pleasant for all comers; the park appears to be more successful this season

than it has been for many summers,” with I. W. “Dad” James in charge of a vaudeville stock company that included Grace Arnte, Baby Floyd Fisher, Alma Hughes, Tillie Johnson, Lena Leggett, Willie Jackson, and Clarence Williams.290 In September 1909 the Kenner and Lewis Stock Company left New Orleans on a tour of the brand new black vaudeville theaters that were taking hold along the Mississippi-Alabama-Florida Gulf Coast, and from there to theaters in Georgia and the Carolinas.291 Among the coon shouters and soubrettes touring with Kenner and Lewis during the course of that year-and-a-half-long trek were Emma Thornton, Carrie Hall, Rosetta Brannon, Trixie Colquitt, who later made blues recordings as Trixie Butler, and Virginia Crawford, “the Louisiana Coon Shouter.” Though he was not mentioned in the Freeman reports, Jelly Roll Morton recalled having played piano with Kenner and Lewis’s cutting-edge vaudeville stock company in Pensacola, Florida.292 Kenner and Lewis severed ties in 1911.293 On January 9, 1915, John E. Lewis was found dead in his New Orleans home; he was remembered as “a No. 1 straight man.”294 Lew Kenner remained active into the 1930s. When he died in New Orleans in 1940 at the age of sixty-seven, he was eulogized as a “famous cakewalker” and “the first Negro to perform the act of sawing a woman in half.”295

Memphis Early black vaudeville struggles in Memphis contributed to the city’s rich cultural heritage. Memphis ultimately became a major center of southern vaudeville. As early as 1901, at least three local theaters—Jim Kinnane’s Rialto, Robert Church’s Auditorium, and Tick Houston’s Tivoli—were presenting black vaudeville entertainment to exclusively black audiences.

The Birth of Southern Vaudeville, 1899–1909 Indianapolis Freeman, May 25, 1901.

Indianapolis Freeman, June 8, 1901.

Stage manager and minstrel performer Lew Hall provided the impetus for some of the earliest black vaudeville experiments in Memphis. Hall had a compelling vision of the future of southern vaudeville and the appropriateness of Memphis as a site for its propagation. He began his work in the spring of 1901, when he leased the Rialto Theater for a “summer season in Ragtime Opera.” Stage managers drove the early southern vaudeville movement, and Lew Hall was able to bring two of the best of the era to Memphis: Tom Logan and J. Ed Green. Green was a guiding light throughout the formative decade of African American vaudeville. He was born in New Albany, Indiana, in 1872.296 He had a fine baritone voice, and he organized the Black Diamond Quartette after graduating from

high school. In 1896 the Black Diamond Quartette toured with Harry Martell’s influential South Before the War Company, and Green distinguished himself in acting and singing roles. He went on to greater recognition as vocal director and stage manager for Richards and Pringle’s Georgia Minstrels and then Oliver Scott’s Refined Minstrels. Upon his arrival in Memphis in May 1901, Green advised the Freeman, “I’m in ‘Sunny Tennessee’ with Lew Hall at the Rialto, one of the finest theatres in the South, strictly adapted for vaudeville. I will direct all performances.”297 Green resided at the Alhambra Hotel, corner of Beale and Hernando streets, while directing the Rialto stage. The Rialto was located at 96 North Front Street, corner of Winchester, some twelve blocks north of Beale. It was a saloon with a

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The Birth of Southern Vaudeville, 1899–1909 Detail of a Sanborn Insurance Map showing the 10 Winchester Street address of the Rialto Theater and Phoenix Athletic Club (Courtesy Richard Raichelson).

theater attached. The theater seated from 1,200 to 2,000 people and had “a nicely arranged stage with four dressing rooms, a green room, complete with electric switch board and entirely new scenery.”298 The Rialto was owned by legendary white Memphis political boss and reputed underworld figure James Kinnane. His parents, Thomas and Catherine Kinnane, had emigrated from Ireland to Memphis “when it was a mere village.”299 Upon his

death in 1930, the local daily paper observed that Kinnane, “though never holding any office, was always able through his connections to be a deciding factor on election day.”300 The 1901 Memphis City Directory identified him as both proprietor of the Rialto and president of the Phoenix Athletic Club, at the same North Front Street address. He also operated the Blue Goose Saloon on North Third Street at Auction Avenue.301 Jim Kinnane

The Birth of Southern Vaudeville, 1899–1909 Indianapolis Freeman, June 29, 1901.

was a colorful presence at the birth of Memphis’s black vaudeville enterprise. Lew Hall used the Freeman’s entertainment columns to entice his old road show associate Ben Hunn to join him at the Rialto as a star attraction. In doing so, Hall evoked an aphorism that still applies: “Memphis is always a good town to those who act good when in it.”302 Other male headliners included comedian Eddie Foy Elliott and ragtime pianist Ed Hill, two imports from Chicago.303 The female headliners included Nettie Lewis, Bessie Gillam, and Ora Criswell. Hall’s Ragtime Opera Company opened at the Rialto on May 20, 1901. Ben Hunn expressed himself “highly pleased with the place and says that he will place it on his regular vaudeville list. . . . Lew Hall, the lessee and manager, has the right idea, and ere long a circuit will be formed, embracing Chattanooga, Birmingham and Knoxville, connecting with Florida.”304 The notion of a regional vaudeville theater circuit was premature; nevertheless, Lew Hall’s vaudeville experiment at the Rialto made steady progress: The Rialto is now in its 4th week of unlimited success. The stock company . . . has proved themselves equal to the task of playing one show and rehearsing

another. . . . Week of [June] 3 saw the “[Two] African Princes,” a really funny farce that proved quite a laugh producer; week of [June] 10 Lew Hall’s famous Georgia minstrels, with Johnnie Green and Billy Johnson on extreme ends. Nettie Lewis, Bessie Gilliam and Ora Crisswell made a fine set of Parisian girls. Master Blaine Bly found a great song in the “Bird with a Broken Wing.” Eddie Foy Elliot, as the “baby,” had people taking on over him. Johnson and Reid are big favorites with their singing and dancing. Mr. and Mrs. Lewis Williams are Memphis favorites as classic soloists. . . . Ben Hunn has something new every week, and they continue to ask for his peculiar rendition of “A White Man Working for Me” song. Mr. Hall is proud of the deportment of each and every member of the company, and is satisfied of success.305

The following week J. Ed Green informed that, in spite of unusually hot weather, “patronage to the Rialto continues good. . . . Gene Leggins and Bessie Gilliam sang and danced their way into the hearts of the large audiences. Eddie Foy Elliott and Ora Criswell, in an act called ‘Married Life,’ was a success. Johnson and Reid are still favorites. . . . Bessie Gilliam, as ‘tough Lize,’ was a revelation; the part was created by her and she will place it on her list as

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The Birth of Southern Vaudeville, 1899–1909

a special act.”306 “Tough Lize” became a stock female character in African American vaudeville. “Amateur night” at the Rialto that summer was said to be “a scene of much fun as well as pleasure to audience and performers, there being 12 applicants; the honors were carried off by a Miss Mattie Johnson, mezzo soprano; James Kinanes [sic], famous comedian, made quite a hit. 44 was the winning number during the week.”307 Evidence of Jim Kinnane participating in amateur night at the Rialto is a testament to his colorful life, and to the freewheeling atmosphere at his saloon-theater.308 J. Ed Green made it known that he would take the Rialto Theater company to Birmingham that summer “for a couple weeks, leaving a new stock company here until we return, then sending them over to take our place.”309 On July 8, 1901, Green and company opened a two-week date at Attraction Park (also known as Traction Park), a race enterprise in Birmingham, under the banner of Lew Hall’s Ragtime Opera Company. Several weeks later, Green was “conducting rehearsals and staging King & Bush’s minstrels” in Birmingham.310 Back in Memphis, the Rialto “closed a very successful season,” and performers Blaine Bly, Johnson and Reid, William Thomas, and Lewis Williams left for Birmingham to join King and Bush’s Minstrels: “Manager Kinan [sic] looks upon his vaudeville experiment with a satisfactory glance.”311 Meanwhile, a new edition of Lew Hall’s Ragtime Opera Company opened at Church’s Auditorium.312 This historic venue was owned and controlled by black Memphis saloon operator turned real estate magnate Robert R. Church. Born in 1839, Church had established himself in Memphis right after the Civil War. His early involvement with race entertainment was noted in a 1905 Freeman retrospective: “In 1872 Alf White and Jim Mahoney took a show out of Memphis. . . . This company was organized at Col. R. R. Church’s new hall—Col. Church,

Indianapolis Freeman, August 18, 1906.

by the way, proving then, as well as up to the present day, that he is a race man at all times and under all circumstances.”313 Church’s Auditorium was a brand new, fully appointed theater and meeting hall on the grounds of Church’s Park, a six-acre “sylvan retreat” for the African American citizens of Memphis, situated in

The Birth of Southern Vaudeville, 1899–1909

Detail of a Sanborn Insurance Map showing Church’s Park (Courtesy Richard Raichelson).

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The Birth of Southern Vaudeville, 1899–1909

the 300 block of Beale Street. “This building cost $50,000, and will easily seat two thousand people.”314 “Mr. Church deserves the patronage of all those who appreciate theatergoing, as he has spared no pains to make this the greatest place of amusement in the city. He intends to book such companies as Williams & Walker if the colored people will only lend their support, and will stop going to white theatres to be placed in the buzzard roost.”315 Reports in August 1901 noted: “The theatre going public among our people have a rare treat in the way of a first-class ragtime opera at Church’s Auditorium, under the management of the popular Lew Hall,” with “Miss Ella Carr, song and dance artist; Miss Pearl Crawford, late of Loudan’s [sic] Jubilee Singers of London, Eng., in classic selections; John Green king of colored comedy;” and others, including Ferdinand T. Moore, who “fell so far short of ‘making good’ that the ‘ham drop’ was brought into service in self defense.”316 It also came out that Tom Logan had succeeded J. Ed Green as stage manager: Tom Logan, the versatile character artist, meets with an abundance of deserved applause. The work of Miss Nettie Lewis is . . . a valuable addition. Eddie Foy [Elliott] is in his glee when acting master of ceremonies on amateur nights. . . . Miss Ollie L. Hall, the sweet voiced soprano, is winning laurels nightly by her talented rendition and brilliant conception of classic and sentimental ballads. Miss [Ora] Criswell proves her claim as an applause winner and earns it. Will Jones, the baritone, is heard to good advantage in the choruses. Lew Hall (you all know Lew) created considerable favorable comment by his rich brogue, splendid make-up and earnest efforts as an “Irish gintleman sir.” Johnny Green, as an old time Southern darkey, gives an acceptable version of character. Prof. Ed. H. Hill, the “Sandow pianist,” still holds his own. Miss Ella Carr makes a strong bid for public

Indianapolis Freeman, September 7, 1901. The 124 Beale Street address in this ad may have been a mail-drop. The address of the park itself was 391 Beale.

favor as a vocalist and dancer. The amusement loving public feel duly grateful to Tom Logan, who has staged some of the most generally satisfactory first parts and after pieces ever seen here.317

Logan left Memphis by mid-September.318 That same month, Lew Hall’s Ragtime Opera Company closed its summer season, having completed “six weeks at the Rialto, two weeks at Birmingham, and eight weeks at R. R. Church’s beautiful Park and Auditorium. The company played strictly to colored people and to the very best in the South.”319 Over the next few weeks, “Mr. Church put 20 colored carpenters to work to put in a balcony, seating 700 people, and six boxes.” On October 21, 1901, Lew Hall’s Ragtime Opera Company returned to Church’s Auditorium and opened to a capacity house. A local reporter noted: Every seat in the boxes, 12 in number, was taken by the elite of this and surrounding cities and as you

The Birth of Southern Vaudeville, 1899–1909

viewed the evening costumes of the audience one could proudly say for the first time in the annals of the South or probably anywhere in America, he was seated in a grand theatre, run in every particular by one of his own race. . . . On leaving the theatre I was met by Mr. Lew Hall who said I am satisfied I have done something that no other man of colored has did [sic]. I have created substantially the first of its kind in the United States, a colored vaudeville house, and there is more to follow I think.320

Hall was not wrong in his prediction. Weekly advertisements in the Freeman continued through May 10, 1903, stating: “R. R. Church’s Auditorium, Memphis, Tenn. Vaudeville Show Every Night. Now booking shows for this and next season. Lew Hall, Manager.” In Memphis one month later, Alfred “Tick” Houston opened the Tivoli Music Hall, a saloon-theater at 121 DeSoto Street, and summoned J. Ed Green to Memphis to manage his stage.321 Notable participants in Green’s historic 1901–02 Memphis black vaudeville combination included soubrette Nettie Lewis, who had spent the previous year with P. G. Lowery’s Company, and later became the wife and partner of pianist Glover Compton; Henry Troy, the great Birmingham tenor; coming young comedian Billy B. (sometimes known as “Blue”) Johnson; and vaudeville queen Estelle Harris, who became a pioneer blues and jazz singer. In January 1902 Green notified that: Since the opening Dec. 20, business has tested the capacity of the Tivoli Music Hall and all the show loving public are talking about the presentation of the popular sketches. We opened with a farce burlesque on Foxy Quiller. . . . Mr. Troy took the roll [sic] of Jack Cotton; Billy Johnson, the part of Rabbit; Miss Estelle Harris as Queenie; and “Foxy Quiller” fell to my lot. The olio was graced by Messrs. Troy,

Indianapolis Freeman, December 28, 1901.

Johnson and Reid and Misses Estelle Harris, Nettie Lewis and Maggie King. The week of Jan. 7, found the popular sketches, “Mr. Johnson Turn Me Loose” and “Mrs. Johnson’s Rent Rag Ball.” B. P. Kennett, the young magician was in the olio as an addition. We present the all minstrel performance for week of Jan. 12, with special costumes and acts.322

Green also produced sketches such as “4–11–44” and “Going to War,” a military act in which Estelle Harris “donned male attire” and “made a hit with ‘Zulu Babe.’”323 In February 1902 he announced: The Tivoli Music Hall is well established in the city. . . . Continuous vaudeville is the attraction. . . . This week sees a new departure, i.e., “Tell Me, Pretty Maiden” from “Florodora” opera was presented by Messrs. Troy, Johnson, Bly, Reid and the Misses Harris,

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The Birth of Southern Vaudeville, 1899–1909 Indianapolis Freeman, October 22, 1910.

Johnson, Lewis and King. The act was a masterpiece of drill and moving stage pictures. . . . My latest coon song entitled, “I Wish We’d a Had This Trouble When the Weather Was Warm,” caught on at once, and every one about the corners are now whistling it as a theme of truthfulness.324

Late in February the Tivoli stock company welcomed popular coon shouter Rosa Payne, singing “The Ragtime Millionaire.”325 In March Green reported: “The old favorites—Johnson and Reid, Estelle Harris, Maggie King, Elvira Johnson and the musical director, R. W. Thompson are still with us. We have a space for as many as ten more good girls, singers and dancers. Tene Ann [sic] Jones and Poney Moore left for Chicago Monday after a delightful stay. Am writing a new farce entitled, ‘The Isle of Cuba,’ and will present it the first week in April.”326 Chicago cabaret barons Poney Moore and Henry “Teenan” Jones were frequent visitors at the Tivoli.327 Presumably, they came not only to be entertained, but to size up the show, the players, and the prospects for similar theatrical ventures back home in Chicago. Tick’s and the Rialto represented

adventurous experiments in black theater vaudeville, among the earliest in Memphis or the Mid-South. But Memphis’s promising vaudeville initiative lasted only one year. Green joined the Black Patti Troubadours when they came to Memphis for an April 1902 engagement at Church’s Auditorium.328 He went on to serve as stage manager with the 1904–05 edition of the Smart Set Company and then with Ernest Hogan’s 1905–06 production, Rufus Rastus, before landing as stage manager of the fabled Pekin Theater in Chicago.329 After Green left Memphis, vaudeville at Tick’s Tivoli was temporarily suspended. Tick’s Saloon remained in operation, and reports of vaudeville activity picked up again in 1905. In 1909 Alfred “Tick” Houston relinquished his prime location at the corner of South Fourth and Gayoso to Fred A. Barrasso, who made it the site of his Savoy Theater. Tick Houston went to Louisville, Kentucky, and opened a saloon-theater there. Memphis’ own Pekin Theater opened for business at 98 South Fourth Street, between Union and Gayoso, in the summer of 1909. Happy John Goodloe from Louisville was the Pekin’s first stage manager. The pit band featured Ed Walker, pianist;

The Birth of Southern Vaudeville, 1899–1909

Walter Williams, cornetist; and Tick Houston’s old trap drummer, Harry Jefferson. Jefferson’s wife Zenobia was one of the Pekin’s soubrettes. Southern vaudeville pioneer Carrie Hall produced her original plays at the Pekin.330 On October 26, 1909, the Hi Henry Barnes Trio with Laura Smith opened at the Pekin Theater. This was Laura Smith’s introduction to Memphis.331 She was still at the Pekin in January 1910, singing and dancing in a “sister” act with Ella Hoke Goodloe, and a “big four act” with Mr. Johnnie Lee and John and Ella Goodloe.332 The second geographic focal point of Memphis’s early African American vaudeville scene was the intersection of Main and Market streets in North Memphis. In 1909 there were three theaters operating within a half block of that corner: the Royal Theater occupied 269 North Main (the corner of Main and Market), the Amuse U was at 253 North Main, and the Gem Theater at 258 North Main.333 The Royal Theater opened in March or April 1908, and remained in business for about three years.334 The Royal’s house pianist was Miss Alice McQuillen. Accompanying her was trap drummer Walter James Reid, a veteran of P. G. Lowery’s Band. Chicago native Richard R. Matthews, Jr. was stage manager at the Royal from October 28, 1908, until April 4, 1909. Under his direction the theater stock company presented a different farce comedy, western drama, or the like every week. Some of these playlets were written by Matthews, others by comedian Tom Briggs, known as “Bon Bon Buddy,” or by coon shouter Carrie Hall.335 When “Bon Bon Buddy” replaced Matthews as stage manager, the Royal’s offerings fell more in line with the southern vaudeville idea. Trixie Colquitt and Charles Anderson filled extended engagements at the Royal, as did child dancing wonder Little Cuba Austin, who later became an acclaimed drummer.336 On March 26, 1910, Thomas Briggs died at his home in Yazoo City, Mississippi.337 One week later,

Thomas E. Kinnane, proprietor of the Royal Theater and brother of Jim Kinnane, also died, of kidney failure: “All the theaters in North Memphis closed their doors to show their respect for their gallant manager.”338 The Gem Theater may have opened some time in 1907. The house pianist was Cornelius Taylor, “better known as ‘Old Folks.’”339 The Gem’s most noteworthy distinction was its early association with Willie and Lula Too Sweet, who were soon to become stars of southern vaudeville. Willie Perry, known in the profession as Long Willie Too Sweet, was stage manager at the Gem for more than two years. His wife Lula (or “Lulu”), whose real name was Susie Johnson, wrote farce comedies for the Gem Theater players.340 Willie and Lula Too Sweet were Memphis’s premier husband-and-wife comedy act. From their excellent vantage point at the Gem Theater they were able to observe the direction southern vaudeville was taking. Under Long Willie’s aegis, the Gem put on a typical mix of vaudeville features, highlighted by Lula’s comedy skits: The Gem is certainly some colored play house. Our stage manager put on about one of the best silent and fun acts ever put on in Memphis by colored talent entitled “The Dancing Cafe,” which consisted of buck dancing sitting down and standing up, by every character in the play. . . . Miss Floyd Fisher is a favorite, singing “It Makes No Difference,” and is a wonder. Miss Lulu Too Sweet, our playwright and leading lady says, “She Wants A Man Like Romeo,” and she’s right.341

By the spring of 1910 the Too Sweets had left the Gem to perform at Fred A. Barrasso’s Savoy Theater, which proved to be the real gem of the Memphis Stroll. Barrasso was a different sort of entrepreneur than Memphis’s ephemeral black theater world had seen before. He had the financial resources and hands-on commitment to establish a “colored

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vaudeville” enterprise with lasting impact, not only in Memphis but throughout the region. Barrasso’s prior experience in the theatrical profession was probably in connection with one of his parents’ businesses. According to his father’s 1935 obituary, Generoso and Rosa Barrasso immigrated to the United States from Naples, Italy, in 1893. Generoso “had owned considerable property in Italy and brought a large amount of cash to Memphis with him.”342 Elsewhere it was said that Generoso and Rosa Barrasso had owned a movie theater on North Main Street, back “when movies first came to Memphis.”343 The 1908 Memphis City Directory indicates Fred Barrasso was the proprietor of a saloon at 146 North Main Street. In January 1909, at age twentyfive, Barrasso opened the Amuse U Theater at 253 North Main, across the street from the Gem Theater: “Amuse U is putting on a first class vaudeville show, introducing Centers and Centers, Jennings and wife, Mrs. Love, Mrs. Eugene Clark, and Eugene Clark with his old man impersonations, closing the bill with an afterpiece by Eugene Clark, entitled ‘Fun in a Chinese Laundry,’ which is sending the people away screaming. H. Kidd Love is musical director of the Amuse U orchestra.”344 Barrasso closed the Amuse U for remodeling in June 1909, reopening in early July with the George Lewis Stock Company in a mixed program of musical comedy and vaudeville. Appearing on the bill in early September, but not in a featured role, was Miss Virginia Crawford (later Liston).345 On October 25, 1909, Barrasso opened a second vaudeville house, initially dubbed the Amuse U No. 2, at 121 South Fourth Street, corner of Gayoso, former site of Tick’s Big Vaudeville.346 In January of the following year, after some remodeling, the playhouse reopened as the Savoy Theater. It became the new hot spot in Memphis vaudeville, and ultimately, the flagship of an expanding theatrical empire.

Admission to the new Savoy Theater was five cents. The facility included a “buffet” or lounge, where food and drinks were served. For his “grand opening,” Barrasso brought in former members of J. Ed Green’s famous Chicago Pekin Stock Company, including Charles Gilpin, J. Francis Mores, and basso John C. Boone, a veteran of Black Patti’s Troubadours. These experienced showmen stayed in Memphis for extended engagements. Gilpin, the future star of Eugene O’Neill’s The Emperor Jones, became the Savoy’s producer and stage manager, while Mores served as chorus director, and J. C. Boone as business manager. The multi-talented Boone also designed sets and painted scenery.347 In the spring of 1910, Laura Smith, Estelle Harris, Willie and Lula Too Sweet, and other “southern specialists” combined with this Chicago contingent to form the strongest stock company Memphis theatergoers had yet seen. It was a perfect integration of the State Street model and the new southern brand of vaudeville. The Savoy Theater Orchestra was under the direction of pianist H. P. “Buddy” McGill, and included Will Blake, cornet; Jim Scott, trombone; (?) Williams, violin; and Alexander Dukes, drums.348 Theater reports declared: “Prof. Buddy McGill is still doing funny stunts on the ivory and taking the house nightly with his overture. . . . His latest stunt on the piano is playing ‘Home, Sweet Home’ with his left hand and ‘Nearer My God To Thee’ with his right.”349 In May the Freeman described the program at Barrasso’s state-of-the-art black vaudeville theater: The Savoy Theater is the home of high class musical numbers at all times. For the first half of last week the bill was “Miss Mandy’s Moonlight Festival,” featuring Laura Smith, who was perched in a half moon above the stage, singing “Shine On, Harvest Moon,” and she sang it. Nettie Howard did fair with “I Love My Husband, But O You Henry.” May Ransom

The Birth of Southern Vaudeville, 1899–1909

went big with “Moon, Moon, Moon, Moon,” then came Mamie Johnson singing “If You Don’t Change Your Living,” and she put it on. Then Estella Harris cleaned up with “Carrie from Carolina.” Then up jumped James Ransom, our star comedian, and brought the house down singing “Howdy Do, Miss Mandy.” . . . With Miss [Margie] Crosby, Estella Harris and Laura Smith as soubrettes, James Hamilton that monologuest [sic], Ransom-Ransom, and the Merry Howards, as sketch teams, the Savoy Theater has become the most popular colored vaudeville house in Memphis. . . . Yes, Bill Jones is still our mixologist in the Savoy Buffet.350

The stability and ambition manifest in Barrasso’s Memphis enterprise mark a defining moment in the development of southern theater vaudeville. Nevertheless, the continued presence of mixologists, pool tables, and other saloon trappings indicate a hedge against the vagaries of the entertainment business. Saloon-theaters and park pavilions were experimental adjuncts to established institutions. If vaudeville proved unsuccessful, the survival of the saloon or park was not necessarily endangered. Proprietors of free-standing vaudeville theaters ran more of a risk and had more to gain or lose.

Atlanta There was no identifiable permanent facility for African American vaudeville in Atlanta until the spring of 1909, when white theatrical entrepreneur Charles P. Bailey established the Arcade Theater at 81 Decatur Street.351 News in December said the Arcade/81 “has been remodeled and now have 500 opera chairs, and doing the biggest business in Atlanta with the biggest and best experienced bunch in the South in vaudeville. We have two matinees and three shows at night. Each show S. R. O. [standing room only]. We don’t think we are wrong when we say we have the prettiest

theater in town, and best equipped with scenery. We have the best proprietor in the South. Mr. Chas. Bailey is a perfect gentleman.”352 Many in the black show world would have taken that last statement for a joke. According to vaudevillian “Happy-Go-Lucky” Simpson, Bailey was “nothing but a cracker from the back woods of Georgia.”353 Perry “Mule” Bradford weighed in: “We have got to try and put a stop to the man Bailey, because he is treating our brothers and sisters too dirty. . . . He hit Wayne Burton in the face with a revolver for asking him could he draw some dough.”354 Ethel Waters detested Bailey: “I’d heard what he’d done to Bessie Smith after they’d had an argument. He’d beaten Bessie up, then had her thrown in jail.”355 Bailey’s bad reputation notwithstanding, the importance of the 81 Theater as a foothold for African American vaudeville in Atlanta is indisputable. Its success was prelude to an outbreak of local theatrical activity. Within two years of its opening, the Famous Theater (124 Decatur), Duval Theater, Central Theater (16 Central Avenue), Paradise Theater (170 Peters Street), and Luna Park Theater (99 Decatur) had all commenced operations in Atlanta. By 1910–11 there were more than 100 small black vaudeville theaters in the South, strung from Texas to Florida and Virginia.356 A growing legion of entertainers traveled back and forth across the southern states; others came south from Chicago and the greater Midwest. The stage was set for an American cultural revolution—the popular emergence of the blues.

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Indianapolis Freeman, May 18, 1901.

FIRST INTERLUDE

The Death of J. Ed Green and the Birth of State Street Vaudeville

S

end of State Street. In the spring of 1901 the Royal Pavilion, a “first class resort” at 2936 State Street, advertised a “Free Vaudeville Show Every Evening” under musical director Ed Hill and house pianist Ed Hardin. Hill left Chicago for Memphis that spring to join Lew Hall’s Ragtime Opera Company under J. Ed Green. Ragtime specialist Ed Hardin stayed on in Chicago and, according to the authors of They All Played Ragtime, “reached his peak when he played at the old Pekin at Twenty-Seventh and State Streets, around 1903–04, when it was a popular beer garden frequented by parties of white pleasure-seekers as well as Negroes.”2 The Pekin became a model platform for the exhibition of African American dramatic arts, a place of high theatrical aspirations, and a proud monument to African American enterprise owned by a black man, Robert T. Motts. Its influence reverberated throughout the budding African American stage world.

egregation and degrading treatment in public places of entertainment necessitated the African American theater movement. In 1901 J. Ed Green wrote the Freeman in support of efforts to convert Chicago’s mainstream Havilin Theater into an exclusively black venue: “The idea has long been a source of exasperation to leaders of colored society in Chicago that they could not secure a box or orchestra seat in any of the theatres no matter what its price may be. This fact has led to the plan of having a colored theatre controlled by colored people and catering only to colored patronage.”1 The Havilin Theater initiative was ultimately unsuccessful; but over the course of the next ten years African American theaters serving an exclusively, or predominantly, black clientele became firmly entrenched, and a new and very different dynamic was set in motion. Chicago’s African American theater movement had its genesis in the saloon trade on the south 57

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The Death of J. Ed Green and the Birth of State Street Vaudeville

Indianapolis Freeman, July 15, 1911.

Motts started his operation as a beer hall and restaurant; but when he could not get his license renewed, he decided to convert the building into a “music hall garden,” which he publicized in the summer of 1904 as “The Pekin . . . Temple Of Music . . . Home Of High Class Vaudeville.”3 On January 10, 1906, a fire damaged the building; Motts remodeled and reopened as a “regularly appointed theatre.”4 On February 17, 1906, he advertised: “The Pekin Theatre—The only first-class and properly equipped theatre in the United States, owned, managed and controlled by colored promoters.” Motts secured J. Ed Green to produce and direct the new Pekin Stock Company. Leaving Ernest Hogan’s Rufus Rastus Company mid-tour to take up

at the Pekin, Green opened on March 31, 1906, with a production of Flournoy Miller and Aubrey Lyles’s The Man from Bam.5 Presenting the Pekin Stock Company in a succession of musical dramas written by himself and others, Green set a standard in the newly emerging black theater world: “The productions at the Pekin have given the little house fame and standing not enjoyed by many larger ones. The audiences, as one would perhaps think, are not made up altogether of Negroes. Chicago is a great big cosmopolitan city, consequently the Pekin never lacks for patronage.”6 During the season of 1907, Motts and Green expanded their theatrical activities. Green advertised: “Plays To Let On Royalty to Amateurs or Professionals—Music accompanying all plays, data how to stage same.”7 The Elysium Theater in New Orleans, a shortlived black-owned enterprise, presented plays leased from Green and performed by its own stock players; and Motts placed a Chicago-based stock company under Green’s management at the Robinson Theater in Cincinnati.8 The Pekin Theater dominated the south end of State Street until the summer of 1908, when several little budget-priced theaters cropped up in direct competition with the old landmark. These “trial” playhouses demonstrated the economic potential of African American vaudeville on State Street, as Freeman columnist “Juli Jones, Jr.” duly noted: The south end of State Street has a five cent theater war. There are seven houses in that battle. . . . First on the field was the Lincoln, Malvy’s house. His was only a trial. Business was so good with him that the Monogram cut in. These houses started out with motion pictures and a song occasionally. But things have changed now; each place puts on a regular vaudeville bill, and moving pictures are of little interest. . . . This five cent theater war has drawn nightly four to five thousand people on State Street. . . . It seems like “Broadway” in

The Death of J. Ed Green and the Birth of State Street Vaudeville

Dahoma. You can meet any of your long lost friends in this grand parade.9

“Juli Jones, Jr.” was the pen name of State Street businessman William Foster. At the end of 1906 and into the spring of 1907, Foster served as the Pekin Theater’s business manager.10 By 1909 he was running his own music store on State Street between Thirtieth and Thirty-First, in the heart of the budding theater district.11 Foster was a keen observer with a vested interest in the State Street theater phenomenon, and his “Juli Jones” columns of 1907–10 are an insider’s frank account of its early development. He seems to have originated State Street’s popular nickname “Dahomian Stroll,” later shortened to “The Stroll,” which first appeared in his column of August 15, 1908: “State Street vaudeville is still raging. . . . Chicago has begun to look like the Atlantic City of the West. Instead of the ‘board walk’ we have the ‘Dahomian stroll.’ The five-cent theaters are situated direct on the line. The Pekin towers above them all, but none of them are bad.”12 The seasonal influx of thousands of railroad excursionists—African American tourists on budget vacations from the Deep South—is what initially made State Street’s five- and ten-cent theaters economically viable. Further support was provided by the ever-growing population of permanent refugees from the “old country,” black settlers who brought an appetite for southern music, humor, and dance into Chicago’s cultural mix. In August 1907 Foster wrote: Let your heart be at ease. The first excursion from bam [i.e., Alabama, or, in a broader sense, the South in general] arrived today in three sections; namely (pay attention): First section of twelve coaches filled with those who are to visit friends and return after the Elk’s Convention. Second section of fifteen coaches, packed, plenty of money, going to have a good time and

Indianapolis Freeman, March 9, 1907.

return when money runs short. Third section of forty coaches, standing room only, the original Sons and Daughters of Bam, all with baggage in hand. Come to stick. Brought along two brass bands.13

Even the hard Chicago winter of 1908–09 did not kill theater business along the Stroll: “Here in Dahomey, just to think of it, the houses have their regular clienteles.”14 Moreover, booking agencies were prospering on State Street’s growing reputation as a black theater mecca: “The way business has been going on has encouraged business men to get together and make the Stroll one glamorous way. In

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other words, we are going to buck Atlantic City for popularity the coming season.”15 Caught up in the prevailing atmosphere of “grand reunion and celebration,” Foster proclaimed, “We are the people and we are just bursting this boulevard wide open with joy walks and strolling.”16 The Pekin Theater remained a beacon of achievement in the dramatic arts; however, amid the clamor, the tide of popular support was starting to flow toward the smaller houses: It’s vaudeville the people want, and they are going to have it, that’s all, for five and ten cents, and would not pay more to hear Caruso or Paderewski on the same bill. The present popular demand for vaudeville has put good colored acts right in the front ranks. . . . The ten-cent theater has such a hold on Chicago that capitalists have taken a great interest.17

By the summer of 1908, the Pekin was playing “amalgamated stock and vaudeville and a little bit of everything” in order to remain competitive: “Mr. Green has an unbounded faith in his old love, the Pekin, but the situation at present has him and Mr. Motts looking into open space, without a word to say. It has been unanimously decided that they will have to wait and wonder how long will this craze last.”18 Early in 1909 Motts attempted to rekindle the Pekin Stock Company, retaining J. Ed Green as producer and managing director, and bringing in Marion A. Brooks as “adapter.”19 Brooks had been summoned from St. Louis before the end of 1907 to serve as Green’s assistant at the Pekin.20 In April 1908, however, he reportedly left for Montgomery, Alabama, “to open a theatre fashioned after the Pekin. He has the best wishes of all the Pekinites.”21 Back in Chicago by September, Brooks moved into a management position at the Grand, a recently opened vaudeville house at Thirty-First and State, four blocks up from the Pekin.22 Owned and bankrolled

Indianapolis Freeman, November 25, 1911.

by white men, the Grand was touted as “the finest little theater along the ‘Dahomian Stroll,’ and the second largest.”23 During the spring of 1909, J. Ed Green directed and starred in Pekin productions of Marion Brooks’s “Americanized” adaptations of three European farce comedies.24 The productions were apparently solid enough, but by June it was clear that “The stock company has not been the financial success as in the days of yore.”25 Motts responded by bringing in Sidney Perrin, who had recently made a splash in State Street vaudeville, to collaborate with Green “on a 30-minute musical comedy. . . . Mr. Perrin will also do comedy in his own skits.”26 Green and Perrin had collaborated on an “operatic farce” in New York City several years earlier; but, within a week of the announcement that Perrin was headed for the Pekin, news broke that

The Death of J. Ed Green and the Birth of State Street Vaudeville

Motts had made “a clean shake-up all over the house,” and J. Ed Green had resigned.27 Green immediately set out to establish a theatrical enterprise of his own, in direct competition with Robert T. Motts and other controlling interests on State Street.28 Green had been riding the crest of black entertainment for more than a decade, and he was versed in every aspect of the stage profession except theater ownership. In partnership with Marion Brooks, Green leased the Royal Theater and opened it on July 17, 1909, as the Chester.29 From their headquarters at the little Chester Theater, Green and Brooks outlined an ambitious agenda: “The new concern has a new system, and if carried out, will give the Negro showman the only protection that he has ever had in the West, and every act will get its just dues. The house will be used as a tryout house and acts will be remedied, if necessary, before they are sent out. Acts will be classed and priced according to their ability. . . . The management will rehearse and dress the show right in their own theater and guarantee a first-class show from a manager to a property man. Messrs. Green and Brooks know every reputable act in the city and they will lend their aid.”30 Operating as the Chester Amusement Company, Green and Brooks got off to an auspicious beginning. By August 1909 they were leasing and managing three small State Street theaters and booking acts for two more theaters in Cincinnati. A large advertisement in the Freeman revealed the audacity of their ambition: “Beginning Of First Colored Vaudeville Circuit.”31 Inspired by Green and Brooks’s new endeavor, a Negro showmen’s benevolent organization called the “William Goats” appeared on the Stroll. The Goats became known for their weekly Friday night “rambles,” midnight vaudeville programs held for the benefit of local performers in need of financial assistance.32 Along with the Chester Amusement

Indianapolis Freeman, September 4, 1909.

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The Death of J. Ed Green and the Birth of State Street Vaudeville

Company, the Goats represented a bold new spirit of self determination on State Street. With several theaters under their control, and the scrappy beginnings of an out-of-town circuit in place, Green and Brooks were soon providing work for dozens of black performers, and this put pressure on State Street’s white theater owners and booking agents. In August 1909 William Foster reported that the Grand and the Chester were locked in battle: “It’s a case of capital against theatrical brains. Everybody is waiting for results. What will the answer be?”33 Foster proclaimed that the Chester Amusement Company “can give acts more good time without a layoff than any of the second-class independent booking agents down town. The good colored acts have begun to book through them.”34 This put a particular squeeze on the Grand, which “had a dreadful falling off in business. Then Mr. Green opened a booking agency. This step enabled performers to run their price up on the white managers at the Grand, which they did and are still doing.”35 Green and Brooks were developing a business model that threatened to put entertainers in control of their own fate. Behind the scenes, vested interests plotted to bring them down. According to Foster, “the first battle came off September 4, between the Grand and Brooks and Green.”36 The trouble involved Sidney Perrin, whose presence at the Pekin a few months earlier may have prompted Green’s exit. Shortly thereafter, while appearing in Cincinnati, Perrin signed a written agreement to play Green and Brooks’s Chester Theater upon his return to Chicago. Perrin also booked his partner Goldie Crosby and her sister Odessa Crosby into the Chester: “This act has Dehomey its way. Can play any house along the stroll, no matter what they do, as the public is with them and storm the house every time they appear.”37 At the last minute Perrin cancelled the engagements, explaining that he had been threatened with boycott by mainstream Chicago booking power

Frank Q. Doyle if he played the Chester. “Under the above excuse, Green and Brooks released them to find out that all three were engaged to open at the Grand the same week that they were engaged to open at the Chester.”38 When Green and Brooks complained, Perrin agreed to allow the Crosby Sisters to play the Marion, another one of their State Street theaters: “Everything satisfactory. Green and Brooks advertised the act to the limit.”39 But at the last moment, the manager of the Grand refused to allow the sisters to open at the Marion, which prompted William Foster to conclude: “This turn of affairs made Green and Brooks fall guys for fair.”40 The following week the Chester Amusement Company added another State Street house to its concern; but, more significantly, Frank Q. Doyle added the Grand Theater to his agency’s circuit.41 Doyle was already booking the Pekin; now he stood in direct opposition to Green and Brooks. William Foster candidly observed: “Doyle has the advantage of the big houses, but the next problem is in getting colored talent with class enough to make good. . . . Let us wait and see what the end will be.”42 In October news came that the Gaither Theater in Cincinnati had “severed its connection with the Chester Amusement Co., and hereafter will book through Doyle.”43 Meanwhile, the William Goats booked the Pekin Theater for a midnight ramble on October 8, 1909, only to have their reservation cancelled at the last minute. The damage inflicted by this non-event effectively discouraged future efforts to buck the State Street business establishment. The Goats had rambled in every theater on the Stroll except the Pekin; and every theater had offered the use of its facilities free of charge. On this occasion a committee of Goats met with Robert Motts and rented the Pekin for a token fee of $20.44 At the time of the ramble, Bert Williams was appearing at a white Chicago theater in Mr. Lode of Koal.45 In a major coup, the entire “Lode” company

The Death of J. Ed Green and the Birth of State Street Vaudeville

was enticed to attend the ramble, and Bert Williams himself agreed to address the audience. A huge vaudeville program was arranged, and 1,500 tickets were quickly sold. Then, as William Foster related: The trouble began. The two big theatrical politicians of Dehomey met down town in a third-class booking agent’s office and pulled off the biggest deal known in Dehomey. . . . At the hour of 7:30 in the evening, during the time the Goats were very busy, the private secretary for the manager of the Pekin Theater walked up to Irvin C. Miller and handed him a note. Enclosed was $20. No writing. They just explained that “The Goats can’t ramble at the Pekin Theater tonight.” That’s all. The amusement committee waited on the master of the Pekin Theater to find out the reason. . . . Nothing could persuade him to change his last decision. . . . At length the grand mogul said that he did not like the Goats’ secretary. The committee was dumb struck.46

Foster himself was the Goats’ secretary. He offered to resign his position rather than have the ramble cancelled at that late hour, but Motts would not relent. The Goats could do nothing, as it was too late to notify the public, who had by this time commenced to flow toward the Pekin. Nothing could stop them. . . . The manager of the Pekin settled everything, just as the crowd was about to break down the doors, by announcing in a clear voice that under no consideration would the Goats ramble in his house to-night, and rather than disappoint them he had arranged to give them a free show; that they should look up the secretary of the Goats and get their money back.47

According to Foster, this maneuver was orchestrated by “the power behind the throne.” The following week, Foster lamented:

Well, to put things clear to the public, the goats came near taking the real count-out in their little trouble. Yet it showed just who is the ruling power in Dehomey theatrical world, the senior manager of the Grand and not the managers of the Pekin, and he has made the managers of the Pekin “Fall guys.” The manager of the Grand cheerfully turned his house over to the goats for their ramble, and in turn, prevented the managers of the Pekin from allowing the goats to ramble in their house.48

Foster declared the Grand Theater the victor in the Stroll wars. There could be no question who was the loser. Before the end of 1909 Green and Brooks were forced to abandon all of their theater holdings. Just three houses remained on the Stroll: the Pekin, the Grand, and the Monogram, all booked through Frank Q. Doyle. Foster tried to put the best possible face on the whole disappointing affair: There’s one thing that Green and Brooks did do, and that was to string things in such a way that everybody got work. Their temporary backset cannot be accounted a failure—they simply carried a good thing too far. . . . The colored vaudeville actors of Chicago have begun to look around them to see just where they stand. They have put all their dependence in a downtown agent [Doyle], who took a hand in the Goat’s affair. Now, since the Goats have ceased to be so strong, and the little South Side booking agent [Green and Brooks] lost their house, this downtown agent has got busy . . . to give the colored acts a bump that it will take them a long time to get over. . . . But . . . it’s more than the work of a handful of their headed managers to put the colored showman or vaudeville actor out of business, just because the better class of colored acts and actors won’t do as they want them to do, and should these gentlemen take a little peep in back history of the colored showmen and jubilee singers,

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The Death of J. Ed Green and the Birth of State Street Vaudeville

he will find that they . . . have had many setbacks, but they keep coming. . . . Here is one thing that may put everyone at ease—the Negro is on the stage to stay. . . . Well, thanks, the Goats are able to sit up and nibble a little hay; no tin cans for a while. They will wait a while before defying the butcher again.49

At year’s end, State Street scribe Sylvester Russell, whose many antagonists included Green, Brooks, and Foster, put his own slant on the situation: The “Goats” are young and they have errored by branching out too fast. Their rambles, which started at the little Chester Theater, should have continued there. The moment they branched out Green and Brooks involved themselves into competition by giving benefits at other houses. When the “Goats” were turned down by Manager Motts and ostracized from the Pekin Theater on the night that Bert A. Williams was to address them, their public prestige was weakened. . . . when they ramble hereafter it must be in a moderate, cautious way. . . . The best advice that can be offered to the “Goats” is to cultivate cordial relations with all the managers and booking agents, as it would be out of the question for any member of such a young organization to enter into hostilities with any managers, white or colored, without defeat.50

Robert Motts kept the Pekin Theater in operation through the winter of 1909–10 by “running all vaudeville.”51 When Motts died in 1911, Sylvester Russell eulogized him as the “Greatest Napoleon of Theatricals.”52 Motts, his Pekin Theater, and the early achievements of its ill-fated Pekin Stock Company remain iconic in the literature of black theatrical history.53 Following the failure of the Chester Amusement Company, William Foster’s “Juli Jones” column lost its edge and soon disappeared from the Freeman.54 However, Foster remained a positive force on the

Stroll. He continued to operate the Foster Music Company, and he put his interest in moving pictures to use in another pioneer race enterprise, the Foster Photo Play Company.55 Marion Brooks rose from the ashes of the Chester Amusement Company debacle and headed south. In the spring of 1910 he arrived at the Airdome Theater in Jacksonville, Florida: “Mr. Brooks came here direct from Chicago to take charge, and it is understood, aside from his connection as amusement director of the Air Dome, he will promote a booking exchange, booking acts from Chicago to Jacksonville and return. . . . The show offered this past week is said to be the most pleasing of any yet offered in this theater. Forty-five minutes of fun and music taken from J. Ed Green’s three-act musical comedy, ‘Two African Princes.’”56 J. Ed Green never recovered from his smashing defeat. Physically and emotionally exhausted, he was taken to Provident Hospital in a delirious condition and was not seen again on the State Street Stroll until February 7, 1910.57 Green appeared to be on the mend, and was said to be preparing for rest and recuperation in the countryside near Indianapolis, when he died suddenly on February 19, 1910.58 With his death, State Street lost a guiding light. It was roundly agreed that the failure of the Chester Amusement Company was the cause of Green’s undoing.59 It may not be going too far to declare him a martyr to the forlorn hope of self-directed black theatrical entertainment in Chicago. Funeral services for Green were held in Chicago, and his body was then taken by train to New Albany, Indiana, where a service was conducted by Rev. C. E. Manuel of Second Baptist Church: “Before preaching the sermon Rev. Manuel told of his intimate acquaintance with Mr. Green; how, when he was a young man, he was so helpful to the church by giving musical entertainments, and how often the famous ‘Black Diamond’ quartet, of which Mr. Green was organizer

The Death of J. Ed Green and the Birth of State Street Vaudeville

had been heard in churches and among the best people all over the State.”60 Green’s widow Jeanette Murphy Green wrote the Freeman to publicly thank his many “staunch and inseparable friends” for their support.61 There was general agreement that J. Ed Green and Marion Brooks had attempted too much too quickly. By the end of 1910 it had become clear that black vaudeville in Chicago would remain under the domination of white capitalists. The following year an entertainment columnist in the black weekly Chicago Broad Ax was moved to warn: “Mr. Frank Q. Doyle will soon be booking all the Colored houses, and performers playing opposition houses had better stop and think it over.”62 Once issues of control and self-determination were laid to rest, the players’ remaining concerns could be expressed in two words: steady work. In knocking the wind out of the sails of Chicago’s black theatrical fraternity, Frank Q. Doyle and his cronies may have unintentionally softened up State Street for the upcoming invasion of southern stage artists. Only a few years earlier, J. Ed Green had helped introduce northern production standards in the saloon-theaters and park pavilions of Memphis and Louisville. But, after Butler “String Beans” May descended on the State Street Stroll in May 1911, the tide shifted. String Beans was the first to bring the full force of southern vernacular entertainment to bear in northern vaudeville theaters, inaugurating Chicago’s enduring love affair with the blues.

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CHAPTER TWO

The Life, Death, and Untold Legacy of Bluesman Butler “String Beans” May There probably was no better known performer to Race vaudeville fans than Butler May . . . he was the Bert Williams of small time. —Chicago Defender, 1917

T

he proliferation of small black vaudeville theaters at the end of the first decade of the twentieth century provided a proper platform for the concrete formulation and emergence of popular blues. Composer/publisher W. C. Handy has been immortalized as the “Father of the Blues”; but in those days of nascent southern vaudeville, Butler “String Beans” May was the stage performer most responsible for popularizing the “original blues.” String Beans was the greatest attraction of pre-1920 African American vaudeville and the first blues star. Butler May was born in Montgomery, Alabama, to Butler May Sr., a farmer, and Laura Robinson May. Various documents place his date of birth somewhere between May 1891 and August 1894.1 After his father died around 1900, Butler May, Jr.

and his seven brothers and sisters were brought up by their mother, who worked as a laundress, domestic, and cook.2 Lifelong Montgomery resident Joseph Nesbitt, born in 1902, knew something of May’s family history. For a time, the Mays and the Nesbitts were next-door neighbors at 115 and 117 Tuscaloosa Street: “[The Mays] didn’t own the house that they lived in on Tuscaloosa. . . . See, his mother was a widowed woman, and had been for a number of years. Because she reared her children without a husband; she was a legally married woman alright, good Christian woman . . . and [Butler May] was a Montgomery boy, and everybody liked him.”3 According to Nesbitt, young Butler May attended the old Swayne School, later renamed Booker T. Washington; and the May family worshipped at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, the church Dr. Martin 67

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The Life, Death, and Untold Legacy of Bluesman Butler “String Beans” May

Luther King Jr. came to pastor in 1954, the year before the Montgomery bus boycott. Nesbitt recalled seeing Butler May perform in his neighborhood: He’d go around in a truck, with his piano on there, and he played, you know. . . . He’d always do it in the summer, see? When people could come on their porches and hear him and see him. And his mother and sisters was always telling, “My son will be out,” and “My brother will be along this evening.” They’d give ’em the time of day, and my mother would always arrange her business so that she could be out there and see him and enjoy him, too. . . . His piano was on a truck, and he was seated at the piano. . . . Some man would be driving his dray, that he was riding on, or his truck, or whatever it was. There wasn’t no top on it. . . . He got a truck and put a piano up there and played his own music and sang his own music.4

String Beans was often praised for his piano playing, but extant documentation reveals no clues to his early tutors or musical influences. In the spring of 1909 he left Montgomery with Benbow’s Chocolate Drops, a southern road show managed by black Montgomery native William Benbow. The Chocolate Drops set up residence at the Belmont Street Theater in Pensacola, Florida. On April 10, 1909, a company correspondent mentioned the fledgling comedian for the first time in the “Stage” columns of the Freeman: “We are still in Pensacola . . . The show is making good. Roster: Happy Howe, Butler May, Kid Kelley, Billy Henderson, Dave Cross, Freddie Folks, Alberta Benbow, Minnie Jones, Stella Taylor, Beatrice Howe.”5 Not long after Benbow’s Chocolate Drops opened in Pensacola, William and Gertrude Rainey came aboard: The two Raneys open with the show on [April] 7th, and Gertie Raney [sic] is making good with her late

hit, “If the World Don’t Treat You Right, Why Don’t You Come Home?” Butler May, our funny man, is still pleasing. Happy Howe and wife are still cleaning. Lizzie White and Minnie Jones are making good. William Henderson, our baritone songster, is still with us and is expecting his wife Mrs. Buela [sic] Henderson, who is at present working at Jacksonville. Mrs. Alberta Benbow is making good with her late hit, “I’m Glad I’m Married.” Our manager, M. Jacoby, always wears a smile on his face, and says it is his heart’s delight to pay his people. Prof. Noner Barras [sic] has charge of the music. William Benbow is stage manager.6

Benbow’s troupe settled into Pensacola for a long stay. In the month of May, Butler May and Arthur “Happy” Howe, “the Southern favorite,” reportedly “joined hands . . . and will present a vaudeville act.”7 Howe was on sabbatical from the Rabbit’s Foot Minstrel Company, where he served as leading comedian. Howe was likely one of String Beans’s early inspirations. The Kenner and Lewis Amusement Company arrived in Pensacola from New Orleans in September 1909.8 When Benbow’s Chocolate Drops left Pensacola, Butler May stayed on to work for Kenner and Lewis at the Belmont Street Theater, teamed with fellow “funny man” Kid Kelly. Their act included buck dancing and a comic vocal duet titled “Music Makes Me Sentimental.”9 When Kenner and Lewis left for Mobile on November 14, 1909, May and Kelly broke away and headed for the newly opened Luna Park Theater on Decatur Street in Atlanta. Luna Park was a black amusement grounds with a vaudeville platform that became a particular flashpoint of the coming blues movement. R. B. “Caggie” Howard, the house pianist, later served as the band director for Tolliver’s Smart Set.10 Butler May and Kid Kelly stormed the Luna Park stage: “The team of May and Kelly, singing and dancing comedians, is the talk of the town.

The Life, Death, and Untold Legacy of Bluesman Butler “String Beans” May

Butler May ‘grabbed’ the audience the first night he worked with his funny dancing and his own song, ‘Mary Jane.’”11 The song apparently referenced the popular Mary Jane style of women’s shoes. It spread quickly along the southern vaudeville theater routes. One week after May introduced it at Luna Park, Jimmie and Magnolia Cox appeared at the neighboring Arcade Theater, “making a great success with their own song entitled ‘I Love the Mary Jane, I think they are great, but I am crazy about the gal that wears the opera cape.’”12 While Butler May was at Luna Park his “String Beans” persona emerged. A Freeman report from January 1910 proclaimed, “String Beans, better known as Butler May, is bringing the house down with ‘Play It On.’”13 One likely indication of String Beans’s newly minted celebrity came in a Freeman report the following month, which revealed that Luna Park’s proprietor Charles Wood “has spent $2,000 on the place, and now has it on the order of an airdome.”14 As spring settled over Luna Park, “Butler May, known as String Bean,” was “still the favorite, and takes the house by storm when he takes that unknown trip.”15 “That unknown trip,” or simply “that trip,” is an obscure relic of black stage patois repeatedly associated with early presentations of the blues. Curiously redolent of 1960s youth-culture jargon, it suggests a process of musical improvisation and at the same time conveys an awareness of the creative powers of the irrational. In May 1910 String Beans made a “flying trip” from Atlanta to the Globe Theater in Jacksonville, Florida, to appear in a “comedy (naval) production, entitled ‘Booker T. Cruising on the High Seas.’”16 Back in Luna Park in July, he advised Freeman readers: Butler May, better known as Papa String Beans, is tearing the house down every night singing “I’ve Got Elgin Movements in My Hip and Twenty Years Guaranteed.” He is still packing the house and has been for ten months in succession.

Atlanta Independent, April 30, 1910.

Atlanta Independent, May 14, 1910

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The Life, Death, and Untold Legacy of Bluesman Butler “String Beans” May

String Beans’s new partner was originally from New Orleans, where she was first spotted on stage at Dixie Park in the spring of 1909. By November of that year she had made her way to Thomas Baxter’s Exchange Garden Theater in Jacksonville: “Sweetie Matthews and Emma Thornton are Louisiana beauties, cleaning up with their act, ‘The Boy Said, “Will You”? and the Girl Said, “Yes.”’”20 She also played opposite blackface comedian Ed F. Peat in a western skit titled “Trixie, the Pride of the Ranch,” singing the 1908 sheet music hit “Whistle and I’ll Wait for You.”21 Butler May and Sweetie Matthews left Luna Park together some time before August 1, 1910, when String Beans took charge of the stage at the Queen Theater in his hometown Montgomery.22 A few weeks later, news came that:

Grand Forks Daily Herald, May 2, 1899 (America’s Historical Newspapers, NewsBank).

Regards to all in and out of the profession. Also Kenner and Lewis at Belmont Street Theater, Pensacola, Fla. Hello W. M. Benboe [sic], write to me. BUTLER MAY Stage Manager Luna Park Theater.17

String Beans’s wildly contagious song of “Elgin Movements,” with its tantalizing metaphor of clockwork hip action, became entrenched in blues tradition. By the fall of 1911, String Beans was advertising himself as “The Elgin Movements Man.”18 At Luna Park in July 1910, he also made an impression with “his own act entitled ‘Jasper’s Dream in the Pits of Hell,’ assisted by Sweetie Matthews, who is singing that ‘Oh, You Devil Rag!’”19

The people are well pleased with the up-to-date shows that he has put on. The act of the first part of the week was “Under the Harvest Moon,” a threeact musical comedy, assisted by Danford Cross, our straight man, also Sweetie May. Watkins and Watkins are cleaning up singing “Grizzly Bear.” Butler May is well pleased with the bunch of people. Mr. Taylor, the manager is delighted over the packed houses that he has every night. Butler May as “String Bean” is taking the house by storm singing “I Wish I Were in Heaven with My Brother Bill.”23

Butler May and Sweetie Matthews apparently were married during their August 1910 stand in Montgomery. When they dropped down to Pensacola in early September, the Belmont Theater’s Freeman correspondent informed, “We have Butler May and his little wife, who made a decided hit.”24 Later that month, String Beans and Sweetie May backtracked to Luna Park in Atlanta and “took the house by storm singing ‘Play the Luna Park Rag.’”25

The Life, Death, and Untold Legacy of Bluesman Butler “String Beans” May

In October Will Benbow recruited Butler and Sweetie May to headline Barrasso’s new Alabama Rosebuds Company on the pioneer Tri-State Theater Circuit. On November 6, 1910, the Alabama Rosebuds opened at the Temple Theater in New Orleans, Sweetie’s home town: “May and May, better known as the ‘String Bean Duo’ was a tremendous hit from their very first appearance, and are great favorites. The rendition of Casey Jones received several encores.”26 Also with the show were Richard J. Matthews, Eugene Liggins, Stella Taylor, Bonnie Belle Thomas, Edna Landry Benbow, Leroy White, and pianist Sadie Whitehead with her eight-piece New Orleans orchestra. Stella Taylor was Jelly Roll Morton’s girlfriend, and Morton himself may have been part of the Alabama Rosebuds entourage.27 From New Orleans, the Alabama Rosebuds proceeded to the newest stop on the Tri-State Circuit, the Amuse U No. 2 Theater in Vicksburg, Mississippi.28 Shortly thereafter, May and May broke away from the Alabama Rosebuds to play a five-week engagement at the Pekin Theater in Savannah, Georgia, where Beans sang “his own song, ‘Papa String Beans Rag.’”29 The show was reviewed in the Savannah Tribune: The first of the program that greeted the crowded houses, was a popular overture rendered by Prof. Wm. Robinson’s orchestra. The motion pictures were interesting as well as educative. May and May known as “String Beans” are always on hand with something new. Next come Tom Young who is clever in his eccentric dancing. Then come . . . Willie and Cora Fisher Glenn playing a return date. . . . Cora Fisher Glenn is a wonderful dancer and is said to be the best female buck dancer on the American Stage, while Willie Glenn is also a clever dancer. The Pekin Stock Co., under the direction of “Stringbeans” in a laughable farce by Pauline Crampton entitled “The two African Princes” closed the program. Pauline

Savannah Tribune, January 21, 1911. May and May shared this bill with Will and Gertrude Rainey.

Crampton in male attire, as Jack Shriggs scored a big hit. . . . Stringbeans and Tom Scott as the two African Princes were a laughable treat.30

Returning to Fred Barrasso’s theatrical territory in March 1911, the “String Bean Duo” headlined a threeweek engagement at the Savoy Theater in Memphis, in company with Estelle Harris, Happy Howe, and

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The Life, Death, and Untold Legacy of Bluesman Butler “String Beans” May

Indianapolis Freeman, February 25, 1911.

Indianapolis Freeman, December 23, 1911.

others: “‘String Beans’ is making quite a hit with the people of the town. ‘Sweetie’ is also very pleasing. She sings ‘Papa String Beans Rag.’”31 From Memphis they went directly to Hot Springs, Arkansas, where a reporter judged them “the best team ever appearing at Majestic theater.”32 Following the Hot Springs engagement, May and May headlined a heavy bill at the Central Theater in Atlanta, and String Beans took part in “a military travesty: ‘Captain Bogus of the Jim Crow Regiment,’ by J. H. Williams.”33 Influential northern comedian-producer Tim Owsley happened to be in Atlanta. Owsley was generally sympathetic to

southern performers, but he was not quite ready for String Beans. In a “Write Up of All the Theaters of Atlanta, Ga.,” he offered a bemused commentary: “Butler May and Swetie [sic] May, better known to the southern show world as papa and mamma String Beans. Some name, aint’s it? . . . Mr. Butler May should allow his female partner to do more work in their act. As she is very charming in her costumes and sings well. They close their act with a finish, just like Murphy and Francis. I don’t know where they got it, but they do the restaurant gag.”34 The exemplary northern black comedy team of Bert Murphy and Francis Ellick toured mainstream vaudeville circuits during the first decade of the twentieth century and right up to the end of the String Beans era.35 Murphy’s 1917 obituary recalled him “singing his own popular song, ‘He’s in the Jail House Now.’”36 Two years out of Montgomery and still in his teens, String Beans had already established himself as the brightest star in southern vaudeville. In

The Life, Death, and Untold Legacy of Bluesman Butler “String Beans” May

the spring of 1911 Fred Barrasso made a special trip to Chicago to confer with booking agent Frank Q. Doyle.37 Doyle was expanding his interests in “colored time,” and Barrasso apparently recommended String Beans as the one best southern act to try out on the “Dahomian Stroll.”38 In May 1911 String Beans and Sweetie embarked on their first excursion across the Mason-Dixon Line, headed for Chicago to introduce the blues at the Monogram Theater. The homely Monogram was from its inception a “people’s theater,” a suitable harbor for String Beans and the subsequent armada of southern performers who would soon follow him north. A survivor of the “5-cent theater wars” of 1908, standing among more imposing, better capitalized theatrical enterprises, the Monogram endured on the strength of the management’s commitment to stage the most up-to-date vaudeville shows on the Stroll. Juli Jones judged: “The Monogram, the ‘fightness’ little house in Chicago, always has a capital bill.”39 Located at 3028 State Street, the Monogram first opened under the management of Miss Willie Ingalls, and changed ownership several times before it was taken over by Martin Klein in the spring of 1909.40 What Harlem’s Apollo Theater was to black popular entertainment during the 1950s, Chicago’s Monogram Theater was during the teens: a racially insular platform offering shows that bristled with in-group prestige and creative influence. But the Monogram was small-time African American show business, and success there was not a ticket into the mainstream. Manager Klein did not pay big salaries, and the building was unglamorous. Ethel Waters had particularly harsh words for the Monogram in her 1951 autobiography His Eye Is on the Sparrow: Of all those rinky-dink dumps I played, nothing was worse than the Monogram Theater in Chicago. It was close to the El, and the walls were so thin that you stopped singing—or telling a joke—every time

a train passed. Then, when the noise died down, you continued right where you left off. In the Monogram you dressed away downstairs with the stoker. The ceiling down there was so low I had to bend over to get my stage clothes on. Then you came up to the stage on a ladder that looked like those on the old-time slave ships. Ever since I worked at the Monogram any old kind of dressing room has looked pretty good to me so long as it had a door that could be closed.41

It is not clear why Waters singled out the Monogram for censure. Seemingly, it was no better or worse than the average black vaudeville theater in appointments or accommodations. The style and quality of entertainment presented at the Monogram are what account for its stature and historical importance.42 The Monogram’s pit band—“unexcelled on State Street”—comprised pianist William H. Dorsey, clarinetist Wilbur Sweatman, and trap drummer George Reeves. Martin Klein had successfully enticed Sweatman from the Grand Theater and Reeves from the Pekin. In August 1911 Sylvester Russell wrote: “The Monogram Orchestra . . . has the highest priced musicians on State Street.”43 Russell felt that, “as a roll drummer,” George Reeves excelled “all others and adds melody of tone in support of classical singers.”44 Wilbur Sweatman began his career with Prof. N. Clark Smith’s Pickaninny Band and made his first professional tours as a member of P. G. Lowery’s Band. He was a pioneer jazz recording artist.45 Dorsey, a veteran of southern park and saloon platforms, gravitated to Chicago in 1907: “For real classy music as well as the late rags, Mr. Wm. Dorsey, at the Monogram, is the man. Dorsey first gets all the late hits and puts them on at the Monogram in great fashion. Dorsey’s music is a scream. Many come specially to hear Dorsey.”46 While maintaining his position at the Monogram, Dorsey opened an office at 3159 State Street and went into the

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The Life, Death, and Untold Legacy of Bluesman Butler “String Beans” May

Like Me,” which he identified as a Chris Smith–Butler May collaboration.52 At the conclusion of their second week, String Beans received his first review from Sylvester Russell, headed “May and May Thrill at the Monogram.” Butler May, who I am told, is the heaviest team comedian of the lower South, appeared with his wife at the Monogram last Monday. . . . Whatever it is that May hands over, nobody knows, or cares, but it thrills and creates riots of laughter. This heavy Northern atmosphere and the presence of a noted critic all seem strange to him, to inform him that he is not great, but clever as a mixer with colored audiences who hail from Mobile or the State of Tennessee.53

Indianapolis Freeman, December 23, 1911.

business of arranging songs.47 An advertisement described his range of services: “Music arranged for piano, band and orchestra. Vaudeville artists in need of music of any description for their acts, can be accommodated with bright and catchy music. Words set to music and music set to words.”48 Dorsey’s “song shop” proved so successful that he hired Dave Peyton and Wilbur Sweatman to help him run it: “If you have a song and think it can make good, send it to them and they will arrange it ready for the publisher.”49 In their first week at the Monogram, Butler and Sweetie May shared the bill with singer-songwriter Chris Smith, “a hit-factory in the ragtime line,” and blackface comedian Clayborne Jones, known for his “Zulu act.”50 Jones rocked the Monogram with “It’s Hard to Find a King Like Me.”51 Subsequently, String Beans introduced a personalized version of “King

It was clear from the outset that Russell had little use for “whatever it is that May hands over.” Well versed in conventional theater lore, but strait-laced and snobbish, Russell was unprepared to appreciate the rising tide of vernacular arts from the “lower South.” Still, he was obliged to acknowledge the “riots of laughter” that String Beans and Sweetie May created at the Monogram. Beans’s success confounded not only Russell but other northern critics and show veterans. The business of theaters is to draw large audiences, and String Beans generated unprecedented box office activity. Nevertheless, his style of entertaining was anathema to those accustomed to judging performers by conventional standards. His outrageous risqué comedy, blues songs, and suggestive eccentric dancing did not fit their concept of proper entertainment. News of String Beans’s ability to draw a crowd spread quickly, and northern managers fell in line to book this hot, new, altogether different act. From the Monogram, Beans and Sweetie went to the Pekin Theater in Cincinnati: “The big noise on the bill is a new team, May and May, a couple of laugh producers. This team was made to order for Brownsville. It

The Life, Death, and Untold Legacy of Bluesman Butler “String Beans” May

is a case of come early or get no seat at the Pekin as long as May and May are here. Good singing, good dancing and gaudy costumes are this team’s principal assets. The manager has sent notice out to the booking agent for more performers with this class of work.”54 May and May were held over in Cincinnati for a second week. The theater reporter called them “the big sensation of Brownsville.”55 No sooner had Beans and Sweetie conquered Cincinnati than Martin Klein fetched them back for another run at the Monogram. As their popularity soared, a river of ambiguous appraisals, backhanded compliments, and patronizing supplications began to flow from the pen of Sylvester Russell: “Butler May is of an ancient type of oddities inconceivable, but apt enough to watch or wait for a word or moment to cause a scream of laughter. But he is a comedian by recognition of his growing importance as an eccentric dancer, and his wife, believe me, has some new purple clothes.”56 In July, May and May played the Crown Garden Theater in Indianapolis and then moved on to the Lyre Theater in Louisville, Kentucky. Historically, Louisville is regarded as “the Gateway to the South”; but, while the city was home to many luminaries of the early African American stage, it was outside of the southern vaudeville “wheel,” and had barely experienced the new brand of blues-tinged vaudeville before String Beans and Sweetie May arrived in town: “This being their first appearance in Louisville, they open very big, and their first song, ‘The Sweetest Man in Town,’ was a sure hit. Butler May sang ‘Get You a Kitchen Mechanic,’ and it stormed the house. He was compelled to take several encores. The closing song, ‘Alabama Bound,’ was heartily received. Without a doubt this was one of the best acts seen in Louisville and closed a good bill.”57 In their second week the Lyre correspondent called them “the scream of the present situation, who hold the audience spellbound.”58

(Courtesy Hogan Jazz Archive, Tulane University)

“Kitchen Mechanic” and “Alabama Bound” were signature markers of the blues revolution. “Kitchen Mechanic” first popped up at the Pekin Theater in Savannah in the spring of 1910, when G. W. Allen introduced his “latest writing . . . The song that starts them all to humming, singing and whistling, and is considered by the critics and public to be the greatest and funniest ragtime song ever written . . . entitled ‘I’ll Get a Kitchen Mechanic Out the White Folks Yard and Let Those Tantalizing Browns Alone.’”59 That summer, minstrel magnets Billy and Louise Kersands were singing “the biggest song hits of the season,” including “Kitchen Mechanic Out of the White Folks’ Yard.”60 “Alabama Bound” had become ubiquitous in southern vaudeville by 1910. Correspondence from

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The Life, Death, and Untold Legacy of Bluesman Butler “String Beans” May

traveling minstrel show bands also attests to its significance, as portrayed in this Freeman report from the Down in Dixie Minstrels in New Orleans: “They are not so crazy for ‘Dixie’ down here any more. It is ‘Alabama Bound’ and ‘Casey Jones.’”61 Sheet music versions of “Alabama Bound” were circulating by 1909; one, with the subtitle “Alabama Blues,” signifies the first appearance in print of the generic term blues.62 Another conspicuous marker of emerging blues sensibilities in popular ragtime sheet music is Antonio Maggio’s “I Got the Blues,” published in New Orleans in 1908 billed as “An Up-to-Date Rag.”63 What made it up-to-date was its opening strain in twelve-bar blues form. In its earliest commercial manifestations, the blues appeared as a mosaic of musical conventions derived from popular ragtime and African American folk music. This ambivalent mix is reflected on the sheet music covers of “Alabama Bound” and “I Got the Blues,” each announcing itself a “blues” and also a “rag.” In August 1911 Beans and Sweetie played a return at the Pekin in Cincinnati: “Just what kind of an act they are putting on it is hard to describe, but it is all real comedy. The team proved one thing, and that is they know how to produce the goods desired around here. On their former visit here they worked two weeks, giving us a new act each week, and now everything they do is new. Miss Sweetie May has some stunning new costumes.”64 Then it was back to the Monogram, where Sylvester Russell took a stab at what he called Beans’s “handsome bunch of racial oddities”: Labor Day was celebrated at the Monogram by crowds of curiosity seekers who roughed their way in to see Butler May (String Beans) the greatest comedian of the lesser extremities of the south. The reason why String Beans is a wonder is because he don’t even know what he is going to say the next minute, but whatever he manages to say tickles every heart and causes the house to thunder. What was new and

original was that he telephoned to the African Jungles, where the baboons have a panic disease up in a coconut tree. Can you beat it?65

As the summer season of 1911 drew to a close on State Street, String Beans and Sweetie May were declared the undisputed “scream of the stroll.”66 “Charles. O. Harding is booking the act and he claims there is no chance for this team to be out of work on his time. The team leaves Chicago over the Harding time for twenty-two weeks.”67 In September the Freeman reported: “The team of May and May are appearing at the Gem theater, at Lexington, Ky. as we go to press. Word received from the Kentucky town is to the effect that the team is knocking them a twister at each performance. Mr. May is scoring heavily singing his new song ‘There Never Was and Never Will Be a String Bean Like Me,’ words by Chris Smith, music by String Beans himself.”68 From Lexington, May and May proceeded to the Lyre Theater in Louisville, where they again scored heavily: The house played to over 2,000 patrons, and over 500 people were turned away. Never before since the house has been opened has such a crowd gathered to witness a show. The . . . big scream of the bill [was] May and May, billed as the funny String Beans, and without a doubt he is the funniest comedian that has ever played this house . . . and he is the best drawing card that has ever been here. His new song of “High Brown Skin Girl,” will make a rabbit hug a hound; it was a scream. Miss May sang “Fishing” very good, and was well received.69

“Fishing” was another Chris Smith song hit; it was recorded in 1928 by Henry “Ragtime Texas” Thomas as “Fishing Blues” and during the 1960s by “folk revival” artists including the Lovin’ Spoonful and Taj Mahal.70

The Life, Death, and Untold Legacy of Bluesman Butler “String Beans” May

Theater managers were loath to part with such a potent drawing card. A communication from Philadelphia dated October 17 said May and May “simply captivated the audiences at the Auditorium Theater. They are one continuous scream. Manager Gibson of the Auditorium says that the Mays have put more people in the house than any one team has ever played. He claims Butler May to be the funniest man in the show business, and his little wife, Sweetie May, is one best bet as a soubrette. Mr. Gibson is so enthusiastic in his praise of the team that he declares he will keep them two more weeks.”71 It seems this resulted in their “failure . . . to report according to contracts with the manager of the Pekin Theater” in Cincinnati, which “left the house in a very peculiar position . . . having billed his house and surrounding localities in anticipation of a very large crowd, as the team are big favorites on the avenue.”72 In their absence, “the only and original [Wilbur] Sweatman was a life-saver”; and “Miss Lucy Shepherd . . . jumped into the limelight. . . . Her closing song, ‘Fishing,’ was a big hit. In the chorus when she sang, ‘any old fish will bite if you got good bait,’ made some of the regulars look up.”73 May and May were said to be booked to appear in New York City.74 However, no documentation has been found to confirm that engagement. When the team returned to the Monogram in November, it was “the cause for turning crowds of people away again at this house.”75 Sylvester Russell allowed that, “String Beans, more unique than ever before, gave us a piano burlesque that was clever because of its aptness.”76 The following week he wrote: “One of the finest bills of the season is on at the Monogram Theater. The Mays . . . in a new act, that was quite legitimate, won heavy applause, and their singing and dancing took higher rank than ever before.”77 They put on a skit that featured String Beans as “the ruler of Hades.”78 On the third week of this engagement Russell declared that String Beans “is

fast becoming the ‘candy’ of State street.”79 In light of subsequent statements, it could be inferred that Russell received a bit of “sweetening” from String Beans as compensation for his uncharacteristic tolerance. From Chicago, May and May headed to the Pekin Theater in Cincinnati, where they remained through mid-December.80 Prior to 1911, Butler May had never performed, and perhaps never even ventured, outside of the South. His unprecedented success before northern black vaudeville audiences opened the floodgates for other southern vernacular stage acts, enabling the ascent of the blues into national prominence. May and May kicked off the year 1912 with a twoweek engagement at the Lyre Theater in Louisville: And the act is naturally the feature. They are appearing in an act entitled “Booker T.’s Reception,” and the act is a riot from beginning to end. Sweetie May is in good voice and is knocking ’em twisted with “Let Me Know the Day Before.” This young lady is a neat soubrette and her every appearance is the signal for continued applause. The inimitable Papa Beans is as ludicrous as ever, and his antics keep the audience in a constant uproar. He is using “That’s Going Some,” and it’s peaches. The act has been strengthened by the addition of Chas. May, who appears to advantage.81

It was also reported that, “after winning success in the North,” May and May would “go direct to Montgomery, Ala., there to enjoy the pleasures of the family fireside.”82 Two weeks later the team was part of a big vaudeville bill at Frank Crowd’s Globe Theater in Jacksonville, with Muriel Ringgold, the Rainey Trio, Buster and Willie Porter, Frank Montgomery and Florence McClain, and others. The seven-piece Globe orchestra was headed by Eugene Francis Mikell. In February a note said Beans was serving as stage manager at the Globe and “playing

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The Life, Death, and Untold Legacy of Bluesman Butler “String Beans” May

(Mrs. Weaver is certainly some Indian squaw with Indian costumes, while Mr. Weaver kept the audience in hysterics with his comedy.) . . . Tom Young worked between the acts and when he got through singing “The Blues” he had to hoist an umbrella to keep the money from raining on him.84

Indianapolis Freeman, December 23, 1911.

to crowded houses.”83 May and May settled in for a long run at the Globe. The Globe Theater bill for the week of April 15 included a skit in two acts, titled “Dr. Bill from Louisville,” put on by Mr. Butler May . . . which proved to be highly enjoyable and something out of the ordinary—a regular musical comedy of songs and music by Professor Mikell and Messrs. May and J. J. Weaver . . . The olio [included] the Two Weavers in an Indian act which proved to be different from all the rest

Late in May 1912, String Beans and Sweetie May returned to the Monogram. Russell’s review employed a bit of rhetoric that was to become Beans’s own stage axiom: “If we are to live forever in Ethiopia, let us live by all means in the Monogram. String Beans (Butler May) stretched forth his hand again last Monday evening in the same old way, and created a riot before a full house, at each performance, which he drew on his past and present popularity. His wife, Mrs. May, was at her best, and Beans himself, who is a good natural comedian, scored, as usual, on his sarcastic humor and played the piano with much natural ability.”85 During their second week at the Monogram, Russell pronounced Beans “the most wonderful, natural and original colored comedian on the American stage . . . and nearer to being legitimate than heretofore.”86 The notion of “legitimacy” was repeatedly invoked by Russell and other commentators who, despite the public’s undeniable enthusiasm, insisted that String Beans should conform to established theatrical conventions. At their next engagement, Indianapolis’s Crown Garden Theater correspondent chimed in: “Mr. May is becoming more of a legitimate comedian than he was in days of yore.” There was a brief enumeration of their “new songs, all of which are hits—‘Ball the Jack Rage [sic],’ ‘All Night Long’ and others. Mr. May also presides at the piano during his act. Some act and some drawing card . . . just what the doctor orders for a man with a dull, blue feeling. When once you see him, you’ll never forget him. . . . May and May are IT, in capital letters.”87

The Life, Death, and Untold Legacy of Bluesman Butler “String Beans” May

When Beans and Sweetie returned to the Monogram in August 1912 singing “Pray for the Lights to Go Out,” Sylvester Russell turned hostile: “String Beans brought something new, but his sarcastic admixture of religious humor must be condemned. It is hard to teach old dogs new tricks, especially if they have never been trained, consequently we are obliged to excuse Beans, as one funny, original comedian whom people come miles to see.”88 Russell’s criticism was close enough to a personal insult to provoke a pointed rebuttal from Beans, which was published under the heading, “How To Get A Good Write Up”: Performers playing in Chicago are generally knocked by Sylvester Russell if they fail to come across with the goods. This is what Russell calls criticism. In my judgment, critics should not accept money from performers. May and May have been getting nice mention from Russell right along until they refused to hand out any more “dough.” Performers, the knock of Russell does not do us harm in our business. He is not a critic. He is simply a money receiver. A big dinner set for him at Dago & Russell’s will work wonders. Yours truly, Butler May89

Russell responded with a verbose defense of his professional integrity, followed by a new line of attack: “As a performer, String Beans is not yet eligible for the big time in white theaters. His songs only appeal to colored people; his smut would be ruled out and his course of stage work at every performance is improbable and I have found it impossible to teach him or train his mind by coaching.”90 In the wake of this exchange, a rumor circulated that Russell and String Beans had been involved in a “set-to.” Physical assaults on Russell occurred often enough to constitute an underlying theme of

his professional life. “It’s a disgrace to the ‘dramatic press,’” lamented rival columnist Cary B. Lewis, “for the public to be always talking about who beat up ‘the great dramatic critic.’ We hope Mr. String Beans was not as serious with his blow as Mr. Dudley.”91 Early in 1911, Sherman H. Dudley had punched out Russell at a reception.92 However, Russell denied that he and Beans had come to blows, and correctly stated that he was “old enough to be String Beans’ father.”93 When May and May played the Crown Garden Theater in August 1912, Freeman editor Elwood Knox noted, “Mr. May is not only a favorite with the audience, but the manager as well, because he can do what most acts can’t, and that is bring the people out to see him; and that means box office business.”94 During their second week in Indianapolis, “Mr. May came back even stronger . . . His act is a real laugh from start to finish. And his song ‘Pray, Let the Lights Go Out,’ is in the riot class.”95 In 1916, more than three years after String Beans first introduced it at the Monogram, white Chicagobased composer-publisher Will E. Skidmore placed “Pray for the Lights to Go Out” on the market as a “Negro Shouting Song,” credited to himself and contract lyricist Renton Tunnah: Father was a deacon in a hard shell church, Way down South where I was born; People used to come to church from miles around, Just to hear the Holy work go on, Father grabs a sister ’round the neck and says, Sister, won’t you sing this song, The sister tells the deacon that she didn’t have time, Felt religion coming on. Just then somebody got up turn’d the lights all out, And you ought to heard that sister shout, She hollered Brother, if you want to spread joy, Just pray for the lights to stay out.96

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The Life, Death, and Untold Legacy of Bluesman Butler “String Beans” May

Skidmore’s version was not the first to be deposited for copyright. In 1915 the Copyright Office processed two manuscript versions of the same title, with the same lyrics, one by O. F. Tiffany and Gene Cobb; and the other by Clarence Woods and Clyde Olney.97 Somehow, Skidmore gained control of the song and parlayed it into a “Deacon Series” of some seven or eight titles.98 “Pray for the Lights to Go Out” was a popular feature in black minstrelsy during the 1916 and 1917 seasons, sung by Archie Blue with the Rabbit’s Foot Minstrels and Charles Beechum with P. G. Lowery’s Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus Annex Band, among others.99 It was first recorded in 1916 by George O’Connor, a Washington attorney turned Negro dialect singer/humorist.100 Several more recordings of the title were made during the 1920s and 1930s by hillbilly string bands and western swing groups.101 In 1929 southern blues songster Hambone Willie Newbern recorded a deconstructed folk variant titled “Nobody Knows (What The Good Deacon Does),” which is thematically and melodically related to the Tunnah-Skidmore version, but with different lyrics. Nobody knows what the good deacon’s doing Lordy, once the lights was out, I ain’t no fortune teller but I declare I know Just what I’m talking about; She pulled off one slipper, and then one sock, Got way back and done the double Eagle Rock, Nobody knows what the good deacon’s doing Lord, once the lights was out.102

The Golden Gate Quartet recorded “Pray for the Lights to Go Out” in 1947, long after the vogue for such song material had expired. The Golden Gates were capable of real dramatic flair, and they certainly brought it into play on this recording, which begins in a solemn, purely devotional style, led by

Henry Owens, with the group humming softly in the background. After the stanza about “father grabbed a sister around the neck . . .” the sacred bottom is suddenly knocked out, and the quartet breaks into joyous swing tempo. Orlandus Wilson, bass singer of the Golden Gate Quartet, said the group was introduced to this song while briefly appearing with traveling minstrel shows, during their 1936–37 barnstorming tours through North Carolina.103 In September 1912 May and May played the Star Theater in Kansas City, Missouri, headlining a bill that included fellow Alabama blues pioneer Baby Seals.104 At the end of that year, String Beans was filling a two-week engagement at the Monogram. He posted this uncharacteristic complaint about another team: While in Chicago at the Monogram . . . I used my best act of the season of 1912 . . . The team of Barrington and Barrington was on the bill at the time stole my act and came to Lexington, Ky., and used it, knowing we were to follow them the next week . . . Performers beware of Barrington and Barrington, for they sure will stand in the wings and steal your act. If anyone should hear them using a parody on “All Night Long,” with the words of different colors of race, please remind the Barringtons that they are using my act. Mr. Barrington has only hurt himself, because the Barringtons will never work the Frank Q. Doyle circuit anymore while I am in vaudeville. Look out, Long Willie Too Sweet he (Barrington) will get you.105

At the Monogram, May and May were reviewed by Cary B. Lewis, who was put off by the references to “different colors of race” in Beans’s popular parody of “All Night Long”: Now he [String Beans] is just a little too raw and he should modify some of his humor. He has an

The Life, Death, and Untold Legacy of Bluesman Butler “String Beans” May

individuality that will make you laugh; it can be done without so much—well he knows. He dances comically and “smears it on” too much when speaking of the “black gals and the high yellows.” He sings “Stop That Rag,” “What’s What,” “West Virginia Dance” and “Going Some,” the last song being a good one and nicely suited to Mr. Beans. He is here for the week and may be another, for he is a great drawing card at this playhouse.106

During their second week, Lewis heard Beans and Sweetie sing Dave Peyton’s “Pussy Cat Rag,” “So Long Brother,” “Certainly Looks Good to Me,” and others.107 At end of their engagement, Lewis reported, “‘String Beans’ left this week for the South. They have been very successful in this section.”108 After heading south, May and May were not heard from for several months. They surfaced in New Orleans in May 1913, working separately. No explanation was offered. Sweetie was at the Lee Theater, Beans at the Iroquois on a bill with Willie and Lula Too Sweet.109 In July an ad in the Freeman exclaimed, “Look What Has Happened—Butler May has opened a New House in New Orleans— Playing all best acts. You get 15 weeks’ work right in the city, as we have five theaters in New Orleans. All good acts write at once. Can use a good single girl at all times. Address—Iroquois Theatre, Rampart Street, New Orleans, La. Paul Ford, Producer—String Beans, Mgr.”110 String Beans announced that he had “joined hands with dainty little soubrette Adell Jackson,” an Iroquois Theater regular.111 “String Beans has been working single for some time. He has at last found a partner who put him back to hard work again.”112 Beans was seemingly nonchalant about losing his wife and partner, but their parting marked a turning point in his professional career. Over the next four years, he wore out no less than a dozen female partners, including many top-notch performers.

Nevertheless, most auditors agreed that he never found a better match “for his line of work” than Sweetie Matthews May. Beans’s partnership with Adell Jackson did not work out at all. In fact, on August 2, 1913, the Freeman published an advertisement for “Sweetie May & Adell Jackson, Those Dainty Little Girls—Some Team, Some Act. Iroquois Theatre, New Orleans, La.” Before long, Beans was making the rounds of his old southern haunts, working solo. In October he stormed Pensacola’s Belmont Street Theater and made “a big hit, singing nothing but his own compositions. He is singing ‘The Titanic Blues,’ and receives three and four encores every night.”113 String Beans began the year 1914 at the Monogram with a new partner, Jessie May Horn. Probably for the sake of continuity, the team was advertised as May and May.114 Russell wrote this oblique review: When Butler May, known as String Beans, and Essie [sic] May opened their second week at this house, Beans had donned a new trousseau one within keeping of the law and satisfactory to public sentiment. He sang his songs as the manager sat watching him to keep him from balling-the-Jack and evoking the license of the house. He perambulated as usual, void of what was to proceed the next moment, in the same oddly conceived dialectation, which drew so largely from the mixed hydromel breed of last week’s population, but retained his prestige as a most curious star who still has power to draw.115

Russell suggested that Beans had been upstaged by Emmett Anthony, “a real comedian and yodeler.” String Beans would not tolerate Russell’s aspersions: “No use for any critic to knock the team of May and May. It is a box office attraction, it never lays off. It cleaned up in Chicago just as it does elsewhere.”116 It had been approximately five months since String Beans’s last appearance in northern theaters,

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The Life, Death, and Untold Legacy of Bluesman Butler “String Beans” May

String Beans has an improvement on the kind of work he does over that of all others. His “Blues” gets ’em, and then his “Balling the Jack” is his feature. The audience screams for more, and he give them more. Jessie May is good support. She enters into the work with the String Beans spirit. This means a kind of abandon or studied indifference, not caring much what she did. In this respect she makes a good performer, since she loses herself in the interest of the character she is playing. She sings prettily, talks nicely and talks to her partner in a way that helps the fun. Their little tango is neat. In fact, some especially good acting is noted in the run of the act.117

Indianapolis Freeman, February 7, 1914.

and his fans there were hungry. The team went next to Indianapolis, where the Crown Garden Theater’s Freeman correspondent frankly described the “String Beans effect”: String Beans in Town; Everybody Knows It—A Rush and Crush to See May and May . . . Somepin’ doin’ at the Crown Garden theater this week . . . Indianna [sic] avenue looked like a circus day, waiting for the parade . . . Positively the biggest box office attraction in the history of that playhouse . . . Well, say what you will of May and May, of String Beans, they get ’em to come out . . . They came from far and near, and when he made his appearance a shout went up. Now, I am writing of what actually took place and not inspired by a money consideration. He was greeted with shouts at his two appearances last Monday evening. During the act the team met all kinds of applause. At times the yelling was almost deafening.

This was the first time the word blues was invoked in a review of String Beans’s act; it certainly would not be the last. In their second week at the Crown Garden the correspondent noted: “The whole town, practically, came to see May & May last week and the rest of them made it this week.” [String Beans] does something of a monologue stunt, making some good hits. If he keeps on he will eventually turn out to be the leading attraction of the Negro stage . . . His little song medley at the close shows what he can do. He has his own style of putting things over, just as Bert Williams has his. If he improves his stuff and keeps straight he will be imitated just as Bert Williams is imitated. The female end of the team is a good worker . . . Her “Turtle Dove” song is prettily done. So is “I Don’t Want Nobody That Don’t Want Me” by String Beans.118

As if to verify the prediction, a simultaneous report from the Dixie Theater in Bessemer, Alabama, noted, “Kid May, Beans No. 2, gets his.”119 May and May continued on their march of conquest to the Pekin Theater in Cincinnati. A reviewer raved, “This is the best team of its kind in the

The Life, Death, and Untold Legacy of Bluesman Butler “String Beans” May

business.”120 Opening act on the Pekin Theater bill was the team of Crampton and Bailey, with southern vaudeville pioneer Pauline Crampton; but “May & May (String Beans) is the feature turn and the name alone packed the house four times.”121 The furor that surrounded String Beans attracted the attention of the white folks. At the New Pekin Theater in Dayton, Ohio, May and May were “a scream from start to finish in front of a white and colored audience.”122 At the Dunbar Theater in Columbus, people were “standing in the snow waiting to get in.”123 Back in Chicago the first week in March, String Beans was again exposed to Russell’s cynicism: “String Beans (Butter [sic] May) whom the management, press and authorities are educating to become a gentleman, returned and imparted some more of his adaptability for promiscuous jollity of uncertain quality. Jessie May was pretty good.”124 May and May spent the last half of March 1914 playing to “crowded houses at each performance” at the Booker T. Washington Theater in St. Louis. The report said “The much heralded ‘String Beans’” was making his first appearance in St. Louis, “and although he has been preceded by a score of imitators, he is taking the house by storm and receiving numerous encores. The female partner has a good voice and makes a hit with ‘Go and Find My Man,’ a medley of popular song hits.”125 The theater orchestra was headed by violinist Ulysses E. Cross, and the trap drummer was Jasper Taylor.126 Their next stop was Louisville, where Beans hit a snag of sorts. According to the mainstream Louisville Herald: The Olio and Ruby Theaters, rival playhouses playing to colored patronage on West Walnut Street, are engaged in a legal battle for the possession of the artistic talents of . . . “String Beans,” an accomplished black-faced comedian of the natural kind, who has been drawing unprecedented crowds to the Olio every night.

The management of the Ruby, after watching the crowds file daily into the rival insti[tu]tion, is seeking an attachment in the court . . . to prevent “String Beans” from exercising his genius at the Olio. The Ruby claims that it had String Beans booked and that he jumped his contract.127

Beans filed a countersuit charging that, because he was wrongfully detained to appear in court, he had to cancel shows in Philadelphia and Detroit, where he would have made ninety dollars per week. Apparently, this was the going rate for black vaudeville’s biggest drawing card.128 The Louisville Leader reported that Martin Klein, who was booking Beans through the Colored Consolidated Vaudeville Exchange, was finally summoned from Chicago to broker a peaceful settlement between the ruffled parties.129 By the time Beans returned to Chicago in April he was “alone by himself.” Jessie May was in the hospital, “very ill,” but “fast improving and her recovery is sure. It is rumored that she has severed from String Beans.”130 After this unsettling report, nothing more was heard from Jessie May Horn. String Beans’s infamous breakups were often cloaked in vague references to “crushed hopes” and “severed” relationships. It was the Freeman’s unwritten policy to stifle stories that reinforced negative stereotyping of black performers; nevertheless, String Beans was earning an odious reputation for physically abusing his female partners.131 Russell was at the Monogram to offer another fraught but fascinating synopsis: Butler May . . . dressed legitimately and singing legitimate songs and with a good piano comedy stunt, was the star attraction at this house. In his monologue he told a story of a preacher giving warning of Gabriel when he blows his horn and how the boys on the roof blew horns. His talk, this time, was neither suggestive nor sarcastic and would have been legitimate had he

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The Life, Death, and Untold Legacy of Bluesman Butler “String Beans” May

Indianapolis Freeman, May 16, 1914.

The Life, Death, and Untold Legacy of Bluesman Butler “String Beans” May

not ejaculated that the minister swore, by swearing. When he has omitted a preacher swearing and the words “My Lord” in one of his songs, he will become legitimate.132

Similarly, in November 1914 Russell pontificated: “Beans continues to be legitimate except when he says ‘Dog Gone.’”133 This bit of pettifoggery suggests that Beans was singing a version of “Blind Man Blues,” the verses of which contain the signature interjection, “Doggone my soul.” “Blind Man Blues” was copyrighted in 1919 by Eddie Green and Billie McLaurin, but according to W. C. Handy, who published the Green-McLaurin version, this blues classic was “an echo of the celebrated String Beans himself, at the Monogram in Chicago.”134 Beans’s next stop was Detroit, where a Freeman correspondent found him stopping traffic in front of the Unique Theater: “People came from all parts of the town to see the only String Beans. He will play at this house two weeks and then some more. His songs are screams from start to finish and his biggest hit is the ‘Blues.’ He got his all right.”135 Beans-and-blues was becoming an increasingly potent theme. String Beans was back in Indianapolis in May. The Crown Garden commentator claimed, “he has done considerable overhauling in his work to the end that he had an act of downright merit. This is particularly true of his last stunt—his ‘pianologue’ if one may so call it . . .”: “String Beans” gives a pretty description of the sinking Titanic on the piano, greatly surprising the audience by his playing. He played a lively air, such as would be played when passengers are going on board a great ship. He played the dancing airs of what he conceived to be those of the various classes of passengers “as they dance.” Amid these he throws in the minor monotony of the plunging vessel as it made its way. His knowledge of minor chords, chromatic scales, enabled him

to give a weird, terrifying effect when the vessel went down . . . The audience saw “String Beans” in an entirely different light . . . He puts over a good song of his own, “I Ain’t Nobody’s Fool.” It is a winner.136

This description makes an interesting complement to the recollections folklorist and educator Willis Laurence James shared with jazz historians Marshall and Jean Stearns. As a schoolboy in Jacksonville, Florida, James saw String Beans perform “The Sinking of the Titanic” at the Globe Theater: Standing at full height, he reaches down to the keyboard as he sings like an early Ray Charles . . . As he attacks the piano, Stringbeans’ head starts to nod, his shoulders shake, and his body begins to quiver. Slowly, he sinks to the floor of the stage. Before he submerges, he is executing the Snake Hips . . . , shouting the blues and, as he hits the deck still playing the piano performing a horizontal grind which would make today’s rock and roll dancers seem like staid citizens.137

During String Beans’s May 1914 stint at the Crown Garden, a talented young soubrette named Baby Mack was also on the bill: “some baby all right . . . she is going to be among the top notchers . . . The little lady has the stage essentials . . . She will make a good number on any bill.”138 An anonymous Freeman columnist served up a histrionic romance: Baby Mack, a little St. Louis lady . . . a pleasing creature, very impressionistic . . . came near going into hysterics over “String Bean’s” work, insisting on seeing him every night after her own turn, which was first. The Baby seemed to feel that I was a necessary adjunct to her enjoyment, because she would have me go with her and sit in the second row of seats, a place where I never before sat, nor since, to see “String Beans.” And

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Baby Mack, as pictured in an ad for Eugene Mikell’s “That Plantation Rag,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 3, 1915.

the little soul laughed so merrily and heartily that I quite envied Mr. Beans. It was her way of showing her attachment for him—strange, but very effective. And the many little things she would say about him and his work left no room to doubt her earnestness. They got together as a team before the week was over. And why not? He was her ideal. She was pretty, talented, young, vivacious, and alas crochety as geniuses are so likely to be—doing the unusual or “must” die.139

The team of String Beans and Baby Mack opened in Cincinnati at the Lincoln Theater, where Marion Brooks was manager.140 It was said that Beans had temporarily broken with his agent Martin Klein and was under special contract, “at an advanced salary . . . He is deservedly the best paid act on the colored time, as he is the strongest card that can be pulled in any colored house.”141 The following week the Lincoln reported “good business all owing to ‘String Beans,’

the life saving attraction to managers. This week’s bill was opened by ‘String Beans’ and ‘Baby Mack’ and of course they stormed the house. They remind you of the days of Butler & Sweetie.”142 In June the Lincoln Theater stock company presented “The Gambling King,” a one-act musical farce produced by String Beans, in which he played a “straight” role, “the Dandy colored gentleman, who was leading astray a less wise gentleman of color.” Beans was said to be “a ‘whang,’ as good in the neat as in the comedy.”143 String Beans and Baby Mack played the Monogram the second week in June. Russell filed a self-fulfilling assessment: “Since String Beans has improved by criticism, the lanky bewildering idol of unsuspected joy has taken on a new coat of popularity and kept the house full at every performance. And while he paid too much attention to the trap drummer and people in the audience, he got through all right on his dancing which was legitimate. Miss Baby Mack, who assisted him is a fine soubrette.”144 The next week Russell declared: “For the first time in his history String Beans blossomed forth legitimately . . . and still made the house roar. He wore a white vest. I sat in a corner to take observations of his latest data, as Baby Mack fed him with a spoon full of crude cut questions.”145 Following this engagement, String Beans and Baby Mack dropped down to Atlanta. Perry Bradford noted their presence at the 81 Theater in his “Atlanta Show Shops” column of July 11, 1914. The competition in Atlanta theaters was furious, with Bradford and Jeanette, Bessie Smith, Billy Zeek and Martha Copeland, and Coleman Minor among the players vying for patronage. Also on the bill at the 81 Theater during the second week of Beans and Baby Mack’s engagement was blues trombone specialist Charles Arrant, fresh from a successful tour of northern vaudeville hotspots. In February 1914, at the Crown Garden Theater in Indianapolis, “Arrant got ’em when he came on with

his trombone. No man blew a trombone so loud as that. He then put on the ‘blues.’ His instrument fairly talked ’em, and the audience went wild.”146 At the Pekin Theater in Cincinnati: “He makes his trombone talk the ‘Blues.’ He encores on ‘Easy Rider.’ . . . In the final chorus he lies down on his back and manipulates the slide with his foot.”147 According to Bradford, who had no affection for String Beans, Charles Arrant proved to be the hit of the bill at the 81: “Atlanta’s favorite . . . the man who plays trombone with his feet . . . had the house in an uproar when he hit them Blues. Keep playing them, because they certainly sound good to us.”148 Arrant’s trombone blues, set off by his comical manipulations of the slide, place him squarely in the territory of incipient jazz. But, like String Beans, Arrant was cut down in his prime; on December 6, 1922, he “was killed in a pistol duel in Durham, N. C.”149 After two weeks in Atlanta, String Beans and Baby Mack moved over to Birmingham, where they appeared “to capacity business” at the grand opening of the new Champion Theater.150 In the wake of these engagements, Perry Bradford posted a letter from Atlanta that gives a measure of his animus:

Charles and Mabel Arrant, Indianapolis Freeman, February 14, 1914.

I learn that Baby Mack was a hit in Birmingham last week. It’s too bad such a clever little girl can’t get with some legitimate performer, because the one she has is said to be the smuttiest in the business. When we can get to the place that we can get the audience without smut then we have an act. It’s a foregone conclusion that we can’t educate the theatergoers down here when we use smutty sayings. This class of performers have run down the best houses. Charles Arrant showed me that a man could get by and clean smutty performers when he was made to close the show behind one of the low degenerates. If I could say what this guy says on the stage in these columns Mr. Knox [i.e., Freeman editor Elwood Knox] would have to cease publishing this paper.151 Charles and Lena Arrant, Indianapolis Freeman, June 1, 1918.

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Perry Bradford and Jeanette Taylor, Indianapolis Freeman, September 25, 1915.

Bradford’s talk of “legitimate performers” and “educating the theatergoers” smacks more of Sylvester Russell’s agenda than his own. It seems his real gripe was personal, not professional. One week after Bradford’s letter was published in the Freeman, String Beans notified that: “The big noise of vaudeville is at the Pekin theater, Montgomery, Ala. The only and ever will be string beans [sic]. If we are to live ethiopia [sic] let us live by all means at this house. String Beans creates a riot in front of a full house at each performance. It causes the police department to disperse the crowd. All the glasses were torn out by mad crowd and hundreds were

turned away. On the bill with ‘Beans’ is Jeanette Taylor, partner of ‘String Beans,’ who is good.”152 Jeanette Taylor was Perry Bradford’s attractive stage partner of many years. At the Dixie Theater in Atlanta, just prior to her run with String Beans, “Miss Jeanette broke the show up with Bradford’s ‘Baldy Jack Rag,’” and Bradford made a hit “singing his new song, ‘What It Takes to Keep My Wife from Running Around I’ve Got It All.’”153 Jeanette’s association with String Beans lasted only a couple of weeks, but it made a lasting impression on Bradford. In 1915 he accused Beans of stealing from him: “Managers please stop String Beans from using Mule Bradford’s closing song, ‘How Do You Figure I Miss You?’ All the managers East know this is my song. I worked on the bill with Beans in Asbury Park this summer and he stole it from me and went down South and used it. . . . Bert Murphy’s jail-house song and his dog song were also stolen by him.”154 Bradford repeated his accusation in 1917, when he reported having seen a “ballad” sheet circulating in Richmond, Virginia, that attributed his own “How Do You Figure I Miss You” to Beans.155 Somewhere along the way Beans and Baby Mack had gotten separated. The sudden demise of this promising team played out on the Freeman gossip mill, where it was written that Baby Mack “was simply another one of the crushed hopes that have buzzed about Mr. May.”156 Toward the end of August 1914 String Beans checked back into the 81 Theater in Atlanta, working single: “The Only String Beans opened Monday night and screamed the house . . . He sang some new ‘Blues,’ entitled, ‘The Whiskey Blues’—some more song [sic]. Twenty people at the [rival] Dixie Theatre, but they don’t worry Beans. He still retains the crowd in Atlanta.”157 On Labor Day String Beans opened a return engagement at the Champion Theater in Birmingham.158 Ella Goodloe and Muriel Ringgold were

The Life, Death, and Untold Legacy of Bluesman Butler “String Beans” May

also on the bill. The Freeman revealed that “Mrs. Ella Goodloe has sued John Goodloe for divorce while playing in Birmingham. She is working with String Bean. Some act.”159 Beans was riding roughshod over black vaudeville’s female contingent. However, Ella Goodloe was quite a bit older than Beans, and her divorce was probably coincidental with their new stage relationship. She had recently been teaming with Viola McCoy.160 May and Goodloe remained in Birmingham until the Champion Theater closed for remodeling on September 26.161 String Beans and Ella Goodloe opened at the New Monogram Theater in Chicago the third week of October 1914, on a bill with Buzzin’ Burton. Sylvester Russell hailed Beans as “the natural humor comedian, now catering to social society successfully” with “the best partner he ever had.”162 Russell rated Ella Goodloe as a “fine quality real actress.” Beans and Ella played two weeks at the New Monogram, then moved down State Street to the Old Monogram, where they appeared opposite Charles Anderson, “the Birmingham tenor and yodler and character artist who introduced Handy’s St. Louis Blues.”163 The Chicago Defender noted: “Mr. Anderson is from the old school and should be on the big time for his class of work, but we strollers like good acts also. . . . String Beans and Madame Ella Goodloe, two knockouts, close the bill.”164 May and Goodloe jumped to Cincinnati early in November to play the Lincoln Theater. The reporter allowed that they were “the best entertainers of their kind in the show business and as strong a drawing attraction as can be found.”165 Back in Chicago a few weeks later, Sylvester Russell rained down hostility on “the most important unimportant actor in the jig-time era”: Mr. String Beans Butler May has taught us that ignorant actors, like savages, can not easily be trained

Indianapolis Freeman, August 6, 1910.

or even coached to do their stunts willingly. They have to be kept in cowardice by being defied by managers, critics and the law. When Beans found that there were no managers or critics in the Old Monogram Theatre, during the last half of his one week’s stay in the city, they say he cut loose and spoiled all the good things I had cultivated him to do and praised him for doing and went back to his old tricks of damaging trade and shocked the sensibility of another newspaper man, who happened to be present, and who had open space to write about actors . . . And so we have it. String Beans, that wonderful spasm of genuine but adulterated fun, whose development I had prided upon and

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whose future I had cherished, even to a point of thinking to recommend him to the Grand Theatre agent, Lew Cantor, down town, went crazy. So the second week of Beans’ engagement was cancelled.166

Beans did not take kindly to Russell’s blast: In reply to a recent article in your paper will say I, Butler May, with Miss Goodloe, played the week of November 31 at the Booker Washington Theater in St. Louis. While there I put on the same act I presented in Chicago the 17th. I went big, packing the house every night and used nothing vulgar. While in Chicago I did not change my act. . . . I was not cancelled in Chicago. My contracts called for one week in Chicago, one at the Pekin in Cincinnati, one at the B. W. in St. Louis, and I have filled them all. I am now filling a two weeks’ engagement in Memphis for the small salary of $180, then I will be back to Chicago to meet my enemy critics. I have a legitimate act, am packing the theaters nightly and can prove this by Ollie Dempsey, Charles Turpin and Manager Klein, the men who keep me working all the time. I got more money in St. Louis than any other team that has played there. I have been in show business since 1909 and have never laid off a week. I got 40 weeks’ work over the Consolidated time and then some more. The critics of Chicago are the only ones who knock me, because they are always looking for a hand out but I will pay no more critics for writing me up. Now, the critics may just as well stop knocking and go to boasting me, for I am making good and have the only act in the show business (colored) that can pack the house on a rainy night. Truly yours, Butler May (String Beans)167

Summarizing the events of 1914 in an “Annual Review of the Stage,” Freeman columnist Billy E.

Lewis wisely dismissed the question of “legitimacy” in String Beans’s case: S. H. Dudley and Patrick the mule need no special mention. It is conceded that they were the banner attraction of the year. . . . Perhaps for legitimate work, this act drew larger than any other. But we must reckon with “String Beans” when it comes to getting the nickels in regardless of the kind of shows. He beat them all as a money getter. It will not be necessary to discuss the reason why. I state merely a fact. . . . His pianologue business was really good.168

String Beans’s partnership with Ella Goodloe did not last through the end of the year. They were at the Metropolitan Theater in Memphis early in December 1914, “billed as a circus would be”; and then, finally, at the Ruby Theater in Louisville, Ella’s home town.169 Meanwhile, Beans’s estranged wife Sweetie May had not slipped from public view. In September 1913, just a few months after she and Beans separated, Sweetie was spotted in Cincinnati, teamed with young blackface comedian Johnny “Hamtree” Harrington.170 The following month Sylvester Russell briefly reviewed their act at the Monogram Theater, noting only that Harrington “suffered from stage fright.”171 Harrington and May played two weeks at the Globe Theater in Jacksonville, Florida, in February 1914, and were scheduled to appear next in Harrington’s hometown of Columbia, South Carolina; but that same month Sweetie was noted in Charleston, South Carolina, with a large stock company headed by “two of the best comedians in the business,” Leroy White and J. H. “Blue Steel” Williams.172 By the end of 1914 Sweetie was laying off in Cairo, Illinois: “She has the rheumatism.”173 In January 1915, following an eighteen-month separation, String Beans and Sweetie May reunited and set out to conquer the Northeast. On what may have been their first reunion engagement, Beans and

The Life, Death, and Untold Legacy of Bluesman Butler “String Beans” May

Next, May and May invaded the legendary Lafayette Theater in Harlem. Lester Walton, co-manager of the theater and entertainment editor of the New York Age, was relieved to see them give a “clean act”: The chief item of interest in this announcement extraordinary is not that “Stringbeans” is appearing at the Lafayette Theatre, but that “Stringbeans” is associated with a clean act. . . . Heretofore his . . . name has been synonymous with coarse, vulgar jokes . . . “Stringbeans” is doing a turn with his female partner under the name of May & May. The act is a riot. At each performance he proves himself an adept manufacturer of laughter, producing gales of it. “Stringbeans’” method of provoking laughter, somewhat unpolished ’tis true, is new to Harlem theatregoers, and he may be aptly described as a comedian who is original and who has a way of putting over jokes and songs peculiar to himself. His ability to play the piano serves him in good stead and his brief exhibition as a tickler of the ivories shows him to advantage. Before the first show Monday afternoon “Stringbeans” was warned by the management to present an act minus vulgar jokes and songs, which he promised to do.175

Indianapolis Freeman, May 8, 1915.

Sweetie were the headliners at Gibson’s New Standard Theater in Philadelphia. They put on a skit called “In the Hands of the Law”: “‘String Beans,’ who is a dapper chap, has as trim a little wife as any one could wish. . . . The act gave May and May opportunities to dance in their distinctive style and sing some new songs, assisted by piano specialties that were very effective, which were highly appreciated by the large audiences.”174

Lester Walton’s high-minded concerns were of a stripe. Many northern theatrical pundits found String Beans’s unadulterated southern style incomprehensible. Nevertheless, Beans’s impact on New York audiences almost equaled what it was in Chicago. Some critics attributed this to his newfound willingness to tone down his act, but their assessments probably had little bearing on public opinion. Following May and May’s first big week at the Lafayette, the Age testified to the “String Beans effect” in Gotham: “Last week at the Lafayette Theatre ‘Stringbeans’ was the principal magnet that drew hundreds to 7th avenue, between 131st and 132nd streets. . . . No act since the opening of the Lafayette

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Theatre has occasioned so much complimentary comment as ‘Stringbeans.’ This week May & May are putting on a new act, and it is even a bigger hit than the one presented last week. . . . And the best of it all, “Stringbeans” is still turning a deaf ear to vulgarity and is giving a clean act.”176 Butler and Sweetie had not been seen together in Chicago for two full years. When they reappeared at the New Monogram they were again subjected to Russell’s critical gaze: Back to give testimony of how his art has variated since his last departure in a siege of waning glory, String Beans (Butler May) and his wife Sweetie May, are on the job again to give Bandana Land, who gave them a full house, a new initiatory. Beans told tedious stories of war which went into Biblical history. Then told how bad he is. He said that when he goes to bed the bed bugs cry for mercy and when he gets up he has to be polite to himself. Sweetie, whose limit of poses were “called” by Beans, was dressed in cream satin with a turbin [sic] which had beaded tossels [sic].177

The team went next to the Lincoln Theater in Cincinnati, appearing on a bill with Coleman L. Minor, who “made a good impression with his own song, ‘There’s Goin’ to be Some Stealing Done.’”178 Continuing eastward, May and May played the Star Theater in Pittsburgh: “Miss Sweetie May works her songs with credit and is well liked by our patrons. String Beans was forced to take several encores on his own new song, ‘Gabriel Has Blowed His Horn.’”179 Beans and Sweetie traversed Pennsylvania. In April they landed in Philadelphia for a three-week engagement at Gibson’s New Standard Theater, where it was reported: “Mr. String Beans, in the past has borne the reputation of being suggestive. He is now in his fourth engagement and each engagement has meant three weeks at one time and a different act each week; and there has not been one joke or line

that we have had to ask him to eliminate. Every act that he has done has been a knock-out.”180 The following week String Beans and Sweetie May were seen in a skit titled “Educational of Ignorance.”181 In their third week at the Standard they joined hands with the team of Sam Gray and Ora Dunlop, in a skit titled “My Friend.”182 When String Beans swung onto Sherman H. Dudley’s model East Coast theater circuit, Dudley told Freeman readers: “I only wish we had more String Beans. He has proven to be the best box office card we have today by breaking all records everywhere he plays.”183 While they were at the Howard Theater, “Mr. Dudley took [Beans] out in his car and showed him Washington. There never was a man more welcome to a city than String Beans and Sweetie May. They opened Monday night to a packed house . . . They took seven encores.”184 May and May opened at the Dixie Theater in Richmond, Virginia, on May 3, 1915, and remained there for three weeks. The third week they shared the bill with the Hill Sisters, a rising trio which included young Ethel Purnsley, later known as Ethel Waters. She was so impressed by Beans that she appropriated his stage moniker, as indicated in a February 1916 communiqué from the Douglass Theater in Macon, Georgia: “The Hill Sisters are playing this house and making a big hit as usual. Mama String Beans is singing St. Louis Blues and scores heavily.”185 Papa String Beans returned to New York City’s Lafayette Theater the last week in May and remained for an unprecedented three weeks, given top billing over Fanny Wise, J. Leubrie Hill, and other northern vaudevillians who had worked successfully on mainstream vaudeville circuits as well as on “colored time.” The New York Age suggested Beans might finally also be ready for the “big time”: Without a doubt “Stringbeans” (Butler May) is the biggest drawing card before the colored theatrical

The Life, Death, and Untold Legacy of Bluesman Butler “String Beans” May

public today. There is something about him that causes the audience to laugh uproariously at almost every little thing he says or does. Some say it is his personality. Anyhow, what it takes to make the people laugh “Stringbeans” has it. . . . At this moment a most promising career awaits “Stringbeans”—that is, unless he takes the airship route which has injured many a promising performer who has lost his head and “gone up in the air,” only later to come to his senses and realize that he has lost the opportunity of his life to make fame and money. With “Stringbeans” is his capable partner, “Sweetie” May, who plays a more important part in the act than many think. Dainty and petite, a clever little actress and a good singer, Miss May does the straight work in a highly acceptable manner. There is not a colored performer on the stage of the female sex who pays more attention to her wardrobe than Miss May, whose costumes always excite favorable comment.186

Dudley again added his imprimatur: “Dudley says that String Beans is the coming comedian and the most original of all of the young comedians.”187 The Age reminded readers that Beans had shown himself to be as popular in New York as elsewhere: “As an evidence of his drawing powers, May & May are in their third week at the Lafayette Theater, which is a new record set up for continuous booking at this popular house. Usually an act plays a split week—the first three days, or the last four days. To play the house for one week is the ambition of vaudeville turns.”188 From his jaundiced vantage point, Sylvester Russell begrudgingly conceded that “String Beans played the Lafayette, but in Chicago he has never played the Grand and they wouldn’t have him in the house.”189 Comedy star Salem Tutt Whitney, like Sherman H. Dudley, was more liberal in his appreciation: “The original ‘String Beans’ . . . is a great hit in the East. His methods of provoking mirth are severely criticized by some people, but he is evidently giving the public

New York Age, June 10, 1915.

just what it desires, as he is considered the best drawing card in colored vaudeville and that is all performers are expected to do—please the public.”190 Lafayette Theater managers Walton and Morganstern were set to feature Beans and Sweetie in a “big road show” titled Happy Days: “Alex Rogers is now at work on the book and lyrics.”191 The golden era

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versatility to carry a big show, but investors may have balked at his volatile temperament. Leaving New York, May and May played a return engagement at Gibson’s New Standard Theater in Philadelphia, sharing the bill with Whitney and Tutt’s Smart Set Company. Whitney described how they “rocked the house with laughter”: “String Beans” is an excellent delineator of the ignorant, funloving, obstreperous levee or cotton field darkey. He is innately funny with a magnetic personality. It is all unnecessary for him to resort to lines and songs overflowing with double, triple and sometimes quadruple entendre; but an unprejudiced jury would find his audiences accessory to the crime. “String Beans” serves the dish and they, the audience, eat it up with evident relish, so why lay the blame to “Beans.” He possesses the physical requisites for a comedian; tall, lean, lanky, the personification of a bean pole, with elongated head, liberal mouth, full lips and ample pedal extremities. He seems to encounter no difficulty in being funny and none should envy him his wide popularity. “Sweetie,” his partner, is an actress of ability, sings pleasingly and contributes largely to the success of Beans.192

Frank Montgomery and Florence McClain, Indianapolis Freeman, May 9, 1914.

of black musical comedy companies was still fresh in the memories of northern show folk, exciting expectations that a charismatic star such as Butler May could be the catalyst for a revival. In spite of popular support, however, Happy Days never materialized. Certainly Beans possessed the necessary talent and

Held over at the Standard through June 1915, Beans and Sweetie put on “Percilla Johnson’s Wedding,” in which Babe Brown “agreeably surprised her many friends and admirers, by doing blackface comedy of the Topsy variety. Her mirth provoking stunts were second only to those of the original ‘String Beans.’”193 Also on the bill was the “clean, wholesome and refreshing” team of Frank Montgomery and Florence McClain. When Perry Bradford arrived at the New Standard Theater in July, he relayed a sensationalistic news report: “It is reported here that Frank Montgomery, of Montgomery & McClain is dead. He was severely cut by String Beans a fortnight ago. Let us hope the rumor is not true.”194

The Life, Death, and Untold Legacy of Bluesman Butler “String Beans” May

It turned out Frank Montgomery’s wounds were not fatal. A follow-up report in the Freeman explained: We are glad to know that Frank Montgomery is all right again. As we understand it, there was a serious mixup between him and String Beans. Beans slashed Frank with his carving implement, wounding him so seriously that he was laid up for a few weeks in the hospital. In the meanwhile Beans, according to the court, paid Montgomery $50 per week for lost time. The female members of the teams also became slightly implicated in the fracas the result being that Beans got a few gashes about the shoulders by one of them. It is not necessary to say who. The female members were Florence McLain and Sweetie May. Perhaps it would not be fair to the performers to publish the history of the affair, since it was unfortunate, and it might work them harm—some of them, at any rate.195

Frank Montgomery’s own tedious account of the incident was also furnished: I am writing to have you rectify the report that I am dead. No, I am very much alive. I also read in your last issue that String Beans was paying me fifty dollars a week as long as I was unable to work. Wrong again. The morning of the trial String Beans asked me how much I wanted to compromise the case. . . . All I wanted was the money back that I would have to spend on the doctor’s bill and for getting someone to work in my place as it wouldn’t do me any good to see him serving time. So he signed an agreement to pay me the seventy-five dollars that I spent that week in payments of twenty-five dollars weekly. . . . Out of the seventy-five he was to pay me he has only paid me twenty dollars up until the present time, so that is all the rot about him paying me fifty dollars a week until I was able to work. . . . And another thing I wish to rectify is that Florence and Sweety were not mixed

up in the affair at all, as they were in their dressing rooms when it occurred and Florence and Sweety are the best of friends. If String Beans was as nice as his wife Sweety May he would not have had any trouble. I am sorry that the whole thing occurred, but I know that I was in the right, as any one on the bill will tell you. It all started over me speaking to him about using profane language on the stage in front of ladies and he started the fight and I accommodated him. The only thing was I was fighting fair and he was using weapons. . . . I wish to thank Mr. Salem Tutt Whitney for taking up his valuable time in coming to my rescue and doing something that no one else could have done on such short notice in taking my place in the act. I also thank my other friends for what they did for me, especially Homer Tutt, Smithy Lucas, John T. Gibson, and Emmanuel, the electrician. Yours truly, Frank Montgomery196

Salem Tutt Whitney had been an “unwilling witness to the whole affair,” which fell so plainly within the scope of his “Seen and Heard While Passing” column that he felt obliged to editorialize: The fracas was such as often happens between two men, overwrought and in a white heat of passion. The women were in nowise involved except as in the role of peace makers and the inconveniences they suffered as a result of their husbands’ altercation was the lot common to all peacemakers. No one regrets the occurrence more than the principals. The affair was settled amicably between the two and the news was not even allowed to reach the daily white papers. Such occurrences work harm not only to those embroiled, but to the whole theatrical fraternity and we should be slow to give them publicity. As Shakespeare says, “The evil men do lives after them, the good is often interred with their bones.”197

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H. Woodard took a useful inventory of Beans’s latest line of blues songs: “They open with a medley chorus consisting of ‘Walk Like My Man,’ and ‘I Wonder Where My Easy Rider’s Gone.’ Sweetie May sings ‘Love Me or Leave Me Alone.’ She scores heavily with this. String Beans takes the audience almost off their feet with his own composition, ‘Low Down Jail House Blues.’ The way he touches the ivories makes anybody blue.”198 That same week, the Freeman published a long letter from William Benbow, bragging about how he had been “the first to put Beans in the show business . . . the first to take him away from home and put him in a small stock company in Pensacola, Fla. and put him and Sweetie May together,” etc. Another portion of Benbow’s letter bears reproduction, because of what it may reveal about Butler May’s early attempts at songwriting:

Frank Montgomery, Indianapolis Freeman, March 28, 1908.

Butler May’s convincing personification of badass “String Beans” may have stimulated his darker impulses. The promising young stage genius exhibited some dangerous proclivities while spreading his message of the real blues. Frank Montgomery might have been safer had he kept his moral rectitude to himself. Following the incident with Frank Montgomery, Beans and Sweetie made a beeline south. They appeared at the Dixie Theater in Richmond during the week of July 12, 1915, and in August they reached the Strand Theater in Jacksonville. They were scheduled to jump from Jacksonville to the Olivette Theater in Louisville, but “were disappointed through railroad tickets,” and went instead to the Douglass Theater in Macon, Georgia, where house drummer

I remember the first song he wrote, entitled “You Look Like Something the Buzzard Had.” He brought his words to me and sang me his air. No living man could have thought of those words but Beans and his air to the song puzzled the best piano player, yet when Beans got through with it it was a riot. His next song was “Sallie, Don’t Forget to Come Back Home.” This song was another hit for him. This song was a cousin to the first. The only change he had was “Nearer, My God, To Thee” in the song. The third song was “Come Out of the Kitchen and Stop Burning That Ham.” This song was claimed by other performers, but as Beans would always come to me to criticize I can swear the song belongs to him.199

Butterbeans and Susie’s 1929 OKeh recording “Get Yourself a Monkey Man, Make Him Strut His Stuff,” and Viola McCoy and Billy Higgins’s Vocalion recording of the same title both warned: “I’d make you look like something the buzzards had.”200 The expression also appears in a transcription of the

The Life, Death, and Untold Legacy of Bluesman Butler “String Beans” May

“folk-minstrel” tune “Gonna Raise a Rukus Tonight” in Howard Odum and Guy B. Johnson’s 1926 collection Negro Workaday Songs.201 “Sallie, Don’t Forget to Come Back Home” may be related to the barbershop ballad “Sally in Our Alley.”202 As Benbow’s commentary suggests, “Come Out of the Kitchen and Stop Burning [or Scorching] That Ham” was claimed by blackface comedian Ed F. Peat, who sang it at the Exchange Garden Theater in Jacksonville in the fall of 1909, and Albert Powell, who sang “his own song, ‘Come Out That Kitchen Gal, And Bring Me That Pan’” with the Colored Aristocracy Minstrels in the fall of 1910.203 A similar phrase appears in Frankie “Half Pint” Jaxon’s late1920s hit record “Fan It”: “My mama’s in the kitchen, just heard that back door slam, / Come on out that kitchen, honey, quit that scorching that ham.”204 A report from St. Louis on October 30, 1915, placed Beans and Sweetie at the finale of a genuine, first-generation “battle of the blues”: Booker Washington theater patrons are at the complete mercy of the “blues” this week, and a large colony of admirers of this grade of music are filling the house to capacity nightly. Miss Laura Smith opens the show with three numbers in the mournful melodies, presented with their characteristic gesticulations and almost stops the show. Johnnie Woods and “Little Henry” follow with their version of blue temperament and, coupled with their comedy dialogue, keep the house in an uproar. String Beans and Sweetie May close the show with still more blues of the “Beans” variety, and continue the hilarity to the end. If there is any variety of “The Blues” not in display here this week, it’s not the fault of the performers.205

Beans sent word from St. Louis: “We expect to go east soon, but Sweetie needs a rest and will be going to her home in New Orleans Christmas for a three

months vacation. I want a good capable female about Sweetie’s color and size with talent enough to do my class of work; who will work during her vacation. I will pay $35 a week and guarantee no lay-offs. Any one may write to me, care of The Freeman.”206 With six weeks to go before the announced vacation, Beans and Sweetie continued down the highway to the Crown Garden in Indianapolis, where a local reporter had special words for Sweetie’s art: Sweetie May is . . . a dream—quiet, dignified, as her kind of work permits, and graceful as a queen. She puts on the high touches now and then which makes her work stand out. She makes a fine stage personage. Miss May’[s] steps, singing and talking are of a kind, gentle, winning. She is a much different Sweetie May than she was a few years ago. She fairly equals String Beans as an attraction. Beans was particularly good in his pianologue— altogether new, novel and original. The song, ‘I Loves My Man Better Than I Loves Myself,’ by Sweetie May, and ‘I Don’t Want Nobody That Don’t Want Me,’ by String Beans, two rousing good numbers, were written by String Beans.207

Viola McCoy recorded “I Don’t Want Nobody That Don’t Want Me” in 1924.208 Ida Cox recorded “I Love My Man Better Than I Love Myself ” in 1923.209 The line “I love my man better than I love myself ” is also prominent in “Any Woman’s Blues,” recorded in 1923 by both Ida Cox and Bessie Smith: “I love my man better than I love myself, And if he don’t have me, he sure won’t have nobody else.”210 String Beans’s authorship of “I Love My Man” is substantiated in a 1916 report from the Queen Theater in Chattanooga: “Billy McLaurin opened the vaudeville . . . Mrs. Rennell Robinson, Memphis Coon Shouter, followed, singing String Beans’ song, ‘Love My Man Better Than I Do Myself.’”211 Further, a 1918 report from the Palace Theater in Augusta,

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Indianapolis Freeman, November 27, 1915.

Georgia, informed, “Bessie Brown sang one of String Beans numbers, ‘I Love My Man Better Than I Do Myself,’ which took the house by storms.”212 While Beans was at the Crown Garden, he had his new “calling card” reproduced in the Freeman. It bore his likeness, in a stylish suit and hat, with the motto, “String Beans Been Here Made His Quick Duck and Got Away.” A brief message was attached: “If we are to live in Ethiopia let us live by all means in the Crown Garden Theatre, Indianapolis. String Beans stretched forth his hands again this week in front of a large audience at each performance. His wife, Miss Sweetie May, the cleverest, neatest and best looking colored woman on the stage today, brings the audience to a feeling. . . . String Beans has purchased a big touring car and is seen nightly sailing through the atmosphere. Would like to hear from Frank Montgomery.”213 On November 29, 1915, May and May took their third stand of the year at the Lafayette Theater in Harlem, presenting “Josephine Spiller’s Wedding” with the support of an eighteen-member “High Life Set”: “This company is well dressed with elaborate costumes while Sweetie May, the little girl with the

personality is featuring Louis Thomas’ song, ‘I Want Some One to Cure My Love Disease,’ assisted by a chorus of eight. . . . The sensational clarinet player, Wilbur Sweatman, was a scream on the same bill.”214 Among those who witnessed the performance were “modern dance” idols Irene and Vernon Castle.215 Shortly before Christmas, Sweetie returned to New Orleans, ostensibly to spend the holiday with her mother.216 She and String Beans never again appeared together as a team. Butler May, “High Life Set” soubrette Babe Brown, and an unnamed third performer spent the Christmas holidays at Gibson’s New Standard Theater in Philadelphia, booked as the String Beans Trio.217 In his second week at the Standard, Beans teamed with the great stage personality and blues foremother Ora Criswell “in a make-shift where he ‘don’ want no work wid chittlings,’ displaying a little versatility with some good singing and piano specialties. Ora Criswell was as sweet as ever and she was seen in a shimmering silk that showed her shape to perfection.”218 String Beans chose Ebbie Burton for his next partner. As Little Ebbie Forceman, she had started out singing and dancing in the rough-and-ready theaters

The Life, Death, and Untold Legacy of Bluesman Butler “String Beans” May

of Dallas, a “real ‘coon shouter’ from the fields of sugar cane.”219 She later replaced Bessie Smith as the stage partner of eccentric dancer Wayne “Buzzin” Burton, whose name she kept after they split up in 1914. On February 5, 1916, Beans’s calling card appeared again in the Freeman, accompanied by this update from Chicago: “If we are to live in Ethiopia let us live by all means in the New Monogram Theatre. Stringbeans stretched forth his hands in front of a full audience . . . His little partner, Miss Ebbie Burton, is a clever and neat little worker; sings her song, ‘I Love My Man Better Than I Do Myself.’ Beans . . . sits at the piano and sings and plays his own songs. The closing number is a scream. The ‘Blues’ they play is called ‘Hospital Blues.’”220 These titles vividly depict Beans’s influence on the future of the blues; however, Sylvester Russell could see no value in what they represented: “Beans made no attempt to do a real act. He delivered nothing but junk, but there was no smut. He had troubles with his ‘gal,’ Ebbie Burton, a good alto robusto. . . . He once had a real act with Edna [sic] Goodloe, and if he will reproduce it he will be ready for the Grand theater and he will be able to get some white time outside of the jig factory.”221 Whatever aspirations Russell and others may have claimed for him, Butler May was not driven by love of money, but by deeper creative urges. Billy E. Lewis once observed that “Beans has made all kinds of money, being easy the best attraction of the colored show business. But he seems more anxious to do something that will tell in his work than to make money.”222 Independent, unpredictable String Beans was the young lion of African American theater entertainment for an African American audience, the first national star whose fame and success depended not at all on approval from the white world. His credo was repeatedly expressed on his “calling card”: “If we are to live forever in Ethiopia, let us live by all means . . .”

Seemingly content to rule State Street, Beans notified the Freeman: “The old State Street Stroll was in its bloom . . . with all ‘headliner’ acts at every colored theatre. The Smart Set at the Grand with Salem Tutt Whitney, Wm. Benbow at the Old Monogram. But it seems like String Beans was born with good luck stamped on his face. The amusement seekers of Chicago seem to think that String Beans only can cheer them up with his nonsense, when they are feeling blue.”223 Before Beans left Chicago, he was escorted by Sylvester Russell, in company with Will Benbow, Glover and Nettie Lewis Compton, Will Able, and others, to a Smart Set matinee at the Grand. “I wanted to see what String Beans thought of the performance,” Russell confided, “and I was favorable surprised when he told me he was carried away with Salem Tutt Whitney’s comedy work and he laughed heartily.”224 In turn, Whitney went to see Beans at the Monogram and commented, “‘String Beans,’ the elongated comedian from ‘down home,’ . . . has no peer in his line of work. His partner is a clever worker. We are not indulging in comparisons and hope not to be misunderstood when we say we miss ‘Sweetie’ May.”225 Whitney admired Sweetie enough to bring her into the 1916–17 edition of his Smart Set Company.226 Before leaving Chicago, Beans posted another missive under his “calling card,” which was appearing weekly in the Freeman: The original Stringbeans is still in Chicago playing to nice houses each night. It is a funny thing why the critics still knock me. I think the colored critics should boost me after the criticism does no good. I have seen acts that are worse than mine, and certainly did use smut. . . . This is my fourth week in Chicago and booked for St. Louis week of the 21st, and will be booked until I leave for New Orleans for the Carnival.

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Benbow & Baby are playing their second week in Chicago and are still meeting with success, and will open in St. Louis week of February 21st, on bill with myself. We are forming a four-act and will be seen out east shortly. Yours truly, “STRINGBEANS.”227

After one week in St. Louis, String Beans, Ebbie Burton, William Benbow, and Robbie Lee Peoples (then known as Baby Benbow) opened February 28, 1916, at the Ruby Theater in Louisville with a new company known as Beans and Benbow’s Big Vaudeville Review. In addition to the four principals, the company included Gallie D. Gaston, who had previously teamed with Little Frankie Jackson (later “Jaxon”); Archie Jones (“that colored Jew”), Billie West, and Emma Frederick.228 Beans was listed as the show’s owner, Benbow as business manager.229 The Big Vaudeville Review was “not a stock company, but one of Bean’s [sic] ideas. Each one does their act and then they all join Beans in his act, which lasts about thirty-five minutes. . . . All the songs used in this company are from the pen of String Beans.”230 The company opened in Atlanta at the Royal Theater, also known as the 91, on March 13. String Beans’s presence on Decatur Street incited resentment from S. A. “Buddie” Austin, current stage manager at the rival 81/Arcade Theater. Austin posted a letter in the Freeman bragging about the big business they were doing and insinuating that String Beans was “a man with a past reputation.”231 Never inclined to let an insult pass without comment, Beans countered: While reading the Freeman last week we noticed where some one said that String Beans was a man with a past reputation. This was taken for a joke as everyone in the show business from the performers to the managers knows that Beans is a life-safer for theaters when their patrons have tacked crepe on the

box office. It looks like Beans is getting quite popular as there are managers fighting over his company daily . . . Beans is so popular that managers has his baggage attached to keep him from working at other theaters except theirs.232

Beans’s jab about having his baggage attached provoked a reaction from 81 Theater owner Charles Bailey, who wanted it known “that he had the trunks of String Beans attached to satisfy a debt that was owed him by String Beans, the amount of money being over one hundred dollars . . . If I should ever need a life saver for my theatre I have been in the business long enough to book clean acts and not a bunch of smut.”233 The bill at Bailey’s 81 included the sister team of Josephine Hill and Ethel Purnsley, later known as Ethel Waters but at the time advertising herself as “Mama String Beans.”234 She remembered the engagement in her autobiography His Eye Is on the Sparrow: So the original Stringbeans was playing at 91 Decatur Street while I, Sweet Mama String Bean, the feminine version of that long, thin green vegetable, was working just next door. Stringbeans, whose real name was Butler May, was a fine man and a good buddy. He never resented my taking over his professional name. He and his wife, Sweetie May, became good friends of mine . . . Stringbeans accentuated his thinness by wearing very tight clothes. When he walked out on the stage he wore a thick chain across his vest with a padlock on it. The chain was just slack enough for the padlock to hang in front of his pants fly. This always got a guffaw from his admirers out front.235

Beans and Benbow’s Big Vaudeville Review played returns in Louisville, St. Louis, and Chicago before reaching the Washington Theater in Indianapolis in August 1916. The company was now

The Life, Death, and Untold Legacy of Bluesman Butler “String Beans” May

fourteen members strong, including George Baker, a “chair balancer and barrel jumper” who “hops nimbly as a squirrel”; Hi Henry Hunt, the well-known fire-eating contortionist; yodeler-comedian Emmett Anthony; eccentric dancer Kid Bumpsky; Andy and Carrie Pellebone; and a female chorus. “However, Beans, as he is now generally called, is the high card of the bunch.”236 By the time Beans and Benbow’s Big Review arrived in Indianapolis, Ebbie Burton had left to tour with Wooden’s Bon Tons.237 Beans took Robbie Lee Peoples—Baby Benbow—as his new stage partner.238 She was singled out for her “vaudeville voice, the prettiest ever for singing her songs—the little queen of the blues or ragtime shouters. Her dancing alone would make her a safe place on the stage. She is a very choice bit of a woman.”239 This little lady is full of life and displays it most delightfully all of the time. . . . This time she abandons her smart frocks, and comes out just a plain little colored woman, rather antique appearing. For my part she could continue wearing her smart gowns and also wear her natural color. Of course, it does appear that she might be rough and ready like Beans, but we are not used to seeing things that way. There is something fetching about those girls or women who look fitting and yet are just a trifle naughty. Of course the other women don’t care any too much about them—but O, the men.240

During their stay in Indianapolis, the Freeman offered this succinct “Review of the Review”: Opening—“Night Time in Dixie Land,” followed by the “My Hero” song. Benbow leads chorus. Medley singing continues closing with “Dixie Land.” Beans and Miss Benbow in “All Night Long,” duo, concluding with the “Hesitation Blues.” Beans’s drill of the girls was a stand-out feature. The Benbow, Pellebone,

Indianapolis Freeman, October 14, 1916.

Anthony and Beans mix-up was the nearest thing to a plot. The little snatches of songs by the girls now and then added cheerfulness to the whole. The “Walking the Dog” gave the company opportunity to please greatly. It is already a popular something, but done as the Beans and Benbow Company does it satisfies every bit of one’s curiosity to see the amusing stunt.241

In a high point of the proceedings, Beans made “a sensational entrance at the end of a rope, being dragged from the sea.”242 String Beans was said to be “reaching the class of Hogan and Dudley, reminding

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Indianapolis Freeman, August 5, 1916.

one very much of Bob Cole in his seeming foolish simplicity. . . . And doubtless, if he keeps up the pace he will lead in some big aggregation if there are going to be any more big aggregations.”243 Demand was such that the revue was brought back to Indianapolis after only three weeks absence: “Got to take hats off to Beans. . . . In this review are all the elements of a great big show: It’s a big show reduced.”244 When they finally left town late in August a writer commented that “String Beans has shown the people of Indiana he is also a musical comedy man as well as a vaudevillian.”245 The company moved directly to the New Monogram Theater in Chicago, but, as was occasionally

the case, the manager barred Sylvester Russell from the theater, and he wrote no review. A communiqué from the show noted, “This is the first time to see Beans with a company in Chicago. . . . They are having to give five shows each night. . . . Baby Benbow has set State street wild with her dainty singing and dancing. Billy Walker of the team of Murphy and Walker joined the String Beans and Benbow Company. . . . Ora Brown, Cassie Pellibone [sic] and Maude Elder as chorus girls look good and play their parts.”246 Their next engagement was at the Vaudette Theater in Detroit: “from present indications, and the crowds that are pouring in nightly, it looks as if they

The Life, Death, and Untold Legacy of Bluesman Butler “String Beans” May

William Benbow and Butler “String Beans” May, Indianapolis Freeman, August 5, 1916.

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will be here for an indefinite stay.”247 The Beans and Benbow Review returned to the Old Monogram for two weeks at the end of September before moving back to the Washington Theater in Indianapolis, “Crowding them in as usual.”248 This, its third appearance . . . removes all doubt as to its being the most popular attraction now playing before Colored audiences. It must be admitted that Beans’ popularity has much to do with this. However, there are other good, successful players in the bunch. Baby Benbow is a dream girl of a performer, who pleases all that see and hear her. She is noted for pretty dances and prances. As a singer she also makes a hit in everything she renders. Her song “Daddie,” supported by a quartet of male voices, was a feature of the bill. She costumes prettily, making a very attractive stage personality. . . . String Beans, as usual, was the stellar attraction . . . given an ovation on his first appearance. His comedy, monologue and blues renditions were joyously received, proving that the “king” had lost nothing in the affection of his hearers. The young men of the company have good voices. They were costumed neatly . . . all being dressed alike. The opening chorus was pretty in effect as well as musical. The girls were neatly attired who, with the boys, made a striking picture.249

Ethel Hudson was assisting Beans in his act. They performed the popular song and dance “Walking the Dog.” Veteran vaudeville comedian Ed F. Peat, who once contested Beans’s claim to the song “Stop Scorching That Ham,” was now a member of the Beans and Benbow Review: “His jokes were big hits even if they were not all new. His stump speech also went big.”250 William Benbow filled the essential role of “straight.” As an added attraction at the Washington Theater engagement, pioneer jazz

composer–pianist William Benton Overstreet presided at the piano.251 The triumphant engagement in Indianapolis gave Freeman critic Billy E. Lewis opportunity for commentary and analysis, including a presentiment of “String Beans and His Future” that zeroed in on the powerful effect of Beans’s blues piano playing: Beans is rapidly developing into a comedian who will go anywhere. It must be admitted that much of his present popularity is due to his oddities, his eccentricities, differing wholly from anything ever seen on a public stage. . . . He is a study because so different and that he is true to much seen in the race in a general way. At this time he has just what pleases colored audiences as we find them at colored playhouses. His strange comedy and his blues, especially when at the piano, create a furore [sic]. He will be readily conceded to be the blues master piano player of the world. That says very much. But one will not easily conceive of anything better of the kind. Great piano artists often find it necessary to label their compositions before most people know the subject or the thought that they wish to convey. Beans’ work talks for itself. It suggests its own kind of name, and which no one knows in particular, not even Beans, but at that these blues say something definite. They moan and weep and cry, setting up kindred emotions in the listeners, and who often must yell, or give vent to their feeling in some way for relief. I am not much on blues; don’t think much of any variety of them. But if they are anything, Beans has got them. S. H. Dudley is watching Beans, having in mind hitching him up with a big aggregation to take up the old touring route of a few years ago. Beans is in training for the big event. . . . As it is, Beans is now the best money-getter. He is known as the salvation man, the pinch hitter for the managers. He puts money in their pockets. Beans is yet a young man; really he is a boy, boyish in action when on the street. He has good common sense, and holds a good conversation; not stupid, as

he appears on the stage. In fact he displays good art in this respect. He is so strong in his character that one expects to see him on the street as he appears on the stage. He is generous with his funds; some say too generous. At any rate this quality has made him many friends . . . He is pleasing to meet, and companionable. He has plenty of good street clothes, and looks well when he has them on. He has a good-sized diamond in one of his gold teeth, as if a standing challenge to hunger.252

Lewis was especially taken by Beans’s interpretation of an old Ernest Hogan skit, “The Four Hundred Ball”: [String Beans] is not known for sticking very close to his lines, depending on his wit to help him out when he pitches something that is unexpected. He together with Benbow as straight and the rest of the company gave a bit of Ernest Hogan’s Four Hundred Ball. Here he stuck close enough to the lines, taking but little liberty and that little was for the best. The sketch was a big success owing very much to Beans’ conception of his part. . . . He doesn’t seem to be doing so much; but it is so different, and no one can do anything like it. He is his own copyright.253 The Four Hundred Ball was Bean’s [sic] opportunity and he did not forget to make it. I take it that he never saw Hogan work, but there was much that he did that was similar to the work of that great comedian. If anything he was funnier than Hogan, due of course to his peculiarities. His pianologue took as usual. And nobody showed up to contest him for the superiority in playing the blues.254

The association of blues singing and comedy may be foreign to modern sensibilities and experience, but there was an essential connection during the period when blues first emerged on the popular “A slight reminder of String Beans,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 13, 1914.

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stage. In fact, blackface comedians had been the primary outriders of breaking trends in vernacular music since the earliest days of American stage entertainment. In his famous 1938 Library of Congress interview sessions, Jelly Roll Morton allowed that String Beans was “the greatest comedian I ever knew, and a very, very swell fellow”: He was over six feet tall, very slender with big liver lips, and light complexioned. His shoes were enormous and he wore trousers impossible to get over his feet without a shoe horn . . . He used to bring down the house when he sang “I Got Elgin Movements in My Hips, with a Twenty Year Guarantee” and “What Did Deacon Jones Do, My Lord, When the Lights Went Out,” or “Gimme a Piece of What You’re Settin’ On” . . . and such stuff as that. He sang all those songs to the same tune, but when he would wobble those big feet of his, nobody noticed the difference and they liked him right on.255

Morton’s insinuation that String Beans was a limited piano player contradicts contemporaneous commentary; and his concession that black theater audiences “liked him right on” is a gross understatement. While Morton was still vacillating between playing piano and hustling pool halls, String Beans was earning the title “blues master piano player of the world.” In June 1914, when Ferd and Rosa Morton announced their new vaudeville team act, the Freeman remarked, “Mr. Morton, ‘Jelly Roll,’ is a slight reminder of ‘String Beans.’ He does a pianologue in good style. He plays a good piano, classics and rags with equal ease.”256 Historians have tended to segregate Jelly Roll Morton the vaudevillian from Jelly Roll Morton the pianist, effectively ignoring his “pianologue.” Pianologues typically consisted of two or three numbers strung together with jokes and patter. Morton’s unprecedented Library of Congress

interview is in the form of an extended pianologue. Morton’s original prototype, String Beans, used the pianologue as a primary vehicle for bringing the blues to the popular stage. In addition to String Beans and Jelly Roll Morton, early African American pianologuists included Shelton Brooks. At the Grand Theater in Chicago in 1911, just before May and May made their northern debut at the Monogram, Brooks drew praise for his “monologue-pianologue.”257 Brooks’s stage career was interrupted shortly thereafter, when he “had to undergo an operation of the stomach.”258 In October 1912 Brooks made “his re-appearance at the Monogram . . . in a new complete repertoire of songs. . . . He is not yet able to dance, but, seated at the piano in blackface, he distributed jokes between songs and parodies which were original and full of humor.”259 No one called Shelton Brooks a “bluesman,” but he was nonetheless adept at modifying blues-ready, street-corner locutions for use on the vaudeville stage. Riding high on “Some of These Days,” Brooks used his pianologue to introduce subsequent hits like “All Night Long” and “I Wonder Where My Easy Rider’s Gone.”260 String Beans seems to have admired Brooks; he was featuring Brooks’s smash hit “Walking the Dog” in 1916, when he announced: “Here I am a nice clean act that the people of each town I play in turn out to see it. With my pianologue— only two of us black-face comedians do it, Shelton Brooks and myself.”261 When String Beans first brought his shouldershaking blues pianologue before the public, there really was no one to compare him with. In his heavy southern vernacular style, his original songs, dances, and comedic expressions, as well as his displays of reckless abandon both on and off the stage, String Beans personified the unadulterated instincts of the blues. He was a bluesman by any definition. At the Booker T. Washington Theater in St. Louis during the weeks of October 30 and November 6,

The Life, Death, and Untold Legacy of Bluesman Butler “String Beans” May

traffic was really blocked.”263 Beans was said to be “showing a new form that signifies he is now a real student of comedy. He is now funnier to all than he was before to a certain class . . . and gets as many laughs from pantomime and mimic as his original line of work. . . . Baby Benbow . . . is one grand little worker and renders her numbers swell, assisted by ‘String Beans’ Harmony Four’ a quartette that can really sing.”264 Closing out the year in Chicago, Beans and Benbow “engaged in a little commercial business. They bought out little Nellies restaurant at 3222 State street, where they will probably feed actors free of charge. A handsome lady cashier has been installed.”265

Indianapolis Freeman, April 21, 1917. This little caricature was accompanied by a poem: Here’s a glimpse of a feller named Butler May Whose [sic] never without something funny to say— He’s teasing, good looking, but long and lean; That’s why they call him “Sweet Papa String Bean.”

1916, the Beans and Benbow Company “broke all records. . . . They had to start the show at 6 o’clock Monday evening in order to handle the crowd. Five shows were given Monday.”262 From St. Louis they proceeded to the Olio Theater in Louisville. When they reached the Lincoln Theater in Cincinnati, the “police were called to handle the crowd as

In January 1917, at Gibson’s Standard Theater, Philadelphia, an “over-generous” bill opened with Irvin C. Miller’s “ragtime revue” and closed with Beans and Benbow’s “new act, which is filled with ragtime riot that really caught on.” With the likes of Esther Bigeou, Lula Whidby, Laura Bailey, and others, Miller’s review, a forerunner of his famous “Brown Skin Models,” was rated “some girlie show.” However, the standing-room-only audience was said to be “essentially a strong Bean’s [sic] aggregation.”266 Despite their obvious successes, Beans and Benbow never managed to stay together long. In February 1917 they took their review to the little Blue Ridge Mountain town of Lynchburg, Virginia, and soon afterward parted company.267 Benbow signed on as stage manager and producer for C. W. Park’s Colored Aristocrats and String Beans returned to Chicago as a single. Russell provided a description of Beans’s new act in the March 17, 1917, edition of the Freeman: When Butler May, famously known as String Beans, stepped his foot on the Monogram stage platform last Monday evening, there was a wild roar of actual

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applause from an audience which completely filled the house to see what the greatest stage metamorphose known in history was going to do. . . . He was attired as a blackface sailor. He said that President Wilson had sent for him to join the navy, but he had made up his mind that he was not going to fight, and if he decided to do any fighting that he would fight liquor—that’s all. He had one good song about some one was enticing him to steal, but he objected, and in the chorus he told that he is eating and sleeping, has good clothes and is satisfied. He said he had dined with President Wilson in Washington, but they dined in different places. He said he had told Wilson in his interview that Uncle Sam was not his uncle, that his uncle’s name was Abraham. He told of a trip to Mexico, where he went to interview Villa for the President. He said that when Villa found out that he was from America he turned a cannon on him and the cannonball chased him side by side, across the border line back to the states in Texas.268

Indianapolis for a return engagement at the Washington Theater, “singing numbers with the Beansesque play between, his dance humoresque and the rest of it”:

During his second week at the Monogram, Beans:

Following his second week in Indianapolis, Beans got a strong review, headed “String Beans, Novelty Comedian, Blues and Pianologue”:

entered as a working man with a dinner pail and shovel. He sang about his Hannah. She wanted nice dresses, so he went down to Siegel & Cooper’s to get her some clothes at 3 a.m. and found that the watchman was still there. Then he talked about the stock yards. He said he was in the hog pen catching grunts and squeezing young hogs to death. He burlesqued Shakespeare. He concluded seated in a chair with his leather-toed feet up on a table, in the spotlight. Then he told about a railroad porter who lost his job because he was so dark that the man who hired a berth couldn’t see him coming.269

While holding down the Monogram stage, Beans also took part in a special midnight show, an “Emergency Fund Benefit for Thespian Charities,” at Chicago’s States Theater.270 Afterward, it was back to

Those knowing him expected to see him in his well known “costume.” But no, he burst on in a sailor’s outfit, trim and fitting enough, but just to think of Beans tricked out in that style! Nothing remained of his old self excepting those tremendous flat shoes that sprawl the floor. He appears in black face. He has three good song numbers, with more or less humorous verses. Some of these make great hits, especially when he refers to Uncle Sam. He says that he has but one uncle, and his name is Abraham. He cared nothing about the war. Beans also does a monologue which hits every time. He tells nothing but funny ones. He also rings in his famous pianologue, preceded by his taking style of blues playing.271

Beans in some respects clearly distances all other comedians of his race. He takes more chances. In fact he can’t help himself. He couldn’t repeat a show word for word to save his life. He must be nearly original saying and doing what occurs to him, then and there. His secret is that he must also be entertained, that is, Beans must entertain Beans. And he cannot do it by telling himself what he had to say an hour or so ago. He is his own weathervane. If he is making a hit it is known by his own enjoyment. In this respect Beans has got all of his brother comedians “skinned.” He is original, because he is built that way. The beauty of it is that he is good in his originality, saying things that produce a different kind

The Life, Death, and Untold Legacy of Bluesman Butler “String Beans” May

of laughter, the kind that seizes one all over—makes you laugh until it hurts. He is just that humorous at times. He is wholly different to anything the race has produced . . . The people want to see Beans—they must see him. They hunger for him. . . . His stock yards’ stunt this week is a good example of his originality. He gave as many different shows as the times he appeared. He also rung in a variety of songs, some that his audience had never heard before. It was evident that Beans can not be pumped dry; he is a fountain. His piano playing is descriptive blues, and strictly a Bean’s [sic] creation. Many try to imitate him in this respect, a sure proof of the quality of his work.272

This insightful critique draws attention to a distinctive aspect of String Beans’s art that more typically evoked bewildered derogation: his oft-cited faculty for improvisation. In retrospect, Beans’s free use of creative improvisation was an important mark of modernism in twentieth-century American music and entertainment. On April 7, 1917, Beans presented his calling card and proclaimed, “Hurrah for String Beans, commander-in-chief of the army of fun and the real blues.”273 Two days later he descended on the Lincoln Theater in Cincinnati, “where the announcement of his coming . . . caused the selling out of the house for the first two performances in advance.”274 While Beans was at the Lincoln, Salem Tutt Whitney’s Smart Set Company opened at one of Cincinnati’s opposition theaters, with Sweetie May leading the Smart Set chorus in “Sweet Melodious Blues.”275 During their overlapping sojourns in Cincinnati, the estranged couple reportedly met at the Dunbar Club, prompting a local correspondent to “wonder.”276 But Butler and Sweetie May did not get back together. Sweetie left Cincinnati with the Smart Set. In the fall of 1917 she joined Billie Young and Eloise Johnson in the original Jazz Trio/Jazz Girls; at the Monogram Theater,

they did a “dizzy dance in Hula clothes, interpreted by the trap drummer and entering into the ‘Weary Blues.’”277 Beans moved on to Pittsburgh, where he appeared one week each at the Star and Crescent theaters, “to capacity houses every night.”278 An engagement at the Lincoln Theater in New York City followed in early June 1917, evoking a press report that suggests String Beans had planted his flag firmly on the sidewalks of New York: “Singing, piano playing and dancing were all executed in the droll, humorous style such as only String Beans himself is capable of doing. To say that he carried the week at this theater would be placing it mildly, so we’re coming out with the staggering truth by acknowledging that he was such a sensation that songs, actions and name are ordinary conversation in every other persons’s [sic] home.”279 In light of String Beans’s recent triumphs, Salem Tutt Whitney was inspired to praise him for cleaning up his line of talk. But Whitney apparently could not help encumbering his approval with the same old lines of criticism that had dogged String Beans throughout his stage career: Perhaps no single ARTIST IN COLORED VAUDEVILLE Has gained the popularity enjoyed by BUTLER MAY (STRING BEANS.) None have attracted more ATTENTION NOR CREATED MORE SENSATION Than the elongated comedian, truly LIKE A BEAN POLE IN SIZE AND HEIGHT “String Beans” was not always PARTICULAR ABOUT WHAT HE SAID, Or how, when or WHERE HE SAID WHAT HE SAID. Seldom did he say THE SAME THING TWICE. Perhaps it was difficult to REMEMBER THE THING FIRST SAID. Much that he said would not DO FOR A MINISTER’S SON,

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And he was severely CRITICIZED FOR WHAT HE SAID. It was this UNCERTAIN, SPECULATIVE, SUGGESTIVE QUALITY OF HIS SPEECH, And the storm of CRITICISM THAT IT AROUSED That made “String Beans” the BIGGEST DRAWING CARD IN COLORED VAUDEVILLE. STRING BEANS IS REALLY FUNNY, THE ONE THING NEEDFUL TO A COMEDIAN. He possesses TALENT AND MUCH ORIGINALITY. Many of the funny sayings we hear and LAUGH AT IN COLORED VAUDEVILLE Found their origin IN THE ANGULAR ONE’S THINK TANK. Beans is now proving his ABILITY TO BE A LEGITIMATE COMEDIAN. He no longer resorts to SMUT AND SUGGESTION TO WIN APPLAUSE. Ladies and children can NOW LISTEN AND LAUGH WITHOUT SHAME. The new STRING BEANS IS WELCOME, And will doubtless be a BIGGER DRAWING CARD THAN EVER BEFORE.280

In spite of everything creative and salutary that Butler May contributed to the black vaudeville stage and box office, northern critics could not get away from what they conceived as his inadequacies. The most commonly heard “knock” concerned his use of sexually suggestive humor and double-entendre, commonly referred to as “smut.” Perhaps this charge had some justification in context; though nothing String Beans ever said offended the public sufficiently to keep them from storming the box office wherever he performed. The issue of vulgarity has a very different relevance in the context of the development of the blues, as unabashedly licentious a music form as America has ever produced. If anything, the accusations only reinforce

Beans’s claim to the title “commander-in-chief of the real blues.” Some of the criticisms leveled against String Beans reflected a regional tension that was set off by his 1911 invasion of the North. The blues-laden southern vaudeville acts that followed in String Beans’s footsteps were the specter of things to come in African American popular entertainment, to the dismay of many established northern vaudevillians. In 1916 a Freeman correspondent set String Beans’s “comedianism” in territorial perspective: A few years ago when String Beans and his Sweetie May came north from their Southern scenes of triumph they brought with them the best of the line of purely Negro oddities, and which were directly developed under purely Negro influence. Their offering appeared crude to the senses of Northern Negroes who had seen nothing of purely Negro origin. They had seen comedians and comedians, but these were made under the influence of white performers, consequently their impress was on them. The Northern white comedian and the Northern Negro comedian did similar work and yet do similar work. But when Beans came he introduced a different comedianism, the likes of which had never been seen in the North. He was not alone in his peculiar work. Others from the South were on the same line. As comedians differ he was different from his species—his fellow Southern performers—and he was the best of them all in that peculiar line. His work was first received in the nature of a curiosity. It was amusing from the start because so different. He did not at first make an impression so much as a comedian proper, but as a comedian monstrosity. He was more of a comedian caricaturist or cartoonist, who told the truth of the conduct of some of his race in an exaggerated way. He had nothing to conceal; he put it on like he saw it, only overdoing it, of course, as all comedians do. Some tried to dislike

The Life, Death, and Untold Legacy of Bluesman Butler “String Beans” May

him at first because he was too plain. But in the end truth will prevail. The most careful people saw that String Beans was putting on what they either knew or had seen, hence true to the life of a class, even if too highly colored. However, in time Beans also got a touch of the North, the Northern Negro, perhaps; or he was influenced by their views, so he toned down his performance just a bit, making his work more acceptable, while nothing of the originality was lost. He improved on himself, doing his work better with the years. He is now a comedian in every sense of the word, depending at no time on suggestive stuff. A bit of that creeps in, of course, now and then, but scarcely any more than what creeps in some acts of the best theaters in the land.281

Beans worked the week of June 18, 1917, at the New Lincoln Theater in Baltimore.282 Shortly thereafter he ducked out of vaudeville to travel with Park’s Colored Aristocrats, whose stage manager was Will Benbow. A report said that he was offered “a salary of such magnitude that ‘Beans’ felt justified in canceling a long vaudeville route and accepting his office at once.”283 Park’s Colored Aristocrats were an outgrowth of what had been Tolliver’s Smart Set. They were maintaining the variety atmosphere that inspired the show’s original concept of an “All Colored Circus,” with a contingent of jugglers, roller skaters, and a “modern Sampson” who “lifts, unassisted, a 1,300 pound horse.”284 Advertised as the “Largest Colored Show on Earth,” Park’s Colored Aristocrats worked primarily under canvas. During the week of July 4 they held down the corner of Scott and Granby streets in Norfolk, Virginia: “As an added attraction . . . several new acts will be seen, among them the World’s Famous ‘String Beans,’ positively the funniest colored man in the world today.”285 A few weeks after Beans joined Park’s Colored Aristocrats, Will Benbow resigned.286 It seems Beans

and Benbow were fundamentally incompatible. Benbow gathered an independent troupe, Benbow’s Merry Makers, and went on his way. Retaining Beans as their “premier comedian,” and replacing Benbow with William B. Smith, the Colored Aristocrats (also billed as the Original Smart Set) spent much of the summer of 1917 in Pennsylvania. They “happened to be in Chester, Pa., when a race riot developed there and some of the bunch had the pleasure of witnessing a few exhibitions of the enormous amount of race hatred and prejudice that seems to prevail in that town.”287 Moving into New Jersey, the Colored Aristocrats played “day and date” with Jess Willard’s Buffalo Bill Show.288 In August the Aristocrats appeared at the Star Theater in Pittsburgh: “played to crowded houses each night and the standing room only sign was out. . . . Butler May (String Beans) is the big hit with this show.”289 The following month found them with their tent spread at Federal Park in Covington, Kentucky.290 They continued south to Nashville, appearing “Under Water Proof Canvas” at the corner of Cedar Street and Tenth Avenue for one week beginning September 10.291 Advertising and press reports indicate that String Beans was still with the show in Nashville; but when the company proceeded to Memphis, it was with “Pork Chops as leading comedian.”292 String Beans had broken away from the Colored Aristocrats and headed for Atlanta in company with Jodie and Susie Hawthorne Edwards, two young performers fresh off the roster of Alexander Tolliver’s Big Show. Although they had been traveling in the Tolliver Show for two years and had “started living together as husband and wife,” Edwards and Edwards had only begun performing as a team a few months earlier.293 An October 6, 1917, report notified that “String Beans opened the 81 Theater, Atlanta, and is packing them at every performance. Mr. Bailey will hold Beans over another week and then some more. Edwards and Edwards are with String Beans and

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community paper: “[T]he world weeps with the friends and relatives of this gifted comedian who now lies asleep in the little cemetary [sic] in his native home town. . . . His body was brought to Montgomery Monday the 19th inst., and was buried Wednesday at 2:00 o’clock P. M., the funeral services being held at Mr. May’s home, 804 South Hall Street.”298 Obituaries also appeared in Montgomery’s mainstream dailies. The Montgomery Times reported:

Butler May’s final resting place in Oakwood Cemetery (Photo by Joey Brackner, 2002).

they are cleaning up everywhere they go. They don’t need any more acts on the bill as these are standing them in the streets nightly. Edwards and Edwards open and Beans closes with his piano. Nuff Sed.”294 From Atlanta, the fateful trio made a jump to Macon, and then to Jacksonville.295 The Chicago Defender told of a “big week” at the Strand Theater there, “featuring the great String Beans and the sterling team of Edwards & Edwards.”296 On November 10, 1917, vaudevillian Hattie Akers posted a letter from Jacksonville to Defender columnist Tony Langston. Langston published the letter intact, warning readers that it “told of what may be, but what we hope will not be, the finish of one of the most unique characters in present-day show business.” Following a bit of chit-chat about the summer-like weather in Jacksonville, Akers broke the news: “I suppose you have heard about String Beans. He was being initiated into a lodge and in some manner they broke the small bones in his neck. He now lies in a hospital paralyzed from head to foot.”297 The victim of an absurd “hazing” accident, String Beans languished for more than a week before the final curtain rang down. String Beans’s death was reported in several African American weeklies. It made front-page news in the Emancipator, his hometown Montgomery

It is alleged that May’s neck was broken and that rough places are about the head. It is charged that the man’s death was due to the initiation at a Jacksonville lodge and a very great indignation is expressed here where he was popular with his race. His family employed an attorney today and no effort will be spared to bring to light the facts concerning his death. An effort was made at Jacksonville to suppress the real facts, one report having it that May was killed in an automobile accident in going home after the show. “String Beans” was the best known negro comedian in the south and was the highest-price negro showman in the country.299

Sylvester Russell later revealed that the lodge where String Beans met his fate was “not the general Masonic fraternity, but an independent Masonic order, only of local recognition in Jacksonville, Fla. It is not generally believed that anybody had anything against the popular actor and it is not generally believed that anybody wants or wanted to get back at the secret order where the unfortunate accident happened. In conclusion and in behalf of secret orders, by the example shown in String Beans’ death, colored orders have long been too rough in their initiations.”300 Butler May’s death certificate provides the final word concerning the cause of death. In the nearly

illegible script of the attending physician, it is ascribed to a “Fracture of [Bilateral?] 6th Cervical Vertebra of Neck.” Elsewhere on the death certificate, Beans’s sister Blanche attributed his death to “natural causes.” In the space marked for the deceased’s former address, Blanche wrote, “traveling man.” Billy and Mabel Arnte’s Dixieland Troubadours were playing in Beans’s hometown at the time of his funeral. Frank S. Reed, the manager of Arnte’s Dixieland Troubadours, informed the Freeman: “The home of Mrs. May was not able to accommodate the many friends of Butler’s, not only among the negro race, but the white as well. The long funeral cortege passed silently and sadly along, and many a heart was too full to do otherwise than breathe a sad and silent farewell to poor ‘String Beans.’”301 Butler May was laid to rest in Montgomery’s historic Oakwood Cemetery, in an inconspicuous tomb now shared by his mother, who died in 1941, and his sister Blanche, who died in 1969. Country music legend Hank Williams is also buried in Oakwood, with an elaborate marker and memorial, about a hundred yards away from the May family plot. Many tributes to String Beans were published in the weeks following his death. “They can get all kinds of stock singles and teams,” rhymed Will Benbow, “but there’ll never be another ‘card’ like the original ‘String Beans.’”302 Salem Tutt Whitney mourned in his “Seen and Heard” column: “We are grieved to learn of the death of Butler May. . . . Thousands have forgotten their woes while listening to Beans. Can there exist a more commendable occupation than that of a joy dispenser. ‘String Beans’ was the best known personage in colored vaudeville. A box office winner, sought by all astute managers. His brand of comedy, distinctively his own, original, appealed to the mass of patrons of colored theaters.”303 The Chicago Defender reinforced Whitney’s assertion: “There probably was no better known

Indianapolis Freeman, January 26, 1918.

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performer to Race vaudeville fans than Butler May. . . . String Beans was a song writer of no mean ability and seldom used anything but original numbers in his act. . . . [H]e was the Bert Williams of small time.”304 The Defender published a dedicatory poem by Eleanor Wilson Morton titled “A Tribute,” which ended: “His struggles are over, to all it seemed / That he tried to make his last act clean.”305 There was no public statement from Sweetie May. At the time of Beans’s death she was at the Monogram Theater in Chicago, teamed with Eloise Johnson and Billie Young. She continued to work through the 1920s, most notably in a “sister act” with Bonnie Bell Drew.306 A 1942 press report identified Sweetie May as one of several “old-timers that can be seen daily” in the black entertainment section of New Orleans.307 Jodie and Susie Edwards were profoundly influenced by their brief association with String Beans; so much so, that in the wake of his death, they decided to inhabit his stage persona. An article in the January 26, 1918, Freeman heralded “Edwards and Edwards, the New String Beans and His Capable Partner Who Sings the Blues With a Feeling. . . . Jodie . . . is String Beans over again, but of course not so aggressive as the original. . . . His singing, his comedy, his dancing all have the String Bean touch, but not his exaggeration and liberty.” The article confirmed that before Beans’s death, he and Jodie had “made arrangements to team under the name String Beans and Butter Beans.”308 In a 1960 interview, Jodie Edwards was asked how he got the name “Butterbeans”: I got that from a fellow in St. Louis. Charlie Turpin. There was a fellow named String Beans, he was a big drawing card. And he died. And see, when he passed, we was working with him . . . doing a trio together . . . And I took mostly all his style, you know, and his songs, and stuff like that . . . after he passed . . . the people was saying, “Oh my goodness, he remind me

of String Beans.” Why I remind them of String Beans? Because I had just left him! And I had adopted his way! . . . and so then this manager that owned the theater [Turpin], he came back there and said, “Boy,” “Did you ever knew String Beans?” I said, “Yes, I knew him.” He said, “Well, by jingo,” said, “You work kind of like him; the only thing is, you ain’t playing no piano.” He said, “I’m going to make these people bill you as ‘Butterbeans.’”309

Without the requisite piano skills, Jodie Edwards was not fully equipped to perpetuate String Beans’s blues legacy. Otherwise, however, his act so resembled Beans’s that six years after Butler May’s death the black press was still touting: “‘Butterbeans,’ the one and only rival of the late ‘Stringbeans.’”310 At the Monogram Theater in April 1918, Sylvester Russell found Jodie Edwards’s dancing “comical to the extreme and sometimes vulgar. . . . When he sings, he resembles the late String Beans, but will not dare to follow after his footsteps.”311 In Memphis later that summer, Butterbeans and Susie put over a version of Beans’s 1912 hit “Nobody Knows What Deacon Jones Does When the Lights Go Out.”312 Three months later, at the Washington Theater in Indianapolis, they received the kind of press they were apparently looking for: The team of Butter Beans and Hawthorne . . . are becoming more and more popular as the week draws to a close. One needs only to remember what the famous String Beans was to form an ideal as what sort of comedian Butter Beans is. In his jokes, dancing and walk, even in his talk this expert is creating the kind of laugh that is rioting wherever he goes is just like String Beans in every way. . . . Madame Hawthorne is capable of making ones heart bleed by the touching manner in which she sings the blues.313

The Life, Death, and Untold Legacy of Bluesman Butler “String Beans” May

The untimely death of String Beans was a great loss to vaudeville patrons and theater owners; but it was a catastrophe for the historiography of the blues, leaving a gap that cannot be remedied simply by reconstructing portions of his itinerary and stage repertoire. Butler May was a formative figure in the early evolution of the blues, the first national blues star; but key elements of his legacy remain unrecognized, essentially hidden in plain sight. The realities of the recording industry during the “String Beans decade” left no trace of what his music sounded like. Moreover, freewheeling String Beans never bothered to register any of his compositions for copyright. But the absence of sound recordings and sheet music does not fully explain why “the best known personage in colored vaudeville” disappeared so completely from the historical record.314 Amid the daily struggle for survival that characterized southern vaudeville, concerns about posthumous fame were not much of a factor. Beyond any endemic “forgetfulness,” some of String Beans’s contemporaries harbored jealousy and resentment of his phenomenal popularity; while others took advantage of his death to appropriate and claim credit for elements of his act and persona. Writer Abbe Niles, who “never saw ‘String Beans’ on the stage,” disrespected his memory when, drawing from W. C. Handy’s recollections, he described Beans as “a Negro entertainer of high and odiferous fame.”315 Jelly Roll Morton’s claim that Beans sang all of his songs to the same tune is of a type with his casually dismissive appraisals of fellow performers.316 In the course of their research into black vernacular dance and jazz history, Marshall and Jean Stearns heard about String Beans from both Jodie “Butterbeans” Edwards and folklorist Willis Laurence James. In a 1966 article in the Southern Folklore Quarterly, the Stearns tapped James’s recollections of a performance he had witnessed in Jacksonville,

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“The Elgin Movements Man,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 2, 1911.

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The Life, Death, and Untold Legacy of Bluesman Butler “String Beans” May

Florida, a half-century earlier.317 Their reconstruction of James’s description was the most anyone had written about String Beans from the time of his death in 1917 until recent years.318 Regrettably, the Stearns did not investigate what they had been told sufficiently to establish String Beans’s correct name, which they misinterpreted as “Budd LeMay.”319 String Beans’s most celebrated quality was his originality. Salem Tutt Whitney made a cardinal point when he declared: “Many of the funny sayings we hear and laugh at in Colored vaudeville found their origin in the angular one’s think tank.” However, reconstructing String Beans’s tangible legacy a century after his death is not a simple task. Contemporaneous press commentaries from 1910 to 1917 make it possible to identify song titles and phrases from Beans’s repertory, many of which turn up in later blues texts. Documented attributions of titles including “Pray for the Lights to Go Out,” “Blind Man Blues,” “I Don’t Want Nobody That Don’t Want Me,” “I Love My Man Better Than I Love Myself,” “Hospital Blues,” “Low Down Jail House Blues,” “Whiskey Blues,” and more attest to a body of original String Beans blues songs. It is possible that these titles are not, in fact, or in toto, songs known from later recordings or publications; but it is much more likely that not only these, but countless other anonymous blues songs and characteristic phrases are, in fact, unaccredited products of “the angular one’s think tank.” One persistent reminder of String Beans’s silent influence is the “Elgin Movements” metaphor. Beans introduced it at the Luna Park Theater in Atlanta in 1910. Three years later, in the wake of the most famous maritime disaster in history, he irreverently crossbred his “Elgin Movements” song with a parody on the sinking of the Titanic.320 The lyrics to this topical monstrosity were posited in a 1928 article by Abbe Niles, as “remembered . . . by the Father of the Blues, W. C. Handy, and which used

to be sung at the Monogram Theater, Chicago, by ‘String Beans’”: I got dem Elgin Movements in ma hips, Twenty years’ guarantee! I want all you ladies in dis house To nestle up close to me. I was on dat great Titanic De night dat she went down; Ev’rybody wondered Why I didn’t drown— I had dem Elgin movements in ma hips, Twenty years’ guarantee!321

Folklorist Dorothy Scarborough collected a similar set of lyrics, which she allegedly overheard while “sitting on the porch of her Virginia summer home” and reproduced in her 1919 book, From a Southern Porch: Come, all you people, ef you want to know Something dat happened not so long ago. I guess yo’ heard bout dat misteree, Bout de Titanic sankin’ in de deep, blue sea. Dey was people on dat ship Had Elgin movement in dey hip. Captain Smith had de worry-blues. I got de Titanic movement in my hip, Wid a twenty-year guarantee. I ain’t good-lookin’ an I don’t dress fine, But I angles in my hips, an’ I’m goin’ to take my time!322

Scarborough took the song for a grassroots folk invention; but it is a luminous reminder of the original “Elgin Movements” man of early southern vaudeville. String Beans’s outrageous boast, that his “Elgin movements” saved him from drowning, is thematically akin to infamous street-corner toasts

The Life, Death, and Untold Legacy of Bluesman Butler “String Beans” May

concerning “Shine and the Titanic,” in which “Shine” survives by virtue of his superhuman aptitude for swimming.323 An identical scenario is found in the coon song “Traveling Man” (or “Traveling Coon”), recorded by numerous blues and country artists during the 1920s and 1930s.324 The assertion that the “Traveling Man” (Beans, Shine) had somehow boarded the Titanic in the first place is racially charged. As an African American press report of the time pointed out: “There were no Negroes on the ill-fated Titanic when she went down in midocean. It develops that none were to be permitted to cross the pond on the majestic liner.”325 String Beans’s “Elgin Movements”/“Titanic Blues” song was never committed to sheet music or sound recordings. Nevertheless, the deep impression String Beans left on race recordings is preserved in the noble lineage of his “Elgin movements” metaphor. Delta blues enthusiasts readily associate it with Robert Johnson’s 1936 recording “Walking Blues”; but Blind Lemon Jefferson’s precedent “Change My Luck Blues,” from 1928, contains the identical lyric configuration: “She’s got Elgin movements from her head down to her toes, / And she can break in on a dollar most anywhere she goes.”326 Various allusions to “Elgin movements” are present in Sippie Wallace’s recording “Off and On Blues,” Sodarisa Miller’s “Broadway Daddy Blues,” Edmonia Henderson’s “Brownskin Man,” and Eva Taylor’s “Everybody Loves My Baby,” all from 1924. Trixie Smith employed it in her 1925 recording of “Everybody Loves My Baby.”327 That same year, Jenkins and Jenkins mentioned “Elgin movements” on their recording “Sister, It’s Too Bad,” while Clara Smith’s “I’m Tired of Being Good” insists, “I was born in the country, raised in town, / Got Elgin movements from my head on down.”328 Old-time country musicians Garley Foster and Dock Walsh must have been paying close attention, because their 1931 recording titled “Wild Women Blues” affirms: “She

(Courtesy Roger Misiewicz)

was born in the country raised in town, / She’s got Elgin movements from her hips on down.”329 Georgia blues songster Peg Leg Howell employed the “Elgin movements” metaphor on two records, “Papa Stobb Blues” in 1927 and “Fairy Blues” in 1928.330 Blind Blake sang of “Elgin movements and a twenty year guarantee” in his 1928 recording, “Panther Squall Blues.” In 1929 Barbecue Bob put it to use in “She Moves It Just Right,” as did singer-pianist J. C. Johnson, with a combo known as Feathers and Frogs, on the song “How You Get That Way.”331 Rob Robinson and Meade Lux Lewis’s 1930 recording “I Got Some of That” says, “Look what I see walking down the street, / she’s got Elgin movements from her head to her feet.”332 Bluesman Charley Jordan bragged on his 1936 record “Got Your Water On” that he had “the best old Elgin movements.”333 Also in 1936, when southern vaudeville pioneer Trixie Colquitt Butler finally got around to making records, the first song she waxed, “Take It Easy Greasy,” referred to “Elgin

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The opening bars of the “String Beans Blues” segment of H. Alf Kelley and J. Paul Wyer’s “A Bunch of Blues.”

Jelly Roll Morton’s piano introduction to Billie Young’s 1930 Victor recording, “When They Get Lovin’ They’s Gone” (Transcribed from the record by Adam Swanson).

movements from my hips to my knees, / automatic worker, twenty years guaranteed.”334 Curiously comestible reconfigurations of String Beans’s “Elgin movements” metaphor cropped up in southern vaudeville as early as November 1910, when a Freeman correspondent from the Dixie Theater in Charlotte, North Carolina, reported, “Papa Tom Young, with oakra [sic] in his hips and tomatoes in his sides, is still holding his own, singing ‘The Blues.’”335 Charles “Cow Cow” Davenport and Dora Carr’s 1926 blues comedy confrontation “Alabama Mis-Treater” puts forth a similar variation:

Davenport: I got cabbages in one hip, Mashed potatoes in my side, I got a twenty-year guarantee. Carr: You can have ice cream in your hips Pistachios in your sides, You buy a ticket on this train Before you ride.336

Davenport revisited “Alabama Mistreater” on a 1928 solo recording for Vocalion: “I’m that mistreating daddy, born in Alabama, / Got everything a good man needs, / I even got cabbages in my hips and

The Life, Death, and Untold Legacy of Bluesman Butler “String Beans” May

An imprint of the “String Beans Blues” figure in Cow Cow Davenport’s 1929 Gennett recording, “Atlanta Rag” (Transcribed from the record by Tom McDermott).

The opening bars of the “Cow Cow Blues” manuscript submitted for copyright by Charles “Cow Cow” Davenport (Courtesy Wayne D. Shirley).

onions in my thighs, / What about a hundred-andninety year guarantee!337 Jelly Roll Morton may have betrayed another debt to String Beans when he recounted how he had acquired his famous nickname around 1912, while plying the southern vaudeville routes with Texasbased comedian Sandy Burns. One night they engaged in an extemporaneous dialogue in which Burns introduced himself as “Sweet Papa Cream

Puff, right out of the bakery shop. That seemed to produce a great big laugh,” Morton recalled, “and I was standing there, mugging, and the thought came to me that I better say something about a bakery shop, so I . . . told him I was Sweet Papa Jelly Roll with stove pipes in my hips and all the women in town just dying to turn my damper down!”338 Vaudeville blues singer Cleo Gibson recorded a clever permutation in 1929: “I’ve Got Ford Engine

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Movements in My Hips (Ten Thousand Miles Guaranteed).”339 The theme was further abstracted by R. T. Hanen on a recording titled “She’s Got Jordan River in Her Hips”; and a related vestigial interpretation is preserved on Washboard Sam’s “River Hip Mama” from 1942:340 “Men’s all crazy about her, and she makes them whine and cry; / She’s a river-hip mama, and they all wanna be baptized.”341 Count Basie, in his memoir Good Morning Blues, wrote of his mid-1920s tours with blues veteran Gonzell White. Her company also included Dewey “Pigmeat” Markham, who “used to do a song and dance and say, ‘I’m Sweet Papa Pigmeat. I got the Jordan River in my hips, and all the women is raving to be baptized!’”342 Writer and critic Stanley Crouch made an indirect reference to this variation in a 1983 essay, in which he imagined “Poseidon hanging out down Africa way, enjoying fast women of river hips who baptized him nightly.”343 In what may be the final “Elgin movements” connection on a commercial recording, Chicago blues guitarist Buddy Guy unconsciously linked String Beans to rock-and-roll icon Dick Clark in his 1963 recording “American Bandstand” when, in the best String Beans style, he rhymed the word “hip” with “Titanic ship”: “Put your hand on your hip, / Let your backbone slip. / Oh, pretend you are rocking / Like that Titanic ship. / Oh, you are doing that thing / On American Bandstand.”344 It is one thing to identify song titles, “floating verses,” and phrases attributed to String Beans that later appear in recorded blues, and quite another to recreate anything of his music, absent sound recordings or song publications with his name attached. There is, however, a shard of published music to which String Beans’s name is associated. This precious engram of String Beans’s blues was submitted for copyright by State Street composers H. Alf Kelley and J. Paul Wyer in 1915, while Beans was still alive and flourishing. Their instrumental medley “A

Bunch of Blues” welded the chorus of their 1914 hit “Long Lost Blues” with three additional blues melodies: “The Weary Blues,” “Ship Wreck Blues,” and the eponymous “String Beans Blues.”345 There are at least two recordings of “A Bunch of Blues,” and one of a medley that included “String Beans Blues.”346 A distinctive element in “String Beans Blues” is its staccato introductory, which cast great ripples in blues tradition. Among those who reprised it on record was, of all people, Jelly Roll Morton, as a prelude to his accompaniment of blues vocalist Billie Young’s 1930 recording “When They Get Lovin’ They’s Gone.”347 The introduction to “String Beans Blues” consists of two distinct parts: it begins with eight (or six) identical staccato notes on the same pitch, then a half-beat pause, followed by a brief descending progression. The staccato “first part,” harmonized in the Kelley-Wyer arrangement, is sometimes rendered in single notes. Something about this deceptively simple, unprepossessing riff was identified as essentially blues—initially, perhaps, because of its association with String Beans. Furthermore, as noted by David Evans: “Part of the effectiveness of the phrase is that it more or less defines a descending ‘blues scale,’ including the two main ‘blue notes.’ For many listeners this must have been the first taste of the blues, and they got it in nearly its complete musical form.”348 Exactly how String Beans employed this figure remains a mystery. Presumably it was part of one or more of his piano blues songs; perhaps it was used as a referential theme in his stage act or pianologue. The “String Beans” figure seems fundamentally admissive of creative adaptation and embellishment. In the Wyer/Kelley sheet music, the downward progression is not fully resolved and seems to call for improvisation. Cow Cow Davenport and Blind Lemon Jefferson did more with this motif than anyone else. Davenport fashioned a bluesy

The Life, Death, and Untold Legacy of Bluesman Butler “String Beans” May

Sam Collins’s guitar introduction to his 1931 recording, “New Salty Dog” (Transcribed from the record by David Evans. Transposed to the key of G for comparison).

movement in the midst of an otherwise straightforward ragtime piece, “Atlanta Rag,” by inserting the “String Beans Blues” riff. In the process, he devised an artful extension of the motif.349 About “Cow Cow Blues,” one of the most influential of all early piano blues compositions, it could be said that Davenport fragmented the “String Beans Blues” motive and added a definitive, original resolution that is lacking in Wyer and Kelley’s transcription, while nevertheless preserving the original musical idea.350 Retentions of Beans’s presumptive theme can be heard on recordings spanning decades and encompassing a wide variety of blues styles. Sometimes the “String Beans Blues” figure appears as an introductory, as Jelly Roll Morton used it.351 Other pianists inserted it as an ornament or flourish in the body of a song.352 Country music piano player and vocalist Aubrey “Moon” Mullican used it as a tag-on ending to his 1953 interpretation of Roy Brown’s R&B number “Grandpa Stole My Baby.”353 In 1929 Vocalion record company assembled several of its most popular blues artists, including Jim Jackson, to put down an ensemble number with spoken dialogue titled “Jim Jackson’s Jamboree.” Toward the beginning of the performance, Georgia Tom Dorsey beckons to Rufus Perryman, a.k.a. Speckled Red: “Well come on there ‘Red,’ hit them blues up there a little bit for us.” The pianist responds by launching directly into the “String Beans Blues” riff.354 Paramount recording stars Charlie Spand and Blind Blake also had more than passing familiarity with the “String Beans Blues” theme. Pianist

Spand played it on the unissued take of his “Mississippi Blues,” deftly transforming the staccato first part into a trill, followed by the familiar distinctive descending progression.355 The figure appears again in Spand’s “Moanin’ the Blues.” On the tour-de-force instrumental duet “Hastings St.,” which he recorded with Blind Blake in 1929, Spand executes the “String Beans Blues,” and Blake quickly responds, interpreting the same lick on the guitar.356 The way the figure rolls off Blake’s nimble fingers is evidence that adaptations of String Beans’s riff were by no means limited to piano.357 Jazz band variations of “String Beans Blues” can be heard on recordings by Johnny Dunn’s Original Jazz Hounds.358 Daddy Stovepipe plays the same figure on harmonica on his “Tuxedo Blues.”359 On the Dallas String Band’s “Sweet Mama Blues,” mandolin player Coley Jones renders the staccato part as a trill, reminiscent of Charlie Spand’s piano treatment on (the unissued take of) “Mississippi Blues.”360 Blind Lemon Jefferson is responsible for the earliest guitar adaptation of the String Beans figure on record.361 It is a mystery whether he ever heard String Beans perform.362 In any case, Beans’s music reached Texas theaters via the songs he wrote and made famous and by traveling performers who were imitating him, or were influenced by him.363 Jefferson recorded almost 100 songs from 1926 to 1929. He played the “String Beans Blues” phrase on “Corinna Blues,” “Black Snake Moan,” “Mean Jumper Blues,” and “That Crawlin’ Baby Blues,” cycling it into his guitar accompaniment along with other unrelated phrases. “Hangman’s Blues,” “Lock

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Step Blues,” “Black Snake Moan No. 2,” and “Dynamite Blues” also contain adaptations of “String Beans Blues.” On “Rambler Blues” Jefferson devised an elegant variation by abbreviating the staccato part and transforming the descending portion into a fancy run.364 It is likely that Memphis blues legend Furry Lewis had a chance to see String Beans in action. Lewis clearly had an affinity for the “String Beans Blues” theme, using it as an introduction to his recordings of “Rock Island Blues,” “Furry’s Blues,” and “Black Gypsy Blues” and employing it in his “Good Looking Girl Blues.”365 The theme is also used to introduce Sam Collins’s “New Salty Dog,” Kid Prince Moore’s “Honey Dripping Papa,” Edward Thompson’s “Seven Sisters Blues,” and Blind Boy Fuller’s “Cat Man Blues.”366 Mississippi Delta bluesman Ishman Bracey introduces his “Left Alone Blues” with a variation of the “String Beans Blues” figure, and subsequently used it to resolve his vocal phrases.367 Other variations can be heard by guitarist Walter Vincson on the Mississippi Sheiks’ 1930 recording “Church Bell Blues,” and again six years later, in his accompaniment to Tommy Griffin’s “Hey Hey Blues.”368 Barbecue Bob seems to have been partial to the riff, featuring it heavily in “Cloudy Sky Blues,” “Goin’ Up the Country,” and “Meat Man Pete.” His twelve-string guitar renders the staccato notes as ringing chords.369 Dan Sane, guitarist with Jack Kelly’s South Memphis Jug Band, employed it in their initial recording, “Highway No. 61 Blues,” made in 1933.370 The same riff is incorporated into recordings by Big Bill Broonzy, Buddy Moss, Little Hat Jones, Arthur Pettis, and others.371 Several classic guitar blues seem to be virtually constructed around the “String Beans Blues” figure. On William Harris’s “Keep Your Man Out of Birmingham” the figure is not merely rendered on guitar, but the singing of the verses reproduce the

melodic motif.372 Mattie Delaney’s “Down The Big Road Blues” is likewise fundamentally grounded in the String Beans theme.373 Yet another example is Buddy Boy Hawkins’s “Shaggy Dog Blues,” in which the guitar figure is approximated in Hawkins’s scat vocal: “dee dee, dee dee, dee dee” (the repetitive “first part”); “dee dee dah, dee dah” (descending “second part”).374 Blind Lemon Jefferson famously configured the verses of many of his songs in an alternating pattern of vocal lines and guitar responses. He often played his interpretation of “String Beans Blues” as a response to his vocal line, using the phrase in a manner in which it resolves rather than initiates the melodic phrase. Speaking of Blind Lemon’s special blues guitar playing skills, B. B. King described: “when [Jefferson] would resolve something, it was done so well . . . he’d come out of it so smooth.”375 Jefferson’s innovative repurposing of the “String Beans Blues” figure to resolve a blues line was widely imitated. Subsequent appropriations of this approach are in evidence on guitar blues records such as Freddie Spruell’s “Tom Cat Blues” and Pearl Dickson’s “Little Rock Blues”—with expert guitar work by Maylon and Richard Harney, known as “Pet and Can.”376 Other examples are found on records by Kansas Joe McCoy, Shorty Bob Parker, and Josh White.377 A few guitar renditions of “String Beans Blues” have been noted from the postwar era. John Lee plays it twice in his “Alabama Boogie” from 1951; Munroe Moe Jackson executes it at the beginning and then twice more in his 1949 version of Hank Williams’s “Move It On Over.”378 No doubt many of the guitarists who used the “String Beans Blues” figure learned it from Blind Lemon Jefferson’s records, and may have never even heard of String Beans; nevertheless, something of the spirit and substance of Beans’s music graces their work.

The Life, Death, and Untold Legacy of Bluesman Butler “String Beans” May ◆

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When Butler May first left home in 1909 the blues was not yet known by its rightful name. To a significant degree, the ascendance of the blues in black vaudeville was accomplished under String Beans’s authority; but his creative influence, his material legacy, and his legend were all checked in full career. In the long run, the continued vitality of the blues was not dependent on String Beans; however, his sudden disappearance altered the course of blues evolution. For one thing, it cleared the stage for the era of the “blues queens.”

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CHAPTER THREE

Male Blues Singers in Southern Vaudeville Out of all that I love, I love best my dear old Southern home. —H. Franklin “Baby” Seals

F

Largely as a result of attrition, few pioneer male blues singers made phonograph records. Consequently, “classic vaudeville blues” has come to be regarded as a female art form. Had the blues record “boom” occurred a few years earlier than it did, the gender imbalance would be less pronounced. Nevertheless, it remains true that a significant “gender gap” did exist, particularly in respect to the popular imagery. With the growth of southern vaudeville, female “coon shouters” acquired a more dignified aura and identity in the emergent concept of the “blues queen,” while male blues singers somehow remained tethered to the image of blackface comedian. One thing that all the men who sang the blues in early vaudeville had in common was an approach to stage entertainment predicated on southern style. Their “original blues,” however syncretical, was the

or all his unique and revolutionary attributes, Butler “String Beans” May was fundamentally a blackface comedian with a skill set tailored to the vaudeville stage. His act featured comedy patter, eccentric dancing, character acting, piano playing, and singing. Unlike his contemporary vaudeville brethren, String Beans made the blues his specialty, proudly announcing himself as the “commander-in-chief . . . of the real blues.” Male performers of every ilk, including ventriloquists, yodelers, and novelty instrumentalists, helped usher the blues onto the African American stage. While most of them cannot be characterized as bluesmen in precisely the same sense or spirit as String Beans, their startling diversity prescribes a more liberal appreciation of the variegated firmament of the blues. 125

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Indianapolis Freeman, March 12, 1910.

organic product of a theatrical context that catered exclusively to black southerners.

Kid Love and Baby Seals The exploits of Kid Love and Baby Seals in the frontier vaudeville houses of East Texas direct attention to the theater pit as an incubator of early blues piano playing. These two players were never team partners, but they had much in common: both were natives of Mobile, Alabama, and during the first months of 1910, both showed up on Milam Street in Houston. At that time, Houston’s black entertainment world revolved around two nearby theaters: the People’s at 211 Milam Street and the Palace at 514 Milam. Both theaters were managed by Frank McKenzie, “the only white man on the job.” Advertising steady

work to piano players at a salary of $12.50 per week, McKenzie attracted Kid Love and Baby Seals to this rough-cut southern vaudeville frontier. Competing head-to-head in Milam Street’s theater pit bands, Seals and Love brought piano blues to the brink of recognition. Working at the Palace Theater early in 1910, Kid Love and trap drummer George Williams did “a little act of their own in the orchestra pit that keeps the audience applauding them for their music.”1 The following month, down the block at the People’s Theater a reporter claimed, “Kid Love, our pianist, George Williams, our trap drummer, and James Miller, the trombone player, certainly handles the musical end of the show to perfection.”2 After Benbow’s Alabama Chocolate Drops Company concluded a date at the People’s Theater in April, Kid Love and his wife Gussie traveled with

Male Blues Singers in Southern Vaudeville

the Benbow show to the Majestic Theater in Hot Springs, Arkansas: “Mrs. Gussie Love took Hot Springs by storm singing ‘Wild Cherry Rag.’”3 When the Chocolate Drops completed their Hot Springs engagement, the Loves returned to Houston and set up shop at the Palace Theater.4 A landmark in the history of the blues calls out from a July 16, 1910, Palace Theater correspondence: “Mr. Kid Love is cleaning with his ‘Easton Blues’ on the piano. He is a cat on a piano.”5 The derivation of Love’s “Easton Blues” remains a mystery; the simple fact of its existence represents an uncontestable milestone. Baby Seals first surfaced in the spring of 1909, playing piano in the pit of the Lyric Theater in Shreveport, Louisiana.6 That summer he was musical director of the World Beaters Company, featuring the drama “Railroad Jack” with blackface comedians Leroy White, Billy Henderson, and Ed. F. Peat.7 Seals was living in New Orleans in January 1910, when he published his first sheet music production, a crap-shooting ragtime-cum-blues song called “You Got to Shake, Rattle and Roll.”8 Shortly thereafter, Seals followed Kid Love into the Milam Street theater scene. Holding down the piano at the People’s Theater in February 1910, he put his personal stamp on the stage show: “At the closing of the olio comes Tansell, Levi and Tansell, featuring Baby Seals’ song hit, ‘Shake, Rattle and Roll.’ We close the show with old man Beaver Dam, who belongs to the U-B-Dam Baptist Church.”9 When Seals took the piano at the Palace Theater in April, the bill included future blues recording artist Viola McCoy and “dainty little singing and dancing soubrette” Floyd Fisher, the “doll of Memphis.”10 Four weeks later, Seals and Fisher were spotted together at the Ruby Theater in Galveston: “Little Baby Floyd Fisher is still holding her own. . . . H. F. (Baby) Seals is holding the show down with his mighty stunts on the piano.”11 The consensus of opinion at the Ruby was that “Baby Seals, pianist

and musical director, is above the average. He can put so much juice in your song that you will sing even when you don’t feel like singing.”12 Seals ended his Texas sojourn that summer and headed back east in a husband-and-wife team act with Baby Floyd Fisher. On July 28, 1910, they opened at the Arcade Theater in Atlanta, where Seals sang “Labor for Nobody” and “I Beg Your Pardon Mr. Johnson.”13 The following month, Paul Carter’s Stock Company, featuring Love and Love and Seals and Fisher, all fresh off the Texas blues frontier, made their appearance at the Pekin Theater in Savannah.14 Paul Carter, the stage manager of this touring company, was known for “his eccentric dancing and clean comedy.”15 By 1910 he had accrued more than ten years with top-notch minstrel companies, including the Rabbit’s Foot, Florida Blossoms, and P. G. Lowery’s Band and Minstrels.16 In 1912 Carter submitted the first “anti-blues” commentary to appear in the Freeman: The blame for smutty sayings and suggestive dancing in theaters lies with the patrons. There is no class to the vaudeville stage now, and it is getting worse every day. There are a great many acts doing things away out of their line in order to please the patrons and manager. When a performer meets another that has played the theater he intends playing the next week, he will ask how things are over there. This will be the answer: “Oh, they like a little smut, and things with a double meaning. If you don’t put it on you can’t make it there.” He then says to himself, “I guess I’ll have to frame up some junk for that bunch.” He then lays aside his music for his regular opening, and when he gets to the theater for rehearsal he will say to the piano player, “When I come on just play the ‘Blues.’” He opens and starts singing in the wings, “I had a good gal, but the fool laid down and died,” and to hear the audience scream one would think the show was closing with a very funny after-piece. When he gets off after the show

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Indianapolis Freeman, June 24, 1911.

the crowd is waiting to greet him. You will hear them say, “There’s that guy; he sure can sing ‘Dem Blues.’” “Did you see him take that ‘trip.’ Boy he’s a cat.” Now on the same bill were singers of such class as Abbie Mitchell . . . and no one says a word regarding their classy numbers. But just let a soubrette on the bill, that some comedian has taken from home, because she looked good to him, and showed her how to “fall off the log” and sing any old ragtime song, and she will receive a bunch of flowers and a few cards with prominent names of amusement lovers of the town. She then goes big all the week and gets a return date in the house in three weeks’ time for a four weeks’ run.17

Carter’s reactionary critique represents the opinion of a knowledgeable insider whose colorful vernacular terminology is evocative of the southern vaudeville theater habitués who first summoned the blues onto the popular stage, before any blues

songs had been published, let alone recorded. The conflation—“He sure can sing ‘Dem Blues.’” “Did you see him take that ‘trip?’ Boy he’s a cat”—revives phrases observed in even earlier blues-related contexts. At Atlanta’s Luna Park in the spring of 1910, String Beans was said to be taking the house “by storm when he takes that unknown trip.”18 When Kid Love performed his “Easton Blues” at the Palace Theater in Houston in the summer of 1910, a reporter declared: “He is a cat on a piano.”19 Carter’s defense of “class” on the black southern vaudeville stage suggests unrealistic and perhaps even misguided aspirations. When proletarian theatergoers applauded the singing of “any old” blues song, they were saying “amen” to a validation of their cultural heritage, and expressing their uncompromised pride of identity. Carter’s bundling of “smut,” “double meaning,” and “junk” with the blues reveals a prejudice that must have softened with the changing times, because he later co-wrote such blues standards as “Weeping Willow Blues” and “The Bye Bye Blues”—both recorded by Bessie Smith—and “A Woman Gets Tired of One Man All the Time.”20 Paul Carter may well have classified Kid and Gussie Love among the “acts doing things away out of their line in order to please the patrons and manager.” Unlike Butler May and H. Franklin Seals, Kid Love was not a fresh product of the southern vaudeville environ. As early as January 1904, he was traveling through the state of Tennessee with The Hottest Coon in Dixie No. 2 Company, teamed with Raleigh W. Thompson in a blackface comedy act.21 Late in 1910, Kid and Gussie Love appeared in Cincinnati, well ahead of the curve for acts off the southern time; and in June 1911 they were scheduled to play Chicago’s prestigious Pekin Theater. By this time, Kid Love had become a member of the Goats, the Chicago-based performers’ fraternal organization.22 At the Maceo Theater in Columbia, South Carolina, in November 1910, the Loves put on a “novelty

Male Blues Singers in Southern Vaudeville

sketch and dance act, singing ‘The Grizzly Bear Rag’ and ‘I’ve got Elgin movements in my hips with a twenty-year guarantee, and strange things will happen just as sure as you’re born.’”23 String Beans had sung similar lyrics at the Luna Park Theater in July 1910, but Love and Love steadfastly claimed to be “the original writers of ‘Elgin Movements.’”24 The question of whose signature should be attached to this signature blues metaphor will probably remain unanswered. Regardless, Love and Love used “Elgin Movements” in their act at least through 1912. In July 1911 Love and Love played the Garden Theater in Louisville, where Kid “rendered several ragtime selections on the piano and his singing of ‘What You Going to Do When Your Bon Bon Buddy’s Dead’ was a scream.”25 Several weeks later, at the Ruby Theater in Louisville, they put on “‘An Unhappy Pair,’ in blackface. Mrs. Love pleads in song for the Lord to send her a man, when Mr. Love brings in a good one, ‘You’ve got to have Elgin movements.’”26 One week later, at the Lyre Theater in Louisville, Love and Love shared a bill with May and May.27 During the summer of 1912 Love and Love appeared in New York and Philadelphia, and then ran the S. H. Dudley Circuit from Washington down to Fredericksburg, Richmond, and Norfolk, Virginia.28 At the end of the year they played the Olio Theater in Louisville, where they were advertised as “the original writers of ‘Elgin Movements.’ . . . Their act is free from all vulgarity. Their main song is ‘I Ain’t Going to Work for Nobody.’”29 Shortly after Love and Love played a date at the Central Theater in Atlanta, in June 1913, Kid Love became “very ill and unable to work . . . Performers in Atlanta have already started a movement to take up money to send their brother performer home.”30 Love was still in Atlanta when he died on August 9, 1913. A brief obituary noted: “His real name was Henry Warren. His wife took him to Mobile, Ala., for burial. He was thirty-five years old. He was known as a composer of songs.”31

In September 1910, not long after ending their Texas sojourn, Seals and Fisher took the stage at the Globe Theater in Jacksonville with “their original sketch, ‘How to Get a Job,’” in which Seals sang “one of his original songs, ‘Woman Pay Me Now,’” and “made the gallery gods laugh again and again at the grotesque make-up he wears in his act.”32 Later that year Seals formed a company of fourteen people known as the “Baby F. Seals Bunch of Fun Promoters” and presented them at the Royal Palm Theater in Greenville, Mississippi. Apparently encouraged by his reception there, Seals took the courageous step of leasing the 500-seat Bijou Theater in Greenwood, Mississippi, opening on December 6, 1910, for a continuous engagement that lasted at least five months. The southern vaudeville theater movement was a highly visible manifestation of black cultural and economic self-determination, which was vulnerable to the erratic and volatile circumstances of everyday life in the South. It was a movement that called for thoughtful and calculated action. Few performers confronted that aspect of southern vaudeville more deliberately than H. Franklin Seals. In Greenwood, Seals warily insulated the Bijou Theater from its racially charged Mississippi Delta surroundings, constructing a self-contained theatrical enclave, complete with “nice rooms for my people” on the second floor: “Now they don’t have to go out of the house.”33 Highlights of Seals’s Bunch of Fun Makers show at the Bijou included Kid McCoy, the “dancing demon”; Harry Bonner, “the Black Caruso”; Leroy White, “one of the funniest boys in the South”; Viola McCoy, “noted for her Eagle Rock, and featuring the ‘Grizzly Bear’”; and Baby Floyd Fisher, “the smallest and sweetest little thing on the stage, singing anything the audience asks for.”34 Seals did not play piano or otherwise perform in the show: “I had to retire from the stage as my business rose to such a height until it takes a ticket taker . . . an

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Indianapolis Freeman, January 21, 1911.

officer . . . two uniformed attendants and myself to look after everything out front.”35 The pit was handled by “Ollie Sullivan, the Southern rag-time piano king and entertainer, who makes sentimental and operatic songs a specialty . . . assisted by Harry Wm. Jefferson, the St. Louis trap drum wonder, who is taking as many encores as the stage.”36 Seals’s theatrical venture in Greenwood was something of a “sociological event,” accompanied by detailed reportage and conspicuous advertising in the Freeman. It ended some time before June 1911. An appearance at the Duvall Theater in Atlanta followed, with a smaller company of performers, including Leroy White.37 Seals and Fisher would have joined the parade of southern acts that followed May and May through northern vaudeville theaters in the summer of 1911; but something blocked their path. Seals provided the details in a letter to the Freeman, after he had read a statement by black theater legend Billy McClain, currently an expatriate boxing promoter in London, England. While vacationing in London,

Pat Chappelle, proprietor of the Rabbit Foot Minstrels, encountered McClain and tried to entice him to return to America, “go South where the talent is,” and help lead the rising generation of southern performers. McClain responded frankly: [N]othing short of a miracle would ever take me South of the Mason and Dixon line. Mind you, I quite agree with you that I can make money; but as I have said before, it is not all money with me, for I like liberty and freedom. Those necktie parties and burning stake dramas are two entertainments I don’t enjoy. . . . I don’t care to ever see again a man dangling at the end of a rope to satisfy a howling mob and shouting chorus. . . . Now speaking plain facts, do you really think that I . . . could withstand the injustice of the overbearing class of people that you have to come in contact with, that you are called upon to do business with. . . . They would hire someone to kill me accidentally if they could not get me any other way . . . knowing what I do, they would never let me light.38

Male Blues Singers in Southern Vaudeville

Seals and Fisher at the Crown Garden Theater, Indianapolis Freeman, January 6, 1912.

Seals was an outspoken critic of the racially inspired abuses endemic to the Old South in which he was raised and which he knew firsthand. He weighed in from Birmingham, Alabama: I for one agree with Mr. McClain. It is true that the Negroes have advanced in the last eight or ten years at the rate of a mile a minute clip, but the conditions are the same, so far as these crackers are concerned. . . . It is true, there is a mint of money in the show business down here, but did Mr. Chappelle . . . tell you frankly and truly what you’ve got to do and go through to get this money? What am I staying down here for? Well if you will write Mr. A. Houston, of the Houston Theater, Louisville, he will tell you why we didn’t open there on the 17th, as we were signed to do. The same thing happened to Billy Henderson and his company in Houston, Texas. It happened to me

and my company here [in Birmingham]. It cost us all $20 each to get bonds. Then after being liberated, we had to sign contracts for 30 days more before we could leave. We are now working for the same man that put us in. What do you think of that? We get our salaries O. K., but when we kick, why they say this town belongs to us white folks; so we are paid slaves. I will say to any man or woman in my line of work, if you are a man with a manly feeling, do just what Billy McClain says, stay in God’s country. I am disliked by some of them because I am not that show your teeth and scratch your head kind. I do not say stay away. I only tell you the conditions in the Southern States in part.39

After finally getting free from theatrical peonage in Birmingham, Seals and Fisher spent the final weeks of 1911 in New York and Philadelphia.40 During the first week of 1912, they opened at the Crown Garden

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Theater in Indianapolis, where they fetched an enthusiastic review from Freeman editor Elwood C. Knox: Then on came Seals and Fisher, the laugh promoters. Well, everything they did made one laugh; every word they would say would bring a laugh. This act was of a travesty nature. Mr. Seals, as a comedian, is real funny, and Miss Fisher, the dainty, cute little soubrette, a real actress. The act bore the title of “Rehearsing His Part.” This act is one best bet. Mr. Seals’ parody on Jack Johnson was well received. Such acts as the Seals and Fisher kind are what the public wants. So different in every way.41

Emboldened by the support of Elwood Knox, Seals orchestrated an unprecedented promotional blitz in the Freeman. He began by protesting against what he perceived as unfair criticism of southern performers: Every city and town that I play I hear something about the Southern act and actors. But I ask what act is it that has come out of the South and frosted? . . . Take those acts in my class, such as May and May, Porter and Porter, Two Sweets, Goodloe and Goodloe, and Floyd and Floyd, and a good many more that I could mention. They did not come up here and get canceled. Then why all this criticism about your own sister and brother performers from the South? After I had been on the stage six weeks my costumes were criticised and that alone made me get better ones. My make-up was also criticised. That helped me. But I have but one more critic to meet now and that is Sylvester Russell, and when he gets through with me I think I will be ready then for the “big time” or go back home. To my brothers and sisters of the South: I want you to not mind what others say but try and please the public and your manager. Listen! Don’t take all of your sisters’ and brothers’ best stuff and use it in ahead of them, like the Raineys and others are doing me. . . . I

Indianapolis Freeman, January 13, 1912.

am not original, but enough so to get as far away from my brother performers as my ability will allow. So let my brothers and sisters of the North wait until we fall, frost or prove otherwise. Then jump on us with both feet. One race of people on top of us is enough for the present.42

With the “Stage” pages of the Freeman as his forum, Baby Seals established himself as a principal spokesman for the southern performer. He realized the creative potential latent in his southern cultural heritage, and openly defended and identified himself with it. His provocative commentary triggered a patronizing rebuttal from Sylvester Russell: If Baby F. Seals, an actor whom I have not yet seen, desires a literary outfit he must have it by all

Male Blues Singers in Southern Vaudeville

means. . . . Most actors who make their first trip North are green and often incapable both in artistic development, advanced literary equipment and clothes of the right kind to attract in a big city. So they have to get broken in. . . . The kind of criticism I give them is instructive and won’t hurt them at all so far as getting work is concerned. . . . Seals’ talk is baby talk. . . . The assertion that white people are all against us is an ignorant mistake. Our duty is to first demonstrate and show what we are ourselves.43

Seals proceeded to trump the famous critic: I wish to say that his quoting me as saying that the white people are all against us is an ignorant mistake. I did say that one race of people on top of us was enough for the present. Now, if we were on top, we would not have to be fighting so hard for recognition and equal rights and numerous other things that we are now striving to obtain . . . and if Mr. Russell thinks that Seals’ talk is baby talk, let him spend about three or four weeks down in the Delta; not that he will find everybody bad, but that he will find some of the grandest white people there that he can find anywhere in the world. But he will also find so many bad ones that he will think there are seven races on top. He may tell me how and what to do with my act, but when it comes to the Southern States and her performers, etc., or speaking of “The Man Farthest Down” (with apologies to Dr. Washington), I think I can give him cards and spades and several aces besides. Out of all that I love, I love best my dear old Southern home.44

Seals and Fisher had arrived in Indianapolis in the dead of winter. Attendance at the Crown Garden was off, but those who braved the bitter cold weather were leaving “well satisfied,” so the management held them over indefinitely. In an unabashed editorial endorsement, couched as an interview, the Freeman noted:

The coming of Mr. Baby F. Seals to the Crown Garden Theater, Indianapolis, Ind., has created much comment here among critics and observers of things theatrical. The reason for so much comment is that Mr. Seals is one of the most representative actors of the day, South or North. His well-known stand for the progressive, original artist has won for him a reputation that is known the country over. Of course, he is from the South, and he sees bright prospects ahead for the performers of that section of the country. . . . “Yes sir, the sister and brother performer of the South has no reason to be ashamed of the distinction they have won upon the vaudeville stage,” he exclaimed. “In fact, he has rather a right to be proud of the reputation he has made and is making, for it seems that nearly every act that invades the North generally makes good or soon becomes a headliner.” . . . [T]he real importance that we find in Seals is his artistic ability as a writer of songs and sketches and his peculiar tact of studying humorous characters and then developing them and creating them upon the stage. But the best of it is he is ever springing something new. If the variety stage can ever get a few more Baby F. Seals then we feel that colored theaters will have little reason for closing, and managers will smile while the people will ever continue happy.45

Seals and Fisher were wrapping up the fourth week of their engagement at the Crown Garden when a reviewer described their latest production: One of the cleverest twenty-minute sketches ever seen here in vaudeville is that which Baby F. Seals and Baby Fisher are appearing in this week . . . it has to do with a $10,000 race horse named “Josephine,” whom the wife believes to be a woman whom her husband is infatuated with. Despite that her husband overhears the wife rehearsing some passionate lines concerning a man named Horace in a play in which she is to appear the following night. They get much exciting comedy out of

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Samples of the cartoon strip “Baby F. Seals In Search Of Fame,” which was serialized in February 3 through March 16, 1912, editions of the Freeman.

their lines before they come to an understanding. Both of them are strong in their stage business, but suffer the least bit in their pronounciation [sic] of words.46

Seals and Fisher’s eight-week run at the Crown Garden Theater “broke the record for holdovers. . . . The farewell set was a stunner. They are in Chicago this week, at the Monogram.”47 Throughout their long Crown Garden engagement Seals saturated the Freeman with self-promoting cartoons and treatises on the profession, not to mention the

newspaper’s own laudatory reviews and editorials. With the wind of so much publicity at their backs, Seals and Fisher struck Chicago with a force that even Sylvester Russell had to acknowledge: The Monogram was crowded at the first performance on last Monday night to witness Baby F. Seals and his wife, Baby Floyd Fisher. Mr. Seals is one of the few actors from the south whom we can dismiss with our blessing because he made good. This boy, who hails from Mobile, Ala., has plenty of nerve to help him

Male Blues Singers in Southern Vaudeville

out. As a comedian he deals in droll oddities of the old-fashioned school that can be modernized. The Jack Johnson overture, which plays too late after the siege of Reno, was good, and his work as an actor is an assurance that he will be a growing success. His wife has a nice personality and is clever.48

After one week at the Monogram, Seals and Fisher jumped directly into mainstream vaudeville at Chicago’s Virginia Theater, where “Mr. Seals put on an act to suit white audiences, which won favor.”49 In a letter published April 6, 1912, Seals commented on their recent exploits: We opened in Chicago February 26th, at the Monogram and found Mr. Klein a prince, but being spoiled by hamfats, to whom this gentleman lends a helping hand, and in return he gets a lemon. It was very hard for me to convince him that I was a little different from the rest. Since that time we have played nothing but white houses on the Frank Q. Dayel [sic, Doyle] time. . . . Must say, my advertising through the Freeman is the cause of it all. There is not a manager or booking agent in Chicago that doesn’t know Seals and Fisher or has read of them. . . . While here I have had one of my best songs published by the Dean Music Publishing Co. The title of the song is “I’ll Take The U.S.A. For Mine.” It’s a hot one. Baby Floyd Fisher, in her new jewel costume, is cleaning up.50

Seals and Fisher returned to black vaudeville as a headline act at the Pekin Theater in Cincinnati: “While the patrons have read of the work of this team regularly through the theatrical columns of The Freeman, there was still some doubts as to the ability of the pair to please this very critical bunch; but facts are facts, and it is the box office that tells the story. ‘And that’s a-plenty.’”51 In another bright moment of

Freeman publicity, humor columnist Frank Hendon wrote about Seals’s parody of the popular song “Stop Kicking My Dog Around,” familiarly known as the “Dog Song”: Among the latest frigid discoveries are the South Pole and the dawg song. Baby F. Seals has a parody on the dawg song. It goes like this: “All up here on the Northern grounds Folks keep knocking the Southern towns, Makes no difference if they is way down, Dey gotta quit knocking the Southern towns.” And they say Seals is to tour the country singing that dawg dope. Seals should be careful about his songs, but as to touring the country, he auto, because he is from Mobile.52

The Freeman of April 27, 1912, featured a cartoon of “Seals & Fisher Playing Before White Audiences,” along with a letter from Seals discussing some of his favorite theater managers. There was also a report from the Olio Theater in Louisville, which seems to portend the soon-to-be-published opus, “Baby Seals Blues”: “Baby Seals and Baby Fisher are with us again, and are much improved and delightfully entertaining. They are living up to their reputation of the last few months. Seals features ‘Blues.’”53 Late in April, Seals and Fisher went to Nashville and remained there for no less than three months, filling engagements at the Twelfth Avenue Theater, Majestic Theater, and South Street Theater. At the Twelfth Avenue Theater, “The seating capacity is 1,400 and the house was packed to the side walls.”54 A subsequent correspondence detailed: For the third week Seals and Fisher have played to packed houses nightly. . . . The title of the act is “The

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Eight Musical Seals,” using 4 pianos and 8 musicians on the stage at one time and a chorus of 14 people. Guitar and mandolin, piano solo, Mary Bradford and Prof. Ed. Davis. That bearcat of Nashville, Mattie Ford, singing “Do It The Right Way;” James (Frosty) Moore, the old minstrel head, doing the “wench,” keeps them screaming. . . . A new hair-raising act, produced by Baby Seals, was presented this week by manager L. W. Wastell, at a cost of $98.00, the highest priced act ever put on in stock in the Southern States. But he says he can give performers $16 to $20 a week, and whatever the cost is, he will have them, and good shows.55

Later, an ad announced that Seals had taken charge of Nashville’s black-owned Majestic Theater: “Leroy White, Bonnie Belle Thomas, Zenobia Jefferson, Viola McCoy wire for tickets at once. Other performers wishing from four to six weeks, write or wire. Will send tickets to those I know.”56 In July 1912 Seals and Fisher participated in the grand opening of Nashville’s new South Street Theater.57 They were not heard from again until September, when they closed out a date at the Booker T. Washington Airdome in St. Louis.58 That same month they appeared at the Star Theater in Kansas City, on a bill with String Beans and Sweetie May.59 Early in October 1912, Seals and Fisher returned to the Crown Garden Theater. Elwood Knox spread the news: Baby F. Seals and Baby Fisher—Author, producer, manager, song writer and comedian, returned to us with his cute little wife, who is one of the best soubrets in the country. Mr. Seals offers all new material in songs, jokes and sayings. The song he is singing is one big hit. The title of it is “Sing Them Blues.” This song is not the “Blues” one hears so much of, but is of a clever nature. Mr. Seals has published it, and it is being sold at each performance. Miss Fisher also sings one of Mr. Seals’ original songs entitled “If I Do, Don’t Let It

Get Out.” This is also a hit, and is published, like-wise. Seals and Fisher please here all the time in a clean and clever way.60

“Sing Them Blues” was published under the title “Baby Seals Blues.”61 A frontrunner of the blues publishing explosion of 1912, it is arguably the earliest known commercial sheet music publication of a vocal blues. The person Seals got to arrange it for publication was Artie Matthews, whom Jelly Roll Morton recalled as “the best reader in the bunch” of St. Louis–based ragtime pianists.62 An important composer in his own right, Matthews also arranged Seals’s follow-up hit, “Well If I Do, Don’t You Let It Get Out.” “Baby Seals Blues” was ingeniously constructed to give the effect of being loosely extemporized: Honey baby mamma do she double do love you. Love you babe, don’t care what you do, Oh sing em, sing em, sing them blues, ’Cause they cert’ly sound good to me. I’ve been in love these last three weeks And it cert’ly is a misery. There ain’t but one thing I wish was right, I wish my honey babe was here tonight. ... Oh sing em, sing em, sing them blues, ’Cause they cert’ly sound good to me.

Seals and Fisher sold copies of “Baby Seals Blues” and “If I Do Don’t You Let It Get Out” from the stage at the Crown Garden, and struck an enterprising arrangement with Elwood Knox to use the Freeman as a base for mail-order distribution.63 A provocative ad invited dealers to “write for special terms. Single copies 15 cents. Address E. C. Knox, care The Freeman.” Columnist Frank Hendon was prompted to remark, “O-O-O-O-e! Did you see Baby Seals on the second theatrical page singing ‘Dem Blues?’ Wasn’t

Male Blues Singers in Southern Vaudeville

Indianapolis Freeman, October 19, 1912.

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he full of note? You should hear the Crown [Garden] Orchestra play that dark hued melody.”64 Apparently, the ad was effective. Three weeks after its initial appearance, word came from John Eason’s Annex Band with Yankee Robinson’s Circus: “Mr. Frank Terry . . . has just finished a band arrangement of Baby Seals’ ‘Blues,’ and is making a daily hit with it.”65 Other road show bands followed suit. With O’Brien’s Famous Georgia Minstrels during the summer of 1914: “Prof. Geo. W. Ayers and his famous 18-piece band is featuring the Baby Seals Blues in concert.”66

“Baby Seals Blues” found special favor with fellow southern vaudevillians. In January 1913 “Daddy Jenkins and Little Creole Pet” were at the Elite Theater in Selma, Alabama, with their accompanist, Jelly Roll Morton: “Little Pet takes the house when she sings ‘Please Don’t Shake Me Papa, While I’m Gone’ and ‘Baby Seals Blues.’“67 A few months later, at the New Lincoln Theater in Galveston, there was a “hailstorm of money caused by Hapel Edwards and Vivian Wright, putting on one of their clever singing, dancing and talking acts, featuring Baby Seals’ ‘Blues.’“68 Other southern vaudevillians who

Male Blues Singers in Southern Vaudeville

(Courtesy Mike Montgomery)

featured “Baby Seals Blues” in 1913 include future recording artists Charles Anderson, Edna Benbow (Hicks), and Laura Smith.69 Despite its enormous popularity and influence, there are few “complete” recorded versions of “Baby Seals Blues,” none at all under its original title. In 1923 Charles Anderson recorded it as “Sing ‘Em Blues,” accompanied by Eddie Heywood. That same year Ida Cox recorded it as “Mama Doo Shee Blues,” accompanied by Lovie Austin and Her Blues Serenaders. And in 1939 female jazz crooner Teddy Grace recorded “Mama Doo-Shee,” backed by an instrumental

quintet featuring Billy Kyle and O’Neil Spencer.70 However, signature phrases from the song were “sampled” on many recordings by vaudeville performers and country blues singers alike. The whimsical “mama double do love you” refrain appears in Ethel Finnie’s recording of “Don’t You Quit Me Daddy” from 1923; Sara Martin’s “Don’t You Quit Me Daddy” from 1924; Ida Cox’s “Mister Man—Pt. 2,” 1925; Peg Leg Howell’s “Fo’ Day Blues,” 1926; Blind Lemon Jefferson’s “Long Lonesome Blues,” 1926; Papa Charlie Jackson’s “Mumsy Mumsy Blues,” 1926; Hound Head Henry’s “Hound Head Blues,” 1928; Alura Mack’s “Old

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(Courtesy Kip Lornell)

Fashioned Blues,” 1929; Joe Calicott’s “Traveling Mama Blues,” 1930; Mississippi Moaners’ “It’s Cold In China Blues,” 1935; Jesse Thomas’s “D Double Due Love You,” 1948, and, perhaps for the last time, Memphis Slim’s “The Come Back,” from 1953.71 Bessie Smith heard Baby Seals sing his “Blues” in January 1913, and her 1927 recording “Preachin’ the Blues” contains another reverberation of the lyrics— the hallmark clarion call to “Sing ’em, sing ’em, sing ’em blues.”72 This phrase was commonly referenced by both players and press; it appeared repeatedly as a column heading for blues news and in advertisements for blues records. January 1913 Seals and Fisher played the Savoy Theater in Memphis, Baby Fisher’s home town: “This is Seals and Fisher’s first appearance in Memphis, and they have already proven to be a box office attraction. They were a decided hit.”73 They were surrounded

Detail from a Paramount ad for “Mama Doo Shee Blues,” Chicago Defender, February 9, 1924.

Male Blues Singers in Southern Vaudeville

by an exceptionally good bill at the Savoy: the Too Sweets, blues singer Helen Bumbray, Tommy Parker, and the momentous team of Buzzin’ Burton and Bessie Smith. From Memphis, Seals and Fisher “had a hog-killing time on the L. D. Joel circuit” from Atlanta to Jacksonville, where a Globe Theater correspondent quipped: “Now the boys are beside themselves, and just because Baby Seals and Fisher give them the blues, and then tells them not to let it get out. What!”74 They settled in for a long run at the Globe: “Seals and Fisher, booked for two weeks, have been here seven weeks. For five weeks he has been manager and director of amusements . . . if he keeps it up he will break the record of Lew Kenner, who held the stage for twenty some weeks.”75 In June 1913 Seals and Fisher opened at the Pike Theater in Mobile, where Seals was welcomed with open arms: “After fourteen weeks of rapid firing in Jacksonville, Fla. Seals and Fisher entered the gates of his home town for the first time since he has been in vaudeville and oh what a welcome. His arm is sore from shaking hands, his neck is stiff from bowing, his lips are swollen from kissing—um um. But he doesn’t stay out late from his little wife. He goes in early every morning.”76 Seals and Fisher extended their Mobile homecoming by relocating from the Pike to another local vaudeville house, the Gayety.77 Following their stay in Mobile, Seals and Fisher filled additional dates in Deep South theaters. On August 4 they surfaced in Birmingham, and Seals half-jokingly marked the date as his “Return To America”: After being tied for two months between a cotton patch in front, and a tater patch bringing up the rear, in the jungles of Mississippi and lower Alabama, these renowned fun makers sail for the U.S.A., August 3rd, and open the Grand Theater, Birmingham, August 4th, for one week. Savoy Theater, Chattanooga, Aug. 11. Oh,

Chicago Defender, March 7, 1925.

we will go back about 1925 to take Christmas. We have a new act entitled “Out Of The Jungles, or What Happened To Him? Did He Get Out Alive?” See the act.78

Seals and Fisher did make it out alive, this time. At the end of August 1913 they were on a bill at the Olio Theater in Louisville: “They open with ‘You Are My Baby’ . . . and close the show with ‘Pussy Cat Rag.’”79 In September they appeared in Winchester, Kentucky: “This team is held over for another week. The beauty of this act is that Seals and Fisher use only one song that is not their own. This week they are featuring the song hits, ‘Chocolate Baby,’ ‘I’ve Got the Blues So Bad,’ [and] ‘Goodbye, I’m Gone,’ re-arranged by the E. B. Dudley Song Bureau, Louisville, Ky. Those are the late ones not out yet.”80 In October Seals reflected on their recent exploits: We settled down to real vaudeville work this season in Louisville. . . . We came across one Senator Bell, who met us with a handful of money. . . . Senator Bell should be in the White House advocating the Negro vaudeville.

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“Wanted in Der Germany,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 28, 1914. Other cartoons in this series depicted Seals and Fisher “Enroute to Africa” and “in London”; but the team never did travel abroad.

Then we rolled into Cincinnati Pekin Theater where we found Ollie Dempsey, who is rightly called the prince of good fellows. As soon as I hit the theater, “Bang,” another roll of money, and with a smile. . . . Then we opened on S. H. Dudley’s Eastern time for eight weeks. The first house was the Ogden Theater, Cleveland, and if there ever was a princess Miss Ogden is that one. A grand reception when we entered and another bunch of dust. After the show—um-um. We are now in Pittsburgh with our friend, A. Minsky. From the name you would think he was a Jew, but he’s a white man, every bit of him. While in Cincinnati I visited Dad Henderson’s Pekin Cafe. Dad has something he calls Old Black Cow—and the milk that cow does give! O-o-o-o!”81

Seals and Fisher spent the next two months on S. H. Dudley’s East Coast circuit, filling dates from

Philadelphia to Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and as far west as Roanoke, Virginia.82 In Washington, D.C., they closed “in a blaze of glory, featuring ‘Them Blues,’ and also singing two songs at once.”83 At the end of the year columnist Will Lewis appraised: “Baby Seals and his Blues are nearly famous. His Blues had quite a run.”84 And when Seals was inducted into the Order of Elks at Richmond, Virginia, the following spring, a reporter identified him as the “Famous Writer of ‘Blues.’”85 Shortly thereafter, Seals and Fisher played the Lincoln Theater in Harlem: “After working themselves through the west and south, they are now trying to repeat the same in New York, making themselves favorites singing ‘Baby Seals Blues.’”86 Early in 1915 Seals and Fisher filled three or four weeks at the Iroquois Theater in New Orleans.87 Toward the end of their run at the Iroquois, Baby Floyd Fisher was spotted among the entertainers at the notorious Poodle Dog Cabaret.88 Several weeks later, Baby Seals opened at the Lincoln Theater in Galveston, without Baby Fisher. A local reporter noted: Baby F. Seals, the famous song writer, comedian and manager, opened here March 4th (single) to a house that was packed and jammed to the sidewalk. There was some disappointment when it was announced that little Baby Floyd would appear later in the week, but as Seals hit the stage there was an uproar and believe us, he did bring some single. He is nothing but laugh. He was given the management at once and we have not had such shows since Russell and Owens were here. . . . Baby Seals wants to hear from a good pick at once. Will send ticket. Oh Seals, who was that half O’Fay at the stage door. Lookout Bub; we see you, Mr. Manager. . . . Nothing but receptions and parties await Seals and his bunch after the show each night.89

Somewhere between the Poodle Dog Cabaret in New Orleans and “that half O’Fay at the stage door”

Male Blues Singers in Southern Vaudeville

Indianapolis Freeman, May 23, 1914.

in Galveston, Seals and Fisher parted ways. In May 1915, at the Hippodrome Theater in Galveston, Baby Fisher was “putting it over with her own song, ‘Call Me Mamma.’”90 In 1917 she and Joe Johnson became partners in the Johnson-Fisher Stock Company, playing black vaudeville theaters from Muskogee, Oklahoma, to Jacksonville, Florida.91 Baby Floyd Fisher was still in the business in the fall of 1927, when she appeared in George Stamper’s “Dixie Revue” at the Bamboo Inn in Harlem.92 The “famous writer of blues” also stayed busy, but his time was short. An April 1915 announcement from the Lincoln Theater in Galveston assured that “the well known comedian and composer of ‘Baby Seals’ Blues’” was “drawing great crowds,” and that he was about to publish four new songs.93 In August he reported: “I am working, thank you. Baby Seals, Bunch O’ Follies, Dreamland Theater, San Antonio, Tex.”94 A few months later Seals was at the New

Indianapolis Freeman, May 23, 1914.

Queen Theater in Birmingham, working single, “going ‘forty.’”95 But on February 5, 1916, the Freeman summarily reported: BABY SEALS, PASSED AWAY A Well Known Performer And Producer Noted for His Baby Seals Blues. Anniston. Ala.—The many friends in and out of the profession will be grieved to hear that “Baby Seals” died in Anniston, Ala., Dec. 29. Several weeks before his death, he made The New Queen Theater, Blaine [sic], Ala. his headquarters and had won a host of friends here.96

This is a confounding, inglorious eulogy for a performer of Seals’s reputation and accomplishments. The Freeman provided no further details of his untimely demise; no lofty statement from his old

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friend the editor, Elwood Knox; no retrospective on his career; no additional commentary from players or critics. The manner and circumstances of Baby Seals’s death remains one of the great intractable mysteries of early blues lore.97 Had Baby Seals not died so early, he might have been a contender for the title “Father of the Blues.” Less than a decade after his death, Seals’s southern “brothers and sisters,” using blues and other timber hewn from rural folk culture as their battering ram, had risen from the roughneck little theaters of Houston, Greenwood, Mobile, and Memphis to the premier African American playhouses of Chicago and New York, and were “riding to fame and fortune with the current popular demand for ‘blues’ disc recordings.”98 Signature elements of “Baby Seals Blues” continued to reverberate, but Seals himself was all but forgotten. Tim Owsley paid him a belated tribute in 1926: The young showmen of the present day never knew Baby Seals and perhaps never heard of him. Yet in his day he did his bit to blaze the trail on which they travel now. The late Baby Seals wrote the words and music and published the first blues song that caught the music-loving public’s ear. It was the kind of blues that is creating so many record stars nowadays. Baby Seals died without gaining a fortune or becoming popular, but his original idea lived and still lives.99

Charles Anderson When “Baby Seals Blues” originally appeared on the market in 1912, a Freeman reporter made a point to distinguish it from the generic run of blues songs: “not the ‘Blues’ one hears so much of, but is of a clever nature.”100 At this point in time, cleverness and development were not seen as a break with tradition, but

Indianapolis Freeman, October 2, 1915.

a means of honoring musical traditions and molding them into a successful commodity. The formalization of folkloric matter reflected the urge to elevate the African American musical and cultural heritage, artistically, intellectually, and commercially. “Baby Seals Blues” was the first blues song to appear in the stage repertoire of tenor-yodeler Charles Anderson, who performed it at the Booker T. Washington Airdome in St. Louis in August 1913. Ten years later, when Anderson began his OKeh label recording career, it was the first song he recorded.101 Anderson also had the distinction of introducing Handy’s “St. Louis Blues” in vaudeville, performing it at the Monogram Theater in Chicago on a bill with String Beans in October 1914.102 At that time, Handy’s masterful blues composition had

Male Blues Singers in Southern Vaudeville

only been on the market for about a month.103 When Anderson sang it at the Monogram again the following year, Sylvester Russell called the performance “Southern perfection that others can’t approach.”104 Anderson was the type of southern singer Russell could appreciate: “His voice is a natural organ of alto material, which ranges high and pure and loud in altissimo, and he possesses both temperament and magnetism. As a lullaby gag-love singer, and especially as a yodeler, he probably has no equal, and his protean character work is convincing. In fact he is a wonder in a new sphere of vocal discovery.”105 After he played a white theater in Indianapolis, a columnist remarked: “Anderson calls the blues, a phase of ragtime, grand opera. If it were grand opera, then he were its Caruso. Perhaps he leads the procession in that kind of singing. Last Saturday night he put the house in motion like a boat at sea, when he put over his own blues creation.”106 The notion that the blues was “colored folks opera” may have originated as a joke, but it represents a logical extension of Dvořák’s famous declaration that a great American classical music could be built on the foundation of African American folk music. Something of this sensibility is reflected in the carefully crafted blues compositions of W. C. Handy, especially “St. Louis Blues.” However, Handy mindfully urged that his music be “Not viewed by what Liszet [sic] did or Wagner did, but by what they would have done if they had been American Negroes, living in the times in which we live and suffer.”107 Charles Anderson’s folk-operatic tenor is a vivid manifestation of “colored folks opera,” and the phrase was repeatedly invoked in reference to his blues interpretations, but not to his exclusively. Wooden’s Bon Tons allowed that “Miss Ethalene Jordan . . . deserves much credit for her rendition of popular and classy numbers and remember, she sings the colored folks opera too (The Blues).”108 Salem Tutt Whitney’s Smart Set Company reported in 1917 that “‘The Weary Blues,’

sung by Moana [Juanita Stinnette] and others, passed right on to opera—regular opera—having the touch of one of Wagner’s compositions. It was the very height of blues singing.”109 And Perry Bradford was deemed “successful in his pianologue . . . doing what he calls the colored folks opera.”110 “Colored folks opera” also manifested itself in regally gowned “Queens of the Blues” like Madame Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith, with their vernacular reorientation of the turn-of-the-century “Black Patti” symbolism. Like Kid Love, Baby Seals, and Butler May, Charles Anderson was Alabama born, probably in the historic black college town of Snow Hill. He was still a child when he moved to Birmingham with his parents.111 Anderson was recognized as a “clever young rising comedian” as early as 1909, when he performed an “old woman monologue” at the Lyric Theater in Memphis.112 At Memphis’s Royal Theater the following year, Anderson was “cleaning up with those illustrated songs,” despite “suffering from his new $100 cork leg.”113 Over the next two years, Anderson began to establish a national reputation. In 1911 he appeared in Mississippi and Alabama on bills with teenaged Bessie Smith.114 He made his northern debut at the Monogram Theater in August 1912.115 The following week, at the New Crown Garden in Indianapolis, Anderson was judged a “number one character comedian.”116 On the S. H. Dudley theater circuit later that fall, he was “still making high C.”117 By the summer of 1913, Anderson had perfected his trademark concoction of blues, yodels, and impersonations. In August he received an illustrative review from a reporter at the Booker T. Washington Theater in St. Louis: The Male Mockingbird, Charles Anderson, the man with the golden voice, is some character singer, imitator, and impersonator. As an imitator, Anderson has the best on the market skinned, his violin imitation

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intermezzo went big, and was one of the best imitations of a musical instrument heard in this neck of the woods for many moons. “Sleep Baby Sleep” a lullaby sung in costume of an old nurse, went big. The yodeling in this song was excellent. “Baby Seals Blues,” as rendered by Anderson, was worth going to hear. After a quick change, Anderson reappeared as the polished gentleman and sang “When the Cuckoo Sings,” instantly winning the hearts of the audience with his perfect yodeling, causing said audience to cheer like mad for more.118

Anderson reprised his blues and yodeling act in Indianapolis the following month, in front of a perceptive critic: Charles Anderson does a splendid colored mammy. Everyone likes this creation of his. This kind of portrayal of character does not give offense. This mammy is just a mammy; not particularly old; not particularly ugly and lame, as some are. She does things that are amusing and witty, as many real mammies do. She gets the blues. Then she puts on Baby Seals’ well-known song, making a tremendous hit. The part including the song makes for the best character of the kind seen here. When responding to encore, Anderson appears in full dress suit. As a yodler, he is among the best in the country. Perhaps none will ever equal the great Fritz K. Emmett, but he greatly reminds one of that eminent yodler of years ago. He sang one of Emmett’s songs. He won applause by holding a note sixty seconds, a difficult defeat [sic] and pleasing enough because accompanied by a pretty waltz movement by the orchestra.119

Before the close of 1913 Anderson made a brief foray into white vaudeville, appearing at theaters in Canada and northern Michigan. Dropping down to the Unique Theater in Detroit, he was “well received

in his song ‘The Blues,’ and his old woman’s makeup is a riot.”120 The New Year found him working on S. H. Dudley’s time. Blues eventually became a more prominent part of Anderson’s varietal song repertoire. At the Crown Garden in Indianapolis in 1915, he “gave a very fine rendition of the blues—‘St. Louis Blues’ and ‘The Weary Blues.’” The latter may have been Coleman L. Minor’s “Weary Way Blues.”121 In August 1916, “the well-known yodler and blues singer” organized his own troupe, the “Indianapolis Follies.”122 A review described: “Miss Edna Pervine and Charles Anderson with the ‘Blues’ are screaming them each night. . . . Mr. Otis Huntley, the black-face comedian, sings the song ‘If You Got a Little Bit Hang On to It Because it’s Hard to Find a Little Bit More.’ Then came . . . Mr. John Berry, the greatest Colored female impersonator of today.”123 By early November Anderson was back down South, working single.124 At the Washington Theater, Indianapolis, in February 1917 a reviewer judged: “As a yodeler he is very well known, being, perhaps, the best colored performer in this line of work. His opera, the blues, wins as usual.”125 By April he was “going big” at the Princess Theater in Sirmia, Ontario Province, Canada, “singing ‘Baby Seal’s Blues.’”126 When Anderson returned to the Monogram in November 1917, Russell proclaimed him a “Singing Star”: His “falsetto soprano invisible, before entering, was a novel deception. His violin imitation and his ‘Blues’ songs which now excel the renditions of other singers made a hit.”127 At the Crescent Theater in Pittsburgh in February 1918, “the ‘Yodeler Blues’ singer” was “a scream from start to finish. His act is a winner and what you call a show stopper. His ‘Jelly Roll Blues’ sung in his own way, just clocked the show.”128 Anderson was one of only a handful of male vaudeville blues pioneers who made commercial sound recordings. His “Sing ’Em Blues” documents a finely controlled high tenor voice, richly nuanced

Male Blues Singers in Southern Vaudeville

Johnnie Woods and Little Henry

Indianapolis Freeman, December 29, 1917.

with blues inflection. Nevertheless, his records have not served to enhance his reputation among modern blues aficionados, who have tended to dismiss him as a curiosity, not a real blues singer. The presence of straightforward ballad yodels in Anderson’s recorded repertoire, the decidedly feminine quality of his ultra-high tenor voice, and his perfect diction are stylistic aspects that conflict with modern tastes and stereotypes. But these elements do not place him outside the black vernacular music mainstream. Anderson’s “Blues Caruso” image was an integral part of the cultural lineage that preceded the fruition of the country blues. His exceptional vocal qualities made him a great favorite with black vaudeville audiences.

The collected documentation of the earliest chapter in blues history argues forcefully for a more broadminded concept of the nature of the blues. Consider, for example, the earliest known document of blues singing on a public stage, which has it coming from the mouth of a ventriloquist’s dummy!129 Like blackface makeup, ventriloquism afforded a certain distance, a refractive channel, through which vernacular culture was acceptably conducted from the street to the stage. Black ventriloquists were at work in the South long before the advent of blues singing.130 Among several black ventriloquists active during the early 1900s, John W. F. “Johnnie” Woods leapt into blues history when he brought a wooden-headed dummy named Little Henry to life as a drunken-hearted, blues-singing vagabond. Woods was probably born in Memphis around 1888.131 By the fall of 1908, he was touring with the Plant Juice Medicine Company, “making a great hit doing female impersonations and his ventriloquist act.”132 Also on the roster were C. C. Cook, “the world’s champion banjo player,” and Lehman Smith, “the man who made the alligator ‘laf.’” In the spring of 1909 Woods and Cook closed with the Plant Juice Medicine Company and announced that they “will work concert halls, Woods doing ventriloquist, Punch and Judy, singing and dancing; Cook juggling his banjo and doing stump speeches and his sensational clog dance.”133 Woods filled an engagement at Simpkins’ Airdome in Georgetown, South Carolina, that spring, “working to mostly white people. . . . Woods is doing ventriloquist, and his little boy is singing ‘Yongo Head,’ ‘Friend of Mine,’ and ‘I’ll Stay Right Here.’”134 As summer came on, he reconnected with the Plant Juice Medicine Company in Oklahoma:135 “The star performer of these comedians is John W. F. Woods, of Memphis,

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Tenn. . . . Muskogee will long remember ‘Little Henry’ and his little wife ‘Georgia,’ the black dummies who, under the dexterity of his gifted art, hold animated conversation with each other and crack many funny jokes.”136 Woods donned blackface and sang “That’s a Plenty,” and his “little wooden-headed boy” sang Chris Smith’s late sheet music hit, “Trans-mag-ni-fican-bam-dam-u-ality.”137 Returning to vaudeville that fall, Woods narrowed his focus to the character of Little Henry. In the spring of 1910, at the Airdome Theater in Jacksonville, he introduced a new “drunken act” that marked the beginning of Little Henry’s blues-singing career: “This is the second week of Prof. Woods, the ventriloquist, with his little doll Henry. This week he set the Airdome wild by making little Henry drunk. Did you ever see a ventriloquist’s figure get intoxicated? Well, it’s rich; it’s great; and Prof. Woods knows how to handle his figure. He uses the ‘blues’ for little Henry in this drunken act.”138 In 1911 Johnnie Woods and Little Henry made their final tour with the Plant Juice Medicine Company.139 That fall they invaded the Crown Garden Theater in Indianapolis, where Woods was recognized as “a sure enough ventriloquist. . . . He makes ‘Henry,’ his doll do a line of comedy that the biggest of the comedians would not be ashamed of. . . . He is also an originator and of course a good thinker. He studies the public and consequently has succeeded greatly because he gave the public what was wanted.”140 Woods gave the African American vaudeville theater-going public confrontational humor and blues singing. He paused at the end of the year to reflect on his career to date: I have been pressed by many theater-goers and newspaper writers to write or explain something of how I came to be a ventriloquist. Now, really, I have been studying and wondering the same thing, for when I first noticed that I was possessed with this peculiar power I did not know what it meant, and it was some

years later that I saw a Punch and Judy show in a church. I set about at once and produced a similar attraction, and it was not until the colored picture houses began to spring up through the South that I began to earn any money for my work—eight dollars a week, which looked like a mountain to me for ten minutes’ work each night. And when I was landed by a medicine show I thought then I had reached the limit, but later, however, I came in contact with Bob Russell, Marion Brooks and Tim Owsley, who were playing through the South with their stock company, and with a short association with them I have learned that I haven’t begun.141

By this time Woods was married to Essie Whitman of the famous Whitman Sisters. In January 1912 they played a date together at Gibson’s Auditorium in Philadelphia: “Prof. Woods is simply screaming the house with Little Henry, his doll. His wife and her two picks are also taking the house by storm.”142 Woods’s marriage to Essie Whitman did not last long; neither did his marriage to actress Margie Lorraine, who had him arrested at the Monogram Theater in 1914 in connection with divorce proceedings.143 But his partnership with Little Henry sailed right along. On August 1, 1912, Johnnie Woods and Little Henry helped inaugurate the Rex Theater in Durham, North Carolina, in company with Tom Young and Clara Smith.144 Later that fall, at the New Circle Theater in Philadelphia, a reviewer noted: Johnnie Woods, the loudest singing and talking ventriloquist I have ever heard, was the largest success ever booked here. While it is a common occurrence for pleasing acts to stop the show, never before has it been necessary after the regular encores and bows and extra overture by the orchestra to have to repeat the same act before anyone else can go on. This was the case with Woods, who has a peculiar little “squeak,” and his manipulation of the dummy, Little Henry, is

Male Blues Singers in Southern Vaudeville

simply wonderful. Little Henry is an ignorant vagabond, drifting aimlessly through the world, very fond of liquor, and will stop at nothing to get it. He is not slow in telling how he is abused, and winds up with, ‘Yeah! Hoo! I’ve got the blues.’”145

Back at the New Crown Garden in the spring of 1913, Woods and Little Henry were “at their best. . . . Their songs, parody on ‘By Myself, Nobody But Me Alone’ and ‘Don’t Get It in Your Head That You Ain’t Aunt Dinah’s Child,’ are great.”146 A few weeks later, at the Monogram, Sylvester Russell could “safely say that as a ventriloquist he takes foremost rank of any artist in his line of his own race.”147 Turning southward, Johnnie Woods and Little Henry filled dates in Memphis, Savannah, Jacksonville, and Atlanta before bobbing up again at the Monogram in July, singing “Chickens in Heaven.”148 At their next stop, the Booker Washington Theater in St. Louis, “the song, ‘Everybody’s Picking on Me,’ as sung by Johnny and ‘Little Henry,’ had the management in a quandary as to whether to call the ambulance or the morgue wagon, as it seemed the audience had gone demented with laughter. ‘The Blues,’ as sung by ‘Little Henry,’ is great, calling forth a signal of distress from the audience that if more was coming Mr. Turpin would be called upon to answer for the results.”149 Back at the Monogram the following week, Johnnie Woods “held the audience spell bound” singing “Aunt Dinah’s Child” and “Good Morning Judge.”150 1913 brought two “new aspirants for ventriloquism fame” into African American vaudeville: Verner Massey and Sam Evans. When Woods accused Massey of stealing material from him, Massey pushed back smartly: “You just go ahead and shoot the liquor to little Henry. I don’t allow Tommy to drink at all. . . . No, John, I haven’t heard my boy ‘Tommy’ use anything your boy ‘Henry’ says or does, and if he does, I’ll wear him out.”151 Toward the end of the year,

Sam Evans took his first bow at the Crown Garden Theater: “Two other ventriloquists have appeared at this house previous to Evans’ engagement. Perhaps the best known is Johnny Woods, whose work Evans greatly resembles. He has that same droll humor on the part of the doll. . . . They do a well-known parody on ‘All Night Long.’”152 At the close of 1913, Freeman critic Will Lewis recalled having “met the following ventriloquists: John W. Cooper, Johnny Woods, Sam Evans and Verner Massey. . . . I may say, in short, that they were all good, and all different. Johnny Woods was the most humorous. Cooper, perhaps, showed the greatest ability, dealing with a number of dolls at one time. Sam Evans kept his lips quieter. Massey threw his voice furthest . . . Each excels in his own feature.”153 Johnnie Woods and Little Henry kicked off the year 1914 on the mainstream Loew’s Theater Circuit.154 They were back on “colored time” by July, when they ducked into the New Monogram.155 At the New Crown Garden in August a reviewer declared: “Little Henry does the best blues in the business—those low down, whiskey blues.”156 Early in 1915 they played Chicago’s mainstream Empress Theater and made “a hit in the most prejudiced part of the city.”157 In his “Seen and Heard While Passing” column of July 17, 1915, Salem Tutt Whitney disclosed: “Henry has something on Johnny and Johnny knows it; that is the reason Johnny takes advantage of Henry’s diminutive size and smacks him on the mouth in front of the audience, just because Henry asks for his share of the money he placed with the syndicate, said syndicate being comprised in Johnny. But Henry gets Johnny’s goat when he sings: ‘I’m going to get a gun, hide behind a tree, and shoot every syndicate that takes money from me.’” Early in 1917, at the Washington Theater in Indianapolis, Woods again breathed life into Little Henry:

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fell seriously ill; and on July 23, at the Lafayette Theater in Harlem, Johnnie Woods and Little Henry took their final curtain call:

Indianapolis Freeman, January 26, 1918.

His association with his doll is so splendidly conceived that it seems to take on life. One enters into the spirit of what he does at time[s], forgetting that it is a piece of wood rigged up in “rags.” We say rags, but Johnny keeps his partner up to date, patent leather shoes with white tops and the rest of it in keeping with an up-to-date gent. His work all through was received with rapt attention, laughter and hearty applause. Henry’s closing song, “I Believe I’m On My Last Go Round,” featured by Woods, is pathetic, touching, giving wonderful realism to the work.158

Johnnie Woods and Little Henry continued to work into the 1920s, dividing their time between black traveling shows, white vaudeville theaters, and T.O.B.A. outlets. In the spring of 1928, Woods

Authentic telegraph reports from New York City chronicle the death of Johnny Woods, the famous ventriloquist, who dropped dead after an attack of acute indigestion, Monday, July 23, directly after the performance at Lafayette Theater. The body was shipped to his home in St. Louis by his father, who had left New York immediately. His son, Tommy Woods, the dancer, left Chicago for St. Louis to attend the funeral. Johnny Woods made his early appearance on the stage with Lehman Smith in Memphis, Tenn. His medicine show practice made him perhaps the most perfect ventriloquist ever known. He was also an actor, comedian and dancer of exceptional merit. He was a member of the original Georgia Minstrels for several seasons and in vaudeville was one of the strongest single drawing cards on the T.O.B.A. circuit. His performance with Little Henry, his black art image, is well known to the public, and was the most entertaining and original in the history of ventriloquism. . . . Floral offerings from friends and professionals all over the country were sent to his funeral.159

According to Salem Tutt Whitney, “Loving friends laid Johnny upon his last bed and placed ‘Little Henry’ at his side. Together they journeyed to St. Louis, there to make their last earthly appearance.”160

Willie Too Sweet By the early 1910s, impressive variations on the blues were cropping up across the Southeast. Willie and Lulu Too Sweet, Will and Gertrude Rainey, Baby Seals and Baby Floyd Fisher, Bessie Smith, Laura Smith, and others were charting a new course in American entertainment, but strictly within the confines of southern

Male Blues Singers in Southern Vaudeville

vaudeville. For some time this accelerated activity, though widely reported in the Freeman, remained out of range of northern theatergoers. When String Beans broke through the barrier in the summer of 1911, southern acts began streaming north. Midwestern theater audiences were anxious to check out the rest of the southern vaudeville universe. The highly accomplished, multi-talented comedy team of Willie and Lula Too Sweet were the pride of early Memphis vaudeville. They specialized in skits that cast them in the roles of children: “Willie Too Sweet is perhaps the best kid lover on the stage. He has thrown together the best of his observations of boys, giving a composite boy that everybody knows something about.”161 His partner Lula (or Lulu) was the personification of the “baby soubrette,” all childhood innocence one moment, then shamelessly manipulating her audience with double entendre: “When Miss Too Sweet put in her appearance the women folks all over the house would exclaim, ‘O, Ain’t she sweet!’ ‘O, she’s such a dearie!’ These were women mind you. The Lord only knows what the men were saying.”162 The Too Sweets’s “kid” comedy was punctuated by their contrasting physiques: “The lady member of the team is dainty and has a sweet little voice. She looks to weigh about sixty pounds on the stage and Willie looks like Jack Johnson, so it makes their act one of novelty in appearance.”163 To amplify the humor, Willie’s super-sized character was typically victimized by his diminutive playmate: “[Willie] plays the boob, permitting all sorts of pranks to be played on him. He stands for it all.”164 Role reversals occasionally added to the fun: “Mr. Too Sweet in characterizing a woman of the underworld in a humorous way, brings one laugh after another from the audience. Little Miss Lulu Too Sweet in a new character to us, is indeed charming as well as pleasing. Lulu is playing the part of a young man, and she is some male impersonator. Yet I am sorry to say there never was a man that looks as good as Miss Too Sweet, only in a picture book.”165

Indianapolis Freeman, September 27, 1913.

String Beans and Sweetie May’s initial success in Cincinnati had so impressed the theater manager that he “sent notice out to the booking agent for more performers with this class of work.”166 On the last day of July 1911, the Too Sweets crossed the Mason-Dixon Line to play Cincinnati’s Gaither Theater, where a reviewer acknowledged them as “one of the good acts off of the Southern time. . . . The male member of the team uses cork, just what the people here expect of a comedian, and he sang a couple of parodies on two of our once popular songs that were screams.”167 At the Monogram Theater in Chicago, Sylvester Russell was surprisingly taken by their act: “Billy Sweet, of the two Sweets, who I claim is the best comedian I have seen who hails from the lower south

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. . . is not only a naturally clever comedian, but most of his work is legitimate and he has acting qualities of mimicry which he is not aware of, somewhat similar to the late Ernest Hogan. His song, ‘A Fat Gal Am the Best Gal, After All,’ was a literal scream, and if Mr. Sweet continues to be progressive and unaffected he will soon become a headliner and a favorite.”168 Their next show stop was the Lyre Theater in Louisville: “This being their first appearance they were heartily received. They have a very clever act and Mr. Too Sweet proved to be a real comedian. His parodies on Lovey Joe and Some of the [sic] Days was a knockout. Mrs. Too Swet [sic] sang ‘Totaloe Tune’ and made quite an impression on the audience. It seemed as if the audience could not get enough of this act.”169 The Too Sweets went on to make “Lovie Joe” a character in one of their skits, “The Death of Lovie Joe”: “Mr. Too Sweet is particularly droll in his delineation of his part.”170 Six weeks into their debut tour of northern vaudeville, the Too Sweets arrived at the showcase Crown Garden Theater in Indianapolis, where reviewers sounded a clarion call: This team is a new importation from the South and we certainly can say for the people of the South if they have any more “Sweets” hurry them North as fast as the trains can bring them with the assurance that the people of this neck of the woods are anxiously awaiting their coming with the glad hand extended to greet them. . . . They are fully entitled to all the good things said of them in advance of their coming. Their act is a clean proposition throughout, without a single line or suggestion of vulgarity and will go in anybody’s house. In the first place, the two Sweets have departed from the timeworn slapstick variety of comedy usually offered by colored teams. They have introduced quite a bit of novelty in their act by way of a new style of

dialogue, action and in fact every thing else that goes to make up an act radically different from the rest. . . . Mr. Sweet scored heaviest, perhaps, in his descriptive song, “Jack Johnson,” in which he went through all the supposed incidents of the Jeffries-Johnson fight. They were falling out of their seats at the conclusion of this number.171 Enough has not been said of Miss Too Sweet, who really does appear too sweet in her acting to be on the stage. . . . Of course, “Old Man” Too Sweet is there, looking like any other cornfield darkey—direct from field to stage. . . . In fact, the Too Sweets are ideal.172

When the Too Sweets returned to the Monogram in October 1911, Sylvester Russell found them “more popular than on their last visit. Billy Sweet was there with the goods again and all new and original. His song ‘Nothing New Under the Sun’ was great and the hypnotic dance used as a finale was just the thing.”173 In their second week, however, Russell was somewhat nonplussed by Willie Too Sweet’s southern vernacular style: “Sweet’s new talk and dialogue was clever, but he has taken to neckbone speeches that appeal to colored audiences and sang a neckbone song. But ‘Willie’—I call him Bill—Sweet will do, and his wife, the little fawn, is a little peek-a-boo.”174 Back at the Crown Garden a few weeks later, “A big dual number that went with a dash was ‘My Dream Man.’ Mr. Twosweet’s ‘Neck Bones,’ a comic song of unusual merit as a laugh getter, was also well received. The act was closed with a roaring parody on George M. Cohan’s ‘Yankee Prince’ with Svengali and Trilby finishes that made it very funny.”175 The Too Sweets were special favorites at the Crown Garden, where, in September 1912, Lula sang “her original song, ‘Mamma Don’t Allow No Easy Talking Here,’ and she was forced to take several encores.”176 In Indianapolis one year later, she introduced another original song, and lodged an accusation regarding her earlier hit:

Male Blues Singers in Southern Vaudeville

Indianapolis Freeman, September 21, 1912.

Little Miss Two Sweet is certainly well named, as it concerns her stage appearance and actions. She is a kid, one of those kind that makes you like them. She is rather quiet at most times, but breaks out at the proper time, an art which makes her work very taking. She sings “Mamma Don’t Know Where I Am At” in a very childish voice. The fact that she looks like a child and her pretty airs are what makes for the success of her songs. By the way, Miss Two Sweet has had this song copyrighted to keep it away from

the pirates. She says she will prosecute anyone who sings it. Her other song, “Mamma Don’t Allow No Easy Talking,” was stolen from her. Willie Two Sweet writes all the songs they use. They fit their work in fine style. Miss Two Sweet joined in writing the present hit mentioned.177

The accusation concerning “Mama Don’t Allow” may have been directed at fellow Memphian W. C. Handy, who claimed that his 1912 instrumental sheet music

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This advertisement for Willie and Lulu Too Sweet’s original songs and parodies, including “Mama Don’t Allow No Easy Talking Here,” appeared in the September 21, 1912, edition of the Freeman, concurrent with the original sheet music publication of W. C. Handy’s “The Memphis Blues.”

hit “Memphis Blues” had been inspired by a topical folksong that was popularized during E. H. Crump’s 1909 Memphis mayoral campaign.178 At the end of 1913, Indianapolis-based reporter Will Lewis provided a critical summing up: The Two Sweets have carved little niches in the hearts of the amusement loving people of this community. Her two songs, “Mama Don’t Allow No Easy Talking Here” and “My Mama Don’t Know Where I Am At,” have added to her fame. The little lady is jealous of her two songs, but she needn’t be. There is but one Miss Two Sweet. Her husband, Willie, wrote the songs, and nice ones they are, but no one can sing them but her. The team makes good because of their fine ability to play children’s roles. Both are good. Miss Two Sweet will not be excelled by any one.179

This publication of “I’m So Glad My Mama Don’t Know Where I’m At” carries a copyright date of 1915 (Courtesy Hogan Jazz Archive, Tulane University).

The Too Sweets continued to ring in new blues songs. Perhaps in the nature of “tit for tat,” they concocted a vocal rendition of W. C. Handy’s 1913 instrumental hit, “Jogo Blues”; which was noted in a report from Macon, Georgia, in the spring of 1916: “The cream of the ‘Merry-Merries’ will be seen at the Douglass this week. The Two Sweets are going big with

Male Blues Singers in Southern Vaudeville

their opening ‘Jelly Roll Blues.’ Too Sweet himself is an excellent comedian, gaining scores of applause from the audience. His parody on ‘Keep It Up All the Time,’ is indeed good. The closing number, ‘Jogo Blues,’ is a scream.”180 Shortly thereafter, Lula disappeared from view and Willie Too Sweet continued as a single.181 From the summer of 1916 until the fall of 1918, he was the principal comedian with Ed Lee’s Creole Belles Company.182 When he played an independent date at the Monogram Theater in December 1918, Sylvester Russell noted: “Willie Too Sweet . . . clearly demonstrated that he can give a southern monologue that will go on any stage and make people scream on the big time. I hope he will play the Grand, but his ‘blues’ song is too long or could be omitted as his encore song is better.”183 Too Sweet played an important part in the formative process of vaudeville blues, but he was best known as a creator of humorous song parodies. In 1912 Freeman editor and music critic Elwood Knox opined: “I dare say Mr. Too Sweet could make a living writing parodies alone, as his products are the best, barring none. That’s a good deal to say, but it is true.”184 A Cincinnati correspondent judged Too Sweet’s brand of parody “a little suggestive, but acceptable.”185 An Indianapolis critic noted his use of local color and political satire: “Mr. Sweet’s new song, ‘Nothing New Under the Sun,’ with localized verse, was a big hit. Whilst he has no advance man to get together on this line of stuff for him as does Mr. [Lew] Dockstader and others we might mention, he nevertheless has put together several stanzas of a local political nature that set the house wild with laughter.”186 Too Sweet’s humorous parodies fitted up popular song lyrics for the esoteric appreciation of black vaudeville theater audiences. His reputation only grew over the course of his long stage career; in 1923 and again in 1927, the Chicago Defender crowned him “king of parodies.”187 Parody was endemic to African American minstrelsy and vaudeville; no

topic was barred, from the adventures of Booker T. Washington to the sinking of the Titanic. However, the relationship between song parodies and the blues may not be evident. Howard Odum’s early field studies reveal that the appropriation and manipulation of popular songs was a common folk practice in the South: “the negro . . . quickly adapts new songs to his own environment. Mention has been made of the negro’s fondness for the new and popular coon-songs; but these songs often lose their original words, and take on words of negro origin. . . . The song itself often becomes amusing because of its paraphrases.”188 “In any case, the song, when it has become the common distinctive property of the negroes, must be classed with negro folk-songs.”189 The notion of copyright-protected popular songs as “common property” represents a historical intersection of two distinct songwriting cultures. The justification for Odum’s assertion that, “‘I got mine,’ ‘When she roll dem Two White Eyes,’ ‘Ain’t goin’ be no Rine,’ and many others adapted from the popular ‘coon-songs’ . . . have become the property of the negroes, in their present rendition, regardless of their sources or usage elsewhere,” may rest on the fact that the creative adaptation of pre-existing song material corresponded with the traditional process of southern folk music construction, or on the distinctive character of the folk-interpretations he observed.190 Some of the adaptations of popular songs which he transcribed contain personalized or topical allusions, including to local judges and sheriffs; one references “my brother-in-law . . . in Collins’ jail.”191 The parodying of Tin Pan Alley ragtime coon songs by southern blacks was, in effect, an appropriation of an appropriation, or a cultural reclamation. Too Sweet’s parody writing was related to this folk-derived form of song construction, which is intimately associated with the original synthesis of the blues. In this light, Too Sweet, who was described in one 1911 commentary as “looking like

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any other cornfield darkey—direct from field to stage,” may be seen as an essential link between the “field” and the professional stage.

Tom Young Thomas B. Young was a versatile journeyman vaudevillian: a blackface comedian adept at “funny talking, singing and dancing,” with a penchant for the blues, which he sang on stage as early as 1910.192 Young apparently did not play an instrument in his stage act. He was described as a “western comedian from St. Louis,” but Georgia was his main stomping ground.193 His professional activity appears to have been confined to a limited geographic radius. Between 1909, when the Freeman first caught sight of him, and 1913, when he disappeared from view, Young was not spotted north of Durham, North Carolina; south of Jacksonville, Florida; or west of Chattanooga, Tennessee. In November 1909 Young took up residence at the Pastime Theater in Athens, Georgia, “cleaning up for all local comedians South,” performing ragtime titles such as “Love Thy Neighbor as Thyself, but Leave His Wife Alone,” and “Abraham Lincoln Jones.”194 Playing opposite “up-to-date coon shouters” Evelyn White, Alberta Williams, Alberta Smiley, and Effie Means, under stage manager John H. Williams, with Madam L. Graham at the piano, Young was “right in line with his late hit, ‘Skinney.’”195 A March 1910 report assured, “Tom Young, the Athens favorite, still holds his own and says, ‘Don’t leave me here.’”196 In August 1910 Young was stage manager at the Ivy Theater in Chattanooga, “scoring a hit on account of the droll way in which he sings ‘Grizzly Bear’ and ‘Casey Jones.’”197 By November he was managing the stage at the Dixie Theater in Charlotte, North Carolina. The pianist there was Prof. Walter Slade, “the blind wonder.” A noteworthy correspondence from the Dixie Theater said: “Papa Tom Young, with oakra

This only known photograph of Tom Young appeared in an ad for L. D. Joel’s Atlanta Players in the 1912 “Christmas Edition” of the Freeman.

[sic] in his hips and tomatoes in his sides, is still holding his own, singing ‘The Blues.’”198 During the first week of 1911 Young appeared at the Pekin Theater in Savannah, on a bill with String Beans and Sweetie May, and drew praise for his eccentric dancing.199 Still at the Pekin the following month, “Tom Young the female impersonator in his Monologue and song the ‘Piano Man’” was “a scream.”200 At the Globe Theater in Jacksonville in March, he “made a decided hit” singing “Hug up Close to Jack Johnson.”201 Back at the Pastime in Athens later that year, on a bill with Bessie Oliver and

Male Blues Singers in Southern Vaudeville

Clara Smith, Young reportedly “cleaned up” with “Next Week,”“Prosperity,” and “You’ll Get Something You Don’t Expect.”202 In April 1912 Young filled two weeks at the Globe Theater in Jacksonville. The bill of the second week was headed by String Beans: “Tom Young worked between the acts and when he got through singing ‘The Blues’ he had to hoist an umbrella to keep the money from raining on him.”203 Later in the year, Young helped open the Rex Theater in Durham, North Carolina, along with Clara Smith and Johnnie Woods. This time he appeared in a team act: “Tom Young, better known as ‘Two-Story Tom,’ rushed on the stage singing ‘Alexander’s Ragtime Band.’ Mrs. Lillie Young seemed to be a special favorite of this team. She was gorgeously gowned in a canary silk and wore flesh colored hose. She sang ‘I’m So Glad I’m Brown Skin.’ Mr. and Mrs. Young are rapid conversationalists and held the audience’s attention during the act.”204 A final, ominous dispatch from Jacksonville at the end of 1913 informed: “Tom Young, the comedian, was severely burned Monday night, December 8, at the Globe theater, in the dressing room. He is now at the hospital in a serious condition.”205 Before Young slipped beyond reflection, he was recalled in a nostalgic essay that appeared in a 1927 issue of the African American journal Opportunity. While thumbing through a stack of sheet music in an “Old Song Shop,” the author of the essay came across a copy of “Grizzly Bear” and was transported to his childhood days in Jacksonville. It brought back memories of “hying away to the Globe Theater to hear Tom Young give his version of the song”: Tom is a huge fellow at least six feet tall. And to put over this particular song which he has twisted into a parody of the Johnson-Jeffries fight, he blackens his face, whitens his lips and dons boxing gloves. He sings:

Johnson said to Jim Jeffries . . . Knocked his head up to the ceiling Lordy! . . . Lordy! . . . what a feeling! And the all-colored audience stomps, yells, whistles, applauds. “Hot zigety-bum! Tell ’em ’bout it, Tom!” They shout. And Tom does tell ’em ’bout it. But the rest of his parody is drowned in the ecstasy of their enthusiasm. So now, for his effect, he’s pantomiming. He rolls his huge white eyes toward the ceiling. He shuffles. He shambles. He staggers. He reels. A genuine comedian, is this fellow Tom Young. (I wonder if Carl Van Vechten ever saw a genius like this entertaining his own folk away down home?). Finally his lips quiver and his big wide mouth, made bigger and wider by the white paint, opens, it seems, away back to his ears and he bellows his last “Lordy! Lordy! What a feeling” loud enough for the audience to catch every word of it.206

John H. “Blue Steel” Williams Reports of Tom Young’s shambling “coon comedy” are reminiscent of ragtime-era performers such as Happy Howe and Chink Floyd. His song repertoire, however, depicts the speedy transformation from coon songs to blues. Another example of this revolution in stage repertoire can be seen in the career of John H. “Blue Steel” Williams, which stretched from the earliest days of tented minstrelsy into the era of T.O.B.A. vaudeville. Better known and more widely traveled than Tom Young, Williams was a producer and performer whose songs and original comedy skits hewed close to southern folk idiom. A 1916 report claimed that Williams “has been in the business 20 years.”207 Contemporaneous press reports tracked him through most of the first quarter of the twentieth century, as he took turns between black vaudeville and itinerant tented minstrelsy. As early as 1903 Williams was “leaving them screaming”

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with Allen’s New Orleans Minstrels, singing “If Dem Chickens Don’t Roost Too High.” Later that year he appeared at the Blue Ribbon saloon-theater in Louisville as “the Mississippi Sunflower,” on a bill with John Goodloe.208 Williams traveled with carnival and plantation shows before rejoining Allen’s Minstrels in June 1905, when he teamed with John Goodloe, “making a hit in the olio, leaving them screaming every night.”209 He remained on the roster of Allen’s Minstrels for about three-and-a-half years, as comedian and old man impersonator, “making the old folks as well as the children laugh playing ‘rube’ in the streets.”210 His ragtime minstrel song repertoire included “On the Rock Pile,” “If My Baby Could See Me Now,” “Home Sweet Home Sounds Good to Me,” “Ragtime Boy,” “Lemon Coon,” and “What A Time.”211 In June 1906 Williams took a brief sabbatical from the minstrel routes to fill a three-week engagement at the Budweiser Theater in Tampa.212 In December 1908 he left Allen’s Minstrels for good and dropped right into the heart of the new theater movement at Tick’s Big Vaudeville in Memphis, singing “You Are in the Right Church But the Wrong Pew.”213 This popular Cecil Mack–Chris Smith collaboration was featured by Bert Williams in the 1908–09 production of Bandana Land.214 When L. D. Joel opened the Air Dome Theater in Jacksonville in May 1909, he enlisted Williams to manage the stage.215 The Whitman Sisters Company opened at the Air Dome in June: “J. H. Williams, the clever comedian, who is looked upon as a coming star, has united with the sisters and will put the finishing touches on their comedy parts.”216 Fred Barrasso brought Williams back to Memphis in August 1910 to bolster the legendary Savoy Stock Company. Soon afterward, Barrasso divided the company into touring parties to populate his experimental Tri-State Circuit. A correspondence on October 1 relayed news of “The show at Vicksburg,

Miss., headed by John H. Williams, the king of all comedians in the South; who takes three and four encores singing ‘Alabama Bound,’ ‘Shake, Rattle and Roll,’ [and] ‘Tie Your Little [Bull] Outside.’ . . . Mrs. J. H. Williams is pianist, and reads at sight. Joe White is trap drummer.”217 Barrasso subsequently rotated Williams’s party to the American Theater in Jackson, Mississippi, where Mrs. Williams shared the orchestra pit with trap drummer Harry Jefferson. Completing an eighteen-week contract with Barrasso in December 1910, Williams moved on to an engagement in Jacksonville, Florida, making it known through the Freeman that “Mr. F. A. Barrasso is a gentleman and pays as promised. Boys, I am going where the weather suits my clothes.”218 Williams joined the Globe Theater stock company, performing songs and monologues on vaudeville bills with Trixie Smith and the Raineys, and taking part in short plays under the direction of J. Francis Mores.219 When Mores joined the cast of S. H. Dudley’s Smart Set in February, Williams assumed the post of producer and stage manager at the Globe.220 Princess Rajah, billed as “the German-African comedienne,” came to the Globe in March and she and Williams collaborated on staging plays.221 A note from the proprietor Frank Crowd announced, “The Princess and J. H. Williams joined hands for life on March 8. . . . Williams is leaving of his own accord, as I deem him one of my most esteemed producers and stage directors. . . . In conclusion, I will say that J. H. Williams and Princess Rajah will make one of the greatest teams that the colored race has ever had the pleasure of seeing.”222 It is not clear how long their partnership lasted. Williams continued to divide his time between tented minstrelsy and vaudeville theaters, sustaining a reputation as one of the South’s premier producer-managers. By 1914 his song list, which had previously favored up-to-date ragtime, was veering toward blues, and he acquired the nickname “Blue Steel.” That fall he was piloting the Blue Steel Stock

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Indianapolis Freeman, August 19, 1916.

Company through the state of Virginia: “our stage manager, Mr. Williams, the original Blue Steel.”223 In Savannah with the Florida Blossom Minstrels during the summer of 1915, Williams was “cleaning up nightly singing his own composition, the ‘Blue Steel Blues.’”224 The Florida Blossoms were a bluesy aggregation that season; Kate Price was singing “I Wonder Where My Easy Rider’s Gone,” and the five-piece band under cornetist Attler Cox was playing “Memphis Blues,” “High Yellow Blues,” “Florida Blues,” and “Jogo Blues.”225 At the end of 1915, the Florida Blossoms were in the state of Florida, where “the natives are wild about the show. . . . John H. Williams (the original Blue Steel) is singing his own composition, ‘The Sanctified Blues,’ and doing seven minutes of first-class monologue. . . . Miss Bessie Smith is a riot singing the ‘Hesitation,’ ‘St. Louis’ and ‘Yellow Dog Blues.’”226 In 1916 Williams signed on as stage manager and producer for Mahoney’s Mobile Minstrels: “Blue Steel is closing a red hot first part singing ‘The St. Louis Blues.’”227 The roster included saloon-theater

pioneer Buddie Glenn, “the oldest young man in the business. 74 years old and works like a 20 year old comedian.”228 By late summer Williams was “getting together his stock company known as the Blue Steel Stock Company and as soon as the show closes for the winter will go in vaudeville with 14 people.”229 During the early weeks of 1917 he served as producer and stage manager at the Dixieland Theater in Charleston, South Carolina, in company with blues star Virginia Liston and dancers Cuba Austin and Wayne “Buzzin’” Burton.230 One of Williams’s perennial show stops was the Star Theater in Pittsburgh.231 There in the fall of 1919, he headed a bill that included Laura Smith.232 The following year, proprietor Harry Tenenbaum remodeled the Star Theater “from bottom to top” and gave out news that “J. H. Williams known as Blue Steel is manager. He is an old performer and really knows the show business. Also knows how to treat performers and patrons.”233 Williams managed the Star Theater for several years during the T.O.B.A. era. The Chicago Defender announced his death in October 1925: “John Williams, better known as Blue Steel and former manager of the Star Theater, Pittsburgh, Pa., was found dead last Wednesday morning in East Youngstown, Ohio, where his company was working. He leaves a wife and two small children to mourn him.”234 The stage careers of first-generation southern vaudeville bluesmen embodied unprecedented development and upheaval in black entertainment. Blues in vaudeville essentially supplanted the ragtime coon songs that were ubiquitous less than a decade earlier. Played and sung in the new context of insular black vaudeville theaters, the blues mirrored “the souls of black folk” in a way that coon songs never did.

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CHAPTER FOUR

The Rise of the Blues Queen: Female Blues Pioneers in Southern Vaudeville

E

were not merely early exponents of blues singing, they were its architects.

n route with the Park-Tolliver Musical Comedy Company in late autumn 1914, Clara Smith was advertised in the Freeman as “A Rattling Good Talker and Queen of the Blues.”1 This is perhaps the earliest application of the royal honorific to a blues singer, indicating a dramatic shift in the status of both the singer and the blues. This new formulation expressed a black perspective and a rejection of the designation “coon shouter,” or even “queen of coon song shouters,” redolent of an earlier era when cultural outsiders defined the terms.2 The vaudeville stage provided African American song writers with a launching platform for their latest blues compositions. Black vaudeville’s female blues shouters became popular along with the new songs. By the exercise of their original styles and creative treatments, they broadened the parameters of the blues and helped establish its direction. They

Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith Bessie is what is sometimes called a ‘coon song shouter,’ but she is more than that. —Billy E. Lewis, 1918

Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith are the two most famous blues singers to come out of southern vaudeville. During the first half of the World War I decade, Rainey and Smith were among the ranks of stage performers equivocally celebrated as “coon shouters”; but in the latter half of the decade they were elevated to the status of “blues queens.” A look back at their early years helps situate Rainey and

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Smith within the trends and developments that led to this pivotal transition. In an often-cited late-1920s interview with John Work III and Sterling Brown, Ma Rainey recalled a 1902 encounter with what she came to realize was “blues.”3 Thus far, however, no one has discovered a single contemporaneous document that specifically denominates blues performed on a vaudeville or tent-show stage, southern railroad station platform, prison farm, street corner, porch, levee, construction site, cotton field, European music hall, or anywhere at all prior to 1909. Evidence does exist of fragments of verses and other distinctive musical characteristics that would soon be cobbled into identifiable blues songs—and this might explain what Gertrude Rainey remembered having heard in 1902.4 However, the associated claim, that Rainey began performing blues songs shortly thereafter, does not withstand scrutiny. The historical narrative is skewed by the baseless notion that Rainey was a singular pioneer, the “Mother of the Blues,” and Bessie Smith her great protégé. In fact, there were female vaudeville performers singing blues songs before either Gertrude Rainey or Bessie Smith; but the distinction has no real significance, because blues in southern vaudeville was a widespread, spontaneous movement; no one performer can be legitimately credited as its instigator. A transitional style of vocal ragtime, sometimes termed “up-to-date coon songs,” was the immediate precursor to the emergence of blues singing in southern vaudeville.5 Up-to-date coon songs were the gateway for Gertrude Rainey, Bessie Smith, and the rest of the first generation of professional blues singers. By their nature, up-to-date coon songs constitute a moving target. “Progressive” turn-of-the-century coon songs emphasized authentic street slang. The later, more urbane coon song hits of Shelton

Brooks, Joe Jordan, Chris Smith, and Irving Berlin did, too, but the terminology had evolved with the times. Their compositions, closer to the blues in language, form, and attitude, suited the new, racially exclusive vaudeville context. An inwardly directed, independent African American cultural sensibility had been ripening for decades.6 In the North as well as in the South, newly urbanized African American theater audiences encouraged a recalibration of established practices and modern innovations.7 This entailed a pattern of mediations between northern and southern entertainment standards; the conventions of minstrelsy and those of vaudeville; sophisticated and downhome humor; popular song and folk song; all of which contributed to the alchemy that turned ragtime coon songs into blues. Gertrude Pridgett was born in Columbus, Georgia, in 1886. She married Will Rainey in 1904, and they traveled together until Will’s death in 1919.8 Reports from the Raineys began to appear in the Indianapolis Freeman in 1906, at which time they had charge of the Alabama Fun Makers Company: “Mr. Rainey is making a hit with his ‘old man’ turn and ‘Let Him Without Sin Cast the First Stone,’ while Mrs. Rainey is giving, ‘I’ll Be Back in a Minute, and I’ll Do the Same for You.’”9 Before the close of 1906, the Raineys joined Pat Chappelle’s Rabbit’s Foot Minstrels. They were billed as “Sketch Artists, Black Face, Song and Dance Comedians, Jubilee Singers and Artists, Cake Walkers, Old Man’s Specialty.”10 Gertrude Rainey was featuring “The Man in the Moon” and “Miss Jane,” and she and her husband teamed up to sing “I’ve Said My Last Farewell.”11 The Raineys remained with the Rabbit’s Foot Minstrels through the season of 1907–08, performing alongside singing comedians Arthur “Happy” Howe and Allen “Chintz” Moore, who was singing “All In Down and Out.”12

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The Raineys made a southern vaudeville excursion in the spring of 1909, opening in Pensacola with Benbow’s Chocolate Drops: “Gertie Rainey is making good with her late hit, ‘If the World Don’t Treat You Right, Why Don’t You Come Home?’”13 At this engagement, fortunate patrons saw the Raineys on the same bill with young Butler May, not yet known as String Beans. Later that summer Will Benbow reported: “Gertie Rainey, our coon shouter, is making good.”14 The Raineys left the Chocolate Drops some time before November, filled a six-week stand at the Star Theater in Montgomery, and then headed for Atlanta: “Miss Gertrude Rainey always brings down the house when she renders a late and up-to-date coon song.”15 On January 4, 1910, Will Rainey wrote from Pensacola: I beg to state, in behalf of the Georgia Sunbeam Company, headed by Rainey and Rainey, that we have just closed a six weeks’ engagement at Luna Park, Atlanta, Ga., and now are down in the land of flowers. The company is composed of the following: Rainey and Rainey, who are still scoring success every night; Will Owens, the comedian . . . Porter and Porter, vaudeville artists . . . Mattie Parker and Mittie Bradford, singing and dancing soubrettes; Kelly, the dancing wonder; Zeke, the man who has them all beat . . . The orchestra is very fine, and is led by Prof. C. M. Price. Porter, of the traps, is something of a wonder. Regards to the profession. W. M. Rainey, 206 Garden Street.16

Rainey and Rainey remained at Pensacola’s Belmont Street Theater for the next several weeks: “Madam Rainey is the latest sensation, singing and featuring her new song ‘Temptation Rag.’”17 “Mrs. Gertrude Rainie [sic], our coon shouter, never fails to leave the house in an uproar . . . We are presenting ‘The Cuban Queen’ the last half of the week.

Billie Zeek and Henry Jennings doing the comedy . . . Mrs. [Elsie] Jennings the queen. Mrs. Rainie, Miss Mildred Kernion and Miss [Sidney] Coleman as flower girls.”18 When the Ocmulgee Park Pavilion in Macon, Georgia, opened its season on April 16, 1910, Will Rainey took charge of the stage with his Georgia Sunbeams Company of eighteen performers, including a nine-piece brass band.19 Two weeks into the engagement, “Rainey and Rainey, that clever comedy team,” were heard “singing their own composition ‘Baby, I Have Brought You That Hambone Dat I Found Last Year,’” while Gertrude Rainey soloed on “Temptation Rag” and “her new song, ‘That Fascinating Ragtime Glide.’”20 In 1910 Gertrude Rainey was “holding her own,” singing up-to-date ragtime songs and performing comedy sketches with her husband; but there is no evidence that she was singing any blues. Bessie Smith was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee, sometime between 1892 and 1895.21 Most of what passes for common knowledge regarding her earliest stage activity can be traced to her obituary in the Baltimore Afro-American, which includes some background information apparently provided by her older brother Clarence: She completed the elementary schools of [hometown Chattanooga] and in 1912 joined the show owned by Moses Stokes. . . . Her first appearance was in a store front building in her native home in a presentation staged by Lonnie and Cora Fisher. Members of the troupe when she made her debut were Ma and Pa Rainey, Gertrude McDonald, Son Riggins, Wiley Teasley, Isaac Bradford, Len Collins, Abner Davis, and her brother, Clarence Smith, who secured her the job as singer with the unit. A few months later she joined a second show with its first appearance in Dalton, Ga.22

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The sheer burden of detail in this retrospective report lends it an air of credibility; however, the events described could not have taken place in 1912, because by that time Bessie Smith had been traveling professionally for at least three years, performing in such far-flung venues as the Monogram Theater in Chicago, the Crown Garden Theater in Indianapolis, and the Booker T. Washington Airdome in St. Louis. Smith’s vaudeville career was fully under way by the spring of 1909, when the Freeman reported: “The Arcade Theatre of Atlanta, Ga., is playing nightly to S. R. O. with the following talented ladies and gentlemen: Prof. Eddie Butler, musical director and stage manager; comedians, C. L. Crawford, Billie Durand, Chas. Bedsley, with J. E. McGaner [sic, Jules McGarr], trap drummer, assisted by the fine singing and dancing of Evelyn White, Sadie Anderson and Bessie Smith. Chas. P. Bailey, the proprietor, never fails to let the ghost walk each Saturday afternoon.”23 Smith’s 1909 engagement at the Arcade/81 Theater may have lasted several weeks, because she was noted there again in mid-June, when a real “baby soubrette” seems to have stolen the spotlight: “The Arcade Theater, 81 Decatur Street, Atlanta, Georgia, is doing a splendid business. The program is given by Miss Evelyn White, Miss Bessie Smith, Willie Butler, Mack and Austin, two clever boys, and Miss Leona Butler, a six-years-old soubrette who is a wonder, shouting a favorite coon song entitled ‘I Ain’t Had No Loving In A Long Time.’”24 During the week of August 1, 1910, Smith held the stage at Luna Park, just down Decatur Street from the Arcade/81, in company with Rosetta Brannon and vernacular dance specialists Jack and Lena Wiggins.25 Two weeks later, Luna Park’s Freeman correspondent noted: “We closed Wiggins and Wiggins, Bessie Smith, Gordon and Gordon, Rosetta Brannon. All left sad hearts at the park.” Then came

this teasing afterthought: “Say Bess, have you 10? Luna Park, never late.”26 While Smith was performing at Luna Park, Will and Gertrude Rainey moved into the Arcade/81. Fabulous tales of Ma Rainey discovering young Bessie and taking her under her wing are deeply embedded in blues lore and literature. Contemporaneous reportage confirms that Bessie Smith did perform with Will and Gertrude Rainey, as early as 1910; however, the collaboration was brief and did not end well. On September 3, 1910, news came that, “Wm. Rainey has just closed a six weeks’ engagement at the Arcade Theater at Atlanta, Ga., and opens for a six weeks’ engagement at the Pekin [in Memphis] with a strong trio, with the following members: Bess Smith, a favorite Tennessee coon shouter; Gertrude Rainey is still holding her own and setting the town wild with her singing. W. M. Rainey does the ‘Elk’s Club,’ a big success. He introduces his act by entering the club in an airship.”27 Three weeks into their Pekin Theater engagement in Memphis, the “Three Trio”—Will and Gertrude Rainey with Bessie Smith—was “making good at every performance.”28 After week four, however, the Freeman served notice that the Raineys had replaced Bessie Smith with another future blues recording artist, Laura Smith. There was also this unusual “editorial”: Someone writes in from the Pekin, Memphis, Tenn., sounds a note of warning concerning Bessie Smith. Managers are advised to cancel engagements with her. Well, we don’t know Bessie, but think that if she can get very many engagements it ought to say that she could not be so “very awful” bad. Managers don’t have to keep disturbers of the peace. And if she is all said of her she won’t need anyone to help her out of employment, since her own actions, according to information, would stop her. But maybe she isn’t

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so bad. Let us hear about it, Bessie. Send in a note. Will publish only what is expected to be published. Yours, The Freeman.29

There was no published response from Bessie Smith, and the matter was never mentioned in the Freeman again. Bessie Smith’s vaunted “apprenticeship” with Gertrude Rainey in the “Three Trio” lasted less than four weeks; and it appears their paths did not cross again until 1917. After replacing Bessie with Laura Smith, Will and Gertrude Rainey left Memphis for the Gulf Coast. In November the Rainey Trio with Laura Smith played the Belmont Street Theater in Pensacola as members of Henderson’s Tennessee Troubadours: “The team of Rainey and Smith did a novelty singing and dancing act that was way above the average.” The same report said Gertrude Rainey, “the Southern shouter,” had left Pensacola “to open at the Lagman Theater, Mobile, Ala.”30 After a couple of weeks in Mobile, the Raineys returned to Pensacola, where Will was placed “on the sick list.”31 Nevertheless, they filled three weeks at the Belmont Street Theater and enjoyed the holiday season with family and friends: “Mrs. Rainey’s sister, Molissi Nix, arrived in Pensacola on the 22nd to spend Christmas, and was highly entertained by many of the friends of the Raineys.”32 Meanwhile, Laura Smith returned to Barrasso’s fold, joining his road company at the Amuse Theater in Vicksburg, Mississippi.33 In the immediate wake of the Pekin Theater incident, Bessie Smith settled in for a long run at the rival Savoy Theater, Fred Barrasso’s Memphis stronghold. An October 1910 correspondence noted, “Miss Bessie Smith . . . is quite a dancer, receiving encores nightly.”34 The following week the Savoy staged a “typical Western drama” called The Girl from Dixie, with the following cast of characters: “Kite [sic] Fisher, ‘The Girl from Dixie;’ Estelle Harris, ‘Tough

Lize;’ Bessie Smith, ‘The Adventuress;’ Billy Mills, ‘Jack Gordon;’ George Freeman, ‘Dingy Bill;’ David Perdue, ‘Dewer Bill.’ The comedy roles were carried by Billy Earthquake and Slim Henderson. The other members of the company were cowboys.”35 A November 12, 1910, report conveys something of the rough-and-ready ambience of the Savoy Theater during Bessie Smith’s tenure: The cool weather has caused a slight falling off of our attendance, otherwise we have no kick coming as our company is running along smoothly. Billy Earthquake is our present stage manager and is very popular with Memphians, although he has been working under great disadvantage, being very sick at times. Our principal comedians, Slim Henderson and Billy Mills, are receiving their share of popularity. Miss Estelle Harris had the misfortune to step on a nail last week, which confined her to her bed for about five days, but we are glad to say she is with us again and came back to work singing that most popular song of “Lovie Jo [sic].” Miss Kate Fisher is to be complimented on her “line” work, which is so necessary in stock companies. Miss Bessie Smith is still with us and is quite a favorite with our audiences . . . Mr. Billy Jones, our popular singing “Savoy Annex” bartender, has just returned from Chicago and was heartily welcomed . . . Congo Kid, our popular little prize fighter, also Johnny Flynn and Raymond Russell have just returned to the city after quite a tour and are our regular “stage door Willies” and they are quite favorites of the profession. Our show this week is a spectacular minstrel first part with a strong olio and a small act to close.36

Fred Barrasso initiated his Tri-State Circuit in the fall of 1910. In February 1911 he dispatched Bessie Smith to Lagman’s Theater in Mobile, Alabama, as a member of Barrasso’s Strollers. The company was under the direction of Will Benbow, with E. Deb

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Levi, assistant stage manager and secretary. The headliner was Billy Mills: He is supported by . . . Edna Landry Benbow, the little lady with the loud voice and shaky eyes, the idol of the South; Miss Bessie Smith, the girl with the educated feet, and a great coon shouter; Ed Simpson, the little man with the big feet; Funny Thorpe, Elzer Benbow, better known as Kid Slick, the boy comedian and buck dance wonder; Trixie Smith, the little singing soubrette from South Carolina; Andy Pellebone, the a la honeysuckle [sic]; Remwell Jackson, the whirlwind; little Dinky Pellebon, the mascot, and Retta Benbow and Royal Simpson. . . . Billy Mills, comedian; Miss Bessie Smith, soubrette, and E. Deb Levi as straight man, have combined for a trio. They will be known as “The Gang Of Trays.”37

In March Barrasso’s Strollers moved into the American Theater in Jackson, Mississippi, where Bessie Smith was given star billing: The bill the last half of last week was a big success. The opening act, a musical number entitled “Dollar Bill,” featured by Mose Graham as “Dollar Bill” and E. Dab Lewis [sic], our new stage manager, playing the straight lines as “Silver King.” When Andy Pellebon appears as “Dollar Bill’s” wife the house goes into an uproar. The olio was a pleasing one with plenty of new catchy songs and jokes. Miss Bessie Smith, our star, is still sending them away screaming with “Lovey Joe.” Kid Ewing, the boy comedian and buck dancer, is over making good. The Pellebons, Andy and Sadie, are holding their own and are a clever team. Twostory Mose, our comedian . . . brings the house down by storm with witty sayings and songs. Mr. Chas. Anderson, our character man and Henry Lafton, the silver-voiced tenor singer, are delivering the goods to perfection. Our manager Mr. J. C. Boone is very much

pleased with his stock company and would like to hear from good performers at all times. . . . Little Dinky Pellebon, our mascot, is still doing the “eagle rock.”38

Joe Jordan and Will Marion Cook’s 1910 sheet music hit “Lovie Joe” was standard fare for up-todate coon shouters. Bessie Smith may have learned it from Estelle Harris. Before summer came on, Smith left Barrasso’s enterprise to join Will and Edna Landry Benbow’s Alabama Chocolate Drops. At Jacksonville, Florida, in June, they put on a twoact musical comedy titled “Mr. Sardines From Sardines, Fla.,” “which proved to be a riot from start to finish. . . . Miss Bessie Smith and Mose Graham took the house by storm with their singing and talking.”39 Later that summer Bessie Smith, “the Tennessee coon shouter,” and two Alabama Chocolate Drops company-mates, E. Deb Levi and Freddie “Sardines” Falk, opened at the Pekin Theater in Savannah as the E. Deb Levi Trio.40 They were booked to go on to an extended engagement in Tampa, beginning August 14.41 On October 3, 1911, the Bijou Theater in Bessemer, Alabama, opened “with the following bill: Bessie Smith, Irwin & Irwin, Stewart & Watkins, Carrie Lowe, E. J. Benjamin, and Alfred A. Grady. Mrs. Nellie Benjamin, pianist.”42 Smith may have spent the next two months in the Bessemer area; and this may have been when she first met singing and dancing comedian Wayne Burton, who was performing in and around Birmingham.43 On December 1, 1911, Burton posted a letter to the Freeman, listing Smith among the players he was appearing with at an unidentified Birmingham theater: We are playing to S. R. O. Despite the cold weather we are on top. Leroy White is staging the shows. . . . The Misses Bessie Smith, Bonnie Belle Thomas and Lula Smith are all going big each night. Bessie Smith gets the hands singing “Southern Gal.”

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Lula Smith makes a decided hit with “Ocean Roll.” Mr. Charles Anderson our able straight man, scores heavily in “It’s All Gone Now.” Rastus Buckner . . . has them screaming singing “Alexander’s Band.” Wayne Burton, known as “That Boy,” receives two and three encores nightly with his funny singing and dancing act. He is singing “Plant a Watermelon On My Grave.”44

Bessie Smith attracted special attention at the Lyre Theater in Louisville, Kentucky, in February 1912. The bill featured Mamie Payne and local “colored fashion plates” Taylor and Taylor: “Next came the big storm on the bill, Miss Bessie Smith, the girl with the big voice. Miss Smith is undoubtedly the best coon shouter ever seen in this house. She was compelled to refuse her encores.”45 John and Ella Goodloe closed the show. One week later, a Lyre Theater reporter trumpeted teenaged Bessie Smith as “the greatest coon shouter of her race. This is her second week, and she went bigger than ever. Miss Smith knows how to put her songs over the floodlights in a way that makes her audience scream with delight.” That same week, Joseph Clark, Jr., assistant manager of the Lyre and member of Louisville’s famous Clark family of performers, engaged a group to entertain at a “Millionaire Smoker” at the Seelbach Hotel. Along with Bessie Smith, the participating entertainers included John and Ella Goodloe, Charles and Sadie Pewee, and a five-piece band comprising James Clark, piano; Edgar Morton, cornet; Howard Jordan, clarinet; John Embry, trombone; and Albert Smith, drums.46 The Lyre Theater, located on Thirteenth and Walnut streets, opened in the summer of 1910, and had changed ownership at least twice before Bessie Smith made her appearance.47 An extraordinary report to the Freeman indicated that conditions there were less than desirable: “The Lyre theater is

under such poor management that the theater going public is becoming disgusted. A large number of people stay away because they are afraid that they may be injured in the many fights that occur. The players have set up a howl that the management is unable to pay them.48 Wayne Burton followed Smith into the Lyre Theater, and on April 20, 1912, the Freeman broke the story of a new partnership: “That sensational duo, Burton and Smith—Wayne and Bessie—opened the Auditorium Theater, Philadelphia, on the 8th with great success—Baltimore to follow.” These two talented young upstarts became part of the first wave of southern vaudeville players to land on northern theatrical shores. According to retrospective accounts, Wayne Burton was born in Birmingham in 1893. In southern vaudeville houses and tented minstrel shows during the course of 1910–11, he combined his eccentric dancing skills with a song list that included “Mary Jane,” “Casey Jones,” “Steamboat Bill,” “Hold Me, Parson, Hold Me (I Feel Religion Comin’ On),” “Chicken Reel,” “On Mobile Bay,” “That Alamo Rag,” and “Plant a Watermelon on My Grave (And Let the Juice Ooze Through).”49 When Burton took Bessie Smith for his partner in 1912, he was known as “That Boy”; but he eventually adopted the nickname “Buzzin’”—identifying with a late-breaking dance step, of which he became an acknowledged master. Marshall and Jean Stearns described Burton’s signature step in their 1968 book Jazz Dance: As the climax to his act, Burton fell into the Buzz— long sliding steps forward, knees bent and arms flung out alternately to the sides with hands turned down at the wrist and fingers vibrating in imitation of a bee’s wings . . . For his exit, Burton hunched his shoulders, wiggled his index finger toward the sky, and shuffled

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Indianapolis Freeman, July 6, 1912.

offstage—a combination of motions that became the standard ingredients of Trucking years later.50

An ambitious young performer, Burton posted frequent progress reports to the Freeman: “Burton and Smith, who have been playing successfully through the South, are now on their way East, appearing at the Blue Mouse theater, Washington, D. C., this week. Next week, May 27th, at the Auditorium, Philadelphia.”51 On Monday, June 17, 1912, Burton and Smith opened at the landmark Monogram Theater in Chicago on a bill headlined by Frank Kirk, the “musical tramp.” Sylvester Russell reviewed the show, but with nary a word to waste on Bessie Smith: “Burton and Smith were an act which won favor. The comedian, who is quite clever, has the qualities to broaden out to good effect, if he continues to keep free from smut, for these days are the days of cleverness and ability. His song, ‘I’m By Myself, Nobody But Me Alone,’ made good.”52 Burton and Smith proceeded directly to the Crown Garden Theater in Indianapolis, where advance notice proclaimed: “Wayne is known as the boy with the insane feet. Bessie is the girl with the ragtime voice.”53 A brief review appeared under the heading, “Burton and Smith Do A Good Down Home Act”: “Burton and Smith are new faces to Crown patrons and as a team did nicely. The female

member of this team, Miss Smith, is a real coon shouter, and if she would only sing a late one, my, what a hit she would make. Mr. Burton is a clever dancer. They received enough applause to put them in the O. K. class.”54 In late July and early August 1912, Burton and Smith filled two weeks at the Pekin Theater in Cincinnati. Commentary on their first week’s performance noted: “Smith and Burton are the curtain raisers and have a very lively turn. Miss Smith has a strong voice, sings a good number and makes a very attractive appearance, while Mr. Burton is a funny comedian and gets away with a freak lot of eccentric dancing.”55 The following week’s performance brought further insights: “Smith and Burton were held over and it proved to be the proper thing, as they produced a turn that gave better satisfaction than that of last week. This is a good team and should be in regular demand when they get better acquainted.”56 Burton and Smith’s reviews from this period are equivocal enough to suggest that they were having a bumpy ride in northern vaudeville. Throughout their tour they encountered performers with far more professional experience, which might have accentuated their own immaturity. Their native talent was obvious to all, but they may have been a bit too unpolished for northern audiences. That fall Burton and Smith appeared in stock at the Booker T. Washington Airdome in St. Louis:

Female Blues Pioneers in Southern Vaudeville

“Our stock company, as usual is springing something new to S. R. O. audiences nightly. Our producer Joe Golpin demonstrates his skill in his ‘Ham and Eggs In Africa,’ with Willie Owen, our star comedian, as Nappy Ham, and Wayne Burton as John Bad Eggs; Ella Gaines as the Queen; Uncle Joe as the King, Dixie White and Bessie Smith as subjects.”57 On November 30, 1912, the Freeman reported: “The act of Burton and Smith is now known as Burton and Burton, at St. Louis this week. Wayne and Bessie.”58 A photo from this period captures a young Bessie Smith, thin and pretty, with her dapper partner. On January 25, 1913, the Freeman notified that “Burton and Burton, Wayne and Bessie, are making good in Atlanta. Booked solid throughout the South.”59 But within the next few weeks there was a dramatic switch: “Wayne Burton, formerly of Burton and Smith, and little Miss Ebbie Forceman, of the Benbow Trio and Dallas, Texas, put one over on the performers in Atlanta, Ga., last week when they slipped away and were secretly married. There is a bright future for them, as Burton is progressive.”60 Wayne and Ebbie Burton picked up touring where he and Bessie Smith had left off. Their 1913 bookings took them from Jacksonville to Philadelphia, New York, and Boston.61 Bessie Smith, on the other hand, settled back into southern vaudeville. At an unidentified theater in Rome, Georgia, she “set the house crazy singing ‘I Got the Blues and Mean to Cry’ [sic].”62 This was apparently the 1912 Chris Smith–James Tim Brymn song titled “The Blues (But I’m Too Blamed Mean to Cry),” a proto-blues concoction with folk bona fides—the phrase “I’ve got the blues, but I’m too mean to cry” was first collected by Howard Odum in rural Mississippi. Rainey and Rainey opened January 2, 1911, at the Globe Theater in Jacksonville for a four-week run. During the first week, they took part in J. H. Williams’s farce comedy production, “The Pressing

Indianapolis Freeman, December 28, 1912.

Club.” In the vaudeville portion, “The female member of this team caught the house from the go and kept them with her. One could sit all night and hear her sing the ‘Dying Rag.’”63 Subsequent commentary was more pointed: “The lady member of the team is a great coon shouter, while the gentleman should retire from the stage.”64 Gertrude Rainey responded to this “knock” with a heated “Letter Of Protest”: In regard to the knock in last week’s Freeman concerning W. M. Rainey, this is from Mrs. Rainey. To my brothers and sisters in the profession, I think there should be some boosting instead of knocking, as this knock was put in by his enemies. I appreciate the compliment for myself, but as for him retiring, he is doing good for a performer that has been on the sick list for three years. As I was with him when he was well and able to work for me; now I am going

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to stick by him while he is sick; and either the stage or the washtub suits me. Wherever we have played we were not run out for knocking, and always played return dates. You, Mr. Knocker, would have made some noise by getting under one corner of the globe and turning it over. You haven’t made any as yet. Regards to all my friends, especially the Knocker of the Rainey team. [signed] Mrs. W. M. Rainey.65

Gertrude Rainey’s progress was hampered by the burden of traveling with her increasingly incapacitated husband and partner, to whom she was obviously devoted. Not long after her letter of protest, it was reported that Globe Theater stage manager Tim Owsley and band leader Eugene Mikell had composed a song for her: “Mrs. Rainey, singing coon songs, is there to the letter. Her new song play that Mikell Rag, by going authors and composers, Owsley and Kikell [sic], is a good rag song, and no doubt will become popular. She also sang the ‘Barber Shop Chord’ different than we have ever heard it. But the audience would not let her go until she sang that dying rag.”66 Taking “pick dancer” Bishop Brown in tow, the Raineys launched the latest iteration of their Rainey Trio. Late in March 1911, they closed a date at the Dixie Theater in Durham, North Carolina, and opened at the Wizard Theater in Norfolk, Virginia: “When Gertrude Rainey sings ‘Dreamy Rag’ and ‘Barber Shop Chord,’ and Wm. Rainey put on that song ‘Woman Pay Me Now,’ the house came down.”67 On May 1, 1911, the “Rainey and Rainey Big Musical Comedy Four” opened at the Lyric Theater in Newport News and held the boards for three weeks before moving inland to Petersburg.68 In August they logged the fifteenth consecutive week of a return engagement in Newport News.69 Meanwhile, Butler “String Beans” May introduced the southern brand of black vaudeville entertainment to the patrons of the Monogram

Theater in Chicago, subsequently opening lucrative northern venues to just such acts as Rainey and Rainey. While the Raineys showed no inclination to invade Chicago at this time, they did play two weeks at the Lincoln Theater in New York late in 1911, before dropping back down the East Coast to the Globe Theater in Jacksonville.70 They played two weeks in hometown Columbus, Georgia, in the spring of 1912.71 The first clear evidence of Gertrude Rainey singing blues songs on a public platform occurred in the summer of 1913, when she and her husband finally did reach Chicago: “The Raney’s are a Southern act and appealed to many of the Monogram patrons. Strawberries, Easy Rider and The Blues are the songs rendered.”72 At the Pekin Theater in Cincinnati the following week: “The Raineys, a sketch team off the Southern time, as the main feature was well received. Their work was fine, and Miss Gertrude Rainey is a real coon shouter.”73 The homely Raineys do not appear to have gained entrée to the Crown Garden Theater in Indianapolis on this tour, or enjoyed a return to the Monogram. By late July they were playing dates in Kentucky, “moving along nicely,” headed south.74 When Bessie Smith first appeared in the city of Atlanta in 1909, she was still a teenager. Over the next five years she became a Decatur Street fixture; Irvin C. Miller, Leigh Whipper, and Thomas A. Dorsey all recalled having encountered her there.75 A sure step forward in the popularization of the blues took place in Decatur Street’s black vaudeville theaters, which were all wide open to blues acts. The Atlanta Journal of May 18, 1913, somewhat facetiously compared Decatur Street to Paris’s Champs-Ėlysées, London’s Strand, Broadway in New York, and Canal Street in New Orleans at Mardi Gras: “There is not one of those whose romance matches that of Decatur Street, whose habitues are quainter and more original.” On a sightseeing trip to Atlanta

Female Blues Pioneers in Southern Vaudeville

in late 1913, Chicago-based Freeman columnist William “Juli Jones” Foster looked at “bad” Decatur Street and shook his head like the perplexed parent of a wayward child: The Decatur St. and Peaters [sic] St. houses would be a flat failure unless they catered to the rough element, which compose a set of young men ranging from 12 to 22, very untidy, no pride, and very foul mouths and a few simple, don’t-care young women compose the patrons of the two houses under white management. There is not a chance in a million to reform this band of hoodlums. The acts that play these houses is as bad as their audiences. . . . The biggest wonder in the world, what was Atlanta when the saloons sold whiskey?76

Clearly, Foster was unprepared to embrace the southern vaudeville environment; the “band of hoodlums” he confronted on Decatur Street represented a cultural revolution taking place before his eyes. One of the “don’t-care young women” he disdained may well have been Bessie Smith, who was counted among the performers at the recently opened Dixie Theater, 127 Decatur Street, in February 1914.77 Owner Charles P. Bailey hired L. Don Bradford to manage the Dixie, and Bradford outlined the terms of engagement: I can give you four to ten weeks. No salary too large. If you can do the work you can get the money. No more 11 to 11. I only have four shows a day, each 45 minutes long. I have remodeled the entire house with scenery and every convenience for actors. Of course Mr. C. P. Bailey is the owner of the Dixie. Still, he has positively nothing to do with the management of it. . . . I keep twelve to sixteen people all the time, ten or twelve steady stock people and one or two new teams weekly. If you are good stockworkers I will keep you six or ten weeks without cut. Clayborn Jones,

Fairchilds, B. B. Joyner, Jack Wiggins Trio, Goodloe & Delk, Irene Cook, Ruby Taylor, Bessie Smith and Ada Lockhardt are all doing well and making good.78

During the spring and summer of 1914, Smith appeared in Atlanta as part of a new foursome. In April they played the Globe Theater and fetched a compliment from Smith’s old partner Buzzin’ Burton: “Mr. Dinah Scott, Fatchild, Miss Bessie Smith and Stella White complete the show out here. They are putting on good shows and getting the dough.”79 “Fatchild,” whose proper name was Andrew Fairchild, and Dinah Scott, “the supple boy with the curly hair,” were popular Atlanta-based dancing comedians, often seen at the Dixie, 81, and other local venues. After Stella White left the foursome, Smith, Scott, and “Fatchild” continued as a trio. In Atlanta for the summer, Perry “Mule” Bradford launched his “Atlanta Show Shops” column in the Freeman on July 11, 1914, outlining the bills at the Arcade, Avenue, and Peters Street theaters. At Peters Street, “Buzzin Burton was the big noise. Others on the bill were Smith & Burton.” Unfortunately, Bradford did not specify which Smith or Burton; perhaps was Bessie Smith and Ebbie Burton. Bradford tinged the mystery by noting: “Buzzin Burton was poisoned today in something to drink. We all wish for a soon recovery.”80 In the following week’s column, Bradford provided an update on activities at the Dixie Theater: “Bessie Smith, Fat Child, and Dinah Scott closed the show, and closed it to perfection. This is a very good act. Although just put together, they stick well and make a good act.”81 On August 1, Bradford reported having seen them again at the Dixie Theater, closing a bill that included future race recording artist Martha Copeland and her husband Billy Zeek: “Last but not least—Dinah Scott, Bessie Smith and Fat Child. I only wish this act would stick together, because it’s good and can go up the country. This girl, Bessie

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Smith, is the best coon shouter I ever heard, and Dinah, he is a good dancer and funny. Fat Child is the Buzzin King.”82 Bradford’s farsighted assessments sustain his reputation as a judge of talent. Ten years later, he voiced a similar appraisal, but updated his terminology: “Perry Bradford, the famous blues king has signed with the Columbia Phonograph company for two years. . . . ‘Double Crossin’ Papa’ and ‘He’s a Mean, Mean Man’ will be the first songs recorded for Columbia and the singer will be Bessie Smith, whom Perry declares to be the best blues singer in the whole world, barring none.”83 Bessie Smith’s 1914 teammates both charted lengthy careers. In 1924, at the Koppin Theater in Detroit, on a bill headlined by Smith, Dinah Scott scored “with his parody on ‘Down and Out.’ He is still the same funny Dinah of years ago.”84 In 1926 he became stage manager and principal comedian of Bessie Smith’s high-flying vaudeville revue.85 A 1927 critique of her “Harlem Frolics” Company assured: “The comedy is well handled by Dinah Scott, one of the funniest comics on the stage today. He is ably assisted by Clarence Smith, brother of the record star.”86 In 1928 Scott headed a company of his own, with a roster that included Andrew Fairchild.87 When last heard from in 1938, Fairchild was back in Atlanta where he started out: “Eddie Haywood [sic] and Andrew Fairchild are putting on stock at the Lincoln and 81 theatres.”88 Dinah Scott was still active in 1954, touring with the venerable tented minstrel show, Silas Green from New Orleans.89 Bessie Smith continued as a single. In the spring of 1915 she played a two-week engagement at the Queen Theater in hometown Chattanooga on a bill headlined by Jimmie and Robbie Lee Cox.90 Before the end of the year she joined the Florida Blossom Minstrels; and on January 1, 1916, the Freeman associated the name Bessie Smith with the blues for the first time.91 The Florida Blossoms reported: “Bessie

Smith is a riot singing the ‘Hesitation,’ ‘St. Louis,’ and ‘Yellow Dog Blues.’”92 Smith was traveling independently in February 1916, when she played a return engagement at the Queen Theater in Chattanooga.93 Later that spring, at the New Queen Theater in Birmingham, she elicited the following assessment: “Bessie Smith stops the show nightly. Miss Smith is Birmingham’s favorite when it comes to the ‘Blues.’”94 By July she was back with the Florida Blossoms, cutting a path through North Carolina: “Miss Bessie Smith is singing the Hesitation and St. Louis Blues to three and four encores every night.”95 The Florida Blossoms show featured “a number of musical numbers by a well drilled chorus,” under the stage direction of Lonnie Fisher. He and his wife of earlier years, Cora Fisher, figure prominently in retrospective accounts of Bessie Smith’s early days in show business.96 Interviewed by race reporter Allan McMillan in 1936, Smith said her “initial inspiration came from Cora Fisher and William C. Handy.”97 Handy’s influence is apparent in Smith’s early repertoire; Cora Fisher’s role is more difficult to pin down, though it may relate to Smith’s early reputation as a dancer. When Bessie Smith was last mentioned with the Florida Blossoms in the fall of 1916, she was “still singing the Blues as no one else can.”98 In 1917 she joined Alexander Tolliver’s Smart Set. Blues songs were heard in southern vaudeville as early as 1910. More impetus was provided in 1912 when the repertoire was modestly expanded by the first burst of blues on sheet music. The following year the momentum increased, driven by such forerunners as String Beans, Baby Seals, Clara Smith, and Virginia Liston. Songwriters were quick to recognize the popular trend, and ragtime coon songs gradually began to fade from the scene. It was about 1914 when the blues began to be viewed as something more than a “craze” or ephemeral novelty on the black professional stage. When

Female Blues Pioneers in Southern Vaudeville

popular appreciation for the blues entered this new phase, the Freeman began to identify Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey as blues stars, and eventually stopped referring to them as “coon shouters.” It was as if the blues had been especially tailored to their particular singing talents. Gertrude Rainey’s maternal persona came to the fore in the fall of 1913. Following several weeks of appearances at theaters in Alabama and Tennessee, news reached the Freeman that “Rainey’s Big Comedy Four” was about to open at the Olio Theater in Louisville: “The members of the Four are Mrs. Gertrude Rainey, better known as Mamma Rainey; Wm. Rainey, better known as Papa Rainey; Bishop Brown and Miss Vivian Wright.”99 After six weeks in Kentucky, the Raineys dropped back into Tennessee and Alabama.100 During the early weeks of 1914, they made an appearance at the Belmont Street Theater in Pensacola: “Mrs. Rainey is scoring big singing her own composed song, ‘Titanic.’”101 The Raineys continued to storm the southern vaudeville routes until the summer of 1915, when they joined Alexander Tolliver’s Smart Set. Tolliver’s Big Show played “week stands, one show a night, no parades,” through the Southeast, providing a bright platform for female blues singers.102 When the Raineys joined Tolliver’s ranks Ma was already one of the better-known shouters in the South. Alongside Trixie Smith, Clara Smith, Susie Edwards, Leola “Coot” Grant, Evelyn White, Daisy Martin, and other Tolliver soubrettes and shouters, Ma Rainey was firmly identified as America’s premier blues singer. The prominence of Tolliver’s Big Show, staged in a mammoth tent seating as many as five thousand and routinely filled to capacity, magnified her reputation. The Smart Set was dropping through the Carolinas in the fall of 1915 when Al Wells, the company’s faithful Freeman correspondent, hailed: “Ma Rainey assassinates the blues.”103 At the beginning of 1916

Indianapolis Freeman, December 25, 1915.

Wells noted, “There are a number of performers singing the ‘blues’ but when Ma Rainey sings them, nuff said. She has to take three or four bows every night.”104 However, not all of her 1916 repertoire was blues; reported titles included “Down Home Blues,” “One Beautiful Morning,” “I’ll Be Gone,” “Morning, Noon and Night,” and “Lonesome Melody.”105 An all-star jazz band famously accompanied Ma Rainey and the other Tolliver blues women, setting a pattern for her later association with jazz bands on records and in 1920s vaudeville.106 As a member of the Smart Set, Rainey participated in dramatic skits, as well as the show’s famous dancing chorus. During the season of 1916 she formed a team act with Susie Hawthorne.107 She was emphatically a prime luminary of this star-studded revue: “Ma Rainey: Yes, she was there. Nuff said.”108 When Bessie Smith briefly joined Tolliver’s roster in 1917, a new dynamic may have surfaced, portending things to come: [“Peg”] Lightfoot and [Jodie] Edwards present a blackface patter with material that is refreshing. Their act is replete with innovations. Both members

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of this team scored heavily. [Susie] Hawthorne and [Evelyn] White, those girlie girls, added wonderfully with their budget of new melody and high stepping. [Tressie] Leggs and [Artie Belle] McGinty’s new offering (Just Kids), singing, dancing and refined comedy, was generously applauded. Telfair Washington and Zudora Johnson offered their comedy oddity with songs and dances, which was convulsively pleasing. Gertrude (Ma) Rainey was given a tremendous ovation, which registered her a great hit. The votes for favors goes to Bessie Smith. She found it decidedly easy to corner the popular honors.109

By the fall of 1917, both Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith had left Tolliver’s Smart Set and returned to southern vaudeville. Bessie Smith was back on Decatur Street in October, when theater boss Charles P. Bailey boasted: “my bill for next week will [include] Charles Anderson, Ida Cox and Bessie Smith. Some bill, I can assure you.”110 From Atlanta, Smith went to the New Queen Theater in Birmingham and “cleaned up” on a card that included blues trombonist Charles Arrant and another veteran of Tolliver’s Smart Set, Evelyn White, “the girl with the big voice, singing all the blues.”111 Early in 1918, the Douglass Theater in Macon advertised a mixed bill of vaudeville and moving pictures that included “Madam Tolliver, vocalist” and “Bessie Smith, ‘shouter.’”112 Later that spring Smith and Tolliver showed up as a team act at the Washington Theater in Indianapolis, and drew a perceptive review from reporter Billy E. Lewis: Bessie Smith has been seen in this city, but it was several years ago when she was a little girl. She is robust and healthy appearing this time and gives an excellent account of herself as a performer. Bessie is what is sometimes called a “coon song shouter,” but she is more than that. Her voice is profoundly affecting, and which if employed in the

higher realms of music, owing to its soulfulness, she would be a leading contralto or baritone singer of the day regardless of race. Mabel Tolliver is the wife of Tolliver of “Southern Smart Set” fame, a show in which she aided to establish. Her voice is also remarkable, but wholly in a different direction—big and refreshing in a soprano of the widest range and pure accordingly. This is noted for her upper register. She could have been a grand opera singer, so far as quality and volume of voice are concerned. They open with a pretty version of “Dixie,” when tone quality and harmony are the features. Miss Tolliver is effective in rendering “Until the Sand of the Desert Grows Cold.” Miss Smith’s rendition of “I Want to be Somebody’s Baby Doll” captured the audience nightly. Her encore song was with that same pathos that she knows how so well to put in her songs. She is just as good without the orchestra as with it. This was particularly noticeable in her closing number, “Hula Dula Man.” They sang without the orchestra, Miss Smith leading. They costume well, and are of pleasing appearance.113

Several weeks later, Smith returned to the Washington Theater as a single, and Billy E. Lewis submitted another insightful analysis: Not only is Miss Smith’s voice big, it is musical. Added to this is that peculiar strain and quality only known to our people, and which makes for what is now called blues singing. It is something on the order of what was called coon shouting, and which, in spite of the ugly name had an appeal in it that touched most of our race. And indeed the white people fell for it as may be noted by the reception Sophie Tucker, and a few other white artists of the kind receive. The gallery gods go wild about Sophie’s singing, and yet she is imitating the Colored folk. The downstairs people

Female Blues Pioneers in Southern Vaudeville

like it well enough, but they are too cultivated to show it. Miss Bessie is on that order—a blend of coon shouting and blues singing. Her quality of voice, contralto, or perhaps baritone, help her very much. But that’s not all, you must have the feeling, and Bessie has got it. Her numbers are [sic] “Tishimingo Man Blues.”114

The context of black vaudeville theater entertainment for a black audience enabled the full creative development of the blues. Insular black theater entertainment was a liberating phenomenon for performers. Unconstrained by what white theatergoers were prepared to accept, their blues spoke directly to African Americans. Audiences felt validated and empowered. The “birth of the blues” manifested artistic, commercial, and political motives. One measure of the cultural impact of the blues pertains directly to the term “coon shouter.” As the blues gained acceptance, “coon shouting”—not only the “ugly name,” but what it implied about the commodification of African American culture— gradually descended into the dustbin of history. In June 1918 Bessie Smith finally returned to the Monogram Theater in Chicago, six years to the week after she had first appeared there with Buzzin’ Burton: “Bessie Smith, the singer of jazz songs and melodies, makes her reappearance after a long absence. She is as popular as ever, and her work stands out.”115 Sylvester Russell, who had completely ignored her first Monogram appearance, now conceded: “Bessie Smith . . . proved to be a genuine song shouter with an excellent alto voice with power and she is a knobby looker.”116 Russell never entirely warmed to the blues artistry of Bessie Smith. When she appeared at Chicago’s Grand Theater in 1929, less than a year before his death, Russell characterized her as “a type of her race species, part mammy, cordial or get rough and

(Courtesy Hogan Jazz Archive, Tulane University)

love tokened when she sings about her sporting man. Her voice, which is hard-boiled and pleasing, captivates on its praise meeting delivery.”117 Smith’s calendar for September 1918 included a date at the Foraker Theater in Washington, D.C., where she was advertised as the “Southern Nightingale.”118 In November she played the Liberty Theater in hometown Chattanooga, along with Tolliver’s Smart Set alumna and blues queen Clara Smith: Bessie Smith, the Blues Girl Bessie, is a real coon shouter and never fails to get them. She opens with “A Good Man is Hard to Find” and closes with “Bring It With You When You Come.” Ten minutes, one encore and two bows. . . . Miss Clara Smith, a red hot single, will shine on any bill. She opens with “Liberty Bell.” Her style and strutting of that song sets them wild. She closes with

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“Lump of Sugar Down in Dixie.” She was forced to take an encore and two bows.119

“A Good Man Is Hard to Find” was black singer-songwriter Eddie Green’s latest sheet music hit.120 In 1927, nine years after she performed it at the Liberty Theater, Bessie Smith recorded it for Columbia.121 “Bring It With You When You Come” was recorded by Ma Rainey as “Hear Me Talking To You.”122 In the autumn of 1920 a cryptographic correspondence from Atlanta once more located Bessie Smith among Decatur Street’s quaint and unique habitués: “Lonnie Fisher’s 81 Theatre company of sixteen people and Bessie Smith, who threw the peanut circuit boss to work the 81, are making good. Decatur Street is the same old street and Flu is still serving chine bones. Come on down and wind your jaws when the wind hits you.”123 When Ma Rainey’s historic run with Tolliver’s Smart Set ended in the summer of 1917, she and her ailing husband returned to southern vaudeville: “Pa Rainey is on the sick list, but is traveling with Ma for the good he has done.”124 During this period Ma Rainey often appeared in “sister” acts. At the Queen Theater in Chattanooga in September she was on a bill with Louisville, Kentucky, native Edmonia Henderson: “Ma Rainey is a decided hit with her blues for home sweet home. Miss Irene Elmore and Bee Joyner are clever as a team in their shimmie shi wobble. Then came Miss Edna [sic, Edmonia] Henderson, who is so pleasing with the German Blues. The audience was very much pleased with her.”125 The following week’s critique made specific reference to Ma Rainey performing in blackface: “The bill this week was well received by the patrons of this theater. Mr[s]. Rainey was seen to a great advantage in her black face act, and Miss Edmonia Henderson was very pleasing in the straight in Ma Rainey’s act. The team departed for Atlanta, Ga., where they will play.”126

Pittsburgh Courier, March 7, 1925.

On October 6, 1917, Edmonia Henderson married Queen Theater stage manager Pete Porter: “Those present at the wedding were Rainey and Rainey, Ma Rainey being the bridesmaid. . . . Mrs. Porter departed at once to fill an engagement at 91 Theater, Atlanta, joining her husband later. Ma Rainey is also in Atlanta, where she has a suit against the railroad company. The company caused her trouble in selling her a ticket from Atlantic City to Atlanta.”127 Later that month, Rainey and Henderson appeared with Watts and Willis’s Darktown Strutters at the Douglass Theater in Macon, Georgia. In November an unnamed informant submitted this frank report:

Female Blues Pioneers in Southern Vaudeville

Pete Porter is said to have tried to break up the act of Rainey & Henderson. After sending Edmonia Henderson a sum of money expecting her arrival in Chattanooga within two weeks, she received the money and did not show up. I am sure it is hard, but nevertheless, it’s fair, so don’t worry. The team of Rainey and Henderson is being featured with the Watts Darktown Strutters. Some act. Mr. Savage is having Mr. Watts to let him hold the act over another week where they will join the company later at 91 Theater, Atlanta, Ga. Mail will reach them in care of the New Queen Theater, Birmingham, Ala.128

After three weeks in Birmingham, Ma Rainey returned to Atlanta and did a team act at the 91 Theater with the ubiquitous Evelyn White.129 In February 1918 she journeyed to hometown Columbus, Georgia, to visit her sister.130 That summer she filled a twoweek engagement in Chattanooga with C. W. Park’s Smart Set (a.k.a. Colored Aristocrats), headed by Lew Kenner and his wife Minnie Williams, with Evelyn White, Mattie Dorsey, and others, including a threepiece band comprised of Willie and Lottie Hightower and John Porter.131 In November, C. W. Park advertised that he had two shows touring under his management, Park’s Colored Aristocrats and Madam Rainey’s Southern Beauty Show.132 On the morning of June 28, 1919, at Montgomery, Alabama, William “Pa” Rainey died “with a stroke of paralysis. . . . He leaves his wife, who is greatly known as Ma Rainey; one brother, Son Rainey, and a stepmother, Mrs. Lizzie Rainey. . . . The deceased was an Elk, Mason and K. of P., and is now resting in that wonderful land of ease.”133 Ma Rainey moved over to Park’s Colored Aristocrats, who were scheduled to open in Macon, Georgia, on June 30 with a roster that included Gaston and Gaston singing “He’s In The Jail House Now” and Mose Williams “with his jazz orchestra.”134 In September the Colored Aristocrats reported from

Richmond, Virginia: “Madam Rainey still holds her own . . . Gaston & Gaston are still in the jail house . . . Hester Moore is closing the show with the ‘Blues’ and ‘A Good Man Is Hard to Find.’”135 Rainey was heading up a new company by April 1920, when Ray “Pork Chops” Gibson identified himself as a member of the “Dan Michaels and Madam Rainey New York Follies,” which had “just closed two weeks at the Strand Theatre, Jacksonville, with Charleston, S. C., at the Lincoln Theatre, to follow.”136 In May the company was advertised as the “Dan Michaels and Ma Rainey Southern Beauty Company,” recruiting “chorus girls, teams, comedians and musicians” to join them at the Warwick Theater in Newport News, Virginia.137 But in July, Rainey denied that Michaels had any connection with her Southern Beauty Stock Company: “Mme. Rainey was highly indignant while explaining herself on the subject.”138 Madam Rainey’s Southern Beauty Company played two weeks in Detroit “to S. R. O.,” and then two weeks at the Monogram, where they were summarily dismissed by Sylvester Russell: “The Southern Beauties, featuring Mme. Rainey, was last week burlesque Co. at this house. Willie Glover, quite a funny young comedian, monopolized the worry but his voice needs medicine and his summer attire was missing. The Mme. is a buxom alto of the Camp meeting days now fleeting.”139 At the Washington Theater in Indianapolis, they received a more generous appraisal: Fresh from the big two weeks success at the Monogram Theatre, Chicago, Madam Rainey’s Southern Beauties Stock Company of smart players opened the week at the Washington, Monday night with a good lively merriment creating show to tremendously large audiences. . . . Mme. Rainey in her role as leading lady is still the fully experienced theatrical she has for many years been. Though somewhat hoarse on Monday

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night, Mme. Rainey, in costumes to suit and necklaces flashy, succeeded, nevertheless in drawing from the big audiences heavy applauses and persistent encores with her song, “Preacher Lay His Bible Down.” Mme. Rainey, to say the least is going bigger and bigger every night. . . . She is clearly a big hit.140

Back down south again by September 1920, Rainey’s Southern Beauties swung out to Dallas and split a bill with the Hambone Jones Company, featuring Virginia Liston.141 They played a two-week stand in Beaumont in October, “on independent time. The company is doing fine and Mme. Rainey is paying off with a smile. She says, ‘The woods for mine. No more long jumps.’ She is wanting 25 more people, musicians and performers, must double B. and O. Write at once, as business looks good. Company sends regards to Ham Bone Jones Co. We are now out of ‘no man’s land.’”142 Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith’s 1920s recordings, the source of their enduring fame, are tokens of hard experience gained on the southern vaudeville routes of the pre-T.O.B.A. era. Unlike so many of their contemporaries, Rainey and Smith survived into the 1920s with their singing powers fully intact. Bessie Smith’s extraordinary talents were noticed by receptive critics very early in her career; but those same critics hinted at her physical and emotional immaturity. It was only during the second half of the 1910s that they began to perceive her outright artistic sovereignty, and not until the release of her first Columbia records in 1923 that she skyrocketed into national prominence. Ma Rainey’s Paramount records integrate “barrelhouse” style and “down home” sensibilities with vaudeville blues conventions so convincingly that they belie artistic contrivance. However, no one should imagine that Rainey was a naive “folk singer”; she was known as one of the most experienced professionals in T.O.B.A. vaudeville. Her

recordings make it difficult to believe that she was ever anything but a blues singer. They include many “very slow” blues songs and practically no “rags.” This indicates a dramatic departure; a decade earlier, her reports to the Freeman were dominated by such titles as “Temptation Rag,” “That Fascinating Ragtime Glide,” “Dying Rag,” “Play That Mikell Rag,” “Barbershop Chord,” “Dreamy Rag,” etc.143

Virginia Liston and Laura Smith While Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith’s records are familiar to appreciators of the blues worldwide, the recordings of their blues singing contemporaries Virginia Liston and Laura Smith are practically terra incognita.144 Among their original auditors, however, Liston and Smith were considered the peers and rivals of any “blues queen.” These two women were consummate variety artists, adept in all the requisite vaudeville stage skills. Their recordings capture only a fraction of their vast theatrical energies; nevertheless, they harbor uncommon examples of the transitional “ragtime-cum-blues” style with its original luster intact. Like Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey, Laura Smith and Virginia Liston were acclaimed “coon shouters” before they emerged as blues stars. Both Laura Smith and Liston retained elements of ragtime repertoire and style long after they had become recognized blues queens. The last song Liston recorded, in May 1926, was “I’m Gonna Get Me A Man That’s All,” which she had introduced with the Kenner and Lewis Amusement Company way back in 1909, when she was billed as “The Louisiana Coon Shouter.”145 Similarly, Laura Smith kept one foot in each camp throughout her long career. Virginia Liston’s maiden name was Crawford. The 1900 U.S. Census suggests she was born in Mississippi around 1890, but by age ten was living

Female Blues Pioneers in Southern Vaudeville

with her parents and eight brothers and sisters at 728 South Galvez Street, New Orleans.146 On Easter Sunday, April 11, 1909, Virginia Crawford participated in the grand opening of Dixie Park in New Orleans, as a member of the Kenner and Lewis Amusement Company.147 Laura Smith’s origins and early history are not so clear.148 She first came into view in the summer of 1909, appearing with a minstrel show in a State Street theater, winning over her audience but drawing harsh moral censure from Sylvester Russell: It is a peculiar thing to see people come right out of church and go into a vaudeville theater and remain till midnight. One of the features I saw at an electric theater on a Sunday night in King and Simms’ Minstrels was the appearance of Laura Smith, a ragtime song and dance artist, who was applauded in advance like a star. She was third and last on the bill, following Miss Devine and Miss Grundy. When I saw her do an immoral dance, then I knew what the applause was all about . . . Miss Smith got the reception that would come to her nowhere else except in Chicago; in fact, she would even be closed in any theater twenty miles away. Miss Smith, however, cannot be blamed for a suggestive act in a city where it is encouraged instead of not being tolerated. Such an act is deathly poisonous to the morals of the colored children born in the community . . . we may as well fill it out by further advising managers who provide amusements for colored people on State street to please cut immoral dances out for the good of a race that needs better teaching and a purer atmosphere for the upbuilding of its people.149

A few months later Laura Smith popped up in Memphis, a more nurturing environment for a budding blues star. She opened at the Pekin Theater on South Fourth Street, October 26, 1909, and remained through the winter. A local theater

correspondent said her act was “nothing but curtain calls.” Teamed with Johnnie Lee and John and Ella Goodloe, she was “a scream,” “the hit of the town” singing “Wild Cherry Rag” and “Teasing Rag.”150 Virginia Crawford also visited the “Memphis Stroll” during the autumn of 1909, showing at Fred Barrasso’s Amuse U Theater, where she “made an instantaneous hit” singing “I’m Going to Get Me a Man, That’s All” before rejoining the Kenner and Lewis Company at the Belmont Theater in Pensacola.151 Leaving Kenner and Lewis for Benbow’s Alabama Chocolate Drops, Virginia Crawford continued to explore the new Gulf Coast vaudeville platforms. At Pensacola’s Eldorado Theater in the spring of 1910, she had to “respond to four and five encores nightly singing ‘There Ain’t Nothing Doing in the Loving Line.’”152 Her future husband Dave Liston, a tenor balladeer from New Orleans, was also traveling with the show.153 Benbow’s Chocolate Drops were a cutting-edge black road show, moving through a creatively charged theatrical landscape. Crawford was with them in April 1910 when they played the Peoples Theater in Houston, where Kid Love presided at the piano; and she was said to be “holding her own as a coon shouter” when they played the Majestic Theater in Hot Springs, Arkansas, where J. Paul Wyer’s “musical turn” made a hit on the same bill.154 When the Chocolate Drops left Hot Springs to play a string of dates in Oklahoma, Crawford and Liston mustered out and returned to Houston as a team.155 Meanwhile, Laura Smith became a charter member of Fred Barrasso’s seminal Savoy Theater Stock Company. Working alongside such outstanding performers as Estelle Harris and Charles Gilpin, she quickly became “the life of the company,” acquiring the nickname “Little Ginger”:156 “The Savoy Theater is the home of high class musical numbers at all times. For the first half of last week the bill was ‘Miss Mandy’s Moonlight Festival,’ featuring Laura Smith,

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who was perched in a half moon above the stage, singing ‘Shine On, Harvest Moon.’”157 Skits and dramas of various kinds were an essential element in early black vaudeville; they were the principal justification for the existence of stock companies. In the spring of 1910, the Savoy Stock Company staged a series of “very heavy Western dramas,” including “Dick Turpin, the Outlaw,” in which Laura Smith played “Dottie, a child’s part, and she made good.” In “The Old Nolan Gold Mine” she played “Sarah Matton, the queen of the Black Hills . . . The play went big and each performer, male and female, played their parts jam up.”158 She was no less “jam up” in the vaudeville portion of the show: “Then came Laura (Little Ginger) Smith, the Savoy’s favorite, singing ‘Goodby [sic], I’ll See You Some More,’ and the way she put it on. Well, she is in a field by herself.”159 In June 1910 Barrasso’s Tri-State Circuit road show opened at the American Theater in Jackson, Mississippi, and “packed them to the doors for two weeks . . . Poor Laura (‘Little Ginger’) Smith sings herself hoarse every night responding to encores.”160 The show was held over for an additional week: “Miss Laura Smith is still with the company, though very homesick. Oh You ‘Ed Daniels.’”161 On Saturday night, July 2, “Miss Laura Smith closed with the road show . . . and left for Memphis, where she can get some ‘tatoes’ raised in Mississippi. She will be missed very much, as she was the life of the company on and off.”162 While Laura Smith was reestablishing herself at the Savoy Theater, Virginia Crawford resumed her residence at the Peoples and Palace theaters in Houston. In a two-act drama titled “The Stolen Child,” she played “Sue the cook,” and she and Dave Liston sang “Amo.”163 Of her new partner, a correspondent said, “Dave Liston, our tenor soloist, is simply grand in his renditions of the most popular songs of the day.”164

At the Ruby Theater in Galveston in October 1910 a reporter proclaimed Crawford “the greatest of all coon shouters. She takes the house by storm whenever she appears.”165 In November the Ruby Theater Stock Company put on “The Barber Shop,” with Walter Williams and Dave Liston as the barbers: “Virginia Crawford, the fashion plate, sang ‘That Fussy Rag.’ Buddy Glenn did a song and dance.”166 A few weeks later, “Mr. Dave Liston, the silver-toned tenor and sweet singer, had the house with him when he sang, ‘When the Moon Is Down on You and I, Love,’” and “Miss Vergie Crawford captured the hearts of the audience by singing ‘I am Going to Get Another Man, That’s all.’”167 In or around February 1911 Dave Liston and Virginia Crawford got married and left Houston headed east. In March, at Barrasso’s Amuse U Theater in Vicksburg, “The Listons, Dave and Virginia, society sketch artists, made a big hit singing ‘My Heart Has Learned To Love You’ and ‘I’m Going Home.’”168 From Vicksburg they dropped down to the Gulf Coast and followed the southern vaudeville trail from Lagman’s Theater in Mobile to the Belmont Street Theater in Pensacola, and on to the Globe in Jacksonville. In 1912 the Listons joined the northern invasion. At the Circle Theater in Philadelphia during July: “Liston and Liston went well. . . . [They] are creoles with good voices and harmonize wonderfully. The rag shouting of the female member of the team reminds us of Artie Hall.”169 From Philadelphia they dropped into the Southeast. Notices of November and December 1912 placed them at theaters in Winston-Salem and New Bern, North Carolina. Dave and Virginia seem to have separated by 1913, but Virginia retained the name Liston. Early that year she entered a professional alliance with blackface comedian “Hambone” Jones.170 Jones was strong in his signature comic characterization, “a sort of ‘Silly Willie’ business that is in a class by itself. He appears as a half-witted Negro boy who cannot stick to the

Female Blues Pioneers in Southern Vaudeville

subject. His replies are unexpected and witty, which with his simpleton voice and air, keep the audience going all of the time. He carries out his silly scheme through his dancing, which is also laughable. He’s an odd comedian and wins because he is odd.”171 Teamed with Hambone Jones, Virginia Liston stepped forth as one of the very first blues stars on the African American stage. At the New Crown Garden Theater in Indianapolis in May 1913, she reportedly conducted a “blues séance”: The piece de resistance of the act is Miss Liston’s rendition of the “Blues,” singing the “Titanic” and “Casey Jones.” She is a tallish Southern girl, showing it in her accent. Her singing voice was not that of a nightingale or a mocking bird, but it suited her notion of the “Blues.” She carried the audience with her as if by a hypnotic spell. Men and women answered her and seemingly all unconscious of the fact, or because they could not help but answer her. She sang and swayed. Had she been an evangelist the audience would have been drawn to her feet. As it was, some forgot and worked in words of praise such as are heard in churches. At the close of her “Titanic” she remains quiet a moment while the orchestra plays “Nearer My God to Thee,” then she sings the concluding lines of the last verse.172

In their second week at the Crown Garden, Jones and Liston earned another outstanding review: Miss Liston is still there with her “Blues,” singing them as she only can. She sprang a couple of new ones this week, but the audience wanted more of the “Titanic,” so she had to put it on again. Last week she was mentioned as a tallish Southern girl. She looks as if the “Blues” were made for her to sing. Her swaying body keeping time with her singing adds largely to the effect of her songs. She has also a sweet, sad smile in keeping with that bluish feeling that overtakes

Hambone Jones and Virginia Liston, Indianapolis Freeman, June 7, 1913.

everybody now and then. Her songs go right on “home,” that’s all.173

These succinct commentaries reflect an attuned concept of what constituted blues singing on the African American stage in 1913. Back in 1909 and 1910 Virginia Crawford had been routinely designated a “coon shouter,” but now the critic detected something in her repertoire and style of singing that he unequivocally identified as blues. A Freeman editorial confirmed her triumph: “Miss Liston and her delightful ‘Blues’ are gone from the Crown Garden, Indianapolis after a splendid two weeks’ run. She was good to the very last minute. She couldn’t sing ’em too much.”174

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(Courtesy Roger Misiewicz)

In May 1913, shortly after their conquest of the Crown Garden, Jones and Liston closed a bill at the Monogram in Chicago: “The hit is Titanic Blues, sung by Miss Liston. It was a knockout.”175 The great ship Titanic went down on April 15, 1912; it had barely settled on the ocean floor before songs about the disaster began to appear.176 Titanic songs were performed on African American vaudeville stages as early as the spring of 1913. By 1914 Ma Rainey was “scoring big singing her own composed song, ‘Titanic’”; and in 1915 Ida Cox was also performing a “Titanic Blues.”177 Virginia Liston’s “Titanic Blues” made a bigger, longer-lasting impression than any other version. A remarkable proliferation of songs about the Titanic was recorded by American musicians black and white, reflecting not only the extent to which the disaster imprinted itself on the popular imagination, but also the importance of topical ballads in the early evolution of American vernacular song.178 Beyond the traumatic image of massive human

suffering, the event conjured issues of hubris, as well as class and race discrimination, which figure prominently in some Titanic ballads, especially in recorded versions from years afterward.179 It remains an open question whether these issues were raised contemporaneously in early black vaudeville—that is, apart from the insinuation of the humorous, sexually suggestive “Elgin Movements” metaphor in the infamous Titanic-themed song featured by the most irreverent of all vaudevillians, String Beans. Virginia Liston’s 1926 recording of “Titanic Blues,” which presumably preserves the lyric content of her earlier stage version, contains no such editorializing. It is a wholly sympathetic, straightforward narrative account of the tragedy. As the Freeman reported in 1914, “she recites in song what she conceives to be the last scenes and words of the ill fated set.”180 The jazz band that accompanies her on the Vocalion recording session does not introduce “Nearer My God To Thee” prior to the final verse, as the New Crown Garden Theater band reportedly did in 1913.181 The most characteristic element of Liston’s Titanic recording is its core refrain, “Fare thee, Titanic, fare thee well.” Leadbelly’s “Titanic Blues,” recorded for the Library of Congress in 1935, preserves that same refrain; suggesting the famous folksinger might have been familiar with Liston’s recording, or perhaps heard her sing the song in a southern vaudeville theater years earlier.182 Virginia Liston is credited on the record label as the composer of “Titanic Blues”; but two months prior to her earliest documented performance of the song, the Freeman noted “Moses Graham, better known as Two-Story Mose, singing ‘Titanic, Fare Thee Well,’” at the Brooklyn Theater in Charlotte, North Carolina.183 The “fare thee well” refrain evokes John Queen’s 1901 coon song hit, “Fare Thee, Honey, Fare Thee

Female Blues Pioneers in Southern Vaudeville

Well.”184 Queen’s lyrics adhered to the predominant coon song practice of racial insult and epithet; there is nothing noteworthy about them, other than the poetic title and chorus. One might wonder whether Queen lifted it from an anonymous folk source and constructed his coon song around it. Liston’s “Titanic Blues” is one of a constellation of blues songs that reference some variation of Queen’s “Fare thee, honey, fare thee well.” Others include Ma Rainey’s “Titanic Man Blues,” which is not about the sinking of the Titanic; rather, it is a parody in the form of a lover’s complaint. Where Liston begins her “Titanic Blues”: “Pay attention while I sing this song, / About the Titanic that went down. / It was the last time, / Titanic fare you well,” Ma Rainey counters: “Everybody fall in line, / Going to tell you about that man of mine. / It’s your last time, / Titanic fare thee well.”185 The “fare thee well” refrain appears on several country blues classics wholly unrelated to the sinking of the Titanic, including Mississippi Joe Calicott’s “Fare Thee Well Blues,” Johnny Head’s “Fare Thee Blues,” and the Memphis Jug Band’s “I’ll See You In The Spring, When The Birds Begin To Sing.”186 For some unknown reason, along with “fare thee honey, fare thee well,” these three songs all incorporate the insipid couplet, “I’ll see you in the spring, when the birds begin to sing.”187 The complex regeneration of the “fare thee well, honey” lyric, snatched from its coon song brooder for use in a topical blues song on the black vaudeville stage, then recombined by country blues musicians in a spectrum of personalized takes on a shared motif, manifests a fundamental process in the original formulation of the blues. During the first week of June 1913, Hambone Jones and Virginia Liston played a return date in Indianapolis, where a local correspondent remarked that Crown Garden proprietor Tim Owsley had “hit it lucky when he booked Liston and Jones.”

This team was here just a few weeks ago. Manager Tim went to Chicago and brought the pair back. . . . Other teams may do finer work; they may be more humorous and all like that, but when it comes to giving satisfaction just set Liston and Jones down among those at the top of the list. . . . But it is Miss Liston who is the greater drawing card of the team. She is a “blues” song singer, such as perhaps the Crown has never seen before. She has a splendid personality for the business—tall, good looking with a bit of “wickedness” in her—just enough to make her go good. The men patrons surely must carry salt and pepper in their pockets, for they eat her up. Her “Titanic” holds ’em spellbound. She puts it over mournfully, soulfully, reaching the heart. Her “Casey Jones” is just like gold when she sings it, it does not tarnish or lessen in value. The audience still remains through the “séance” to hear Miss Liston. She is beautifully costumed this week, which adds very much to the act and the effectiveness of her singing.188

Following a return appearance in Chicago, they were summoned to the Pekin Theater in Cincinnati: “Large crowds turned out Monday night to see Liston and Jones, a new vaudeville act playing over this time. The team have been well received every place they have appeared, and the information received here was to look out for them, they were the goods. Well the information was right.”189 Later in July, Jones and Liston were at the Alpha Theater in Cleveland, “closing the bill and stopping the house with a riot.”190 In the autumn of 1913 they made their way into the Piedmont section of North Carolina, where they apparently had a long run. A March 7, 1914, report placed them at the Queen Theater in Wilmington. When Jones and Liston returned to the New Crown Garden at the end of 1914, they were hailed as “the Eccentric Comedian and the Blues Girl”:

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Each has individuality. As a comical comedian, close to nature funny man, Jones is among the very best. Perhaps, as a continuous laugh producer he ranks with any low comedy man before the public. . . . Jones can not do a thing on the stage that is not funny. Miss Liston won favor when here before by her singing the Titanic song on the blues order. In fact, she is thought of as the blues girl, the one who has made the biggest hit singing that kind of a song. She however, sings popular songs and in good style. She is tall and of good stage appearance, having that winning combination of sad and sweet when she gets down into her work, giving that fervor that seems to go with the kind of singing called the blues. There comes times when one feels to reply to her as if soul were answering soul, and especially the soul of black folks that Professor Du Bois speaks so gloriously of. She reminds of the old days, the days we read about, when singers told the history of their nations on public stages to the tune of the harp. It is just so when Miss Liston sings The Titanic Blues she recites in song what she conceives to be the last scenes and words of the ill fated set. Miss Liston also dances nicely, doing a few neat steps that can well be classed as dignified. Her work all through, including her straight talk, was very good. Their songs are: “Miss Lucinda’s Rag Time Ball,” “Turkey in the Straw,” by Jones. “After While,” “Casey and the Titanic” [sic], by Miss Liston. They close with “Never Heard of Anybody Dying from a Kiss, Did You?” the closing duet. The team names “Hambone” Jones and Virginia Liston. Every minute of their act is good.191

Jones and Liston went from Indianapolis to Cincinnati, to the New Monogram Theater in Chicago, and then to the Booker T. Washington Theater in St. Louis, where they made a decided hit: “Jones & Liston finish the program in a scream, a continuous scream

that knows no end, until the curtain is down. By special request, Miss Liston is singing ‘Titanic Blues,’ and this is the feature of the entire bill. Jones cleans up with his comical lingual and eccentric dancing.”192 Still in St. Louis two weeks later, Liston was left to perform single, while her partner went into the hospital: “‘Hambone’ Jones . . . who was operated upon here last week, was seen on the streets Tuesday, walking slow but sure. ‘Hambone’ is doing nicely and will be back before the footlights soon.”193 The next week, Liston participated in a special performance at the Washington Theater, attended by Bert Williams and other members of the Ziegfeld Follies.194 Jones and Liston were back together at the Queen Theater, Birmingham, Alabama, during the week of June 28, 1915. The following month, they sent regards from Columbia (sic), Georgia: “Both are fast improving in health and we extend our best wishes to the profession.”195 Health problems made it difficult for Liston and Jones to sustain professional momentum. They dropped out of sight through much of 1916. Little Laura Smith joined the blues invasion of northern vaudeville theaters in June 1911, on the heels of Butler and Sweetie May. At Ollie Dempsey’s Pekin Theater in Cincinnati she appeared on a bill with banjo picker Vance Lowery. “The big noise in the bill is little Miss Laura Smith, the ‘Southern Rose.’ As a genuine coon shouter she is in a class by herself. The manager booked the little lady from the Southern Circuit, and she has proved to be just what the patrons of the house were looking for. She is very clever.”196 At the Pekin again the following week,“held over as a feature,” Smith “scored heavily with her two big numbers, ‘Casey Jones,’ and ‘I Wonder Why.’”197 Concurrently, the sister team of Mattie Whitman and Rosetta Brannon were pleasing patrons of Cincinnati’s rival Gaither Theater. At the conclusion of their separate engagements, Laura Smith and Mattie Dorsey Whitman showed up at the Garden Theater

Female Blues Pioneers in Southern Vaudeville

in Louisville as a team act. Whitman sang “The Dying Rag” and gave “a male impersonation act that was the best seen in Louisville since Miss Florence Hines’ day.” “Laura Smith opened with ‘Put Your Arms Around Me, Honey,’ and she was a scream. Her second song, ‘That Totaloe Tune,’ was a knockout. Her closing song, ‘Casey Jones,’ sung in her own way, left the audience screaming. Miss Laura Smith is, without doubt, a great coon shouter.”198 The following week Whitman and Smith shared the Garden Theater stage with headliners Billy and Louise Kersands. After Louisville they played Indianapolis: The management of the Crown Garden Theater were fortunate in securing Mattie Whitman and Laura Smith for the weeks bill. They are styled the queens of all the coon song shout’ahs. There are none better. Miss Whitman’s male impersonation is fine. She presents a very pleasing personality, which is approved by hearty applause. . . . Miss Smith gives a genuine surprise. She is short and a little heavy; this, together with her ability as a dancer, makes her at once a favorite. In her stunts and movements she has not been surpassed on the Crown Garden Theater stage. She is at once graceful and comical, making an entertainer that one does not tire of seeing. Her “Stop That Rag” is done with suitable action, which gets her the hands. They double in the first part, doing a rapid firing duet arrangement of “Stop, Stop, Stop.” The vim put into the song at once warms up the audience, and when they wind up it is in a furore. “Smile On Me” is also successfully sung. The team has made itself a favorite in Indianapolis.199

From Indianapolis, Smith and Whitman moved on to the Monogram in Chicago. Sylvester Russell was still uncomfortable with Little Laura: “Smith and Whitman constituted a new team, which gave

quite a deal of satisfaction. While fat legs should have more covering, the little, short soubret seemed to please, and the male impersonator came very nigh to being an artist.”200 Chicago theatergoers were not calling for “Little Ginger” to cover her legs; they were marveling at her songs, her “stunts,” and her “action.” However electrifying the team of Smith and Whitman, their personal chemistry was too volatile to last long.201 A report dated September 12, 1911, informed that Smith was at the Gaither Theater in Cincinnati, performing as a blackface single, singing “Monkey Rag” and “Casey Jones.”202 The following week Smith and Whitman appeared together at Cincinnati’s Pekin Theater, where Whitman was reportedly stabbed “by some unknown party.”203 Then Smith was reported ill and unable to complete her Cincinnati engagement.204 Details of this muddle were obviously suppressed. Mattie Dorsey and Laura Smith went their separate ways. Smith headed to Memphis “for a rest.”205 She retreated to her former home base, the Savoy Theater, serving perhaps as long as a year as a producer and performer, staging two- and three-act dramas presented by the Savoy Stock Company.206 Communication in November 1912 described: “This week’s bill is a western drama entitled ‘In The Hills,’ staged by our noble stage manager, Miss Laura Smith, to whom is due much credit for the way she strives to make the show go, and for keeping new ones on hand, always producing something new.”207 Laura Smith was a valuable addition to any small theater company: an African American vaudeville queen with a broad repertoire of theatrical tools. For a while in 1913, Laura Smith teamed with Rebecca Redmond, a former teammate of composer and stage veteran Jimmie Cox. They played a week at Indianapolis’s Crown Garden Theater, where Hambone Jones and Virginia Liston had appeared the week before:

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Indianapolis Freeman, May 17, 1913.

Laura Smith is a favorite of the Crown Garden patrons. She is a little dump of a thing, almost as broad as she is long, but she’s there with the fun. One would not think it when first seeing her. When she appeared here with Miss Whitman the first time she carried the house after a period of doubt as to what she could do. Her feet and as much legs as she has have splendid action. They are nimble. She hits off her work in a taking way. Perhaps no female performer seen at the Crown Garden has a more humorous way of putting on touches with the feet.

Laura is a comedienne; she knows just what to do to please her audience. Her “Gaby Glide” song is put over in a funny way, with some flourishes of her own that give her singing distinctness and individuality. Rebecca Redmond is new to Crown Garden patrons. She made good at once, especially in her song, “The River Shannon Flows.” The audience had to give it to her in spite of the fact that the song is a sentimental ballad. She put it over beautifully, doing it equal to the best heard on the graphophone, if not better. Miss Redmon [sic] is finely built which is in her

Female Blues Pioneers in Southern Vaudeville

favor as a singer. . . . The team does a neat dancing turn, the pair appearing costumed alike, making a pretty stage scene. All of their work is pleasing and entertaining. . . . Miss Laura is especially well known all over the country for her fun making ability, which does not end on the stage. Laugh and the world laughs with you seems to be her motto. Her buoyant disposition has made her many friends, even if she is a little dumpty woman.208

In the fall of 1913, Smith took her skills to the fertile fields of Texas. At the Park Theater in Dallas, she had “the whole town whistling ‘Them Memphis Blues.’”209 At the Alcazar Theater in Galveston, she sang “Baby Seals Blues.”210 Smith spent the latter part of 1914 with the Lyric Theater Stock Company in Kansas City, Missouri, where Edward Lankford was manager. In company with Trixie Smith, Doc Straine, Sandy and Gretchen Burns, Mattie Dorsey, and others, she was pronounced “the queen of coon shouters.”211 “Little Laura is singing one of her own songs, Baby mamma did not care what [you] did, but it’s the way you did it.”212 She also produced musical comedies at the Lyric: “Believe me, she is screaming.”213 At the Lincoln Theater in Galveston in the spring of 1915, a correspondent assured: “Little Laura Smith is here with the goods, as usual.”214 Late in October she rounded out a blues bill at the Booker Washington Theater in St. Louis that also featured Johnny Woods and String Beans and Sweetie May: “Patrons are at the complete mercy of the ‘blues’ this week, and a large colony of admirers of this grade of music are filling the house to capacity nightly.”215 In February 1916 news broke that: “Laura Smith, comedienne, is now the wife of Olander Sharpe, formerly of Greenville, Miss., but employed in Detroit, where the couple will make their home.”216 In April she played the New Monogram in Chicago and was declared “the world’s greatest ragger and bluer.”217

A May 6, 1916, report from Anselmo Barrasso’s Metropolitan Theater in Memphis announced: “We are expecting Miss Laura Smith next week and it seems as if all Memphis is waiting for her.” Inexplicably, Smith went missing from the press for the next two years. She surfaced in May 1918 at the Monogram Theater, Chicago, where Sylvester Russell viewed her in a new light: “Laura Smith was a colored people’s scream, and not only that, she now has an act that is clean and could electrify any kind of an audience of any race or color. She was in black face.”218 Smith remained in Chicago-area theaters into the summer of 1918. She was back on the road in July, when a descriptive review from the Crown Garden Theater, Indianapolis, praised her new act: As a performer, a comedienne, Laura Smith should feel proud and satisfied owing to the way she was received at her appearance each evening. Her monologue varies some from what she did the last time, but it is essentially the same, having to do with her good husband, but of limited salary, and whom she throws down for a new guy who does not show up half as good. She has a good conception of what appeals as humorous. And then her style of telling her troubles makes for a comedianism that is among the best kind. She costumes her part so that it helps very much. She shows that she is not ashamed to look the part that she is playing. She takes pride in showing the little plait of hair on the top of her head tied with a bit of red ribbon. Laura’s steps and stage prances are in keeping with her comedy. Her voice is of good vaudeville quality—strong and musical. She sings “I Hate to Lose You” and her big hit number, “A Good Man’s Hard to Find.”219

After a run with the Ruby Theater Stock Company in Louisville, Smith returned to Indianapolis, where

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a reviewer commented: “Laura Smith, in the original ‘blues’ song and black-face comedy, is making herself more and more popular at each performance. Her entrance on the stage continues to be the signal for a thunderous reception on the part of the house, while she sings the ‘Blues’ with an encore to follow each time.”220 By the spring of 1919, Smith had joined forces with singer and straight man Everett Butler, advertising themselves as the “Brown Skin Jazzers.”221 At the Star Theater in Pittsburgh, on a bill that included John “Blue Steel” Williams and Sam H. Gray, Smith and Butler turned in “a neat singing and dancing act. Miss Smith received several encores when she sang the ‘Blues.’ Butler made a big hit in his song ‘Mammy O’ Mine.’”222 Sylvester Russell expressed his opinion that, “Everett Butler, quite a sweet tenor, whose voice and presence appeals to an audience, was a good help mate to the great comedienne.”223 “No matter about her team act, she is declaratively funny.”224 At the Washington Theater in Indianapolis, Smith and Butler were “smart and entertaining”: Butler, as straight man . . . is acting his part well. Miss Smith . . . is being showered with silver to a greater extent than ever, as a result of her catchy singing and other witty productions. The team’s opening song “How You Going to Keep Them on the Farm,” is being well rendered. Butler in his song, “Tosti Goodbye,” is tasty. His voice is a creditable one and his poise is good. Butler is being applauded and encored immensely. Miss Smith in her “Baby Cox [sic] Blues,” is, as of old, very satisfying to the big audiences. She is creating a real sensation every night and receiving much heavy applause.225

The Washington Theater reviewer apparently had his “babies” confused. A vaudeville star in her own right, Baby Cox was the daughter of Jimmie Cox;

but Smith was surely featuring “Baby Seals Blues,” the “original blues” referred to in earlier reviews. Laura Smith and Everett Butler appeared at mainstream houses in Gary, Indiana, and Chicago during late November and early December 1919, and then played a return engagement at the Monogram, on a bill with Tim Owsley, Lena Wilson, and Butterbeans and Susie.226 Sylvester Russell expressed his admiration for Laura Smith’s blackface comedy manipulations: “Miss Smith’s comedy showed great ability and naturalness in a quaint old racial type of mistress.”227 In February and March 1920, blues songwriters Perry Bradford and Eddie Green both placed ads in the Freeman, touting their latest compositions and specifically soliciting Laura Smith to “write to me” and “let me hear from you at once.”228 In the summer of 1920 Smith and Butler exercised their creative talents in the more lucrative northeastern theater setting. They were said to be “having fine success in the East,” performing before audiences of both races. In June they appeared at Steinway Hall in New York City.229 Shortly afterward, Laura reportedly “shook Butler and is doing her single again.”230 Over the next several months she performed in New York; Asbury Park, New Jersey; and Baltimore, Maryland.231 Laura Smith organized a company known as the Victory Belles. Before the end of the year Butler rejoined her and her troupe.232 They toured widely, but by the fall of 1922 Butler had left again, and the company continued under a new name: Laura Smith and her Ginger Pep Workers. They played New York City in September 1922, “with two weeks in Washington, D.C. and Baltimore, Md. to follow.”233 They appeared at the Star Theater in Shreveport, Louisiana, on December 4, 1922, and received a review in Billboard: The Laura Smith Company, with Laura working under cork, and supported by Willard Davenport,

Female Blues Pioneers in Southern Vaudeville

Chicago Defender, October 4, 1924. This ad depicts Laura Smith in one of her compelling stage personae.

comedian; Jimmie Howell, Estelle Floyd, Elmore Floyd, Violette Howell, Dorothy Washington, Millard White, Edith Oliver and Elmira Anderson, occupied the house this week. The show ran one hour and ten minutes. . . . The show got over O. K., but could be rearranged to good advantage. The house management obliged comic Davenport to eliminate the word “pimp” from his dialog. The show was otherwise clean. Miss Smith scored heavily with her “blues” numbers, getting an encore and taking a pair of bows on the first offering, and taking three bows in a number assisted by Davenport.234

News reached the Defender in February 1923 that Everett Butler had died, and that “Miss Smith

has lately suffered a nervous breakdown.”235 In April she announced: “The show will close some time this summer in New York, where Mrs. Smith will retire from the show business on account of her partner’s death, E. Butler. She will go in another business in her own home town, Chicago.”236 Vaudeville life was taking its toll on Little Laura, but she managed to keep her Ginger Pep Workers on the road a while longer. In May they played the Lincoln Theater in Baltimore: “‘Slim’ Jones is the featured comedian who working under cork proved himself a laugh getter of no little ability. Laura Smith, also working under cork heads the feminine contingent and demonstrated a talent as comedienne that compares with the best in the business.”237

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During the latter half of 1923 they were reported in Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, Memphis, and Shreveport, Louisiana. They greeted the New Year in Florida, with dates in West Palm Beach, Tampa, and Jacksonville.238 In February Smith shut down her Ginger Pep Workers and joined Frank H. Young’s Minstrels, with “25 people and a 12-piece band. . . . Slim Jones is manager.”239 By April they were in North Carolina, “hitting it through the sticks.”240 She was back in vaudeville by July, when the Defender noted: “Laura Smith and Slim Jones are playing at the Foraker theater, Washington, D. C.”241 In August 1924 Laura wrote from D.C. to inform that she was “going to make a ‘flying’ trip to New York City, where she will make a few phonographic records.”242 An ad in September introduced “Okeh’s New and Exclusive Artist Laura Smith.”243 In October OKeh ran a half-page ad devoted to Smith’s debut recording. Some evocative commentary appeared in a separate column: “Laura is one of the blues singers who hold off the records for a long time, but after a long siege by the OKeh promoters she was landed, and we venture to say that the company has made a ten-strike in making Laura an exclusive artist for their recording laboratories.”244 Laura Smith and her Revue played T.O.B.A. theaters through the end of 1924, but in January news came from Chicago that she had suffered another nervous breakdown: “Laura Smith, the Okeh record artist who was booked to play an engagement with her unit at the Grand theater, this city, the past week, but was unable to appear during the entire week, is much improved now, but reports from her home, 4306 Forrestville Ave. that she will remain indefinitely or until she has fully recovered.”245 In October 1925 the Defender announced Smith’s marriage to Slim Jones.246 By the fall of 1926 the couple was living in Baltimore, Jones’s home town, where it was reported: “Illness caused Miss Smith to cancel all present legitimate appearances and to temporarily

cease recording. However, she will go to New York the latter part of this month to ‘Can’ several numbers for some prominent firm. Miss Smith says she does not intend to appear upon the stage again with her own unit or any other attraction.”247 Smith continued to make records, and her new releases were duly noted in the African American press, but she did not return to the stage until 1929. In the summer of 1916 Virginia Liston was spotted in North Carolina, touring under canvas with the Reyno Comedians, “putting on musical comedies” with a cast that included Willard Davenport and “the original ‘Slim’ Jones.”248 Early in January 1917 Liston teamed with comedian George Wright. They appeared that month at the Dixieland Theater in Charleston, South Carolina, where the stage director was J. H. “Blue Steel” Williams.249 News from Washington, D.C., in July 1917 proclaimed: “Virginia Liston, who can sing more ‘blues’ than any other woman in this neck-o-the-woods, is now Mrs. Brown, and is making her home in Northeast Washington.”250 By late September she was on the road with Benbow’s Merrymakers. A note from Lynchburg, Virginia, said they were “drawing bigger business than any company has ever drawn playing this territory. . . . Virginia Listen [sic], the Queen of the Blues . . . says ‘Hello, Mule Bradford. I got them rocking in their seats with your Blues.’”251 In nearby Roanoke, Virginia, Liston hosted a reception for another itinerant troupe, the Ideal Players, and “believe us, we had some time. But the real festivities did not start until Miss Liston served lunch which consisted of spaghetti ala creole, sandwiches like they make in New Orleans, French drip coffee, grape punch, fruits, etc.”252 One week later, Benbow’s Merry Makers were spotted in Detroit, with Virginia Liston, Slim Jones, and Charles Hightower among the standouts.253 In December they reported: “Benbow’s 10 Merry Makers are just closing four weeks

Female Blues Pioneers in Southern Vaudeville

over some small white time through Pennsylvania and Ohio, and will open at the New Lincoln Theater, Baltimore, Md., December 17th, with Gibson’s Standard to follow. . . . Sim [sic] Jones, the second String Beans, has proven funny to the white people. Virginia Liston’s Blues got them.”254 Liston was not much mentioned in 1918. She got some negative press in the Freeman that spring, when John V. Snow, who was seeking the whereabouts of his delinquent performer son Jay Gould Snow, threatened: “Miss Virginia Liston will later on tell a jury why she worked with a minor on the stage against the will of his father.”255 In 1919 Liston reunited with Hambone Jones and returned to prominence as the blues singing star of the Hambone Jones Company, which also included Gonzell White, another popular blues singer from the early days. During the Hambone Jones Company’s two-week stand at the Washington Theater, Indianapolis, in the fall of 1919, Liston featured blues songs from the catalogs of both Pace & Handy and Williams & Piron, “creating a sensation” with “Grave Yard Blues,” “Hop Scop Blues,” “In A Country Town,” and “Hooking Cow Blues.”256 Hambone Jones “got his” by “dancing what he termed a high class opera (Blues) in real comical style.”257 At the Monogram two weeks later, the Hambone Jones Company enacted “Deacon Green on the Picnic Ground,” and Sylvester Russell noted: While the performance was only a burlesque show until the farce comedy afterpiece, there was fun galore, from start to finish, of the down home order. Hambone certainly shined as the deacon in the farce, but the finishing shimee shiver chorus was a little lengthy in its prominence. Virginia Liston as a national “Blues” songster and also shouter can be accredited with making a hit without going too far in her songs. “The Royal Garden Blues” furnished an encore.258

Indianapolis Freeman, August 24, 1918.

The Hambone Jones Company seemed to be on the verge of national recognition and “actual success financially.”259 But just three weeks after they left Chicago, a report from Detroit notified that, “Mr. Ham Bone Jones, known as the simp comedian, was taken with a stroke of paralysis. . . . Rev. Charles A. Hill called to see him before his departure for the hospital and we all knelt in prayer.”260 Jones died less than a week later, and the company dispersed.261 At the beginning of 1920, the Freeman heralded a revived Hambone Jones Company, headed by Virginia Liston in a new partnership with bass singer, producer, and character actor Sam H. Gray.262 Gray had traveled with Whitney and Tutt’s Smart Set Company and then toured the vaudeville circuits in a popular husband-and-wife team act with Ora Dunlop.263 The 1920 edition of the Hambone Jones Company promised “Real Colored Musical Comedy with a

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Allen “Chintz” Moore, Billboard, October 25, 1924.

Indianapolis Freeman, April 21, 1917.

High Brown Chorus.” The show was well conceived: “Miss Virginia Liston works with more ease than ever, holding her own as leading lady with a wonderful cast. Sam H. Gray, from the Smarter Set Company has some excellent material. . . . Zackaria White, the only black-face comedian in the show, is a hit from start to finish. . . . James McPheeters, producer and stage manager, has a very good taste for what it takes to please the public, and is a number one straight character man.”264 It appears the show played its initial dates at theaters in Dallas and Houston shortly before the close of 1919.265 On January 5, 1920, they opened a two-week engagement at the Liberty Theater in Alexandria, Louisiana, followed by two weeks at the Pike Theater in Mobile, Alabama, and a week at the Belmont Theater in Pensacola.266 An ad in the Freeman described their “Ethiopian Quartette” and “Girls’ High Brown Chorus.”267

The Hambone Jones Company’s repertoire of short dramas and musical comedies for the season of 1920 included “Cotton Brokers,” “Bringing Up Husbands,” “Deceived Wife,” and “Between the Firing Lines.” Gray made a hit in one production when, “attired in a sailor costume, he sings the bass solo, ‘Ding Dong’ assisted by six girls in costume to match, who go through a series of drills and at the wind up dance the sailor’s hornpipe.”268 In September 1920, at the Park Theater in Dallas, the Hambone Jones Company held its own on a bill with Ma Rainey’s Southern Beauties. The company’s Freeman correspondent said of Virginia Liston: “Her motto is ‘Hit them hard, and leave them screaming.’ You will find her living up to it at all times.”269 Before the end of this engagement, gunplay erupted between Sam Gray and Park Theater manager Allen “Chintz” Moore. The company correspondent likened it to “an old time colonial day duel . . . one of the

Female Blues Pioneers in Southern Vaudeville

must draw first shoot first affairs with a manly hand shake for a final. Luckily, no one was seriously hurt, and with the help of Mr. Moore (whose influence goes a long way in Dallas) . . . things were smoothed over nicely. . . . Outside of the little mix-up, our engagement in Dallas was a very pleasant one.”270 In another account: “What was a narrow escape of tragedy is that Chintz Moore . . . was shot . . . by Sam Gray, proprietor of the Ham Bone Jones company headed by himself and Virginia Liston. Gray is said to have shot back in self defense after Moore had shot at him five times.”271 It was announced during this time that Virginia Liston had become Mrs. Sam H. Gray. It seems these two experienced professionals had the respect of the people who worked with them: “Each and every member of this company is treated as a sister and a brother, taking Mr. Gray as ‘Pop,’ and Mrs. Gray as ‘Mom.’ It is what the old heads call a family show. Nothing is too good to do or say in regards to the personality of these two show owners and managers. The Ghost walks twice a week, and any other time he is needed. We are treated with the greatest respect that can be offered by all of the managers of the houses that we play.”272 Before the end of 1920 the Hambone Jones Company was joined by “Sarah Martin, one of our leading robust blues singers.”273 Long a favorite in her native Louisville, Martin had made sporadic ventures onto the broader professional stage, but had not yet begun her rise to national prominence. Her stay with the Hambone Jones Company was apparently brief; she was no longer aboard in February 1921, when they put on “Where the Trail Ends in Mexico” at the Washington Theater in Indianapolis, starring Virginia Liston as “Queen of the Mexican sonoras” [sic]: Receiving her usual great ovations on stepping to the stage every night, Miss Listen [sic] continues as of old

Norfolk Journal and Guide, April 2, 1921.

to lift the house off its feet with her clean hit rendition musical numbers, “Lorumba” and “Papa Loving Joe,” while it can also be truthfully said that she is highly artistic (aided magnificently with the indispensable cigarette) in her “La Paloma” dancing. . . . “Jealous Hearted Blues,” which was featured by Miss Virginia Listen with such roaring success . . . is one of Coleman Minor’s latest great musical hits. . . . Miss Listen’s posing I think is comparable to that of the movie star, at least it is highly professional. . . . Messrs. Gray, Giles, Davis and Clark [the Ethiopian Quartette] are racially appealing in the musical number, “Old Man Shouts What A Time.” The song is going big.

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In the “Mexican Blues” (Mr. and Mrs. Gray’s own number), Miss Virginia Listen, with chorus regaled in costumes appropriate, is desirably effective and peculiarly sweet.274

By early 1922 Liston and Gray had dismantled the Hambone Jones Company. Touring as a husbandand-wife team, they “brought their singing act, ‘At the Lighthouse,’ to New York, and after playing the Lincoln are having no trouble to see the agents.” Late in May they appeared at New York’s Lafayette Theater.275 Later that summer Liston and Gray seem to have temporarily discontinued their team act, while S. H. Gray sang bass with the Manhattan Quartet of the “Shuffle Along Review.”276 But by October 21, 1922, Liston and Gray were reported “working together again in an act entitled ‘It Takes a Good Man to Do That.’ The act has gone well in Philadelphia, the Regent in Baltimore, and has much promise.”277 They soon joined S. H. Dudley’s new production Go Get It, featuring comedians John H. Mason and Slim Henderson, a chorus of twenty-four female and eight male voices, and Blackwell’s Jazz Orchestra.278 Go Get It closed before the end of the year, and Gray and Liston complained that they were owed $700.279 Gray and Liston were on the southern T.O.B.A. route in the spring 1923. They were reviewed at the Frolic Theater in Birmingham, Alabama, in March: “The act is built around ‘It takes a good (man) gal to do that to me.’ The woman rendered ‘Stingaree Blues,’ followed by Gray in a character plantation medley that was great. After a bit of talk the act closed seventeen minutes’ work with ‘Yankee Doodle Blues.’”280 Gray and Liston subsequently participated in a four-act “vaudeville unit” including Hezekiah and Dorothy Jenkins, which toured together for several months on the T.O.B.A. time.281 The Chicago Defender of July 21, 1923, reported: “Virginia Liston, the clever blues artist of the team

of Gray & Liston, made a couple of records for the Paramount Co. while in Chicago last week. The songs recorded were her own original numbers, ‘Jealous Hearted Blues’ and ‘Never Put Your Mind on No One Man.’ Lowey [sic, Lovie] Austin of the Monogram theater accompanied on the piano.” J. A. Jackson, writing in Billboard, qualified that Liston had made “test records” for Paramount.282 Her recordings of these “original numbers” were apparently not issued. Ma Rainey, however, recorded “Jealous Hearted Blues” for Paramount in October 1924.283 Virginia Liston’s first verified recording sessions took place September 18 and 21, 1923, for OKeh Records in New York City, with Clarence Williams as piano accompanist.284 In November OKeh began its newspaper promotion with a large photo of Liston in the Defender.285 A “puff” article appeared a few weeks later, informing: “Virginia Liston, celebrated vaudeville artist and Okeh record star, has been ill with rheumatism for the past few weeks. This illness has delayed her vaudeville tour, interrupted her Okeh recordings and spoiled her enjoyment of the new car she recently purchased. The other day she managed to hobble down to the Okeh laboratories in order to make some new Okeh records.”286 The sweet sadness “with a bit of wickedness” described in 1913 commentaries is still evident on Liston’s 1920s recordings. They do not reveal a mellifluous voice; she had neither the rich alto pipes of other, better-remembered vaudeville blues women nor the growling texture associated with “barrelhouse blues.” Her effectiveness as a blues singer derives from her artfully understated delivery, which conveys credibility and conviction without resorting to melodrama. As one contemporaneous commentator put it, “Her songs go right on ‘home,’ that’s all.”287 Virginia Liston, Sam Gray, and Clarence Williams are credited as composers of the classic blues song “You Don’t Know My Mind,” with its signature

Female Blues Pioneers in Southern Vaudeville

couplet, “You see me laughing, I’m just laughing to keep from crying.”288 This song was recorded by artists ranging from Clara Smith to Huddie Ledbetter.289 Liston’s own straightforward, largely unornamented treatment of “You Don’t Know My Mind” is an outstanding example of trenchant expression in blues singing.290 Her recordings emphasize the fact that there is more than one way to put over a blues song. There is a timeless quality to much of Liston’s blues, blending a decidedly modern brand of soulfulness with a strain of old-time folk style and content, epitomized by her elegant rendition of “Bill Draw,” an obscure blues ballad which is thematically redolent of “Stagger Lee” and melodically reminiscent of “Frankie and Johnny”: Louisiana Bill Draw was a gambling man, Who played his cards with a steady hand, Oh Lord, oh Lordy, oh Lord, oh Lordy, Bill Draw. Shine told Bill Draw, don’t deal so slow, Don’t pull another card from the bottom no more, Oh Lord, oh Lord, oh Lord, oh Lord, Bill Draw. If you ain’t a good loser and your cards ain’t right, Don’t steal from me or you’ll die tonight, Oh Lord, oh Lordy, oh Lord, oh Lordy, Bill Draw. Bill Draw standing in the barroom door, Shine went and shot him with a forty-four, Oh Lord, oh Lordy, oh Lord, oh Lordy, Bill Draw. Bill Draw’s mother come wringing her hands, Crying won’t somebody ring for the ambulance, Oh Lord, oh Lordy, oh Lord, oh Lordy, Bill Draw. Bill Draw’s wife came shaking her head, Saying the sweetest man in all the world is dead, Oh Lord, oh Lord, oh Lord, oh Lord, Bill Draw.

Bill wasn’t good looking, but he did dress neat, The women dressed him in diamonds from his head to his feet, Oh Lord, oh Lordy, oh Lord, oh Lordy, Bill Draw.291

Liston also recorded the stellar ragtime dance songs “Happy Shout” and “House Rent Stomp,” with neat piano accompaniment by Clarence Williams, and two comic tête-à-têtes with husband Sam H. Gray, “Just Take One Long Last Lingering Look” and “You Can Have It (I Don’t Want It),” which are fine examples of that important stage genre.292 “Adult” humor of a variety endemic to vaudeville is conspicuous in the recorded repertoire of both Virginia Liston and Laura Smith. Smith’s darkly hilarious “Gonna Put You Right In Jail” opens with a meek complaint addressed to her mean “daddy,” but quickly shifts to something more assertive: You tore up my clothes and everything, You even pawned my diamond ring. Stole my flat, killed my cat, And beat me with a baseball bat. Since you’ve gone and got so rough, I won’t stand for that cave man stuff. Now some of your pals will have to go your bail. On the inside you will get your mail, I mean, ’cause I’m gonna put you right in jail.293

OKeh recorded Laura Smith with a bewildering variety of instrumental accompaniment. Her initial session in August 1924 was backed by Tom Morris, cornet; Charlie Irvis, trombone; Ernest Elliot, clarinet; Buddy Christian, banjo; and Clarence Williams, piano. The songs from that session are a testament to her proficiency in singing a “very slow” blues. Back in the days before the twelve-bar, AAB structure became a determinative consideration, the chief stylistic characteristic of published blues songs was their

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Laura Smith, as pictured in a 1920s OKeh Race catalogue.

markedly retarded tempo. Purchasers of the sheet music for “Baby Seals Blues” were advised to play it “Very Slow.” The original sheet music for Hart A. Wand’s “Dallas Blues” left no margin for doubt about how a blues tune should be played: “Tempo di Blues. Very Slow.” On very slow blues songs such as “Has Anybody Seen My Man” and “I’m Gonna Get Myself A Real Man,” Laura Smith’s deliberate phrasing puts the emphasis on syncopation. Clarence Williams is credited as the composer of “Texas Moaner Blues.” Laura Smith was first to record it, quickly followed by Clara Smith and Alberta Hunter.294 Later, an instrumental version of “Texas Moaner Blues” was waxed by Clarence Williams’s Blue Five, featuring Louis Armstrong and Sidney Bechet.295 Williams’s piano is the only accompaniment heard on more than half of Virginia Liston’s recordings; he is also the only accompanist on several of Laura Smith’s records, including her “Two-Faced Woman Blues” from October 1924.296 Credited as a Clarence Williams composition, “Two Faced Woman Blues” gives evidence of the vibrancy of song lyric migration in the early blues. It begins with the

couplet: “You better stop your man from asking me where I been / He’s always around my house, trying to tickle me under my chin.” Virginia Liston’s January 1924 recording of “Jail House Blues,” credited to Clarence Williams and Bessie Smith, adds spice to that admonition: “You better stop your man from tickling me under my chin / ’Cause if he keep on tickling, I’m sure gonna lick him on in.”297 On Laura Smith’s OKeh sessions of October 1925 she is accompanied by Perry Bradford’s Mean Four, a somewhat outlandish combo consisting of violin, harmonica, guitar, and piano. In her piece-de-resistance “Humming Blues,” she seems energized by their jazzing, and spontaneously shouts, “Oh, whip it,” and, “Play it boys, play it.” In high soprano register, Smith “hums” a passage that is startling in its tonal clarity. Her ethereal, pseudo-operatic humming morphs into a briefly extemporized duet with the fiddler.298 Other full-throated ragtime-cum-blues shouts recorded by Laura Smith in 1925–26 include “Lucy Long,” “Jackass Blues,” and her own composition, “Cool Can Blues”: I said all I want whenever I’m drinking is my cool, cool can, Now if anybody wants to have some trouble, Just stop me if you can. So well do I remember, in ’93 and ’4, How I used to visit them old barroom side doors, ’Cause all I wanted whenever I was drinking was my cool, cool can.299

Laura Smith’s final OKeh session of March 1927 documents a late-in-life singer with a perceptibly weakened voice that nevertheless seems to have gained in sweetness and charm. This is especially evident on “Don’t You Leave Me Here,” a version of one of the earliest documented blues songs, “Alabama Bound.”300 If only Laura Smith had recorded “Baby Seals Blues,” the “original ‘blues’” that she sang on stage as early as 1913 and at least as late as 1919.301

Female Blues Pioneers in Southern Vaudeville

In April 1929 the Defender noted that Smith was making a comeback: We received a most welcome letter from an old pal that has long quit the footlights . . . We mean Laura Smith. She was at one time one of our best known “shouters.” After that she became a record artist, then sickness drove her from the stage. Now again after six years of illness she has signed with the Paramount and Lasky corporation for two years. Her first picture is called “Lady Liz.” She is also recording with the Q.R.S., assisted by Clarence Williams and doubling with Miller and Slayter’s bunch now playing the Lincoln of New York. We consider this pretty good as a comeback.302

Perhaps something interfered with these plans, because neither the film nor the QRS recordings are known to exist. Late in May, Smith opened at the Grand Theater in Chicago with the famous Drake and Walker Revue: “‘My Chocolate Girl’ was the first of a series of reviews which Henry Drake will stage at the Grand Theater where his company opened to a full house. . . . Laura Smith was an immediate comedy hit. Her song, ‘You Can’t Come In,’ and her African strut and shivers, brought loud applause from the audience, which she held in captivity.”303 Defender columnist Bob Hayes judged the three biggest acts in the Drake and Walker Revue to be the “cyclonic jazz band,” the dancers Peg and Peg, and “the one and only Laura Smith. We don’t say how long ago, but Laura seems like old wine that improves as the years go by. Time has certainly left no finger prints on her.”304 When the revue returned to the Grand in August, playing “Zulu Jazz,” Hayes again uncorked the “old wine” metaphor in paying a heartfelt tribute: “Like old wine, Laura Smith improves as the years go by. Her appearance was a signal for an outburst of deafening applause. She seems to have the same speed that put her in the hearts of the public a decade ago. To hear her is to love her.”305

In September Smith became the “warbling, dancing comedienne of the Music Box theater” in Denver, Colorado: “She is being sponsored by influential patrons and in addition to regular broadcasting doubles at an exclusive night club. When her contract ends she will go to Hollywood to enter the movies.”306 In December she was spotted at Curtis Mosby’s Apex Club in Los Angeles.307 Laura Smith spent the remaining few years of her life in Los Angeles. She reportedly played some local theater engagements, but if she made any movies, they have not come to light. Her main creative outlet in Los Angeles appears to have been a local choral ensemble, Sarah Butler’s Old Time Southern Singers. In August 1931 Smith was hospitalized, and friends were notified that “six months time is staring the artist in the face.”308 Six months later a eulogy appeared in the local California Eagle: With a tenderness that helped dispel the sadness that rested over the chapel, and lent a sweetness to the final parting, Sarah Butler’s Old Time Southern Singers rendered some of Laura Smith’s favorite numbers as she was laid to rest recently. Laura who had been ill for a long time following an attack brought on by high blood pressure had been a member of the famous chorus for about a year and she was well loved by all its 36 members for her friendly smile, ready wit and kindly consideration of others. At rehearsal or during an appearance she was always tirelessly willing to follow directions and aid with the wide experience she had gained on many stages. Their reluctance at her departure into the great beyond, as well as their bidding her god-speed on her journey into Eternal Peace, was exemplified in some of the softest, sweetest, purest notes that ever welled from human throats. Laura was formerly one of the country’s leading record artists and vaudeville performers. During the

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two years she had been here she headlined at the Lincoln, Tivoli, Follies and other downtown theatres.309

In the spring of 1924, possibly with assistance from the OKeh Record Company, Virginia Liston again went out at the head of a vaudeville troupe. At the Lincoln Theater in Pittsburgh: Virginia Liston, Okeh Record Artist, and her famous Okeh Jazz Five, accompanied by select vaudeville specialties from “B’way” opened the New Lincoln here Monday night with a record-breaking attendance. . . . People were grappling and struggling for standing room. The curtain went up at six o’clock and the performance was continuous to 12:30. At least 5,000 people witnessed the opening, to say nothing of the thousands turned away. Miss Liston and her “Jazz Hounds” were probably responsible for the record-breaking attendance. . . . The “Plantation Female Quartette” favorably impressed their audience. The quartette included talented Ruth Coleman, Lucy Mitchell, Juanita McGee and Pearl Graham. Miss Liston and her “Jazz Five,” Globe Favorites, Cleveland, staged a come back in each performance. With the exception of a slight cold she was truly herself when she sang, “You Dono, Sho Dono” and “Taint a Doggone Thing But The Blues.”310

Back in Pittsburgh one month later, the company put on a skit called “Domestic Entanglement” at the Elmore Theater, with “Miss Liston as the lady of the house and also the feature attraction of the play. . . . She also sings a number of her Okeh Record hits. . . . Sam Gray as a characteristic singer is at his best when the quartet sings ‘In 1999.’ . . . The music is furnished by the Famous Okah [sic] Jazz band. Take it from us, it is jazzy.”311

From Pittsburgh, Liston and Gray set off on a southern tour with a company that included comedian Boots Hope, “The World’s Greatest Liar,” and the Seminole Syncopators, who also recorded for OKeh in 1924.312 A big three-week engagement at the Paramount Theater in Memphis ended badly and may have spelled the end of the company. Initially, the Memphis daily raved about how: A “blues” singer who could teach Memphis, Tenn. something about the art, and the biggest five-piece jazz band in the world, were features of the special concert staged at WSB Tuesday night by the Colored entertainers with the Virginia Liston Jazz revue, now playing the Paramount theater, 192 Auburn Ave., where a “Midnight Ramble” for white patrons only will draw a big house Wednesday night at 11 o’clock. Virginia Liston, billed as “Queen of the Blues,” lived up to all claims, while the Seminole Syncopators put more impetuosity and variety into their music than would be expected of a 20-piece ensemble. Both attractions are on the Okeh phonograph list. S. H. Gray filled out a unique hour with three songs done in basso profundo style.313

Soon afterward, Gray complained that the show had been “buncoed” by its northern managers: “Fulcher and Bohan of New York City have done it again—jumped down and skipped town owing the show three weeks salary and also left behind a bum check for $140 with the theater where we finished last night—Paramount theater—and the theater manager attached our beautiful silk drop on that account.”314 At the end of 1924 Gray and Liston were in Sam Gray’s hometown Baltimore, producing “Domestic Entanglement” with a small company that included Dinah Scott, Frank Bailey, Gertrude Scott, and Hazel Springer.315 This turned out to be a prelude to

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“Eliza Scandals,” “an original production from their own pens.”316 Gray and Liston’s “Eliza Scandals” Company greeted the New Year in the Tidewater section of Virginia, and then tracked southward.317 In February a mainstream columnist in Macon, Georgia, called it “the best small show that he had ever looked at. It carries everything, including a plot. It was written and produced by Sam H. Gray and staged by his wife and professional partner, Virginia Liston, one of the greatest topical singers on the stage.”318 Another review of the same performance appeared in Billboard: S. H. Gray’s Eliza Scandals got off to a well-filled house with a program that pleased. Four girls in checkered overalls and bandannas opened before a special drop. At the conclusion of the first number Virginia Liston joined them in silk overalls to sing “Going Home,” a number that has been used too often. Dinah Scott, a Macon boy, is comic in chief. He and “Bozo” Bailey followed the girls in dialog and songs that drew plenty of laughs. Sam Gray, in sailor garb, sang his own arrangement of “Tuck Me to Sleep” and pleased immensely. . . . Virginia Liston, Okeh record singer, scored in four numbers, accompanied by “Bozo” Bailey on a stringed instrument. This was followed by Gray and Liston, with the girls in “Liza,” with flash-light effects. . . . The show closed an hour’s performance with “Goin’ Home” a fast finale number. A serial and a feature picture completed the program.319

The “Eliza Scandals” Company proceeded to Florida, where they made the rounds for about three months. At the Grand Theater in West Palm Beach, Liston was referred to as “the titanic blues shouter,” suggesting that the popularity of her “Titanic Blues”

(Courtesy C. H. Douglass Business Records Collection, Middle Georgia Regional Library)

had yet to subside.320 “Eliza Scandals” was among the year’s top African American stage productions, but the company nevertheless had difficulty navigating the financial conditions that prevailed on the T.O.B.A. routes.321 After their West Palm Beach engagement, Sam Gray hired an advance man and attempted to move “Eliza Scandals” off the black theater circuit: Eliza Scandal company, featuring the record star Virginia Liston, has proved too big an affair for the southern vaudeville field and as a consequence Sam H. Gray, owner and manager, has converted it into a

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regular road show, with special scenery, new costumes, added lighting effects and additional principals and choristers. It is being booked into the better class of theaters by Leon Long, the capable manager in advance. Among the well-known performers at present connected are Hardtack Jackson, Dinah Scott, Frank Bozo Bailey, Ethel McCoy, Ruth Eldridge, Gertrude Scott, Pearl Jackson, Plantation Five Harmonizers. There is also a beauty chorus and the music department is under direction of George Wood. This week at Daytona, Fla., with Bartow to follow.322

For reasons not fully explained, this new arrangement did not last long; as Defender columnist Joseph “Jonesy” Jones reported from Jacksonville: S. H. Gray’s Eliza Scandal company is the present attraction at the Strand theater for the week of April 27, and doing business. The aggregation is headed by the Okeh record artist, Virginia Liston. . . . On April 18, 19 and 20 the show played a successful engagement at the Gem theater [white], this burg. The engagement was a big success every way, excepting no money was made. Right here and there S. H. Gray decided he would free lance no longer, but return to the fold of the T.O.B.A. moguls. Hence his present date at the Strand.323

During their Strand Theater engagement, “Virginia Liston stormed the house with her blues renditions, assisted by the Guitar fool, ‘Bozo’ Bailey. S. H. Gray’s girly quartet also scored heavily.”324 “Guitar fool” Frank “Bozo” Bailey was better known for his work as a team comedian and dancer. “Eliza Scandals” toured T.O.B.A. theaters in Georgia, South Carolina, and Alabama through the summer of 1925. Liston ducked out for about a week in June, traveling to New York City to make

more records for OKeh. She may have taken part in a blues singing contest while there, because two months later she was noted as “the prize winner at the New Star Casino, New York City, for being the world’s greatest, snappiest blues shouter.”325 At Nashville in July, the company ran into a problem with Bijou Theater owner and T.O.B.A. president Milton Starr, who reportedly deducted $75 from their payment on the grounds that a company Gray had brought into the Bijou three or four years earlier was “three people short.” Gray pointed out that “T.O.B.A. contracts have no clause that house managers can deduct for a company coming in a theater short of people.” But Starr left town before the conclusion of the “Eliza Scandals” engagement, and “sent a statement back to Gray by a boy that cleaned the theater. None of the company’s expense had been paid. After shuffling all night Gray managed to make his train.”326 Circumstances continued to deteriorate after Gray “made the mistake of routing the company for the summer over the worst territory, Arkansas and Oklahoma.”327 In Hot Springs they encountered W. Benton Overstreet, who was having his own troubles, trying to get out of jail after former partner William Sellman pressed charges against him for allegedly stealing costumes and other articles from his trunk.328 Upon his release, Overstreet became the musical director of Virginia Liston’s Revue, which opened at the Ella B. Moore Theater in Dallas in a crippled state: At present this little company consists of six people—S. H. Gray, Virginia Liston, William Benton Overstreet and Mrs. William Benton Overstreet. There is no comedian with the aggregation at present and Mr. Gray is doing the comedy. Mr. Gray is corresponding with performers to complete his number. . . . Miss Virginia Liston, leading lady of the Liston-Gray company, is somewhat ill, suffering with

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her throat. She is contemplating leaving for her home to undergo an operation.329

Liston left the show a short while later and did not return. Gray turned his back on vaudeville and joined the Silas Green from New Orleans minstrel show as producer. Before the close of 1925 Liston joined the “Shufflin’ Sam” company, forty members strong. She was “singing her own blue songs, is a hit everywhere and is just as big a success on the stage as she is on the records.”330 However, in April 1926 Liston was “taken suddenly ill in Chicago . . . and had to leave the show.”331 One month later she was with Walter Rector’s Darktown Strutters at Indiana Harbor, Indiana.332 In December 1926 she appeared at Detroit’s Koppin Theater: “Virginia Liston, record artist, scores heavily in several songs. It has been some time since Miss Liston has played the house. She displayed a wonderful and pleasing personality. There are not so many blues singers who work their songs as Miss Liston does. She has a way of her own and she receives much applause throughout.”333 An alarming note was sounded in February 1927, when the Pittsburgh Courier reported: “Virginia Liston, who was shot by her ex-sweetheart, Walter Brown, manager of the Columbia Hotel, has recovered from a chest wound from which the bullet was extracted. Just what Miss Liston was doing in the hotel is not known. The famous Vocalion and Okeh record star will not prosecute Mr. Brown, who is an Elk.”334 In November the Defender published a review from the Washington Theater in Indianapolis, where Liston had inspired rhapsodic prose a decade earlier. This time she was barely noted—“Virginia Liston, singer of note”—on a bill with Johnnie Woods and Little Henry.335 This was her final dispatch from the vaudeville routes.

In the fall of 1929 a letter reached the Defender from St. Louis: “Virginia Liston, once a popular performer, writes that she is happily married . . . Mrs. Charles Harry Lee Smith asks friends to write to her at 370–7A Chouteau Ave.”336 According to her entry in Blues Who’s Who, Liston died “June 1932, St Louis, MO (unconfirmed).”337 The blues emerged in southern vaudeville early in the 1910s. By the 1920s many of the original blues stars were retired, sick, or dead. Laura Smith and Virginia Liston survived into the T.O.B.A. era and left a legacy on race recordings, only to be relegated to the wayside of modern blues literature.338 But, in their heyday, Smith and Liston were as influential in popularizing the blues as any of their contemporary performers, male or female, with the sole exception of Butler May.

Ora Criswell and Trixie Smith The historical reality of black comedians performing “under cork” for enthusiastic audiences of their peers might be difficult for a modern auditor to digest; but in the context of early-twentieth-century African American vaudeville there was often a cleverly subversive aspect to the use of blackface. Intelligently conceived blackface characterizations on the black vaudeville stage represent an aggressive process of self-definition, license, and acknowledgment of the absurd humor that clings to the familiar aspects of everyday life. The deliberate manipulation of this crude theatrical convention, an emblematic remnant of “Ethiopian minstrelsy,” imbued black vaudeville with a highly charged communicative energy.339 Women in blackface were the object of particular empathy on the African American vaudeville stage; their manner of comedy, gilded with pathos, could be powerfully effective. Two referential

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blackface female character types, “Crow Jane” and “Black Sis Hopkins,” were embraced by African American entertainers of the nascent blues era. “Sis Hopkins” was a theatrical construct, but the origins of Crow Jane are more obscure and perhaps more deeply ingrained. The name is a distaff variation on mid-nineteenth-century minstrelsy’s “Jim Crow.” The stage character Crow Jane was raggedy and ugly, spiteful and conniving, yet not without some strange allure, as reflected in a 1929 recording by Frankie “Half-Pint” Jaxon: “A yellow gal’s like a frigid zone, / A brown’s about the same, / You want some good lovin’, / You deserve an old Crow Jane.”340 Crow Jane was a popular vehicle for female impersonation by blackface comedians on the African American stage. The character is only nominally removed from the “wench” archetype, which seemingly predated it, but also existed concurrently. Andrew Tribble, prominently featured in the big musical comedy productions of Bob Cole and J. Rosamond Johnson, was regarded as “one of the best ‘wench’ characters of the stage.”341 A denizen of urban back streets, Crow Jane is closely related to “Black Sal from Dark Alley,” a popular “wench impersonation” performed by Philip Williams with Allen’s New Orleans Minstrels in 1909.342 As late as 1925, Leroy “Kike” Gresham, blackface comedian with the Silas Green from New Orleans show, appeared “in a cabaret scene . . . [doing] his ‘Winch’ [sic] impersonation, for which he has no peer.”343 A 1911 correspondence from the Amuse Theater in Vicksburg, Mississippi, described how the male member of the team of Pugh and Pugh “takes them out of their seats when he does that ‘Crow Jane Walk.’”344 In 1914, at the Circle Theater in Philadelphia: “Bernard and Lee, in a very funny sketch, entitled ‘The Crow Jane Reception,’ gives a pleasing fifteen minutes of fun and song.”345 Offstage, Crow Jane was something more than a comedy role for female impersonators. A 1934

article on black vernacular speech articulated that “To call a dark girl Crow Jane is very low-down, a racial insult.”346 As a referential phrase, “Crow Jane” is apparently still latent in the black cultural lexicon, although its meaning has become somewhat scattered.347 It certainly has a long history on blues records. Mississippi Delta bluesman Skip James recorded his take on “Crow Jane” as late as 1965.348 Earlier renditions include Sonny Terry’s “Crow Jane Blues” from 1947, Carl Martin’s “Crow Jane” from 1935, vaudeville blues star Ida Cox’s “Crow Jane Woman” from 1928, and Julius Daniels’s “Crow Jane Blues” from 1927.349 A 1928 recording of “Crow Jane Alley” by Foster and Harris preserves a laundry list of Crow Jane’s unpleasant proclivities: They will cut your throat while you sleep, Boy, look down in your face and smile, They will wake you in the morning And say, “Don’t feel right,” Cut up your clothes just for spite, Dream of old razors and tin cans, Always after some married woman’s man, Yellow woman gets mad, pardner, She’ll hang her head and pout, Crow Jane gets mad, boy, Somebody’s got to go out, Want you to listen to what I’m saying, You don’t have to be dark to be a real Crow Jane, A brown is nice looking, she needs no repair, A Crow Jane is ugly, and needs some false hair, But a Crow Jane is alright with me, pardner, But she done gone out of style, I mean she done gone out of style.350

The term “Crow Jane” appears in Waymon “Sloppy” Henry’s “Hobo Blues,” a bluesy version of “Casey Jones.”351 Crow Jane is also referenced in Blind Blake’s 1930 recording “Righteous Blues” and Blind Willie

Female Blues Pioneers in Southern Vaudeville

Rose Melville in her Sis Hopkins stage persona, Richmond Planet, February 3, 1917.

McTell’s “Bell Street Lightnin’” from 1933, wherein the singer acknowledges: “I’m down in Bell Street Alley, / Just as drunk as I can be / Seem like them Crow Jane women, / Man, done got rough with me.”352 A far more sympathetic figure, “Sis Hopkins” was the turn-of-the-century creation of white American stage star Rose Melville, in a popular play of the same name: “That delightful and homely play of country life . . . Miss Melville originated the character of ‘Sis’ and has made it one of the classics of the stage. Her unassuming acceptance of the love of a man, whose deceit is apparent to everyone but the girl, is pathetic;

yet, when she awakens to his duplicity, the punishment she metes out to him is swift and sure.”353 In black vaudeville, “Sis” appeared as a similarly endearing rustic type in blackface, who radiated both charming innocence and native wit. Beyond their symbolic attributes, Crow Jane and Black Sis Hopkins were piquant parodies of personality types that were immediately recognizable to black theater audiences. As such, they emphasize the potency of in-group communication in black vaudeville. Ora Criswell and Trixie Smith both featured popular takes on Black Sis Hopkins in their stage acts. Trixie Smith’s “Sis” sang an original blues song in 1914, probably inspired by Criswell, who had introduced her own blues composition in 1913 under the guise of her original blackface personification, “Bolivia from Possum Trot.” Ora Criswell was the paragon of all blackface comediennes. Under her control, blackface makeup became a fetish with powers to invade the subconscious. She mesmerized African American audiences with her racial comedy, ragtime, and blues singing. Roundly celebrated during her lifetime as “the supreme representative of Colored women in her line of work—nothing short of a genius,” Criswell might as well be imaginary for all the scholarly attention she has thus far received.354 Like Butler May, Criswell died in 1917 and left no sound recordings. Contemporaneous critical commentary is essentially all that remains to mark her life’s work, perhaps along with a mote of reflection in pioneer southern blues recording artist Trixie Smith, herself a blackface comedy star in the Criswell mold. Criswell was a past master of both northern and southern stage arts who took part in the earliest experiments in black vaudeville.355 She may have been a Memphis native. When she appeared at the Rialto Theater there in 1901 with J. Ed Green’s landmark Ragtime Opera Company, she was described

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Chicago Broad Ax, September 16, 1911.

as “Memphis’ own ragtime.”356 According to one retrospective, Criswell also appeared in Chicago in Green’s original Pekin Theater Stock Company production The Mayor of Dixie.357 Another article said that she had been a member of Ernest Hogan’s The Oyster Man Company during its brief run in 1907.358 In the fall of 1909 Criswell and her current stage partner Richard Webb were attached to the Georgia Campers, a major African American road show playing white time, billed as Webb and Webb. At the American Theater Roof Garden, one of New York City’s premier vaudeville emporiums, they reportedly caused “serious trouble” by refusing to go on stage “at the last moment.”359 In the spring of 1910 they appeared in southern vaudeville. At the Airdome in Jacksonville, Criswell was “forced to sing ‘Wild Cherry Rag’ as an encore. She has stamped this song into the hearts and minds

of the people, and they can not get enough of Miss Webb and the ‘Wild Cherry Rag.’”360 But her success was tarnished by a “wrangle” that resulted in Webb and Webb slipping away from the Airdome “without a moment’s notice, owing the management over $40.”361 Later that summer they played Barrasso’s Savoy Theater, and then went out on his Tri-State Circuit.362 They were at the American Theater in Jackson, Mississippi, when Barrasso posted a warning: “Managers booking colored talent for stock vaudeville beware of the team of Webb and Webb.” He cited their “overdrawn salary” and “the vile tongue of Miss Ora ‘Criswell’ Webb, who is the trouble maker for the team.”363 Two months after Barrasso’s warning, Webb and Webb played the rival Pekin Theater in Memphis on a bill with Rainey and Rainey.364 Shortly thereafter, Webb and Webb parted ways, and the trail of bad press that had followed them from New York to Memphis ended. By 1911 Ora Criswell had returned north as a single, and was working her way through the key black vaudeville theaters of the Midwest. At the Monogram in Chicago, Sylvester Russell found her “magnetically entrancing” as a “singing soubrette.”365 A few weeks later, Criswell made her bow at the Crown Garden in Indianapolis, where she was heralded as “the old time coon shouter, of the original Pekin Stock Company of Chicago. . . . She presents a straight singing act offering some good and catchy songs, the best received, perhaps, was ‘I can’t be satisfied with one.’”366 At the beginning of 1912 the “famous singing comedienne” appeared at the Howard Theater in Washington: “Her singing of ‘Pianoman’ gained for her much applause. Ora Criswell is natural on the stage: she is Ora Criswell and the same off the stage. She is not artificial. She needs no grease paint, powder or rouge to make her different than she is. All though [sic] she uses it, she does not need it.”367 Criswell worked through the spring in a team act with blackface comedian Joe Sandifer.368 She was

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a single again by fall, when a northern press correspondent called her “an Arkansas traveler on the coon songs . . . still the queen of rag singers when it comes to getting those ragtime melodies over the footlights.”369 Before the end of 1912 Criswell formed a sister team with Laura Bailey, formerly a member of the Cubanola Trio.370 Criswell and Bailey kicked off the New Year 1913 with a skit in which Bailey played a society sophisticate and Criswell exhibited “her powers in blackface comedy by assuming the role of a maid from ‘Bam,’ introducing her ‘Haunting Melody,’ accompanying herself on a diminutive piano.”371 At the Lincoln Theater in New York later that spring, “Criswell and Bailey in their Zulu number and changing to their Indiana [sic, Indian] number were a scream.”372 That summer they were labeled the “female Williams and Walker,” and Criswell was singled out as “America’s premier coon shouter.”373 She is a black face comedian and worthy of the title. Her work is new, novel, having nothing to do with set forms. Her partner, Miss Bailey is a good straight. . . . They do a little skit. Miss Bailey advertises for a lady to do a leading part in a theatrical company. Miss Criswell answers, making the mistake in thinking a domestic was wanted. After a little rapid firing talk between them, which is full of wit and humor, Miss Bailey discovers that the odd looking applicant has some ability and will just suit. When Miss Criswell comes back she is Manners—dressed in the best and looking good even if as black as coal. She does some steps and movements which set the audience wild. The two share the honors. . . . To say they go big is to put it mildly. Their songs are “Midnight Choo Choo,” a talking parody, sung by Miss Criswell; “Beautiful Dreams,” by Miss Bailey; “Million Dollar Bill,” sung by both.374

The skit was titled A Leading Lady Cook.375 When they put it on at the Booker T. Washington Theater

Indianapolis Freeman, December 20, 1913.

in St. Louis, Criswell was proclaimed “Fanny Brice in black face.”376 The news that she was “dressed in the best and looking good even if as black as coal” suggests she had radically reconfigured her blackface stage character. One objectifying critic concluded that, in addition to being funny, Criswell was “one of the prettiest and most dainty little pieces of flesh that ever beamed from behind burnt cork.”377 At the Crown Garden in Indianapolis,“The singing of ‘Chief Bungaboo’ by the two was the best ever heard at this theater. . . . They mix up Indians and Zulus, but that doesn’t matter, since the object is to get to wear those pretty Indian costumes in Zululand. A feature of the act is the lightning change of Miss Criswell from cork to her natural face.”378

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A report from St. Louis in the fall of 1913 contains the first hard evidence that Criswell was performing a blues song in her character act; “comments heard from the satisfied crowds” making their way out of the Booker T. Washington Theater, included this revelation: “‘All I wants fo’ ma dime is jes’ to see dat black-face gal dance and hear her sing dem ‘Criswell Blues.’”379 Before the end of the year Criswell and Bailey played a return engagement at the Crown Garden: “The ‘Criswell Blues’ by Miss Criswell, her own composition, was applauded time and time again. They were a weird something on the piano, but with a vocal touch at the conclusion of the instrumental stanzas. Perhaps she alone can do them. Miss Bailey joins in the humming which is a feature.”380 There was a timeliness to Ora Criswell’s bluesin-blackface act. Only a decade earlier, the popular stage was crowded with blackface comedians singing coon songs. Operating within racially insular venues before sympathetic audiences of their peers, Criswell and her contemporary performers had a very different orientation. They transformed the blackface convention into a deflective agency through which blues and other vernacular arts were introduced to the professional stage. Criswell and Bailey split up before the summer of 1914, and Criswell went ahead as a single. At the Monogram Theater, Sylvester Russell proclaimed: “There was one song bird in black, who depicted the life of her own race ancestry in modern time, and that was Ora Criswell, a real star, who sang the ‘Choo Choo.’”381 He later added, “To make fun in black face is no easy task for a woman, but Ora Criswell has proved to be the ‘funniest gal’ of the kind on record.”382 Russell and his contemporary critics did at times criticize the purposeless, unreflective use of blackface make-up; but they recognized that in the hands of an intelligent performer it could be an effective tool. After all, the most celebrated black

male comedy stars of the era practiced their art under cork: Ernest Hogan, Bert Williams, Sherman Dudley, Salem Tutt Whitney, Shelton Brooks, etc.383 Palpable change was nevertheless in the air, and Ora Criswell was recognized as one of its preeminent agents. Criswell’s most enduring stage creation was “Bolivia from Possum Trot.” At the Crown Garden Theater in the fall of 1914 the house critic observed that, “while made up a jet black,” she “seems to enjoy the character. Some performers seem to wear the black paint because they have it to do. Ora forgets that she is Ora, and at once becomes Oblivia [sic]. . . . She does a parody on ‘All Night Long’ which gets her generous applause. She has a most satisfactory, tuneful voice, which she can make soulful enough to start tears in the eyes. And then she can turn it in a moment to a mimicry that tickles all.”384 Tim Owsley added: “She doesn’t care how black her makeup nor how grotesque she looks. This is the art of her work and it wins. She sang her two songs, a parody on ‘All Night Long’ and ‘When the Chu Chu Leaves for Alabam.’”385 These commentaries point to the essential relationship between blackface makeup and creative abandon on the African American vaudeville stage. The racially exclusive theatrical context afforded a genius like Ora Criswell great latitude for her fertile imagination, unfettered by the judgment or approval of outsiders. Word came in November that Criswell and fellow performer Jimmie Marshall had gotten married and were playing in stock at a theater in Nashville: “‘Aunt Peggy’s Birthday’ is the title of the bill . . . with Ora Marshall, nee Criswell, as Aunt Peggy.”386 Returning north to the Monogram, the new couple “danced ‘Virginia’” together in blackface.387 The “Annual Review of the Stage” for 1914 observed that, “in her line of work,” Criswell “has no superior.”388 In the spring of 1915 Criswell played a few “reunion” dates with Laura Bailey.389 At the Old

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Monogram, their “piano songs and finish brought the team great credit.”390 But, when she and Jimmie Marshall resumed their team act shortly thereafter, “Everything was Ora Criswell.”391 Sylvester Russell admonished: I will have everybody to understand that there is no artist, black or white, on the American stage today in her line who is in Ora Criswell’s class. Jimmie Marshall, who is a good young character and straight man, is no black-face comedian, and colored people will not accept him as such. Just where the hitch is, in framing their act, is their own business, but the public would accept the team both in white and colored houses everywhere if Jimmie will do the straight or do a yellow slum boy comedy to Ora’s black-face character.392

Shortly thereafter, Marshall and Criswell gave up on their team act. In May 1915 Criswell returned to the Crown Garden as a single and “put it on with a feeling.”393 At the Monogram, she opened with what Russell termed “an unreal haggard fiction,” and then came back in “a jungle scene, with two good songs, an excellent costume, her wonderfully musical alto voice, and skillful art in dancing.”394 During the fall of 1915 Criswell played theaters in North Carolina in a team act with Jimmie Avery.395 At the beginning of 1916 she took her turn in the long line of soubrettes who teamed briefly with Butler “String Beans” May. Later that spring, the Panama Café in Chicago “was full downstairs, owing to the appearance of Ora Criswell, the mirthful star.”396 Her appearance at this landmark State Street cabaret marked a rare departure from the vaudeville routes. Alarming news came later that summer that Criswell was laid up at a friend’s house in Cincinnati, “seriously ill . . . very low and in a dangerous condition. She wishes the world God’s blessing.”397 Within the next six weeks, however, she was back on the road.398

“Bolivia from Possom Trot,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 23, 1916.

Indianapolis Freeman, July 30, 1910.

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A measure of the regard in which Ora Criswell was held, after nearly two decades on the public stage, is contained in the glowing reviews she received during her two-week engagement at the Washington Theater in Indianapolis at the turn of the New Year 1917: The appearance of that distinguished performer was signal for great applause. . . . The audience shouted its approval at the sight of her. Perhaps no other performer of the Race has had such a memorable happening in their lives. This was because of the good impressions made during her previous visits to this city. Ora Criswell, Bolivia, as she has become known, was something to see, standing before that vast throng who hung breathless on her words, the supreme representative of Colored women in her line of work— nothing short of a genius. In the language of Solomon, she stood, black, but comely, and through her splendid work banished all thought of color. . . . Miss Criswell is known for her monologue work. . . . The take-off on the old colored lady with the “trembly” voice was interesting and amusing. The old lady wished for some Tiz from the drug store. She got mixed and called for “twas.” Her singing was also a hit, one song being of the late “Chimie” variety. These together with her steps and pranks went so strong that she took bow after bow and then was forced to come back. Only one Ora Criswell, that’s all. Her costume of lavender satin was most becoming. Her headpiece was of the same color; also her shoes, making the most distinguished appearing personage.399 Ora Criswell came back to them in her second week even better than her first week, when she carried her audience by storm. . . . Wave after wave of laughter greeted her, and which must have proved very satisfactory to her. She closed with her well-known letter from her mother who lived in the South, giving her advice. It was a fine opportunity for the Criswell humor. She sustained herself as the most splendid woman

performer of her race, and one of the very best in the business regardless of race. Miss Criswell surprised her audience by her fine renditions at the piano. These were among the best of the kind. Her “Criswell Blues” called for more. “The Melody” played and sang was a great number. Her song “Tennessee” was touching, reaching the hearts of southerners, especially those from that state, with her pathos and soul longing for the dear old Southland— the section of song and story. Here she proved herself again to be in a class by herself, distinctly two great and satisfying acts in one. Miss Ora Criswell, while doing blackface makes it a point to costume in the best style. This week she is in cream colored silk, making a superb looking Negro woman whose color was forgotten owing to her ability. Ora Criswell as a comedienne is great!400

How Criswell managed to “banish all thought of color” while performing in blackface, lavender satin, and cream colored silk must remain to some extent a mystery. Her “black but comely” character, seemingly drenched in color, represents an extravagant, comic adaptation of Aida Overton Walker’s groundbreaking turn-of-the-century “dark soubrette.”401 The source of Criswell’s genius was her startling originality, “having nothing to do with set forms.” Criswell effectively undermined those set forms, turning the blackface demon on its head. Her radical comic manipulations epitomize the aphorism: “Change the joke and slip the yoke.”402 Early in 1917, Criswell announced plans to launch a sister team with future blues recording artist Lena Wilson.403 But she was working single that spring, in “a Zulu act that sets them screaming,” at the Vaudette Theater in Detroit.404 Two months later news came that the great blackface comedienne had “passed away at Mercy hospital, Baltimore, Tuesday, May 29, after a lingering illness of four weeks.”

Female Blues Pioneers in Southern Vaudeville

Miss Criswell had a long and successful career as a performer. . . . She had been a member of some of what is now called the big companies of years ago, and from which she got her rich experience. The field of vaudeville opening was her opportunity, and as it was to so many who developed among those great groups of other days. Miss Criswell was old to the stage, not an old woman as we think of age; something under forty, but giving no sign of that many years when on the stage. . . . For the past two or three years Miss Criswell had been a sick woman. . . . She presented a brave front to the audience; it roared the usual applause but on coming off the stage she rested her hands on the shoulders of friends in order to come safely down the few steps. . . . Ora Criswell was a good, big hearted woman. She spent her money freely, meaning that she spent much since her salary always ranged from $50 to $75 per week. Perhaps her prosperity had something to do with her undoing. She loved life, she lived the life and paid her share in the run of it. . . . A great performer is gone in the passing of Ora Criswell. She had her faults. We saw some of them as others did. We did not confound them with her genius. She was a great stage personage—the greatest of her kind.405

Ora Criswell had “lived the life,” and when she died she was, like many other performers, “without funds.” Friends were compelled to hold a benefit to help defray her funeral expenses.406 Meanwhile, former partner Laura Bailey was accused of blowing into Baltimore and laying claim to Criswell’s theatrical trunk, to which she responded: I did not make a special trip to Baltimore as stated, but instead I threw down three days’ work to show my

duty as a performer and one-time partner to go to Baltimore to show my last respects to the dead, and I also did all I could do to see that she would be put away nice. I could not afford to bury her, but through the kindness of Princess Mysteria and partner, who gave the benefit for her, she was put away nice, without having to beg for her, and Mrs. Minnie C. Moore, who had her insured, is the lady who has her trunk . . . so make your soul right with God, as I have done and as my former partner, Ora Criswell, did before she died.407

In the wake of Ora Criswell’s death, Trixie Smith was recognized as the premier blues-singing blackface comedienne. The Freeman’s end-of-the-year review of the stage for 1917 declared her “the logical successor of Ora Criswell.”408 Smith was reportedly born in Atlanta, some time after 1888.409 According to a 1910 Freeman report, her given name was Adella J. Smith.410 When first mentioned in the spring of 1909 she was traveling with the Florida Blossom Minstrels.411 The following spring, “Adella Smith with Billy Bliss made quite a hit . . . in a ragtime jubilee” at the newly inaugurated Olympia Theater in Anderson, South Carolina.412 By October 17, 1910, she had adopted the stage name “Trixie” and was in the midst of a four-week engagement at the Famous Theater in Atlanta.413 At the end of that year, the Globe Theater in Jacksonville advertised her as “Trixie Smith, the sweetest singer in Dixie.”414 She opened the vaudeville portion of the show, and then took part in the farce comedy production Mamma’s Baby Boy, playing “Sallie Brown from Eaton Town, a dope fiend.”415 In February 1911 Trixie Smith was riding the TriState Circuit with Barrasso’s Strollers, in company with Bessie Smith and Edna Landry Benbow.416 In May she appeared at the Airdome in Tampa, Florida, engaging the up-to-date coon shouter repertoire: “Lovie Joe,” “Some Of These Days,” and “Honk

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Kansas City Call, November 7, 1924.

a Tonk Rag.”417 One week later, the Globe Theater in Jacksonville staged Life of Bridge Street with a cast of twenty-five people, including “Trixie Smith, coon shouter,” under the direction of Madame Cordelia McClain.418 Evidence of Smith’s popularity, along with a hint that she may have begun performing under cork, is found in a correspondence later that summer: “Miss Trixie J. Smith, that singing girl, closed a six weeks’ engagement at the Globe Theater, Jacksonville, Fla., on July 8, and opened at the McKinnie Theater on July 10, where she is taking six and seven encores nightly, singing some of her favorites. Minor strain—‘That’s Why They Call Me Shine.’”419 At the McKenzie Theater in Augusta, Georgia, Smith

put over “Stop That Rag” and “Some of These Days” “to the delight of all.”420 In the autumn of 1911 she crossed the MasonDixon Line as a member of the Brooks-Smith Players. At the Lyre Theater in Louisville, they opened “with a laughable one act farce comedy entitled ‘The Lady Barber Shop,’ featuring that resourceful laugh producer, Speedy Smith, as Lize, the porteress.” Future recording artist Billy Higgins opened the olio with a monologue, and Trixie Smith followed with “a couple of songs, the best of which is ‘That Railroad Rag.’”421 When they repeated The Lady Barber Shop at the Crown Garden Theater in Indianapolis, Trixie was credited for her role as “Blossom,” one of the skit’s four “Lady Barbers.”422 She was back south by the spring of 1912, when “The Smiths (Trixie and Speedy), late of Brooks-Smith Stock Co.,” appeared at the Twelfth Avenue Theater in Nashville on a bill headed by Baby F. Seals.423 By summer she was working single.424 In the spring of 1913, at the grand opening of the Lyric Theater in Miami, she “had the audience on their feet yelling with delight two minutes after she had been on the stage. She took so many encores that it looked as if the rest of the performers would have to go home, but finally the audience was content to let her go. There is no doubt of her being the favorite soubrette of Miami and she has been retained by the management for eight weeks and will probably stay longer.”425 Trixie Smith made her way to the Lyric Theater in Kansas City in the spring of 1914, where she stayed for three months, “making good each night with her comedy songs.”426 When she finally left Kansas City to play the Monogram in Chicago, Sylvester Russell pronounced: “There was one Trixie Smith, a Southern girl in black face, who pleased the far down folks. She is a girl who shows signs of real talent and has a good singing voice. She made good and will later be a winner.”427 That fall she appeared at the Pekin Theater in Cincinnati: “This girl has a nice single that took well. Her

blackface turn is good.”428 Her next week’s engagement was at the New Crown Garden Theater in Indianapolis, where Ora Criswell had just left audiences clamoring for more. In the afterglow, Trixie Smith triumphed as “the ‘Blues’ Girl,” “the girl who sings her own Blues. That is, she composes them. Her ‘Melody Blues’ makes a big hit. Her other songs are also nicely received. She is also something of a monologist. Trixie’s makeup gets ’em. One immediately thinks of Sis Hopkins, and she says some strangely funny things.”429 She went from the Crown Garden to the Monogram. This time Russell merely noted: “Trixie Smith does a lonesome blackface.”430 After witnessing the same performance, Chicago Defender columnist Columbus Bragg enlisted Smith to participate in a classy benefit matinee at which, “All the Stroll’s theaters and cabrays [sic] will combine. . . . Miss Trixie Smith, a versatile singer, as she can sing in three voices, and one of the race’s greatest black-face comediennes, will appear in straight costume.”431 In the fall of 1915, Trixie Smith joined Alexander Tolliver’s Big Show at Richmond, Virginia: “She never fails to win the audience and always draws a big laugh.”432 She remained with Tolliver’s Show for about two weeks before jumping off to team with Ebbie Burton in a “red hot vaudeville show” at the Pekin Theater in Savannah, Georgia.433 In January 1916 the team of Trixie Smith and Ebbie Burton took the platform at Gibson’s New Standard Theater in Philadelphia, in a variety act that consisted of “singing, dancing and persiflage.”434 Shortly thereafter, Burton broke off to partner with String Beans. That spring Trixie Smith helped inaugurate the Rose Theater in Augusta, Georgia.435 She was back north at Gibson’s New Standard Theater by fall, when a local reporter described “Trixie Smith, a black-face woman in pantalettes, in a cyclone of comedy. She catches on readily, especially when she sings, ‘How Well Do I Remember.’ The audience shower her with coins of all denominations, which causes her Kansas City Call, May 27, 1922. This photograph was circulating in the African American press as early as 1917.

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to pursue a running talk while she obligingly picks them up.”436 During the course of 1917 Trixie Smith emerged as a full-fledged African American vaudeville star. An engagement at the Washington Theater in Indianapolis that spring produced this strong review: Trixie Smith has been seen here before. Since that time she has no one that overtops her in her line of work. She is blessed with the requisites for a good comedienne of her order. Both her singing and talking voice are ideal, clear and distinct. Besides this she is on to the little quips and turns which make her songs go. They are of the blues variety, and none are better or better sung. Trixie is somewhat of a classic in her costume, something of the Sis Hopkins order, representing, in a way, those of her class in the section from which she came. She is supposed to be in the city of New York and very green and far from home. She wants to know everything, thus making the fun of the manner of her questions. She sings “In The Town Where I Was Born,” which fits in well with the first part of her act. Her other song numbers were sung with great success, the verses being of the kind to pull great applause.437

Smith took a second week in Indianapolis at the Senate Avenue Theater, then spent several months traversing the state of Pennsylvania, filling extended engagements in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, where she played both black and white houses, “Doing well.”438 In July, after having “completed eight weeks at Pittsburgh, winning more fame,” Smith returned to Philadelphia’s New Standard Theater with her old partner Speedy Smith, in the banner feature, a “war production, ‘The Black Volunteers.’” She was pronounced “the only black face single and a good one in all respects.”439 During her late summer 1917 run on S. H. Dudley’s East Coast theater circuit, New York City–based columnist Billy E. Jones alluded to “Trixie Smith, the only

lady single playing under cork since Ora Criswell.”440 Back in Pittsburgh for a two-week engagement, she was described as “Trixie J. Smith, the star comedienne . . . the only single blackface with any reputation.”441 In December Trixie “stormed them again” at the Pekin Theater in Cincinnati, “amidst a rain of nickels and dimes. . . . Her original backwoods character has won her the name of Black Sis Hopkins. She told the writer her past, which was a pleasing recital from a finished character woman.”442 She went from Cincinnati to the Owl Theater in Chicago, where Sylvester Russell called her “a popular winner as an attraction for colored people in her Jazz songs and talk, which was put over a little slow.”443 Perhaps Russell was not yet accustomed to “Tempo di Blues.” After a remarkably successful 1917, Smith disappeared for a time. The Freeman of September 21, 1918, finally broke the silence with an editorial titled, “Trixie Smith Heard From At Last”: Only a few days ago in opening up the mail the dramatic editor of The Freeman ran his eyes over an interesting letter from our noted actress friend, Miss Trixie Smith. But we were surprised—everyone in the office—to read that she was no longer a Miss Smith for she informed us that she had been married ever since December 26, 1917, and that she was now Mrs. Camanche Muse of 1027½ North Church Street, Jacksonville, Fla., the wife of a wealthy property owner of that city. Mrs. Muse has hopes of returning to the stage sometime in the near future, but at present is enjoying domestic life in her own happy home.444

She may have been back on the road with her husband and daughter on November 3, 1919, when: “Little Elizabeth Muse, daughter of Miss Trixie Smith, died . . . at Memphis, Tenn., aged thirteen months, of brain disease. The mother and father tried hard to save the little one, but it was God’s will for her to go and His will be done.”445

Female Blues Pioneers in Southern Vaudeville

Shortly thereafter, Smith was spotted at the Bijou Theater in Nashville with I. W. “Dad” James’s Crescent Players, billed as “the blue girl” in strong company with Cox and Cox, Sidney Perrin, Tillie Johnson, Hezekiah Jenkins, and others.446 By the spring of 1920 she was working “in and around Louisville.”447 A note in April advised that: “Trixie Smith, star black faced comedienne, who has been South since she closed on the Western Vaudeville Circuit over two years ago, is back again. Just closed a ten weeks’ engagement at the Victory Theater, Louisville, Ky. and will open on the Klein & Dudley Time, Booker Washington Theater [St. Louis], March 29th. She is looking fine and sends regards to all friends.”448 Smith was featured at the Monogram Theater on at least three occasions during the second half of 1920. When she appeared there in July, Defender columnist Tony Langston called her “an old Monogram favorite . . . back with a fine line of topical songs.”449 Upon her return in October, Langston dubbed her “one of the most popular singles in the business,” and Russell reported that she was held over for a second week by popular demand.450 Back again at the end of the year on a bill with future recording artist Sam Robinson and blues ventriloquist Johnny Woods, “It was Trixie Smith who closed the show and held the audience until the curtain went down with her riot of comicalities and ‘blues.’”451 In the spring of 1921, at the New Lincoln Theater in Baltimore, the bill advertised “Trixie Smith—A Mean Blue Singer.”452 For all that, Smith did not gain notice beyond the confines of racial vaudeville until 1922, when she entered into a blues singing contest at the Manhattan Casino, a favorite black society venue located at Eighth Avenue and 155th Street. Years earlier, the Manhattan Casino was the scene of semi-annual concerts by the Clef Club Symphony Orchestra, with James Reese Europe directing.453 Europe appeared there with Vernon and Irene Castle in

1914; W. C. Handy’s Memphis Blues Band brought the blues there in 1919.454 On January 20, 1922, the Manhattan Casino was the scene of the “first annual concert and ball” of the Fifteenth Infantry Band, “under its new leader, ‘Bill’ Vodery.” The Chicago Defender carried a detailed review under the headline, “Society 400 Applauds New Sort o’ Opera”: The concert, which started at 10:30, was superb in every particular. Nine numbers of classic and popular song hits comprised the program. Selections by our composers were among the band’s repertory, which included “Admiration” by Will H. Tyers; “Puppy’s Gone,” by Lieut. Vodery; “Love Will Find a Way,” Noble Sissle, and “On Patrol in No Man’s Land,” by the late Lieut. James Europe. Dancing interspersed the joy that flowed till midnight, when the principal attraction of the evening took place—the blues singing championship contest—which was introduced by a jazz selection from James P. Johnson of the Q. R. S. rolls and his six syncopators. Trixie Smith Wins Contest Miss Trixie Smith, called the Southern nightingale, was the first to appear. She sang “Stingaree Blues” and made a decided hit at the outset. “The girl with a smile,” who portrayed that title in every way, was Miss Daisy Martin of the Okeh Phonograph Co. She was another whose singing pleased. Miss Alice Leslie Carter and Miss Lucille Hegamin of the Arto Phonograph Co., sang their favorite song hits, “Decatur Street Blues” and “Arkansas Blues.” Each of the singers was roundly applauded and to the one receiving the loudest and longest applause a silver loving cup was given. The judges, Major [sic] La Guardia and Fred R. Moore, awarded the handsome gift to Miss Trixie Smith. The presentation was made by Mrs. Irene Castle-Tremaine, the famous dancer. At the close of the contest the lithesome and facetious Mrs. Castle-Tremaine, favored the audience with

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The Baltimore Afro-American pointed out that prior to the contest, Trixie Smith was “unknown to the record companies or to metropolitan audiences.”456 The Defender emphasized that she “was the dark horse in the contest, and the audience, composed of 5,000 persons, by thunderous applause decided beyond any doubt that she was rightfully entitled to the silver loving cup.”457 In 1924 Smith provided a Baltimore Afro-American reporter with her personal recollection of the contest: I was in New York City in 1921, and was asked to participate in a competitive “blues” singing, which was sponsored by Mrs. Vernon Castle, the internationally known danseuse. All of the entrants were singers of country-wide reputation. I was merely asked to enter to swell the number. For my services as a filler, I was to receive $20, which I needed, and all that I hoped to get. On the night of the contest . . . I dressed and went over. Arriving, I was slightly embarrassed to hear several of the contestants refer to me as “THE BLACK GAL,” and I seemed to be affording considerable amusement by entering. A performer, who today is an international figure, assisted the rest to the stand to sing their numbers, but let old Black Trixie scuffle along as best she could. . . . I sang my own number, “Trixie’s Blues,” and came very near fainting when they awarded me the prize.458 New York Age, January 28, 1922.

an excellent demonstration of her profession. Charles Granville (white), a prominent actor, also entertained, by singing “Emaline” and displaying a few steps in soft shoe dancing. After a riotous call for a contribution from Noble Sissle, one of the stars in “Shuffle Along,” who acted as master of ceremonies of the program, responded by singing the “Shuffle Along” chorus. Some of the members of the company were present and joined in the chorus.455

It was reported that Trixie Smith “was tendered a check for $1,000” for winning the contest, and was subsequently “deluged with offers to record for phonograph companies.”459 She was able to capitalize on her newfound fame by landing engagements in posh New York area night clubs and cabarets. A note in the summer of 1922 advised: “Trixie Smith, late of the review at Reisenweber’s, New York City, is doing her stuff at the Hotel LaMare, the swellest cabaret on the Board walk, Atlantic City, N. J.”460

Female Blues Pioneers in Southern Vaudeville

The fact that Trixie Smith had arrived in the big city as a complete unknown, after a long and seemingly successful career in southern and midwestern vaudeville, indicates the great distance between the southern blues seedbed and the New York audience. Her triumph over cosmopolitan competition suggests the big city was ready for a more robust style of blues vocalizing. The early recordings of Trixie Smith’s competitors in the Manhattan Casino Blues Contest are, to varying degrees, short on blues tonality and long on melodramatic affectations.461 Alice Leslie Carter’s pronunciation of the operative word—“buhlooze”—speaks to the heart of the matter. Carter was professionally active as early as 1907, when she made an international tour with Henderson Smith’s Fourteen Black Hussars.462 In New York during the mid-teens, she and partner Bert Titus were prominent in the “tango tea” craze that swept the Harlem cabaret scene.463 Born in 1894, Lucille Hegamin was on the road by 1911, when she appeared with the Freeman-Harper-Muse Stock Company at the Globe Theater in Jacksonville.464 By the fall of 1912 she had married pianist William Hegamin and settled into Chicago’s State Street cabaret scene.465 In 1918 she joined “the big bunch from Chi who are at Los Angeles.”466 She recalled that, all along the West Coast, “The blues craze was really upon us and I had to sing plenty of blues.”467 Hegamin was living in New York City by November 1919, when she opened at the Dolphin Café in Harlem.468 Daisy Martin was a popular road show performer. She spent the season of 1909–10 with Whitney and Tutt’s Southern Smart Set, and the season of 1911–12 with S. H. Dudley’s Northern Smart Set.469 She toured in the 1916 edition of Tolliver’s Smart Set, singing “Every Man Is My Man”; and in 1917 she headlined with Whitney and Tutt’s Smarter Set, featuring “Irresistible Blues” and “Please Don’t

Norfolk Journal & Guide, March 22, 1924.

Trifle with My Heart.”470 In 1919–20 she toured with Frank Montgomery’s Hello 1919 Company, working under cork.471 Three weeks before the Manhattan Casino Blues Contest, Martin played a week at Harlem’s Lafayette Theater.472 Trixie Smith made her first record for the Black Swan label almost immediately after the contest, ostensibly becoming the first southern vaudeville blues artist to record.473 On her second session, two months later, she was accompanied by James P.

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Johnson and his band, which had played for the contest.474 She recorded about three dozen songs for Black Swan and Paramount over the next four years.475 Blackface makeup was an essential ingredient of Trixie Smith’s stage persona, but there is no evidence that she used it at the contest. She was among the last of her kind; the ennobling “blues queen” image militated against the use of cork by female performers. In the fall of 1925 Trixie appeared at the Orpheum Theater in Newark, New Jersey, on a bill with Jackie Mabley, later known as “Moms.”476 Moms Mabley’s 1960s comic persona was reminiscent of female blackface characterizations and comedy conventions of an earlier era, sans burnt cork makeup.477 While the decline of vaudeville derailed many successful 1920s entertainment careers, resourceful Trixie Smith worked through the 1930s and into the early 1940s, often as an actress, appearing in stage plays and motion pictures.478 In 1938 she rekindled her recording career, waxing several titles for Decca. Trixie Smith Muse died in New York City on September 21, 1943.479

Estelle Harris—The “Jaz” Singer Though her name has fallen from the historical record, Estelle Harris was a true pioneer of modern American popular music. The range of her creative associations and the chronological scope of her career encompass the transition from ragtime to blues and jazz. When Harris’s star began to rise, as a member of Mahara’s Minstrels, Black Patti Troubadours, Smart Set Company, and Rabbit’s Foot Minstrels, there was no blues on the popular stage. Coon songs were still in their ascendancy. Although steeped in ragtime culture, Harris may have been the first person to sing a designated blues song on any stage in Memphis, the proverbial “home of the blues.”

A few years later, she was almost certainly the first person to sing a jazz song on State Street in Chicago. Harris was born in Hot Springs, Arkansas, around 1885.480 Her career was under way by March 28, 1899, when she appeared at the Hot Springs Opera House with the Creole Nightingales Company.481 Her charisma, or star quality, was evident from a very early age. By the fall of 1900 she was touring southern Kansas with W. A. Seymour’s Black 400 Minstrels, billed as “the star of the show,” singing “The Blue and the Gray,” “My Lady Lu,”“Little Black Me,” and “the song that has made her famous entitled ‘Chicken.’ Then comes the Honolulu dance, which is led by Huff and Harris.”482 The following spring she toured with the Nashville Students Comedy Company, another W. A. Seymour enterprise, featuring blackface comedian Tom McIntosh.483 When they opened at the Capital Theater in Little Rock in the spring of 1901, “Miss Estella Harris, the queen of song,” was proclaimed “a hit.”484 Before the close of 1901, Harris joined the stock company at the newly opened Tivoli Music Hall in Memphis, under the direction of J. Ed Green. Green’s first Tivoli production was a burlesque of the popular play Foxy Quiller, with Harris playing the part of “Queenie.”485 A few weeks later the Tivoli presented Going to War, “a military act,” in which “Estelle Harris donned male attire . . . and made a hit singing ‘Zulu Babe.’”486 Billy B. Johnson, a rising young blackface comedian from Cincinnati, was another member of Green’s Tivoli Music Hall stock company.487 Harris and Johnson formed a variety act with Will Reid and Nettie Lewis, and “took numerous encores from their rendition of the Philippine dance.”488 After J. Ed Green joined the Black Patti Troubadours in April 1902 his Tivoli stock company dispersed.489 Freeman notices in May placed Billy B. Johnson, Will Reid, and Estelle Harris with the Johnson Operatic Cake Walkers and Museum, a company of twenty people headlined by Tom McIntosh, with Henderson Smith leading the band,

Female Blues Pioneers in Southern Vaudeville

and carrying their own “museum,” or perhaps more accurately “sideshow,” whose attractions included Mme. Davier, “the bearded lady,” and Mada Spaulding, “snake enchantress.”490 Johnson, Reid, and Harris’s association with this organization must have been brief, because on June 7 word came that the Johnson and Reid Stock Company was in Birmingham, Alabama, “playing to a crowded house every night at Traction Park.”491 The company included Rosa Payne, Elvira Johnson, Ora Criswell, and Estelle Harris, a remarkable contingent of rag shouters, all of whom had participated in J. Ed Green’s Memphis vaudeville trials. The male cohort consisted of Billy Johnson, Will Reid, James Crosby, Harry Love, and Will Scott. Estelle Harris and Billy Johnson had become husband and wife by early July, when they arrived at Pat Chappelle’s Buckingham Theater in Tampa.492 The Johnsons were judged “hot favorites” with the company, under stage manager Will Goff Kennedy.493 On July 14, they set out with the legendary A Rabbit’s Foot Company.494 The “Foots” spent the last half of August 1902 in Alabama: “The Johnsons, Billy and Estelle, are cleaning up with their sketch. Mrs. Johnson is singing ‘Hannah from Savannah.’”495 However, the couple was forced to close in Birmingham, “on account of Mrs. Johnson’s illness.”496 In the fall of 1902 they began a lengthy association with Frank Mahara’s Operatic Minstrels, whose bandleader was W. C. Handy.497 In June 1903 Mahara boasted that “Billy Johnson, principal comedian, and his clever wife, Estelle Harris Johnson, are great favorites everywhere.”498 Later that fall Estelle Harris Johnson was “making quite a hit . . . singing ‘These Coons are Dead in Line.’”499 While en route with Mahara’s Minstrels, Estelle received word that her mother, Mrs. Mamie Cain, had died of malaria on August 2 at her home in Hot Springs: “The deceased was 35 years of age and an ardent member of the A. M. E. church.”500

This photo appeared as an inset on the cover of Chris Smith and Billy B. Johnson’s 1905 sheet music hit, “Good-Bye, I’ll See You Some More” (Courtesy Chris Ware).

In the spring of 1904 the Johnsons headed out for a summer season at Ninaweb Park in Louisville.501 A note in June said they “came highly recommended, and they have more than fulfilled all claims made for them.”502 Tom Logan, who was in charge of Ninaweb Park that summer, wrote “a twenty minute act for Billy and Stella Johnson” before they left Louisville in July, headed to New York City to fill a stint with the Black Patti Troubadours.503 With the Black Patti Company in September, Billy and Estelle played three nights at Bleecker Hall in Albany, New York. Sylvester Russell submitted a review, noting: “The aristocracy turned out each night and filled several of the best boxes and some of the elite of the colored race of Albany sat in the most desirable orchestra seats unnoticed. If this is the case in Albany there would be no objection in New York or anywhere else in the North, except the managers, themselves draw the line. This show could easily run on Broadway in New York. It is the best company Voeckel and Nolan ever had.”504 The Black Patti Company was currently under the stage direction of the immortal Robert Cole. Russell compared Billy B. Johnson to the better-remembered

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Billy Johnson, Cole’s former collaborator in “A Trip to Coontown”: “The Johnsons, William and Estelle, give a neat sketch. Mr. Johnson uses a few of the original Billy Johnson’s steps and also dresses in the same style. His rag-time songs were sung a trifle slow and dreary; these with the efforts of his wife’s assistance were nevertheless received with much applause.”505 Shortly thereafter, the Johnsons joined the Smart Set Company, starring S. H. Dudley, in its third road season.506 A reviewer praised Estelle Harris Johnson’s rendition of “The Barbecue,” assisted by the Smart Set chorus, calling it “a very decided feature of the show.”507 She also led the chorus in singing the “Indian Song ‘Birch Canoe’ . . . a fitting climax to the second act.”508 In 1905, after the Smart Set closed for the season, the Johnsons formed a trio with composer/performer Chris Smith and had a run in mainstream vaudeville.509 At their New York City engagements, white critics confessed to hearing some “agreeable ragtime piano playing,” “very acceptable coon shouting,” and “negro comedy that was worth while.”510 In June 1906 the Freeman reported: “Chris Smith and the two Johnsons have done some fine work in vaudeville during the past season. They are the authors of ‘Practice What You Preach,’ ‘Goodbye, I’ll See You Some More,’ ‘Who’s There,’ and several other song successes. They will continue in vaudeville this summer as a trio, but next season they will play in Europe with a bigger act.”511 But by the summer of 1907, Estelle Harris had split with Billy Johnson and returned to Hot Springs, where she became stage manager of the Majestic Theater.512 She may have remained in Hot Springs until the end of 1909, when she left for Memphis and took her place among the roster of performers at Fred Barrasso’s new Savoy Theater. The Savoy featured a combination of northern theatrical stalwarts such as Charles Gilpin and intrepid

“southern specialists” like Willie and Lula Too Sweet and Laura Smith.513 In the pit was a five-piece band under the direction of pianist Henry P. “Buddy” McGill, a member of the local W. C. Handy syndicate of bands.514 In Jelly Roll Morton’s opinion, Laura Smith and Stella Harris were two “great blues singers.”515 They teamed in a singing act, “The Barber’s Ball,” in August 1910.516 Harris spent all of that year at the Savoy, performing “Good Evening, Miss Caroline,” “Hot Corn,” “In Dear Old Tennessee,” and “I’m Just Pinin’ for You.”517 A note at the end of the year said she was “still bringing out all the latest ones. Her list now comprises ‘I Love It,’ ‘Lovie Joe,’ ‘Some Of These Days,’ ‘Barber Shop Chord,’ ‘Pinin’ For You,’ ‘I’m Not That Kind Of A Girl,’ ‘Southern Rose,’ ‘Big Sensation,’ ‘Grizzly Bear,’ and several others, which are displayed on a beautiful card and hung at one side of the stage, by the request of our manager, so the audience may call for either one they like.”518 In addition to her vaudeville features, Harris played character parts—often male impersonations—in a succession of comedy and dramatic skits. In May 1910 the Savoy staged two “very heavy Western dramas”: The first week was the “Home of Harry Tanzell; or Dick Turpin, the Outlaw,” and it was a very pleasing bill, with Edward L. Howard as Dick Turpin. . . . Estella Harris was the hero. In male attire she played the part of Detective Britt. James Ransom was a comedy outlaw, and he played the part well. Margie Crosby played the part of Tanzell’s daughter, whom Dick Turpin, the outlaw, was determined to steal, but he was run down by Detective Britt and killed. . . . Laura Smith playing Dottie, a child’s part, and she made good. . . . Then came “The Old Nolan Gold Mine; or the Story of the Black Hills,” written by Jas. Ransom, our stage manager . . . Estella Harris as Elwood Nolan.519

Female Blues Pioneers in Southern Vaudeville

In November the Savoy Stock Company put on another western drama, A Girl from Dixie, with Bessie Smith playing an “adventuress,” and Estelle Harris as “Tough Lize,” a role that was introduced to Memphis by Bessie Gillam at the Rialto Theater back in 1901.520 Two weeks later the stock company presented A Stranded Minstrel Show: “The action takes place on an Indian reservation, Miss Estelle Harris playing the leading role as the owner of the show; Mr. Billy Mills as Big Chief Sitting Bull; Mr. Earthquake and Billy Henderson carrying the comedy roles. The rest of the company acted as performers and Indians in the war dance, taken from the famous Yaqui Indians of Mexico, and arranged by Prof. McGill, who is quite familiar with that tribe of Indians.”521 Estelle Harris and Buddy McGill were romantically linked in April 1910: “Prof. H. P. McGill, our orchestra leader, was taken very ill . . . after the opening act, and had to be carried to his room; but his better half, Estella Harris, left the stage and went to the piano, and she held the house spell-bound.”522 Later that year Harris again presided over the orchestra during McGill’s absence.523 Harris seems to have been completely at home among the young southern blues pathfinders at the Savoy Theater. In 1910 she was twenty-five years old and had already proven herself capable in any company or theatrical context. Seasoned under the influences of Robert Cole, Sherman Dudley, J. Ed Green, Tom Logan, and Will Goff Kennedy, she was now rubbing elbows with Jelly Roll Morton, Bessie Smith, and String Beans. In January 1911 Harris ventured out on the TriState Circuit, opening at the Majestic Theater in her hometown Hot Springs as a member of Barrasso’s Big Sensation Company, which included Laura Smith, Porter and Porter, Billy and Grace Arnte, Mattie Dorsey Whitman, and Buddy McGill, among

others. This all-star outfit presented comedian Billy Earthquake’s original skit Girl from Dixie “to standing room only . . . a packed house every night.”524 Estelle Harris was back in Memphis at the Savoy Theater in March 1911, sharing the bill with Laura Smith, Billy Mills, Happy Howe, Dave Schaffer, and May and May: “After Prof. McGill finished playing the overture, the curtain went up on a laughable musical comedy labeled ‘The Portrait of Booker T.’” Harris “responded to several encores singing ‘I Love It.’”525 At the Savoy in December 1911, Harris was credited with one of the earliest known stage performances of a blues song: “Estelle Harris is . . . featuring her new song successes, ‘That’s My Man’ and ‘The Blues in Indian Style.’”526 Fred Barrasso died of a “cerebral embolus” on June 25, 1911, and his brother Anselmo took over his theater enterprise.527 When he opened the newly renovated Metropolitan Theater in Memphis at the end of 1912, the initial report said Estelle Harris had charge of the five-piece band.528 By the summer of 1913 Harris had formed a sister team with Bessie Brown and headed north. At the Monogram they put on “a splendid act. Miss Harris has a good looking wardrobe and plays the piano and sings rags just as good as one would wish to hear. ‘My Man’ is the song with which she makes a hit. . . . They close the bill with ‘The Princess Prance.’”529 At the Crown Garden in Indianapolis they opened “with a mammy and pick stunt, the pick turn being done by Miss Brown, who is in male attire throughout the act. . . . Miss Harris does two good turns at the piano singing in a descriptive way, ‘My Man’ and ‘Mississippi Man.’ She shows what she is as a pianist.”530 In the second week of their engagement Harris sang “‘If You Don’t Like My Peaches, Don’t Shake My Tree’ in a way all her own.”531 At the Ruby Theater in Louisville, they drew encores “dancing the Grizzly Bear and the Turkey Trot.”532

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Indianapolis Freeman, October 16, 1915.

Toward the end of 1914 Brown and Harris appeared at the Pike Theater in Mobile as members of the Billy King Stock Company, with comedian Billy Higgins and musical director William Benton Overstreet.533 Overstreet had joined the Billy King Company in January 1914, following a yearlong residence in Texas theater pit bands.534 Neither Overstreet nor the team of Brown and Harris was still traveling with the Billy King Company in April 1915, when they crossed paths again at the Globe Theater in Jacksonville. Harris, Brown, and Overstreet proceeded to Kansas City to join the Lyric Theater Stock Company. Overstreet took command of the potent six-piece Lyric Theater band: “Hamp Harper, violin; Joe Sudler, cornet; George Wilkson, clarinet; Chas. Washington, trombone; Curtis Mosby, drums.”535 The Lyric Theater Stock Company opened its summer season on May 3, 1915, with Brown and Harris, comedian Billy Higgins, and the husband-and-wife

Indianapolis Freeman, September 25, 1915.

Female Blues Pioneers in Southern Vaudeville

Indianapolis Freeman, December, 23, 1916.

Indianapolis Freeman, November 4, 1916.

comedy team of Gretchen and Sandy Burns aboard: “When Bessie Brown and Stella Harris opened their act, it was a hit, and when they closed, they stopped the show, singing and dancing, ‘Old Si Riddle Playing His Fiddle.’”536 Sandy Burns produced most of the dramatic offerings at the Lyric that season, including Montana Jack and Arizona Dick, “a western comedy drama” starring Gretchen Burns, Bessie Brown, Estelle Harris, and “Funny Billie Higgins and his mule.”537 Higgins also made a hit singing Overstreet’s “My Place of Business.”538 In mid-August the Lyric Theater concluded its summer season. Estelle Harris’s name was carried to Chicago by Gretchen and Sandy Burns, who turned up at the Monogram Theater in mid-September, “featuring the Kansas City Todelo . . . Words and music by Mr. Overstreet, featured by Stella Harris, at Kansas City, this summer.”539 Bessie Brown and Billy Higgins also gravitated to Chicago, but Harris herself temporarily disappeared from view.

On September 25, 1915, Overstreet announced that he was also on his way to Chicago, “to demonstrate his latest numbers.”540 Shortly thereafter, he rejoined the Billy King Stock Company.541 His arrival on the Stroll was recalled by Jelly Roll Morton: “Will Overstreet was a newcomer in Chicago, coming with Billy King’s stock company. He was rated as a great pianist. He was carved the first day he came in town by every decent pianist in town.”542 Overstreet’s status might be better gauged by contemporaneous press reports, which cast light into one of jazz’s more obscure corners. Shortly before he arrived in Chicago, Overstreet advised Freeman readers that he “was the originator of the long bass which was introduced in K. C. some years ago,” and that he was about to “introduce some new basses which will probably open the eyes of some of the left handed fellows.”543 Overstreet’s return to the Billy King Stock Company was timely. After twenty-five years in the busi-

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“The Sister That Shouts,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 30, 1916.

(Courtesy Hogan Jazz Archive, Tulane University)

ness, King was enjoying unprecedented success. His stock company was holding forth at the Grand Theater in October 1915, when they introduced Overstreet’s “Kansas City Todelo” and “Walking Brought Me Here.”544 In November they embarked on an East Coast tour that began at the Lafayette Theater in Harlem.545

Estelle Harris remained out of sight until March 1916, when the King Stock Company presented the “screaming farce comedy ‘Neighbors’” at the Howard Theater in Washington: “The story introduced Hattie McIntosh King and Miss Stella Harris as two neighbors, one with broom sweeping out yard and the other at the wash-tub, fussing over their domestic and social affairs. . . . Billy King and Benton Overstreet are the two husbands, likewise in perpetual scraps that ever result in a laugh.”546 At the end of April the Billy King Stock Company, with Stella Harris and musical director W. Benton Overstreet, returned to Chicago for a record-breaking run at the Grand.547 On their opening night, King and company were preceded by Hawaiian guitar player Sam Naimoa, whose “rag music” and “native folk-lore” “actually stopped the show.”548 Billy King and company stormed the stage with The Last Rehearsal, “an improbable farce comedy song review” that clicked “from the time that Billy poked his cork-covered bean over the roof of the Pullman in scene one until the curtain was rung down on the last song number.”549 The musical numbers included Estelle Harris’s renditions of Shelton Brooks’s “Walking the Dog” and two new Overstreet numbers, “The Alabama Todelo” and “The New Dance.”550 These songs were important harbingers of the jazz movement. “The Alabama Todelo” was touted as “Estelle Harris’ ‘KNOCK OUT,’” but it was “The New Dance” that became her signature specialty.551 She was compelled to reprise it in almost every one of the King Stock Company’s subsequent musical-dramatic

Female Blues Pioneers in Southern Vaudeville

productions. By the end of 1916, Overstreet had renamed it “The ‘Jazz’ Dance”; it appeared under that title in a 1917 sheet music publication, promoted as “Another Member of the ‘Walking the Dog’ Family.”552 “Walking the Dog,” “The Alabama Todelo,” and “The New (‘Jazz’) Dance” all belong to a lineage of songs whose lyrics take the form of dance instructions. Descended from old-time quadrilles for which “callers” “called the figures,” songs of this type had been inciting revolutionary developments in American entertainment since the days of Ernest Hogan’s “La Pas Ma La,” a “rag dance” favorite closely associated with the first appearance of ragtime music.553 Hogan’s directions in “La Pas Ma La” to “Let your mind roll far back, back, back and look at the stars” reverberated in Overstreet’s call in “The Jazz Dance” to “cast your eyes to the skies, then get way back.” The direction to “get back” seems to invoke a nineteenth-century vernacular dance figure known as “the old back step.”554 Estelle Harris never recorded her show-stopping vocal version of “The ‘Jazz’ Dance.”555 The chorus is preserved intact in the Norfolk Jazz Quartet’s 1921 recording of “Monday Morning Blues,” and the catchy couplet, “Buzz around like a bee, Shake like a ship at sea,” is embedded in Blind Willie McTell’s 1931 recording of “Georgia Rag.”556 Sylvester Russell dubbed Estelle Harris “the greatest natural rag song shouter on the American stage.”557 Her dance song specialties made her a favorite among the Billy King Stock Company’s generous lineup of female vocal stars, which included Hattie McIntosh King, Gertrude Saunders, Georgia Kelly, Theresa Burroughs-Brown, and Anna Holt, who introduced Overstreet’s ballad “I Wonder If Your Loving Heart Still Pines For Me.”558 During the second week of the Billy King Company’s summer 1916 engagement at the Grand Theater, Handy’s “Yellow Dog Rag by Stella Harris; Plantation Song, by the entire company, and The Grocery Man, one of Director W. Benton Overstreet’s compositions,

all went over nicely.”559 In their third week at the Grand, the company put on The Kidnapping Case, in which “Estelle Harris, as Miss Small, done a splendid piece of comedy soubret work in the part of the buxom kidnapped widow.”560 By this time, the Chicago Defender was prepared to declare Harris the hit of the show: Among the members of Billy King’s Stock Company there is none who has attracted the attention and gained the popularity that has Stella Harris. In commenting on her work the theatrical papers are a unit in pronouncing her in a class by herself as a “coon shouter” and singer of rag-time songs. Her reputation has grown so that it is common to see the faces of many of the prominent vaudeville performers who follow this line, at the Grand. . . . Will Rossiter, the song publisher, purchased outright the “New Dance” song number used by Miss Harris. It is one of the compositions of W. B. Overstreet, the musical director for Billy King. . . . Aside from her ability as a songstress, Miss Harris is clever in the handling of character parts, and never overdraws in dialogue or song number. Her popularity with the audiences at the Grand equals that of any of the artists seen there in the past, and she certainly is one of the stock company’s most valuable assets.561

Harris’s repertoire of “rag shouts” featured prominently in the King Company’s productions. In The Darktown Journal, she gave out with “O That Todelo,” “a shout number”; and in The Other Fellow, Harris “was the usual riot with the new rag shout, Princess Prance.”562 On the Beach included “‘Happy Shout,’ an Overstreet number, by Stella Harris.”563 In The Undertaker’s Daughter, Harris sang Overstreet’s “If I Said I Would Marry You, I Must Have Been Out of My Head,” and she “took two real encores” with a Billy Farrell composition, “The Frisco Bear.”564 In A Mother-in-Law’s Disposition Harris helped sing “Phoebe Green” “as a member of the Boys and Girls

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Indianapolis Freeman, November 4, 1916.

chorus, with Anna Holt, Georgia Kelly, Gertrude Saunders, John Gertrude, and Billy Walker.”565 And in The Matrimonial Agency, “Never Let the Same Man Kiss You Twice” was “done to screams by Stella Harris and Billy King.”566 Sylvester Russell labeled Billy King a “treasury of blackface art who has no peer in his conception

and natural true portrayal of the antics of his race in reality.”567 Cary B. Lewis enthused: “Billy King is today the most successful producing actor and manager in the theatrical business. . . . As a house packer he has broken all records at the Grand Theater, the Southside’s most popular playhouse.”568 During his company’s near five-month run at the Grand, King

Female Blues Pioneers in Southern Vaudeville

produced two different one-act musical comedies every week. Regardless of plot or setting, Estelle Harris found ways to ring in “The New Dance.”569 Her next most popular number was the song and dance “Walking the Dog.” The dance proved so popular that the Grand started hosting “Walking the Dog” contests every Friday night after the show.570 “Walking the Dog” contests trickled down into the local moving picture houses, and remained popular at the Grand for weeks after the Billy King Stock Company’s departure.571 During the course of the Billy King Stock Company’s Grand Theater engagement, Estelle Harris and Anna Holt played parts in a locally produced movie, The Barber.572 It was screened at Chicago’s Star Theater the first week in September 1916: “This house, with Teenan Jones as proprietor . . . turned people away in the lineup last Sunday. Anna Holt as a special feature soloist, sang Rosamond Johnson’s ‘I Hear You Calling Me.’ ‘The Barber,’ a colored picture with Howard Kelley, Edgar Lillison, Clarence Powell, Anna Holt and Estella Harris, was also a feature.”573 The Billy King Stock Company’s final Grand Theater production for 1916 was A Trip to Savannah. In reviewing it, Sylvester Russell noted: W. Benton Overstreet, musical director for Billy King and company, has recently made a good showing as a composer. He has written nearly all the music for the ensembles during the company’s record breaking engagement at the Grand Theatre . . . He is the composer of the only rival song to Shelton Brooks’ “Walking the Dog,” entitled “The New Dance” (“that everybody’s talking about”) introduced in the King company by Estella Harris, now looked upon as the greatest ragtime shouter now before the public. She is the author of the lyric and Mr. Overstreet is the composer of the song, and Miss Harris has featured his songs to great advantage.574

Following their unprecedented run at the Grand, Billy King and company traveled to the West Coast and back on the mainstream Pantages Circuit, but without Harris and Overstreet, who stayed in Chicago to test their accumulated star power in a vaudeville company of their own. On September 30, 1916, the Grand Theater advertised its headline attraction for the coming week—Estelle Harris and her “Jass Band.” Miss Harris gained a great deal of popularity while with the Billy King Co., a great many of the critics and agents comparing her with such artists as Tanguay and Belle Barker. She has a distinctive manner which is all her own, and can get more out of a song, especially of the “shout” variety, than either of the stars above. She will feature Overstreet’s Loving Heart number. The composer will direct from the stage. The Jass Band consists of Robert Moten, Matt Harris and Sam Arnold, formerly of the world famous Pekin Trio.575

Russell gave Harris’s new show an enthusiastic review: Estelle Harris Now A Vaudeville Star Draws a Full House at the Grand “Jaz” Singers, Dancers and Players Assist Her Estelle Harris, late of Billy King’s company, who can now claim to be the greatest natural rag song shouter on the American stage, made her first appearance at the Grand last Monday evening as a vaudeville star and made a distinct hit in her specialties. The house was full and people were lined up for both performances. She was assisted by the “Jaz” singers, dancers and players, including W. Benton Overstreet, the pianist and composer. Miss Harris, who wore a costume of blood red satin, got a big reception. Her songs: “Alabama Tango Band,” “Happy Shout” and

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Indianapolis Freeman, December 23, 1916.

“New Dance That Everybody’s Talking About” were her selections, all by Mr. Overstreet. Anna Holt, who was in good voice, sang two songs. Etta Gross danced cleverly and James Connelly, a fine buck dancer, who did not need to flip flop, were good numbers, including the string musicians, Sam Arnold, Matt Harris and Robert Moton.576

Tony Langston’s review in the Defender added: Estella Harris and her Jass entertainers . . . sustained all that was said in advance for them. The act is a complete novelty, working in one and directed by W. Benton Overstreet, the “Jass Band” consisting of her and the famous Pekin Trio. Every number was put over in great shape, the program opening with the instrumental arrangement of “Shima Sha Wabble,” “I Wonder If Your Loving Heart Still Pines for Me” and “Don’t Leave Me, Daddy,” were sung with good effect by Anna Holt. . . . The act remains all week.577

Spencer Williams’s up-to-the minute hit, “ShimMe-Sha-Wobble,” became a jazz staple.578

Previously, Harris had sung to the accompaniment of theater pit bands with horns, piano, and drums; but for their signature Jass/Jaz/Jazz Band, Harris and Overstreet chose a string trio. The famous Pekin Trio was originally attached to Chicago’s Pekin Theater. In addition to playing stringed instruments, they sang in three-part harmony. Members of the 1910 edition of Pekin Trio, Clarence “Kid” Duncan on harp-guitar; William Cole Thomas, aka Will Cole, on mandolin; and Sam Arnold on cello, were veterans of the Weaver Brothers’ Mandolin Sextet of Milwaukee.579 A 1910 report claimed: “The Pekin Theater Trio . . . is in a class all alone. They sing operatic selections, popular songs and rag-time music. . . . About the first of March they will be booked on the Orpheum Circuit.”580 In October 1916 Overstreet made a brief visit to Indianapolis to play a date with the String Beans and Benbow Company. He soon returned to Chicago and rejoined Harris and her Jaz Entertainers, who were making the rounds of Chicago’s mainstream vaudeville houses. Sylvester Russell posited that Harris could “easily command the best time in vaudeville as a ragtime song shouter. She is buxom

Female Blues Pioneers in Southern Vaudeville

and pleasing in appearance and with an alto voice that is robust and is characteristic in every way to her race except that her color is light.”581 A report on November 25 said, “Estella Harris, the song shouter and her Jaz band, have moved from the Lida to the Victoria theater. Anna Holt is the soloist. The dancers are Etta Gross and Master Connelly and the ‘Jaz’ band, W. Benton Overstreet, leader; Sam Arnold, William Bush, Matt Harris and Robert Morton.”582 A few weeks later, the company performed “The ‘Jazz’ Dance” and another of Overstreet’s latest song publications, “On the Rockin’ Rosa Lee” at the Haymarket Theatre.583 The Pekin string band may have peeled away from Harris and Overstreet during the Christmas holidays.584 In the spring of 1917, at the New Monogram, Estelle Harris, “the recognized queen of ragtime shouters . . . received voluminous encores in ‘On the Puppy’s Tail’ and her masterpiece, ‘The New Dance.’ She was assisted by W. Benton Overstreet . . . and a good trap drummer.”585 “Steppin’ on the Puppy’s Tail” was Spencer Williams’s late-breaking sheet music hit, a dance song with instructions to be played at “Tempo di Dog Walk.”586 Back in February, Harris had “created a furor” at Chicago’s States Theater, demonstrating “the newest animated dog steps” with her “Puppy Tail Dancers.”587 In May 1917 Harris and Overstreet played the Washington Theater in Indianapolis, on a bill with blackface comedians Archie and Walter Jones, otherwise known as “Bodidlie and Jasbo.” Freeman theater critic Billy E. Lewis turned in an enlightening review: Miss Harris was all that she claimed to be—queen of the business—really seeming to leave a good wide margin between herself and other singers of her class. . . . Her splendid big voice is full of music, and on which she plays at will as a master trombonist on his instrument. She sings with a feeling, sometimes

Indianapolis Freeman, June 2, 1917.

fairly shouting her tones, sometimes it’s the tones of love’s soft impeachment. . . . Her numbers were “Alabama’s Great Tango Dance,” “What Makes You Hold It So Long?” Patriotic songs and the original jazz dance, as conceived and composed by Mr. Overstreet, the author. The jazz dance was a very finished piece of work, exciting admiration in all who saw her. She also appeared to advantage at the piano. . . . Mr. Overstreet, who presides at the piano during what may be called a recital, proved his efficiency at that instrument. He is a highly successful composer of playlets as well as of music. He is so successful that he finds it difficult to keep his own stuff when he

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produces it. Others take it, but he seems to be good natured about it, and is willing enough if they make a good job of it. Miss Harris says the same thing. She does not mind imitators of herself if they are good ones. Mr. Overstreet is particular about his jazz band production and he is right, since it is one of the best productions of the day—the best of the kind, if not the only one.588

Later that summer Harris and Overstreet traveled to Gibson’s Standard Theater in Philadelphia: “Miss Harris is one of the most successful of the many ‘shouters’ in vaudeville and ranks right up there with such stars as Sophie Tucker, Eva Tanguay and others. Her rendition of Overstreet’s new number, ‘The Alabamalevi [sic, Alabama Levee] Glide,’ was a near riot. . . . The act will open in New York soon, where they will feature the great hit, ‘The Jazz Dance.’”589 By late October Harris and Overstreet had dropped into the Tidewater section of Virginia, where Overstreet became musical director of the Ivy Theater in Newport News.590 In November they made a quick jaunt to Richmond to produce a version of the old S. H. Dudley Smart Set vehicle Dr. Beans From Boston, on behalf of the local Elks Lodge.591 They were still working out of the Ivy in the spring of 1918, when news came that “Miss Harris’s latest song hit, ‘The Alabama Jazbo Band,’ has been released and can be obtained from Will Rossiter Pub. Co., Chicago.”592 That summer they returned to Chicago and topped a bill at the Monogram.593 By fall they were “laying off in St. Louis,” where they may have finally parted ways.594 In the spring of 1919 Overstreet served as musical director of Gibson’s New Standard Theater in Philadelphia; and he remained there, on and off, for the next several years.595 References in the entertainment columns of the African American press indicate that he enjoyed steady employment throughout the 1920s. In the spring of 1930 he was running a “nice

little studio” in Milwaukee, “where he teaches piano, modern trick and jazz style of playing.”596 Overstreet is present on at least a few commercial recordings. In 1927 he backed blues singer Elnora Johnson on four sides, and in 1929 he cut four tracks with Sam Theard.597 Though confined to the role of accompanist, his playing tends to confirm his prowess. In the spring of 1919, Overstreet’s song hit “The Alabama Jazzbo Band” was said to be “creating a sensation in the east. The song is being featured by Stella Harris, and is a real riot everywhere.”598 Late that summer, Harris appeared at the Lincoln Theater in Harlem with a “little company” headed by Sandy Burns: “Stella Harris says that she has so many offers she don’t know which one to take. She is doing very nicely with Sandy Burns. She is all right and he is all right, so she had ought to stick another season with him.”599 However, declining health began to disrupt Harris’s remarkable career. On January 31, 1920, the Defender carried news from Overstreet that Harris was “undergoing treatment by a private doctor in New York.”600 By April 1920 it was noted that,“Estelle Harris, originator of the ‘Jazz Dance,’ has recovered from her recent illness and is back on the boards again. She has eight weeks in and around New York City, doing her single. She is featuring Overstreet’s latest creation, ‘Shake That Shimmy and Shake it from Your Shoulders Down.’ Some number.”601 In 1924 a report in the Chicago Defender, seemingly exaggerated for humorous effect, said Estelle Harris had recently appeared as a material witness in a Chicago police court: When she was asked her business she told the judge she was a “coon shouter.” He asked her what was that and she said, “I’ll show you.” Stella cut loose in her own characteristic style; she put on “Jail House Blues” until even the judge himself started shimmying. The prisoners in the case were doing the same—towards

Female Blues Pioneers in Southern Vaudeville

the corridor doors . . . The officer started for the corridor to bring the prisoners back, but the judge said, “Let ’em go; they heard Stella and I think they have been punished enough.” Since then every jailbird in Chicago has been trying to get Stella’s name on a contract. “I’d rather book over the T. O. B. A.,” she told the writer.”602

Harris continued to perform through the 1920s, but without generating the same volume of press coverage that had followed her through the previous decade. When she appeared in Louisville in 1925 with the Bruce & Skinner Stock Company in a skit titled Charleston Steppers, she was described as “a jazz singer.”603 Sporadic reports suggest she worked steadily until 1929.604 In February of that year Chicago Defender columnist Bob Hayes noted: “Estella Harris and her ‘Jazz Fiends’ are delighting patrons of the Western theater at Oakley Blvd. and Lake St.”605 One week later the Western Theater offered “‘Flying Bat’ La Mar [sic] and his ‘Too Tight Co.,’ a fast little bunch with Estella Harris as musical director.”606 Shortly thereafter, Hayes reported: “Estella Harris and her ‘Dixie Flashes’ have succeeded ‘Bat’ Lumpkin [sic] at the Western theater for an indefinite run. Good luck to you, pal.”607 In the spring of 1929 news came that Harris had fallen ill and was unable to leave her bed: “She is daily surrounded by the old guard, who try in their humble way to look after her every need.”608 Charles “Cow Cow” Davenport and his wife Ivy Smith visited Estelle Harris that summer and, according to Bob Hayes, “gave her financial help.”609 When the Whitman Sisters played the Grand Theater in the fall, Mabel Whitman solicited donations for the “old trooper” at every performance.610 Harris never fully regained her health. A report in April 1933 identified her as “one of the best known of the old school of song artists,” and assured that

she was still “slowly convalescing”; but two months later she was “confined to the Cook County Hospital of Chicago.”611 When she passed away on August 7, 1934, Bob Hayes recalled that Estelle Harris “was at one time regarded as one of the greatest of our ragtime singers, a mode of singing that preceded the present day blues singers.”612 In 1923 the Pathe Record Company released eight sides credited to “Sister Harris.” Since Estelle Harris had once been billed as “The Sister that Shouts,” it may be that the recordings are by her.613 Whoever did make these recordings was a singer with a full-bodied, gravelly-edged alto voice and a sense of “attack” that would have easily delivered every word to the back of a crowded theater.614 Despite being one of the first performers to be identified singing a blues song on a public stage (“The Blues in Indian Style” in late 1911), Harris was seldom characterized as a “blues singer.” She was still firmly identified as a “rag song shouter” long after “blues singer” had become common terminology. In the anecdotal account of her “day in court,” which appeared in the Defender in 1924, she brazenly described herself as a “coon shouter.” Harris may be most properly categorized as a jazz singer, or proto-jazz singer, who was on the cutting edge of ragtime becoming jazz. Harris remained on the cutting edge through most of her long career; from her early work with Chris Smith and Billy B. Johnson in mainstream vaudeville, to her tenure at the Savoy Theater in Memphis, to her feature role with the Billy King Stock Company, and her star turn with W. B. Overstreet and her own path-finding “Jaz Band.” In an era of theatrical metamorphosis, Estelle Harris was the ultimate transitional performer; she personified the reformation of African American popular entertainment like perhaps no one else.

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Theater Circuits, Theater Wars, and the Formation of the T.O.B.A.

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more leverage in dealing with performers. African American newspapers duly recorded the long succession of hostile mergers, cutthroat tactics, and uneasy racial coalitions that eventually culminated in a national black vaudeville theater circuit.

o sooner did African American vaudeville platforms take root in southern saloons and parks than plots were hatched to chain them together. As early as 1901, a Freeman commentary from the Rialto Theater in Memphis predicted: “ere long a circuit will be formed embracing Chattanooga, Birmingham and Knoxville, connecting with Florida.”1 For the next twenty years, until the Theater Owners Booking Association consolidated power in 1921, owners, booking agents, and performers, all competing for their share of influence and revenue, struggled to organize regional circuits and create a major black vaudeville wheel. The T.O.B.A. was a confederation of theater owners attentive to the interests of theater owners, not the interests of performers. By controlling booking agencies and consolidating circuits, theater owners were able to cut out artist managers and other troublesome third-party agents. The residual effect was to standardize business practices and give owners

The Tri-State Circuit Fred Barrasso launched his Tri-State Circuit in the summer of 1910. Jelly Roll Morton claimed to have been an eyewitness to its birth: “Barrasso decided to try to start a colored circuit and for the first engagements booked four houses—Vicksburg, Greenville, Jackson, and Memphis. I was glad to go. Benbow and I went out with the first show and I believe this was the first colored circuit in America.”2 Unlike the antagonistic confederations of rival theater owners that characterized subsequent black vaudeville circuitry, Barrasso’s Tri-State Circuit was 231

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a one-man operation, more on the order of a grand adventure. To forge his circuit, Barrasso traveled the Deep South with all-star “stock companies” of African American vaudeville players, leasing small theaters for limited engagements, testing the waters for regional expansion. His initial expedition was into Mississippi, a famously lucrative territory for black minstrel tent shows, but a virtual wild frontier for black vaudeville theaters.3 In June 1910 Barrasso’s “No. 1” touring company sent their first report to the Freeman from Vicksburg: All is well that ends well. But the package that our manager, F. A. Barrasso, of the Savoy Theater, Memphis got handed to him by the management of the attraction park in Vicksburg, Miss., was a bird, and the park and theater there is a joke. Why, when the performers saw the dump they thought it was a livery stable, and it looked the part. The plot was “Back to Memphis by Foot,” or “Will We Get Our Money?” Well, we did not get our money, and all that kept us from walking back to Memphis was our manager, who pawned his “socks,” which were a swell pair of red cotton hose that he had had on for three weeks.4

Barrasso’s stock company moved on to the American Theater in Jackson, Mississippi, where conditions were also less than exemplary: [T]he town will not support a summer stock company. The theater is a first-class house in every way, but the people will not turn out. To make the matter plainer, the better class of people are kept away by the tougher element. What a pity! Miss Laura Smith is still with the company, though very homesick . . . Miss India Allen received a lovely bouquet over the footlights and it was so small that the sender wrapped it in a sheet of writing paper, with a note enclosed, which read: “I sho dus lub you, and I like to met you dis eben.”

The members of the company were out joy riding . . . the other afternoon and spent quite a few hours fishing in Pearl River. Jackson, Miss., is a swell town to live in after a hard rain.5

Despite initial impressions, Barrasso’s players held the stage at the American Theater through the spring of 1911; and Jackson became the Tri-State Circuit’s base of operations, “from which place companies will be sent out to various places.”6 Barrasso’s Mississippi excursions were concurrent with Baby F. Seals’s experiment at the Bijou Theater in Greenwood. Butler and Sweetie May made their first professional appearances in Mississippi, Memphis, New Orleans, and Arkansas on the Tri-State Circuit. These bold-spirited initiatives stimulated an outpouring of blues in black vaudeville in the Deep South. Before the close of 1910 Barrasso had four touring companies filling engagements on his circuit. He moved them from theater to theater, and changed up membership as needed. One company featured Estelle Harris, Ora Criswell, and the Two Sweets.7 Another included Bessie Smith, Trixie Smith, Charles Anderson, and Mose Graham.8 A third carried Butler and Sweetie May, Bonnie Belle Thomas, and Edna Landry Benbow.9 The fourth had Mattie Dorsey Whitman, Laura Smith, Estelle Harris, Billy and Grace Arnte, and Buddy McGill.10 Barrasso wisely enlisted experienced southern vaudeville producer–stage managers such as William Benbow, J. H. Williams, E. D. Lee, and J. C. Boone to supervise his shows at the various theaters. Touring parties on the Tri-State Circuit performed at the Majestic Theater in Hot Springs, Arkansas; the American Theater in Jackson, Royal Palm Theater in Greenville, Amuse Theater in Vicksburg, and an unidentified theater in Yazoo City, Mississippi; the Temple Theater in New Orleans;

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Lagman’s Theater in Mobile, Alabama; as well as at Barrasso’s flagship Savoy Theater in Memphis. Barrasso was a “hands-on” manager, who traveled frequently over his circuit to check conditions. He embraced the spirit of southern vaudeville as few other white managers did. One Freeman correspondent claimed: “Mr. Barraso [sic] is loved by all his performers. Why? Because he treats them as ladies and gentlemen.”11 As he continued to fulfill his theatrical vision, the Freeman commented: “It appears that F. A. Barrasso is rapidly becoming a theatrical magnate of the South.”12 The Tri-State Circuit was still gathering momentum when Fred Barrasso died on June 25, 1911. Fred’s brother Anselmo took over the business. Apparently content to preside over black vaudeville activity in Memphis, Anselmo Barrasso abandoned his brother’s efforts to establish a circuit.13 The TriState Circuit may not have been impressive from a commercial standpoint, but it was a cultural watershed in the evolution of southern vaudeville and the blues. Expanding out from his Savoy Theater base, Barrasso’s circuit was among the earliest manifestations of Memphis’s identity as the “Home of the Blues.”

The Southern Vaudeville Circuit After the death of Fred Barrasso, the focal point of southern vaudeville circuitry shifted from Memphis to Atlanta, where two southern white men, Charles P. Bailey, the notorious owner of the 81, and L. D. Joel, a reckless young newcomer, were vying for supremacy. Born in England in 1880, L. D. Joel immigrated to Jacksonville, Florida, with his parents in 1890.14 On May 2, 1909, he opened the Air Dome Theater in Jacksonville.15 In the spring of 1910 he hired Marion Brooks, fresh from the Chester Amusement Company disaster in Chicago, to take charge of the stage

Indianapolis Freeman, September 24, 1910.

and lay the groundwork for a “booking exchange.”16 By August Joel had closed the Air Dome Theater and established a liaison with his chief competitor Frank Crowd, the black proprietor of Jacksonville’s Globe Theater.17 In September 1910 Joel relocated from Jacksonville to Atlanta, insinuating himself into the theatrical milieu as manager of Charles P. Bailey’s 81 Theater. Joel was looking for a central position from which to establish a black theater circuit and booking exchange: “Atlanta is much better situated for his purpose, hence he has chosen it as his headquarters. . . . At the new location Mr. Joel will be in closer touch with acts wishing to play from six to twenty-five weeks in the South without the loss of time. . . . Mr. Joel wishes to hear from good colored acts wanting to play the South. He wants them to write to him, and not be afraid, since all the houses he is booking are on the first-class order. Among these are the Globe Theater, Jacksonville, Fla., the Arcade Theater, Atlanta, Ga., and the Jacobs [sic, i.e., Mitchell Jacoby’s Belmont Street Theater], Pensacola, Fla.”18

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Indianapolis Freeman, November 5, 1910.

On October 26, 1910, Joel called a meeting of regional theater owners at the Exchange Hotel in Montgomery. Coming to the table were James S. Chambers of the Queen Theater in Montgomery; M. Jacoby of the Belmont Street Theater in Pensacola; and Charles Lagman of Lagman’s Theater in Mobile: Mr. Joel briefly outlined the importance of forming a circuit which each manager saw at a glance of the great benefit to be derived for the performers as well as the theater managers. Mr. Joel was immediately selected as secretary-treasurer and booking manager of the Southern Vaudeville Circuit, which will be the name of the circuit of four theaters that alone can assure you of its success. . . . The greatest feature about the Southern Vaudeville Circuit, after joining the circuit is that your transportation is paid. It don’t cost

you one cent railroad fare. You open in Atlanta for three weeks, then go to Montgomery for three weeks, then to Pensacola for three weeks, then to Mobile three weeks. . . . Here’s wishing Messrs. Joel, Chambers, Jacoby and Layman [sic] success in their grand efforts for the Southern Vaudeville Circuit, as it means much to the vaudeville artists of the country giving long engagements, sure pay and no railroad fare to pay.19

Within five weeks of his arrival in Atlanta, Joel had established the Southern Vaudeville Circuit and wrested its flagship theater—the Arcade/81— away from Charles P. Bailey. On the strength of these accomplishments, Joel brashly declared himself the “Theatrical King” of southern vaudeville. In May 1911 word came that: “Mr. L. D. Joel, the theatrical king, has joined hands with Mr. Fred A. Barrasso, of the Tri-State Circuit.”

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Indianapolis Freeman, June 10, 1911.

Meanwhile, Charles P. Bailey gained control of the Central Theater, and he and Joel announced that they would again try to work together.20 Tim Owsley filed this report from Atlanta: All things change; even in show business. . . . Today the city is flooded with hand bills and banners, the reading on which has given the show-going public a surprise. . . . Manager L. D. Joel, better known as the “Theatrical King of the South,” owner of the Arcade Theater, also the secretary, treasurer and booking manager of the Southern Vaudeville Circuit, and Charles Bailey, manager of the Central Theater, have consolidated, thus giving L. D. Joel the largest and finest theater in the South, to play all high-class acts engaged by him to play the southern Circuit.

The Central Theater is a modern playhouse, seating over a thousand people. In the future, Mr. L. D. Joel will have full management of the same. . . . In connection with the house Mr. Joel will also operate the Arcade Theater. . . . Mr. Bailey will also operate the Duvall Theater. The opening vaudeville bill will be under Mr. Charles Bailey and L. D. Joel management . . . and Tim E. Owsley as stage director. After next week all changes in the house will be made known. This consolidation will mean much to the classy acts playing Atlanta. Mr. Joel’s motto is: “Do Nothing Inconsiderately Nor Without a Purpose”; and everything he does seems to be for the betterment of the actor as well as himself.21

The short-lived Joel-Bailey-Barrasso alliance ended with Barrasso’s sudden death; and before

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Indianapolis Freeman, December 28, 1912. The extraordinary representation of L. D. Joel’s “Atlanta Players” in this full-page ad includes the only known photo of pioneer blues singer Tom Young and the earliest known photo of Bessie Smith. Also captured in early poses are future blues recording artists Bessie Brown and Trixie Butler; female yodeler Beulah Henderson; coming blues composer Jimmie Cox; blackface comedy star Billy Higgins; and pianist Caggie Howard.

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the end of 1911 Joel and Bailey again severed ties, with Joel taking possession of both the 81 and the Central: “He is now indeed crowned ‘king.’ . . . Since he has turned his attention to Atlanta, he has had a ‘real battle’ and his experience in Jacksonville fortified him for this attack and now the purchasing of C. P. Baily’s [sic] interest in the Central theater and the J. B. [sic, Joel & Bailey] theater, makes him now the master of the situation.”22 But the battle between Joel and Bailey was far from over. Before the end of 1912 Bailey had regained control of the 81 Theater; Joel held onto the Central and Dixie theaters.23 As part of an end-of-the-year advertising blitz, Joel took out an extraordinary full-page ad in the Freeman, featuring cameo shots of his current “Atlanta Players.”24 In January 1913 Joel opened the Joel Theater in Chattanooga and installed Billy King as stage manager.25 He advertised it as a “gateway for all acts coming south.”26 Bailey had a vested interest in Chattanooga’s rival Savoy Theater. He countered that he could arrange for acts to play “all the big cities of the South”—Chattanooga, Atlanta, Savannah, Jacksonville, New Orleans, and Pensacola—“and receive the same salaries as in the North, East or West.”27 Joel may have stretched himself too thin in his reach to Chattanooga. By August, Bailey had regained control of the Dixie Theater in Atlanta, and Joel’s stream of self-aggrandizing ads in the Freeman ceased to flow.28 In the spring of 1914, Joel abandoned what was left of his Atlanta holdings and backtracked to Jacksonville, where he filed this report: Recently many enquiries have reached this city asking whether L. D. Joel, the well known theatrical magnet [sic], was yet alive. . . . L. D. Joel is yet alive and back in the show business in a great way. Although he lost $40,000 flat in theatrical pursuits last year, this year finds him entering the field with colors flying high

Indianapolis Freeman, December 25, 1920. Bailey appended this “Holiday Greeting” to the photo: I am in business. Have been cussed and discussed. I have been pleased and displeased. I have been talked about, lied about, lied to. Some knocked [me] down and others hung me up. The only reason I am staying in business is to see what will happen next.

and everybody seems glad hereabouts. . . . This time Billy King becomes a partner of Joel’s and these two clever, honest and reliable men have opened one of the largest airdomes in the south at Broad and Ashley streets in the city of Jacksonville.29

But by summer Charles Bailey and Frank Crowd were gloating in the Freeman that the Dixie Theater in Atlanta and Globe Theater in Jacksonville “Are Open and Always will be As Long as Chas. P. Bailey And Frank Crowd run them, as we have the

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Indianapolis Freeman, December 28, 1912.

money to run them with, and did not have to go into bankruptcy and beat performers and friends to get it. Do you get me King? If so, please don’t leave me here.”30 Joel was not heard from again in the Freeman.31 Bailey had succeeded in dethroning the “Theatrical King.”32 Over the next few years, Bailey worked to make his 81 theater the hub of the southern vaudeville wheel. In a 1915 advertisement he asked, “Did you ever work at a Real Theatre? If not, try 81, and see how it feels to work to 1,800 people at one time. The biggest, finest and best Colored Theatre in the United States.”33 A note in 1916 said the 81 was “easily the Mecca of the South, and all roads lead to the 81 Theater, where Mr. C. P. Bailey, the owner, greets his many patrons with his famous diamond smile.”34

The S. H. Dudley Circuit and the Colored Consolidated Vaudeville Exchange In northern vaudeville territory, black stage idol S. H. Dudley had been lobbying for a black theater circuit since 1907.35 Commentary in the spring of 1912 mentioned his “embryonic chain or circuit of theaters.”36 By June Dudley had anchored his chain in Washington, D.C., and opened pathways north to New York City and south into the Tidewater section of Virginia.37 By late summer a regular column of upcoming bookings titled “What’s What On The Dudley Circuit” began to appear in the Freeman.38 Before the end of the year Dudley forged an alliance with Tim Owsley at the Crown Garden Theater in Indianapolis.39 During the summer of 1913 news broke that Dudley and Owsley were pooling their

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resources with white Chicago agent Martin Klein to operate “a gigantic circuit of colored vaudeville houses. . . . This has been brewing in the minds of these well-known gentlemen for some time. It was perfected partially some weeks ago, when Mr. Dudley and Mr. Kline [sic] joined hands. Tim Owsley who held the houses in the South and West, was called for a conference, and . . . now we have a fullfledged legal booking agency, which will operate in several states.”40 But by the start of 1914, the new Colored Consolidated Vaudeville Exchange was coming apart at the seams. Sylvester Russell followed the parting of ways in two consecutive columns of his “Chicago Weekly Review”: That Dudley, Klein (white) and Owsley, known as the colored consolidated vaudeville exchange, have disagreed is the latest gossip on the Stroll in Chicago. It is said on good authority that Dudley was frozen out. Emma Griffin of the Griffin Sisters, who has started a booking agency in Chicago, declares that Dudley has deserted her and run to Klein and Owsley after she had given him information and valuable data of the propaganda. In the meantime it is understood that both Dudley and Miss Griffin are busy sending each other love letters of rebuke and chastism. So endeth the first chapter of true but genteel sophistry.41 The report last week that S. H. Dudley was ostracized from the consolidated agency by Klein and Owsley, was confirmed by Martin Klein. The present firm will continue. Emma Griffin states that she originally wanted Dudley to go in with her but he had chosen the white man, backed up by a theater proprietor’s money instead and that is what he got. In the meantime I, the critic, might state that it does not make much difference about the color of the booking agents. What we want is honest, square men to book actors, but they must have financial backing.42

Emma Griffin was born in Louisville, Kentucky, around 1873.43 She and her sister Mabel had gained fame as a vaudeville team act, playing both the North and the South, on black and white time, specializing in up-to-date coon songs like “Some of These Days” and “Grizzly Bear.”44 After appearing at S. H. Dudley’s U Street Theater in the spring of 1913, the Griffin Sisters made Dudley their business manager, and Emma was quoted saying: We do not wish to emphasize the color line in the profession, but it must be admitted that we shall thrive best and be able to be more independent if we have among us a colored manager who can offer us adequate salaries and good dates, rather than be at the mercy of white speculators, who will often take advantage of the helplessness of the colored performer and refuse to give either the opportunity or the money to which he or she is justly entitled. There is nothing to brag about in being on “white time” unless there is a square deal for all concerned. Those of us who have fought our way by hard work into the front rank and gained some influence owe it to men like Mr. Dudley to exert it in their behalf. In proportion as the colored performers strengthen the hands of colored managers, they will strengthen themselves and make their place in the profession more secure. We heartily commend Mr. Dudley for his courage and race loyalty, and we urge others to come in under his protecting wing.45

Later that fall the Griffin Sisters opened an office at 3159 State Street and launched the “First and Only Colored Women’s Theatrical Booking Agency in the United States.”46 In January 1914, following a southern tour, they announced their intention to “build up a circuit starting from Cleveland, Ohio, to Jacksonville, Florida, taking in Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas. . . . We as race women hope that all colored acts will assist us in this good work

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The Griffin Sisters, Indianapolis Freeman, September 10, 1910.

Indianapolis Freeman, February 14, 1914.

and drown out such men as Charles P. Bailey.”47 “It is time that we pull together and work for ourselves and let the white man see that we can do without him. . . . If a white man runs a colored theatre let him book his acts from our colored agencies. . . . No white agent is looking out for the interest of a colored performer, or any colored manager. All they are looking for is the money. A colored agent will look out for both if he has any race pride.”48 In 1915 the Griffin Sisters moved to Washington. “They have retired from active work upon the stage and are promoting colored theaters in various cities. Lately they have acquired the Fairyland . . . making three theatres controlled by the sisters in the capitol, the Majestic, the Fairyland and the Griffin Airdome. They are negotiating for houses in Philadelphia and Baltimore.”49 But chronic illness took

the Griffin Sisters out of theater competition, and they eventually returned to Chicago, where Emma Griffin died in 1918.50 Dudley adopted a more accommodating attitude than the Griffin Sisters: “I have found that co-operation is the only redemption, and the managers and promoters have got to get together. I appeal to the managers and ask you, ‘Why not book through a substantial enterprise or agency?’ There are but two recognized agents who are paying license to operate the same and I assure you that I am not selfish. If you don’t care to book through the S. H. Dudley theatrical enterprise, I recommend the Colored Consolidated Vaudeville Exchange, operated by Mr. Klein.”51 W. H. Smith, manager of the Pekin Theater in Chicago, showed a mixed reaction to Dudley’s

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editorial. He agreed that “there is a number of colored men that are operating theaters that should they get together much good could be done for their interest as well as the acts.” But, Smith insisted, “It should be purely a Negro enterprise, such as the Negro Businessmen’s League. That organization don’t seek the advice of any other race.”52 When Owsley backed out of the Colored Consolidated Circuit, Klein continued alone. By the fall of 1917 he was advertising an unprecedented combination of northern and southern theaters attached to his Consolidated Vaudeville Exchange.53 In order to penetrate the southern routes, Klein turned to Charles P. Bailey in Atlanta. At the end of 1917 Klein and Bailey’s Consolidated Circuit stretched to such strategic venues as E. B. Dudley’s Vaudette Theater in Detroit, Anselmo Barrasso’s new Metropolitan Theater in Memphis, and Charles Turpin’s Booker Washington Theater in St. Louis.

The Mutual Amusement Company Sam E. Reevin was a white theater entrepreneur who played a big part in the establishment of the T.O.B.A. In 1916 he managed the Queen Theater in Chattanooga.54 The following year he opened the Liberty Theater in the same city.55 At the end of 1917 Reevin introduced the Mutual Amusement Circuit, connecting his Liberty Theater with the Bijou in Nashville, the Pastime in Birmingham, and the Dixie Theater in Bessemer.56 In the spring of 1918 Reevin submitted an open letter to the Freeman, chastising performers for letting their acts go stale: “Now, tell me, performers, how long are you going to use the same old . . . jokes and songs you used four and five years ago, and when you started using them they were old and worn out then. . . . How long will you all ‘kick’ about the ‘wrong part of the chicken received at the party last night’? How long will you all ask for a

sheet to put on a ‘ghost act’? How long will you ‘pray for the lights to go out.’ . . . Wake up, open your eyes. Why, this is your bread and butter. Why don’t you try to improve?”57 Reevin’s open letter brought a retort from Martin Klein: Some weeks ago I saw a letter in your paper written by a Mr. Sam E. Reevin, of Chattanooga. Same attracted my attention, owing to the fact that I am interested in the uplift of Colored vaudeville. I, myself, made a tour of the South in August 1917, for the purpose of studying the conditions that exist in Colored theatres in the Southern states. I have come to the conclusion that the real trouble of acts not being able to have first-class wardrobe, lobby pictures and new acts lies with the managers of the Southern theaters. First of all, a vaudeville act should receive a living salary. . . . Mr. Reevin delights in advertising that he can give acts ten consecutive weeks, small railroad fares and no commission. But he does not state that he pays single acts $15 and $20 per week (sometimes less), and teams $25 and $30. Will this worthy gentleman inform me how he expects acts of talent to bring him new talent and remain in his city three or four weeks and give him new shows twice a week?58

Reevin shot back with “Some Nuts For Klein To Crack”: Just look! It took M. K. seven weeks to answer a letter in which he said he was interested, and to learn true conditions in the South, it did not take him but a two days’ visit to Atlanta, and he knows it all. I was one of the lucky managers down South to receive an invitation to come to Atlanta and see what can be done to arrange a southern circuit. I met Mr. K. at Mr. Bailey’s office. I don’t know how many invitations were sent out, but at the meeting Mr. Bailey, Mr.

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Indianapolis Freeman, September 14, 1918.

Theater Circuits, Theater Wars, and the Formation of the T.O.B.A.

Indianapolis Freeman, December 28, 1918.

Douglass and I were present. . . . Now it seems to me that if M. K. learned anything about the South, it was through Mr. Bailey, Mr. Douglass and myself; and if he learned that the reason of all the trouble is that we don’t pay salaries to justify, how is it that he booked us all some of his best acts. . . . Mr. K. don’t like my taking delight in advertising my circuits. Well, I don’t blame him. It is a money matter with him, but I will continue to boost a good thing, and I know the performers will realize that twelve consecutive weeks’ work, no lay-offs, small railroad fares, and no commissions, even by accepting $5.00 a week less for each person, is much better than to jump from New Orleans to Texas and from Texas to Florida and lose a week or two each month. . . . My letter certainly accomplished what I desired. I am getting better acts and the few “ham fats” who used to worry me to death asking for bookings, stopped

writing me, and are afraid to go on my circuit. . . . Mr. K. thought he would show me up and get in with the performers, but the better and more sensible performers are, I know, with me.59

Klein and Reevin continued to exchange volleys over the next few weeks.60 On August 8, 1918, ten southern theater managers met in Atlanta and agreed to affiliate with Sam E. Reevin’s Mutual Amusement Circuit.61 In the wake of Reevin’s apparent power grab, Tim Owsley booked a five-week tour of the Mutual Circuit, covering Nashville, Chattanooga, and Atlanta, and concluded that Reevin “has developed his campaign for colored actors playing colored houses into one of the most important circuits now in existence.” Still, he cautioned newcomers to southern vaudeville to “remember you are going on show business;

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not civil rights. . . . As some who go forth will be a stranger in a strange land.”62 Rather than expanding to other regions, S. H. Dudley bolstered his domination of East Coast theaters. He boasted at the end of 1917 that he was “booking and controlling more acts and theaters than ever before.”63 At the beginning of 1918 he served notice to all acts: “If you are coming East, write me first. Do not accept any independent bookings in my territory, as I can give you 14 to 16 consecutive weeks. . . . Beware of independent houses and sore head managers.”64 Martin Klein continued to operate the Consolidated Vaudeville Exchange. At the end of 1918 he formed an alliance with S. H. Dudley and E. L. Cummings of the Belmont Street Theater, Pensacola: “United We Stand for the Best Colored Vaudeville.”65 By the summer of 1919 they had added “Texas Representative” Chintz Moore, of the Park Theater in Dallas.66 Sam Reevin’s Mutual Amusement Circuit was mentioned for the last time in the summer of 1919.67 Shortly thereafter, Reevin threw in with the Colored Consolidated Vaudeville Exchange and was installed as vice president.68 Dudley was president; Klein, secretary; Cummings, treasurer. On October 15 Dudley convened a “special meeting” of the directors of the Consolidated in Pensacola, “to perfect the business in general.”69 Following the meeting, Dudley, Klein, Reevin, and Cummings—the “Consolidated Quartet”—left for Atlanta “to complete their mission.”70 This entailed a conference with Charles P. Bailey. A note in November described that conference: There was a hot time at the meeting of the directors of the Consolidated Circuit last month. . . . S. H. Dudley resigned as president of the organization and Charles P. Bailey was elected president in his place; E. L. Cummings, vice president and treasurer; Sam E. Reevin, secretary. Each officer elected was proposed

and appointed by Dudley and each was elected unanimously. This shows that Dudley must have known the right man was in the right place. The firm is incorporated now and is doing business under the trade name of “The Southern Consolidated Vaudeville Circuit.”71

Another take on the Atlanta meeting was submitted by performer Lew Henry, who pointed out that, as “the only race man in the organization,” S. H. Dudley had not resigned as president of the Southern Consolidated Vaudeville Circuit before making an impassioned plea for the rights of performers: “It is a credit to have a man like him connected with the show game as there are so many cutthroats that are looking for himself and trying to get all out of the acts and managers and not offer anything in return.”72 After completely rebuilding the old 81 Theater in the spring of 1918, Charles P. Bailey sought to rehabilitate his bad reputation. When Tim Owsley played the 81 that summer he claimed: “Bailey of old died with the destruction of his old theater. Today you will find Mr. Chas. P. Bailey a business man to the letter.” Owsley further asserted: “Unless you wish it you never see Mr. Bailey during your entire engagement.”73 During the summer of 1919, Irvin Miller noted: “At present there are more theatres in the South suitable for playing a high-class Colored attraction and arts than any part of the country, and the jumps are shorter, through the enterprise and foresight of Messrs. Chas. P. Bailey and E. L. Cumming [sic]. The South can boast of a Colored circuit: That is better in many respects than the small time U.B.O. or Loew circuits, and certainly the acts receive more consideration.”74 In January 1920, less than two months after Bailey’s apparent return to prominence, Dudley, Klein, and Reevin broke away from the Southern Consolidated Circuit and formed the United Vaudeville Circuit, with Dudley as its president. Bailey’s

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“high-handed methods” had proven intolerable to the coalition: It would seem that Mr. Bailey has been too arbitrary and selfish in handling the affairs of the Consolidated and not altogether fair to the performers, imposing fines on performers for playing opposition houses when they were compelled to lay off from lack of booking over the Consolidated and needed work to pay board and room rent. Also the price Mr. Bailey received for acts was not fairly divided with the performers, the Consolidated receiving more than was its due. Mr. Reevin said that he was a white man engaged in colored show business. That he had and is still receiving a generous return from that business and he felt that it was no more than right that the United Vaudeville Circuit should be represented by a colored man and that the performers should receive a just return from their labors. It will be the policy of the United to deal fairly, impartially and sympathetically with all colored acts and performers who affiliate with the United.75

Bailey subsequently reduced his visibility, as E. L. Cummings stepped into the role of general manager of the Southern Consolidated Vaudeville Circuit; Chintz Moore rose to the position of southwestern representative, and an African American theater owner, John T. Gibson of the Standard Theater, Philadelphia, came in to replace Dudley as the Consolidated’s new eastern representative. “‘Nuf Sed.’”76 That spring Dudley posted a radioactive letter to the Freeman, aimed at Gibson, published under the headline, “The White Man’s Nigger”: To the surprise of this writer I find there still remains one of the old type of the slavery-time Negro who believes in cutting the throat of another Negro when told to do so by a white man. I really thought at this enlightened age that this type of Negro had become extinct. . . .

I admit competition is the trade of life and if this Uncle Tom had any interest or held any stock in the organization for which he is working I could consider it a legitimate business move but he is simply hired by Master Simon Legree to go out and kill all Negroes therefore he struck his first blow at me. . . . There is a lot of camouflaging about certain circuits who are using colored men’s names but I doubt if there is any colored man in the business that owns any part of a booking exchange except myself who is the sole owner of the Dudley Circuit and an equal owner of the Dudley Klein and Reevin United Vaudeville Circuit. I wonder if Uncle Tom ever stopped to think that some day he has to die. What color of pall bearers will he have. I suppose that Simon told him he would attend to all of that and would bury him in a golden casket. . . . I would be pleased to read in the columns of the Freeman what Uncle Tom has to say for himself but sign your name in full so that the profession might know who this enemy of the profession is. — S. H. Dudley77

Salem Tutt Whitney weighed in to ask: What’s all the row about? . . . Why can’t the Southern Consolidated and the United do business without slinging mud at each other? What benefit can they expect to derive from this muckraking process? Unless they are unlike most other corporations there are things hidden in the closet of each that had better not be brought to light. If they treat performers fairly the performers can’t help but be benefited by the competition. As they now stand, with regard to color, it is fifty-fifty. Mr. Gibson represents the Southern Consolidated in the East and Mr. Dudley is president of the United. Each of these gentlemen are associated with two other white gentlemen and these four white gentlemen have been affiliated with colored show

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business long enough for us all to know something about them. They are all in the business for the money they can make out of the business, and who can blame them? Mr. John T. Gibson has done his bit for colored show business and deserves success. Mr. Dudley likewise has done his bit for colored vaudeville, and we all wish him success. The four white gentlemen have contributed their money and their brains in building up colored show business; they are reaping a deserved profit. Why not let it go at that?78

Ostensibly reporting on a May 26, 1920, meeting of Dudley, Klein, and Reevin’s United Vaudeville Circuit in Chicago, Sylvester Russell repeated a recent claim by Martin Klein that Charles Bailey had: slavonically kidnapped William Selman’s company from the United time, after his salary had been increased. It is estimated that Bailey raised the salary $225 more and declared that he owned the act, but according to Klein, he took rebate, which is practically no increase in salary at all for the ignorant colored actor. . . . It is this kind of practice in the South that will have to be thrashed out by the best managers in the field. The South presents two kinds of white managers in the show business, the square dealer and the cracker dealer and performers will have to be given a square deal by those who are crackers, if cracker managers expect to get any more colored people’s money.79

Ads for the United Circuit in June 1920 listed fifty theaters under their control;80 ads for the Southern Consolidated Vaudeville Circuit listed forty-three.81 At last, an ad in July announced that the two “Mammoth Circuits” had “Become Affiliated for the Betterment of the Entire Show World,” with E. L. Cummings as president and S. H. Dudley vice president. Sam Reevin was secretary, Martin Klein “Special Representative,” and John T. Gibson “Financial Adjustor.”

Charles P. Bailey returned to the front ranks as “General Adjuster.”82 The merger fell under the banner of the Southern Consolidated Vaudeville Circuit—“The Big Time Circuit.”83 At the end of the year a half-page ad appeared in the Freeman, telling readers to “Watch This Space For Announcement Of Tremendous Importance To The Whole Colored Theatrical World.”84 Subsequent issues of the Freeman are not available for inspection; but on January 29, 1921, the Chicago Defender reported: An event of importance has transpired in the vaudeville world. Recently there was formed in Chattanooga, Tenn., the Theater Owners’ Booking association. Since the inauguration of this company its operating territory has been extended until it now includes every desirable theater from Galveston, Tex., to Jacksonville, Fla., to Cleveland, Ohio, to Kansas City, Mo. The T. O. B. A. is owned, controlled and operated by theater owners, each owning an equal amount of stock, and controlling an equal voting power in the affairs of the company. The central office of this company is located in Chattanooga, Tenn., with Mr. Sam E. Reevin as general manager. Since the opening of this office there has been received a flood of telegrams and letters from almost every recognized company and actor in the profession. During the past week eight new theaters have purchased stock and become active members of the association.85

The first president of the T.O.B.A. was Milton Starr, brother of Alfred Starr of the Bijou Theater in Nashville. In February 1921, just a few weeks into his position of power, Starr offered a detailed description of how the T.O.B.A. worked: Any theater owner in America may become a member of this organization by a purchase of three shares of capital stock at par value of $100. In so

Theater Circuits, Theater Wars, and the Formation of the T.O.B.A.

purchasing the theater owner automatically becomes the recipient of a free franchise for life for the city in which he operates. This eliminates entirely the franchise fees and office fees that have heretofore been the bane of the theater owners’ existence and the delight of the unreliable agents. . . . The officials of the Theater Owners’ Booking Association, duly elected by the stockholders, are as follows: Milton Starr, Nashville, Tenn., president; C. H. Turpin, St. Louis, Mo., vice president; J. J. Miller, Charleston, S. C., secretary, and Sam. E. Reevin, Chattanooga, Tenn., treasurer and general manager. The board of directors is composed of the above named officials, together with T. S. Finley, Cincinnati, Ohio; C. H. Douglass, Macon, Ga.; Clarence Bennett, New Orleans, La., and H. J. Hury, Birmingham, Ala. The following theater owners are active members of the Theater Owners’ Booking Association, having purchased stock bookings through our office: H. J. Hury, Gay Theater, Birmingham, Ala.; Milton Starr, Bijou Theater, Nashville, Tenn.; E. B. Dudley, Vaudette Theater, Detroit, Mich.; E. C. Foster, Brooklyn Theater, Wilmington, N. C.; C. H. Turpin, Booker Washington Theater, St. Louis, Mo.; N. C. Scales, Lafayette Theater, Winston Salem, N. C.; N. A. Lightman, Plaza Theater, Little Rock, Ark.; A. Barrasso, Palace Theater, Memphis, Tenn.; Chas. F. Gordon, Star Theater, Shreveport, La.; J. J. Miller, Moll Theater, Charleston, S. C.; T. S. Finley, Lyceum Theater, Cincinnati, Ohio; C. H. Douglass, Douglass Theater, Macon, Ga.; Sam E. Reevin, Liberty Theater, Chattanooga, Tenn.; William Warley, Lincoln Theater, Louisville, Ky.; Boudreaux & Bennett, Lyric Theater, New Orleans, La.; Clemmons Bros., Lincoln Theater, Beaumont, Texas; F. C. Holden, Liberty Theater, Alexandria, La.; C. C. Schreiner, Pike Theater, Mobile, Ala.; Chintz Moore, Park Theater, Dallas, Texas; W. H. Leonard, Gayety Theater, Waco, Texas; Lee & Moore, Lincoln Theater, Galveston, Texas; C. H. Caffey, American Theater, Houston, Texas; W. J. Styles, Strand Theater, Jacksonville, Fla.; H. W.

Tolbutt, New Royal Theater, Columbia, S. C.; Boudreaux, Bennett & Gordon, Majestic Theater, Montgomery, Ala. Other than these actual stockholders, the following theater owners have effected booking arrangements with our office and have signified their intention of purchasing stock in the near future: W. J. Styles, Pekin Theater, Savannah, Ga.; O. J. Harris, Grand Central Theater, Cleveland, Ohio; E. S. Stone, Washington Theater, Indianapolis, Ind.; Lawrence Goldman, Lincoln Theater, Kansas City, Mo.; Breaux & Whitlow, Aldridge Theater, Oklahoma City, Okla.; L. T. Brown, Dreamland Theater, Muskogee, Okla.; L. T. Brown, Dreamland Theater, Tulsa, Okla., and many others. I have issued the above statement for the edification of the theatrical world in general—Respectfully, Milton Starr, president T.O.B.A.86

By mid-February 1921 the Theater Owners’ Booking Association was running a regular column of “T.O.B.A. Doings” in the Chicago Defender, tracking activities at its various affiliated theaters. Still, the great vaudeville wheel was not complete; S. H. Dudley, Martin Klein, and E. L. Cummings were still holding fast to the Southern Consolidated Vaudeville Circuit. But, over the next several weeks the Southern Consolidated lost venues that were considered indispensable to its operation, forcing Dudley, Cummings, Klein, and other “distinguished officers”—probably including Charles Bailey—to show up at T.O.B.A. headquarters in Chattanooga “for the purpose of asking for a truce and an armistice.”87 By the end of May, the T.O.B.A. had brought all warring factions of theater owners and managers under its overarching umbrella: After several days of negotiations between the officers of the Theater Owners’ Booking Association and the Southern Consolidated Vaudeville Circuit the war

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between the two corporations has come to an end. . . . [T]he Southern Consolidated Vaudeville Circuit has discontinued and no longer exists. Its charter is to be canceled and the offices in Pensacola, Fla., and Chicago, Ill., closed. . . . S. H. Dudley remains the manager of the Eastern branch as before. Mr. Dudley was instrumental in bringing the fight to an end, as it was very costly to both sides and both factions were determined to pursue the battle to the bitter end. . . . It is to be hoped that the leaders of the Theater Owners’ Booking Association will realize the importance of their position now and will not underestimate the task which is confronting them. But knowing the men who are at the wheel and the services that they have rendered to the theatrical profession during the last several years, the managers and the performers both can rest assured that they will receive a square deal. Much success to the Theater Owners’ Booking Association.88

The Theater Owners Booking Association was the outcome of ten years of fighting over how the business of African American vaudeville should be conducted. For that, the T.O.B.A. saw less than ten good years of business before various factors conspired to do it in. It was well into decline by the summer of 1929, when the New York Times reported: “the total number of Race theaters in America is approximately 400. . . . Eighty of these theaters comprise a sort of vaudeville chain known as T.O.B.A., or ‘Toba.’ Its full name is Theater Owners’ Booking association, but the incorrigibles among the Colored vaudevillians prefer to interpret the initials as representing ‘Tough on Black Actors.’”89 The persistence of tyrants like Charles P. Bailey tends to confirm that famous construction. One early traveler on the T.O.B.A. routes described his stay at Bailey’s 81: “You must sleep where Marse Bailey tells

you to, and you must eat at his brother’s restaurant and must pay as much as he tells you to, and no matter whether you use the meal ticket or not you are charged with the price of it just the same, and if you don’t do as he says you are canceled.”90 Even with a man like Bailey in the mix, the T.O.B.A. helped ring down the curtain on an era when southern vaudeville theater owners could hold a stock company in peonage or slap a pistol in a performer’s face for asking could he “draw some dough.” Rogue theater owners could no longer operate in isolation. Moreover, the T.O.B.A. represented a national platform for black vernacular performing arts, substantial enough to invite business relationships with the emerging race record industry.

CHAPTER FIVE

“Yours for Business”: The Commercialization of the Blues, 1920–26

B

per issue to news about black entertainers, written and edited by James Albert Jackson, “a Negro writer of attainments and distinction.”1 Jackson’s “Page” debuted on November 6, 1920, and ran every week for the next four-and-a-half years. While gathering news from across the country, Jackson focused particularly on what was doing in New York City. On August 5, 1922, he submitted an article inspired by a currently popular topical song from the Ziegfeld Follies, “It’s Getting Dark On Old Broadway.”2 Apparently undisturbed by its coon song trappings, Jackson celebrated the “timeliness” of its message:

y 1920 the blues had spread well beyond the confines of black entertainment for an exclusively black audience. In the wake of an ever-increasing demand for blues and jazz across the race line, small-time black vaudeville theaters became something they had never been before: a gateway to big-time white vaudeville circuits, burlesque wheels, and fancy metropolitan cabarets. Very early in the new decade, African Americans established fortifications on Tin Pan Alley, reconstituted the record business, and even staked a claim on Broadway, the pinnacle of commercial entertainment success.

In the current Ziegfeld “Follies” Miss Gilda Gray is singing “It’s Getting Darker on Broadway” [sic] . . . The lyric of the rather pretty number has to do with the recent increase in the activities of colored artists, and the favor with which they have been received along New York’s great white way. The material proof

Broadway’s Getting Darker In recognition of these developments, the mainstream entertainment journal Billboard initiated “J. A. Jackson’s Page,” allotting at least one full page 249

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of the timeliness of the song is furnished by “Shuffle Along,” the musical comedy that has run for nearly five hundred performances at the Sixty-third Street Theater. . . . Other indications of the darkening of the big street are the electric signs announcing the “Plantation Revue” with Florence Mills at the Forty-Eighth Street Theater and the presence of “Bandannaland” at the Reisenweber restaurant on Columbus Circle.3

New York City’s appetite for black music and performers had waxed and waned since the late 1890s. The crossover appeal of blues and jazz in the 1920s had everything to do with its commercialization. An explosion of white interest created a demand for black singers, musicians, and dancers in historically segregated venues, just as it had during the ragtime revolution twenty years earlier. Broadway did get darker—all of American entertainment got darker—but the same racist machinery that had institutionalized coon songs during the ragtime era remained in place. In the 1920s, commercialization shifted the center of blues activity north to New York City. But New York was an alien environment for the blues. As Mamie Smith, undoubtedly an authority on the subject, pointed out in a conversation with musician and journalist Dan Burley: “No real blues ever came out of New York.” Burley qualified: “The reason New York and Harlem weren’t productive in pure blues is an interesting sidelight on the situation in music in that period. Made up as it was and is of a cosmopolitan population, Harlem and New York were best suited as mediums for finished musical forms, highly polished and as commercially acceptable as expensive jewelry or other streamlined articles for sale.”4 High polish was of little concern to the masses of southern vaudeville theater patrons who had been privileged to witness the concrete formulation of the blues in the persons of Baby Seals, String Beans,

Clara Smith, Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, and their many comrades. The blues was not a fashionable commodity to these sons and daughters of the South; it was the ripening of their regional music culture. Perhaps the most succinct differentiation between southern and northern vaudeville was provided by a Freeman correspondent who was attempting to explain String Beans’s “comedianism”: [W]hen String Beans and his Sweetie May came north from their Southern scenes of triumph they brought with them the best of the line of purely Negro oddities, and which were directly developed under purely Negro influence. Their offering appeared crude to the senses of Northern Negroes who had seen nothing of purely Negro origin. They had seen comedians and comedians, but these were made under the influence of white performers, consequently their impress was on them. The Northern white comedian and the Northern Negro comedian did similar work and yet do similar work. But when Beans came he introduced a different comedianism, the likes of which had never been seen in the North.5

Not long before the death of String Beans in November 1917, a New York City–based Freeman correspondent observed that his “songs, actions and name are ordinary conversation in every other person’s home.”6 Unlike in the South, however, String Beans’s music left no obvious imprint on subsequent blues development in New York City. The blues-singing style of New York’s race recording pioneers was a jazzy sort of “polite syncopation” that was significantly removed from the blues heard in southern vaudeville. Prior to the importation of Trixie Smith, New Yorkers seem to have preferred their blues “toned down,” “polished up,” and otherwise leavened by cosmopolitan sensibilities. J. A. “Billboard” Jackson expressed the sentiment “that ‘down-home shows’ rank right along with other

The Commercialization of the Blues, 1920–26

‘down-home’ features and have to be revised for New York’s adaptation.”7 Shuffle Along undoubtedly suited the taste of New York’s sophisticated, multi-racial theater audiences. Over the years, Broadway had been virtually closed to Negro musical comedy shows. Williams and Walker broke through the barrier with In Dahomey in 1903; their Abyssinia lasted three weeks at the Majestic Theater on Broadway in 1906; and they finally experienced actual success on Broadway with Bandanna Land in 1908. Equally notable black musical comedies such as Ernest Hogan’s Rufus Rastus, Cole and Johnson’s The Red Moon, and S. H. Dudley’s His Honor the Barber never made it to Broadway.8 Shuffle Along was conceived by Aubrey Lyles and Flournoy Miller, who were also its star comedians. It featured original music by Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake. More than ten years after Bandanna Land took its final curtain call, Shuffle Along elbowed its way onto the uppermost reaches of the Broadway theater district and proceeded to turn New York City on its ear. Following a brief trial run in out-of-town theaters, it premiered at Broadway’s Sixty-Third Street Theater in May 1921 and remained for more than 500 performances.9 To many minds, Shuffle Along revived the spirit of Williams and Walker.10 It became an extraordinary symbol of the jazz age in New York. There was nothing particularly original about its plot or cast of characters; nevertheless, northern audiences were ready for a successful black show, and the merits and qualifications of Shuffle Along defied disapprobation. New York’s theater critics, who seldom had anything good to say about African American plays or players, had to acknowledge that everything about this show was effective. Shuffle Along took off when the rest of show business, black and white, was in its worst economic crisis in years.11

This summer has been just awful, and yet, in a little meeting hall, a mile from Times Square, a Negro musical show is selling out mostly to white people who find it altogether too hot to spend an evening at one of the regular attractions on Broadway. . . . Further, after years of the imitation, New York is now learning for the first time just what color of blue is the real Negro blue song. “Shuffle Along” is a “wow.”12

Prospects for “the real Negro blue song” in Shuffle Along were mainly filtered through Noble Sissle, Eubie Blake, and Gertrude Saunders. Sissle sang “Oriental Blues,” and Blake, “who directed the orchestra from the piano, went to the stage for a specialty with Sissle. Their first number was ‘Low Down Blues.’”13 Ingénue Gertrude Saunders made a pronounced hit with her “urban blues.” According to one reviewer, “Jazz with more pep than ever seen here before was featured by Gertrude Saunders . . . with her singing of ‘Daddy’ the show was stopped for ten minutes or more.”14 Noble Sissle recalled: “The first soubrette we had was Gertrude Saunders, for whom ‘Daddy, Won’t You Please Come Home’ and ‘I’m Craving for That Kind of Love’ had been written. She was the sensation of our show—stopped it cold every night. But like so many artists in show business who had become a sensation overnight, Gertrude, in spite of our efforts at persuasion, left the show, and we had just got started.”15 Saunders was adamant in later years that she “never missed a thing by walking out of Shuffle Along.”16 On September 3, 1921, the Chicago Defender published an upbeat letter from her: “I closed with ‘Shuffle Along’ two weeks ago and am now entertaining at Reisenweber’s. . . . Will close here on September 4, then open with Hurtig & Seamon for 35 weeks. I made a moving picture since leaving ‘Shuffle Along,’ and also made two records last week.”17

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Chicago Defender, December 31, 1921.

Saunders made her first record for OKeh in April 1921, when Shuffle Along was just getting started. It preserves her two hit numbers from the show, “I’m Craving for That Kind of Love” and “Daddy, Won’t You Please Come Home.”18 These are enigmatic, challenging examples of early New York City blues. “I’m Craving For That Kind Of Love” may not be a “true” blues, but there are elements of proto-jazz embedded in her ostentatious vocal flourishes. Her early experiments with scat singing may have inspired other female singers.19

Possibly the most incongruous element of Saunders’s blues singing is her neo-operatic, mezzosoprano tone. Saunders was very frank in contrasting her own voice with that of her successor in Shuffle Along, Florence Mills: “She sang a song with soul. I was a trickster. I just did tricks.”20 Sylvester Russell described Saunders’s “Daddy, Won’t You Please Come Home” as “an art-called-for novelty.”21 But David Evans has characterized her recorded rendition of the song as “absurd histrionic screeching and at best a parody of blues singing.”22 To the modern ear, it represents an example of “Colored folks opera” run amok. At the very least, it suggests a misjudgment of where the blues was headed. Sissle and Blake and Miller and Lyles made history a second time when they replaced Gertrude Saunders with Florence Mills. Mills and her husband, dancer and minstrel man U. S. “Slow Kid” Thompson, joined Shuffle Along together in August 1921.23 Mills “was hardly the earthy creature ‘I’m Craving For That Kind of Love’ had been written for, but she gave to the part, by all accounts, an ingenuousness that added greatly to the ensemble.”24 Like Gertrude Saunders, Florence Mills did not stay long with Shuffle Along. In the spring of 1922 she became the centerpiece of the inaugural edition of the Plantation Revue, assembled by New York entertainment broker Lew Leslie for the fashionable new Plantation Club on Broadway: “The show has . . . created a wonderful impression in circles that count in creating favor for the Negro artist in his effort to break into the big street on his merit and on that alone.”25 The opening-night production of the Plantation Revue began with Johnnie Dunn playing “a ‘mean’ horn,” followed by a vocal quartet led by Arthur “Strut” Payne singing “old-time southern melodies”; Lew Keane and U. S. Thompson executed a “craps game bit, dancing continually”; Columbia recording artist Edith Wilson and chorus

The Commercialization of the Blues, 1920–26

sang “The Robert E. Lee”; Thomas Chappelle and Juanita Stinnette sang “several songs, aided by the six Creole girls who make up the chorus”; and Florence Mills and the chorus girls performed a “Hawaiian dance.”26 It was in the Plantation Revue that Florence Mills earned her full measure of celebrity and “achieved that for which all artists strive, viz.; her name in lights on Broadway.”27 Mills captured New York, and London, too, before her untimely demise in 1927. Blues, even of the New York City stripe, hardly figured in her popularity.28 Florence Mills left no recordings. She was memorialized on race records by Eva Taylor, Juanita Stinnette, and others, and was subsequently enshrined as the ideal model of a “Harlem Jazz Queen.”29 If the Plantation Revue included a “Harlem Blues Queen,” it was Edith Wilson. Born in Louisville, Kentucky, Wilson was introduced to the stage in 1910 by local

Eva Taylor’s OKeh tribute to Florence Mills.

Chicago Defender, November 12, 1921. When this ad appeared in the Defender, Wilson was featuring “Nervous” Blues” and “Vampin’ Liza” in her vaudeville act at the Dunbar Theater in Philadelphia. The ad, which most likely was placed by Perry Bradford, reveals some of the ways in which various commercial interests were beginning to cooperate in promoting the blues.

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musicians Joe and Jimmy Clark. By 1920 she had made her way onto big-time New York City stages. In the fall of 1921 she appeared in Irvin Miller’s unsuccessful Broadway production Put and Take: “This blues singer was one of the chief assets of the ‘Put and Take’ liability, and it could not have been through any fault of hers that Irvin’s show ‘blowed,’ for she is a complete knockout. ‘Vamping Liza Jane’ and ‘Nervous Blues’ are her specialties.”30 Wilson maintained that it was Perry Bradford who got her into Put and Take, and then opened the door for her to make records: “Somebody from Columbia records saw me in the show, and Perry took me down to record for them. I was one of the first black singers to record, as Mamie Smith had just started things off with ‘Crazy Blues.’”31 She clarified her symbiotic business arrangement with Bradford: “I was his protégé, sang his songs and made them on the record.”32 Edith Wilson’s 1921–22 Columbia recordings are jazzy interpretations of blues, representing the style that suited the market in New York City. Music biographers Howard Rye and Derrick Stewart-Baxter have both opined that Wilson should be regarded more as a jazz singer than a blues singer; Daphne Duval Harrison has asserted that “Wilson’s blues singing was often the only kind heard by the many whites and upwardly mobile blacks who attended the Broadway theaters and Harlem clubs.”33 Wilson continued to record until 1930, and she lived long enough to enjoy a second career, making records again in the 1970s with such stalwarts as Little Brother Montgomery and Eubie Blake.34 The women who constituted the first wave of African American blues recording artists were all based in New York City. Commercial recording facilities were available in New York, and there were numerous black performers, composers, and producers there seeking professional opportunities. Lucille

Hegamin, Alice Leslie Carter, and Daisy Martin (Trixie Smith’s three adversaries in the Manhattan Casino blues contest); Mamie Smith, Mary Stafford, Ethel Waters, Alberta Hunter, Essie Whitman, Edith Wilson, Lena Wilson, Katie Crippen, Inez Richardson, Inez Wallace, Etta Mooney, Josephine Carter, Anna Meyers, Leona Williams (Leonce Lazzo), Julia Moody, Lulu Whidby, Mary Straine, Lillyn Brown, and others recorded blues in New York in 1921 and 1922, a full year or more before Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, Clara Smith, Virginia Liston, or Laura Smith ever set foot in a recording studio. The pioneer recordings of northern blues women reflect the urbane tastes of metropolitan theatergoers and the cultural context of the Harlem Renaissance. Typically, their singing is more self-conscious than the southern blues shouters, smoothing over the rough edges in the manner of “light entertainment.” The resonance of folk style is stronger in the recordings of southern singers, as are patterns of black vernacular speech and phraseology. Blues sentiments may be universal, but they are conveyed more convincingly by a singer with a southern accent. Not all of the New York recording pioneers were northerners by birth; some had begun their careers in southern vaudeville. Be that as it may, these women were essentially sentimental ballad and ragtime singers who put on the blues in response to the current rage. None of the singers who dominated New York’s fashionable theaters, cabarets, and night clubs had been involved in the development of the blues. Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith’s blues evolved over the course of a decade in southern vaudeville and minstrelsy, where an endless variety of approaches were trotted out—from a barefoot trombonist to a ventriloquist’s drunken dummy to various individual takes on “Colored folks’ opera.” “Colored folks’ opera” had one interpretation in New York City, where W. C. Handy’s compositions

The Commercialization of the Blues, 1920–26

were presented in major concert halls as “art music,” and a rather different understanding in the Southland, where vaudeville blues was still interacting with the living folk music, grassroots idiom was still being adapted for the stage, and popular music was being creatively recycled for use as “folksong.”35 Howard Odum had observed this process twenty years earlier; it was the intermingling of stage and traditional music which bred and sustained the original blues. Early in the twentieth century, formal disciplines and Western musical ideals stimulated the development of black folk and popular music culture. This constructive dynamic between African American folk music and the academy had existed for decades.36 A shared cultural understanding that black folk music ought to be “uplifted” contributed to the concrete formulation of the blues. Things changed, however, after the advent of “race records,” a powerful mass media for the commodification of the blues. Once the commercial promotion and exploitation of the blues began in earnest, intellectual and cultural elevation had to take a back seat. It was sensual excitement that propelled New York City’s enthusiasm for blues and jazz. This fact was provocatively interpreted in an essay that attempted to define “the characteristic that gave vogue to the Colored Music Comedy production”: It has been the infectious joy of the vari-colored Negro girl as she sang and danced that has prevailed over the audiences who have patronized these shows, and sent them talking. They were a genuine tonic to which amusement jaded nerves responded. It was action, incessant and joyous action, that reached the very keynote of American life and mentality that has given the colored chorus girl her place in the affections of the big impersonal American public.37

Burlesque The burlesque wheels of the 1920s provided another avenue for mainstreaming blues and jazz. Count Basie’s clear-eyed description of his early experience in a burlesque show sheds some light on the murky nature of this form of entertainment: When people went to a burlesque they were looking for a very special kind of entertainment. They expected a lot of singing and dancing and a lot of comedy, and some of the songs and jokes had to be kind of off-color and kind of racy and suggestive. There were also a lot of fancy sets and costumes, but I would say the main difference between the burlesque show and other vaudeville and variety shows was the way it featured striptease dancers. The prima donna of the burlesque show was the top stripper.38

Southern vaudeville had its “smutty sayings” and suggestive dancing by both men and women, but scantily clad performers were not much noted in black vaudeville before 1920. Sylvester Russell, the presumptive moral arbiter of State Street, was very specific in laying blame: “It was the Columbia Burlesque Wheel of New York that had put one over on us in forging common low life burlesque shows to the front. When they creeped into the first class white combination houses and best colored theaters, there came another story to tell.”39 Gonzell White never saw her name in lights on Broadway, and she never made phonograph records. She did, however, create a sensation in big-time burlesque, and she did sing blues from a very early date. In his “Annual Review of the Stage” for 1914, Freeman columnist Will Lewis judged: “Gonzell White & Virginia Liston led as singers of the blues.”40 At the Washington Theater, Indianapolis, in 1918, a correspondent noted: “Gonzell is

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Gonzell White and Edward Lankford, Indianapolis Freeman, October 25, 1919.

especially full of pep when she does her ‘Walking the Dog.’ She does it as no one else does, getting herself recalls each evening. She showed her splendid physical condition by her agility of limbs.”41 In 1919 Gonzell White formed a team act with performer/manager Edward Lankford.42 Their act consisted of “singing, dancing, talking, and playing

saxaphones. Gonzell has just purchased a new Holton saxaphone, C melody. Edward is still playing his old Henri Goldpani saxaphone. Wardrobe is up-to-date, everything clean and classy.”43 Their song repertoire included “Mama and Papa Blues,” “Sweet Daddy,” and “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”; their saxophone specialties included “Has Anybody Seen My Corine.”44 White and Lankford married in 1920, and the following year they assembled a large touring company with White as its star.45 The Gonzell White Revue broke into white entertainment circles in 1922 as the African American feature with Jimmie Cooper’s Beauty Review on the Columbia Burlesque Wheel. According to report, they “made good with a vengeance,” and were re-engaged for a second season of forty consecutive weeks.46 For that second season, Cooper “introduced the half and half entertainment . . . giving his white entertainers the first half of the show and the other artists the second portion.”47 Cooper’s African American

Kansas City Call, August 31, 1923.

The Commercialization of the Blues, 1920–26

contingent fared well by comparison, as Gonzell White reported: “The ofays eyes have been opened on the show. We all work hard and try to please our manager as well as the public.”48 “Billboard” Jackson called Gonzell White’s company “the greatest draw in burlesque.”49 Variety conceded that the Cooper Revue “tops all of the 38 Columbia shows for the season’s high total gross receipts to date by a considerable margin.”50 In consequence, the Pittsburgh Courier informed: “The Columbia Burlesque circuit has arranged to place several big colored acts as its added attractions on the circuit”; and the Chicago Defender confirmed: “The invasion of burlesque by the Race artist was started by the success of Jimmy Cooper’s Revue, which led the circuit in grosses for two seasons.”51 On May 19, 1923, Gonzell White and her “‘Jazzers of Real Jazz’ Company” ducked out of burlesque and sailed for San Juan, Puerto Rico.52 After one month, they traveled by Spanish Royal Mail steamer to Havana, Cuba, where they performed for at least three weeks at the Capitola and Actualidades theaters.53 The jazz band also played between bouts at a boxing exhibition in Havana, “to the delight of the big audiences.” Afterward, they were booked by promoters Santos & Artigas for an extended tour of “two and three night stands” in “some of the principal interior towns of the island.”54 The troupe had their Cuban contract extended numerous times and did not return to New York until the middle of December 1923.55 For the season of 1924, they joined Ed Daley’s Running Wild, back on the Columbia Burlesque Wheel. In October they closed with Running Wild to accept a mainstream vaudeville tour: “The Gonzelle White act has started on the Pantages Time at an even bigger salary than it was receiving in burlesque. It will go to the Pacific Coast and back.”56 At the Rivoli Theater in Toledo, Ohio, the local daily paper gave them “such a great top notice that the ofay acts on the bill all let out a yell.”57

In April 1925 the Gonzell White Company moved onto the Keith Vaudeville Theater Circuit.58 The current band included cornetist Gus Aiken and trombonist Jake Frazier, veterans of the Cuba trip, and two of the busiest New York City studio sidemen of the early years of blues and jazz recordings.59 Comedian Clinton “Dusty” Fletcher was with the show that spring, and he stayed until November, when he jumped to the Mamie Smith Revue.60 Kansas City notable Buster Moten was the show’s pianist that fall, and Will Basie, who was not yet known as “Count,” joined the following year.61 Basie remembered Gonzell White with respect and admiration: She sang and danced and did her number and encore on the alto sax, which was a big novelty in those days. She was more of an entertainer than a musician, but entertainment was what the act was really all about. She had a lot of personality, and she knew just how to come out there and get that audience with us. She was a real pro with a lot of class, and she was not hard to get along with. It was just a great experience for me to be working with her. I don’t know how old she was at that time, but I’d say she must have been in her late twenties or early thirties. She was very light-skinned, and she had curly red hair and was very well put together. She was not a large woman. She was the kind of small, nice-looking woman that you think of as being very cute. And, of course, she always wore fine, stylish clothes and costumes, and she also sported a diamond in one of her front teeth.62

During the final weeks of 1926, Gonzell White and company played dates in Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Indianapolis, and Chicago. At the Elmore Theater in Pittsburgh, the “usual display of nudity, which seems to characterize most Negro plays recently was present in the form of uncovered legs, and a generous display of brown skin.”63 At the

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Grand Theater in Chicago, Sylvester Russell proclaimed them “a real burlesque show . . . Gonzell White, who still retains her beauty, executed some nice steps in her dances.” Still, he cautioned: “The Hula dance near the closing cannot afford to be over exercised.”64 Ed Lankford did not make the Chicago date. He had fallen ill in Indianapolis, and stayed behind to recuperate. Nine days later, on December 15, he died of pneumonia.65 By one account, he was “a victim of poor back-stage facilities.”66 Of all the trials and challenges associated with the T.O.B.A. circuit, Salem Tutt Whitney found most pernicious the condition of the dressing rooms: The death of Edward Lankford, general manager of Gonzell White’s Revue, is a shame. . . . Only a short time ago he was well and hearty, but contracted a deep cold from bad and inadequate stage appointments and died in Indianapolis. My big criticism of the theater, especially the house catering to Negroes, is that they treat the performers worse than they would animals. They usually have nice auditoriums, but the stage facilities are very bad. This condition is ruining the health of the performers. On the T.O.B.A. time two-thirds of the performer’s time is spent in the theater, and the places provided are hardly fit to stay in. The dressing rooms are badly ventilated, there are no chairs in which you can sit comfortably, and the general appearance is bad and unsanitary.67

Count Basie, who was with the show when Lankford died, reflected: Ed Langford [sic] was such a hell of a guy that you couldn’t help worrying about how the show was going to get along without him. . . . Because he was a good businessman, and he knew the circuits, and was such a fine cat to work for. But Gonzelle White herself was a real pro, too, when it came to the

Ada Brown, Pittsburgh Courier, March 19, 1927.

business angles of show biz. Her husband had been the manager, but it was her show, and she knew as much about running things as he did. . . . when she came back after about a week we knew she still had every intention of keeping the show going.68

After Lankford’s death, the show swung south on the T.O.B.A. circuit. According to Basie, they played Macon, Birmingham, New Orleans, Mobile, Nashville, Memphis, St. Louis, Kansas City, Tulsa, and Oklahoma City, where the old wagon seems to have given out.69 Basie stayed “right on up to the end,” but he did not describe how the show broke up.70

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Chicago Defender, November 7, 1925.

Ada Brown was another African American star of 1920s burlesque. In 1924–25 she and her piano accompanist Harry Swanagan traveled with Miss Tobasco, “Ed E. Daley’s best burlesque show on the Columbia wheel.”71 Daley had her billed as “200 pounds of real blues.”72 At the Star and Garter Theater in Chicago, she reportedly hit the stage “with a train load of personality and a truck load of blues.”73 At the Empire Theater in Toronto, Canada, “instead of doing her usual ‘pair,’ Ada was compelled to stretch until four numbers had been harped across and these were followed with a ‘begoff.’”74 Ada Brown was probably the first black “record star” to roll on the Columbia Burlesque Wheel. She recorded her first session for OKeh in September 1923, singing blues songs accompanied by Bennie Moten’s Kansas City Orchestra; the records reveal a song shouter with a big, rich voice.75 Some

twenty years later Brown recorded a duet with Fats Waller.76 She never recorded with Harry Swanagan, her longtime accompanist in burlesque and on the Orpheum Vaudeville Circuit, despite the fact that his “work on the ivories” was judged to be “of the sensational sort.”77 A Defender reporter caught their act at the Orpheum Theater in Champaign, Illinois, in 1926: Ada Brown, the well known blues singer, was the headliner. . . . When she came on the stage the applause was thunderous. . . . She sang a well selected repertoire of character songs which went over with a wow and a little musical skit finish between Miss Brown and her pianist based on the song hit “Mean Papa” broke up the proceedings. She has really gone over the top. The Orpheum circuit is the highest goal that actors can reach in the variety field. Mr.

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Swinnegan [sic], her accompanist sells his piano solo well and shares the honors given the turn.78

Some of the finest black jazz bands of the era played in burlesque. In 1925 Joe Jordan and his orchestra joined Ed Daley’s Rarin’ to Go, another big Columbia Burlesque Wheel show.79 The following year a Dave Peyton report in the Defender said Jordan “directs the white orchestra in the pit for the white part of the show, then goes on the stage with his own wonderful orchestra, made and coached in Chicago.”80 Legendary 81 Theater pianist Eddie Heywood Sr. led the band for the Jimmie Cooper Revue in 1926.81 Thornton G. Brown directed the black band with the popular 7–11 burlesque company; a band member reported in September 1925: “Six pieces of the band are recording for the Columbia Record company under the name of the Original Jazz Hounds. Their numbers will be released this month.”82

Recording the Blues New York City was already in the throes of its romance with black musical culture when southern vaudevillian Trixie Smith captured the silver loving cup at the Manhattan Casino Contest of January 20, 1920. By virtue of her victory, Smith secured a recording contract with Black Swan Records. Black Swan was the brainchild of Harry H. Pace, who announced in January 1921 that he had formed a corporation “for the purpose of making phonograph records, using exclusively the voices and talent of our people.”83 Black Swan was a decidedly “racial” enterprise with high-minded aspirations and intentions.84 The label name bore tribute to nineteenth-century black classical singer Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield, who was internationally known as “The Black Swan.” Pace stipulated that “the new

corporation proposes to furnish every type of Race music, including sacred and spiritual songs, the popular songs of the day and the high class ballads and operatic selections.”85 He chose young Fletcher Henderson as his music director and William Grant Still as staff arranger.86 Pace was convinced that “Our people of the United States are at the point where they will buy any article manufactured by us provided it has merit and quality.”87 He let it be known that, in order to reach this previously untapped market, Black Swan was publicizing extensively. “Among other activities it has arranged to have exhibition booths at the convention of the National Negro Business Men’s League in Atlanta, and at the meeting of the National Association of Negro Musicians in Nashville.”88 Pace aimed his advertising directly at the African American record buying public, stressing race pride and solidarity: “When You Buy a Black Swan Record you buy the Only Records Made by Colored People—Patronize Race enterprises when you get the same value for your money.”89 A sympathetic white journalist who visited Pace’s offices in 1921 noticed “something of the pathetic and also something of the accusatory in this practical venture, being the outgrowth of the denial on the part of the ‘white’ Americans to give commercial encouragement to any but the ‘coon’ songs of the one race which contributed original song-forms to this country.”90 Early the following year Black Swan issued two single-sided 78s by Antoinette Garnes, advertised as the “First Grand Opera Record Ever Made By A Colored Singer.” From his vantage point in the midst of the Harlem Renaissance, Pace may have misjudged the market potential for his product. True to his expressed intent, he recorded a broad spectrum of music styles: African American concert soloists, dance bands, musical comedy and cabaret performers, pianists, vocal quartets, etc.,

The Commercialization of the Blues, 1920–26 Chicago Defender, April 29, 1922.

along with several female blues singers. Pace’s roster represented the range of performers active in the New York area; he made no attempt to dip into the southern vaudeville milieu, with the sole exception of Trixie Smith. Pace recorded blues songs by Essie Whitman, Alberta Hunter, Ethel Waters, and others. The two selections by Essie Whitman from 1921 are the only recordings made by any of the original Whitman Sisters (Mabel, Essie, and Alberta), who started from eastern Kansas in 1895 and became, over decades, an African American entertainment institution.91 Alberta Hunter was born in 1895 and raised in Chicago, where she was singing in State Street cabarets by 1915.92 Ethel Waters was performing at Edmond’s Cellar, a popular Harlem nightclub, when she was cast in Frank Montgomery’s musical comedy Hello 1919, which played the Lafayette Theater in October 1919. Waters remembered: “Frank said he could use me for blackface comedy. That meant working in burnt cork. . . . I sang and did a crow-jane character with Brown of Brown and Gulfport. . . . The white audiences thought I was white, my features being what they are, and at every performance I’d have to take off my gloves to prove I was a spade.”93 Black New

(Courtesy Hogan Jazz Archive, Tulane University)

York journalist Billy E. Jones remarked: “Miss Ethel Waters, newcomer, bears watching.”94 Waters’s fortunes seem to have turned on her first Black Swan recordings, made in May 1921. Her big hit “Down Home Blues” is a distinctive, compelling blues rendition. Clearly, she was capable of singing a great blues; nevertheless, nearly all of her subsequent recordings are in the New York “jazz sentimental” style, either out of personal preference,

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or at the urging of outsiders.95 Her rise to celebrity was meteoric. “Ethel certainly changed the financial fortunes of Black Swan—prior to her recording the business was in bad shape. The first month’s sales brought in a meager $674.64. After Down Home Blues was released, average monthly receipts leapt to $20,000 and by the end of the first year of trading the total income from record sales amounted to $104,628.74.”96 Black Swan was fully cognizant of Waters’s potential value. According to a press report, her contract included a unique stipulation: “that she is not to marry for at least a year, and that during this period she is to devote her time largely to singing for Black Swan records and appearing with the Troubadours.”97 Before the end of the year Waters had to turn down an offer to become a feature attraction on one of the big-time vaudeville circuits: “Her managers admit that they received a flattering offer to put this great singer of the blues in vaudeville, but say it was refused owing to the many contracts made for the appearance of the Black Swan Troubadours throughout the country. These contracts run into the spring.”98 In January 1922, Ethel Waters and Fletcher Henderson’s Black Swan Troubadours opened a big tour of midwestern and southern black vaudeville houses. “They said such a tour would sell a lot more of my records,” Waters wrote.99 The gravity of the enterprise is emphasized by the fact that Lester Walton joined as tour “manager in advance.” The former New York journalist and Lafayette Theater manager was also said to be “financially interested in the tour.”100 According to Waters, “There was so much music day and night on that tour. . . . We had a jolly bunch of musicians in Fletcher Henderson’s Jazz Masters. The trumpets were Joe Smith and Gus Aiken. Gus’s brother Buddy and Lorenzo Brashear were the trombones, and a boy named Raymond Green was at the drums. Our clarinet was Garvin Bushell.”101

Waters and the Black Swan Troubadours appeared at the Grand Theater in Chicago and then veered south.102 According to a press report, four members of the band quit rather than make the southern tour. On the other hand, Waters “felt it her duty to make sacrifices in order that members of her Race might hear her sing a style of music which is a product of the Southland.”103 The Waters troupe reported in April that they had “just finished a tour of Texas under the guidance of J. I. Dotson, of Fort Worth, whose booking and publicity methods in Arkansas and Texas were highly profitable to the Walton-Pace Producing Company, which owns the attraction. . . . This is the second tour of the sort that the Dotson office has handled, Mame [sic] Smith having been as successfully routed by them.”104 The show went into the Lyric Theater, the T.O.B.A. house in New Orleans, on April 17; there, potent new promotional mechanisms were put into effect. A front-page article in the New Orleans Item reported that Waters had sung her Black Swan hit “Down Home Blues” during a “live” broadcast from radio station WVG: “Every shoulder twitched and every foot beat time . . . when Ethel Waters, the nationally known Negro singer and her famous Black Swan jazz masters opened up on the radio transmitter. . . . Ethel herself will appear Saturday night at a midnight frolic for whites in the Lyric theater, where they have made almost a phenomenal success.”105 A follow-up report claimed they had “broken the attendance record at the Lyric Theater, and are doing the same the present week at the Bijou theater, Nashville, Tenn.”106 The blues attracted even more white interest in the South than in the North. As Ethel Waters pointed out in her autobiography: “I’d sung the blues at those midnight performances given for whites—but that had been in the South, where the white people are hep to everything about the Negro,

The Commercialization of the Blues, 1920–26

his blues, moods, and humor.”107 Many white southerners found the allure of race entertainment hard to resist, but Jim Crow demanded complete racial segregation. Hustling southern vaudeville theater owners resolved the situation without disturbing the Jim Crow laws, by opening their theaters to occasional late-night shows—“midnight frolics”—in which they offered their regular casts of black performers, with admission restricted to whites only.108 By 1921, when the Theater Owners Booking Association took control of the southern territories, midnight frolics were prospering up and down the line. In addition to advertising in local daily papers, southern vaudeville theater owners issued “invitations . . . to the newspapers and hotels, which give them out to their friends,” and arranged for local radio stations to aid in promoting their midnight frolics. The fact that so many daily newspapers were early investors in the radio business made this an easy alliance. After attending a midnight frolic at the Lyric Theater, New Orleans, during the summer of 1923, a reporter for the white daily New Orleans Item was moved to confess: “There is a haunting, pulling, minor strain in the true Negro melody and jazz that the white man cannot imitate. . . . The Negro has his art, and there is something pathetic in the picture of a true artist denied expression of his art because of a black skin.”109 A local black reader responded to the article with a provocative rhetorical question: “Would the management of the Lyric theater have a midnight show for Negroes only, if he was running a white theater, with white performers? . . . No, the white performers would refuse to work.”110 Salem Tutt Whitney went on record with his belief that southern midnight frolics “have increased the white patrons’ interest in our group and have tended to make for mutual understanding.”111 The underlying, disappointing reality of the southern midnight frolics phenomenon was

perhaps best summed up by Ethel Waters: “When your act went over good in these showhouses you gave two performances at midnight for exclusively white audiences. . . . So we found ourselves applauded by the ofays in the theater and insulted by them on the streets.”112 On the way back north to New York City, Ethel Waters’s Black Swan Troubadours played through Virginia, spending four days in Norfolk and three in Richmond, where she reportedly “showed to over four thousand people daily and netted quite a sum of cash and left the town talking of her and her vaudeville road show. . . . Yes, she made quite an impression on the natives here.”113 While black press reports portrayed the record promotion tour as an unbroken series of triumphs, Waters characterized it differently: “We were stranded everywhere on that trip, though we had a lot of fun. . . . We staggered back to New York, finally, after six haphazard months, and with Lester Walton still in advance.”114 Ethel Waters continued to make records for Black Swan until the summer of 1923.115 In 1925 she began a long recording relationship with Columbia. By that time she was heading up her own touring company, playing both black and white circuits. One report noted that, “Owing to a previous threeyear contract with the Keith-Albee Office, Ethel Waters, singing comedienne, has refused the offer of Milton Starr, president of the T.O.B.A. Circuit, which controls 15 theaters throughout the South, who was willing to give her a contract covering his time at $1,500 a week.”116 Harry Pace’s Black Swan Record Company was not well positioned to survive the fluctuations and exigencies of the record business. By April 1924 Pace was forced to lease his catalog to Paramount Records, whose reorientation toward the southern market and southern blues artists helped define the emerging race record industry. In its announcement of what Pace termed “a consolidation,” the Chicago

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Defender asserted that Black Swan had “created such a keen competition with white companies that all of them were eventually forced to put out a ‘Colored catalogue,’ giving employment to hundreds of musicians and singers in a field that had been previously closed to them.” The article went on to acknowledge Black Swan’s “beneficial effect” on “Colored newspapers throughout the country.” Black Swan adopted an extensive advertising program. . . . At one time they were using space in forty Colored periodicals. This caused the white companies to extend their advertising likewise into the Race papers. Columbia, Okeh, Paramount and even Victor became large users of space in Race newspapers, and many local dealers and jobbers did likewise, thus bringing to these papers a new line of accounts who had overlooked their existence hitherto.117

The first company to publish a bona fide race catalog, and the first to release a blues record by a black artist, was OKeh Records.118 Even more than Black Swan, OKeh was responsible for establishing the standard practices that propelled the new market. As white-owned-and-operated record companies gained influence in the black entertainment world, cultural outsiders assumed control of the terms, or meaning of the blues. It was a process fraught with distortion and manipulation. The blues had emerged in the context of insular southern vaudeville as a coded, in-group communion. As popular entertainment for a general, national audience, it served a very different function. Perceiving a potential market for blues across the race line, record companies promulgated a realignment of the blues firmament, inventing a new genesis, a commercial narrative in keeping with white concepts of black culture and creativity. Realignment gained traction when Mamie Smith became the first

black woman performer to record a vocal blues.119 Her singing style and professional history were more in line with northern “jazz sentimental” singers than southern vaudeville blues shouters; nevertheless, widespread popular acceptance of Mamie Smith’s OKeh label recordings represented a pivotal event in the commercialization of black vernacular music. There was a rush to take credit for Mamie Smith’s success. The Pace & Handy Music Publishing Company was quick to “claim the distinction of having the first popular song ever recorded on the Phonographs by a colored singer”:120 Miss Mamie Smith, a Harlem young lady, has recorded for the Okeh two numbers published by Broadway’s large Race publishing house, Pace & Handy Music Company, Inc. The two songs are “That Thing Called Love” and “You Can’t Keep a Good Man Down,” which appear on Okeh record No. 4113. This unusual event was secured through the influence of Pace & Handy Music Company, who in two years on Broadway, have taken their place among the largest and oldest publishers in America.121

The OKeh Company laid out its own self-congratulatory account of the momentous event. This version appeared in 1923: A few years ago in a small cabaret in uptown New York a little Race artist was singing eight or ten times a day, earning a small salary and struggling nobly to “do something with her voice.” . . . Then at last she had her reward. The manager of a large phonograph record company, the Okeh, heard Mamie sing and was very much impressed with her remarkable voice. “I believe,” he said, “that the Colored people would like to have phonograph records of singers like this. They would like to hear their own stars sing in their own way.” So he sent for Mamie Smith and had a test record made. When the test was

The Commercialization of the Blues, 1920–26

Chicago Defender, November 12, 1921. This ad may have been placed by Spencer Williams.

finished all the executives of the Okeh company were delighted with the results.122

These early takes on Mamie Smith’s recording debut failed to address the critical agency of Perry Bradford. “Billboard” Jackson credited Bradford with “the distinction of being responsible for Mamie Smith, the first Negro woman to record a song.”123 It was Bradford who first pushed Mamie Smith to the front, essentially to promote his original compositions. Bradford had a long track record of vernacular song hits, including “Lovin’ Sam From Alabam’,” “Lonesome Blues,” “Jacksonville Rounder’s Dance,” and “Scratchin’ the Gravel.” He often warned that his

songs had been copyrighted, and that he aimed to protect his intellectual property.124 His proprietary and entrepreneurial tenacity earned him the nickname “Mule.”125 Early in 1921 the Chicago Defender acknowledged, “‘Mule’ is the composer of all the blues that are sung by Mamie Smith for the Okeh Record Company, and on the stage during her present tour. He carries a bank roll big enough to choke a crocodile.”126 Variety magazine explained: “the music men are making their two-cent royalty income from the mechanical reproductions major to the sheet music sales, which has always been the biggest revenue getter in which most of the profit lies.”127 It was the “music men”—composer-publishers such

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Indianapolis Freeman, April 12, 1913.

as Bradford, Clarence Williams, and Spencer Williams—not the record companies themselves, who first advertised race records in the black press. As early as the spring of 1920, Alex Rogers and Lucky Roberts placed ads in the Indianapolis Freeman promoting their latest song compositions, which had been recorded on discs and piano rolls by Bert Williams, Edith Baker, and Pete Wendling.128 These ads were an early indication of the sea change in the music publishing business precipitated by the blues record “boom”:

As a result of this “blues” boom and demand, various colored publishers are prospering. Perry Bradford and the Clarence Williams Music Co. are among the representative negro music men cleaning up from mechanical royalties with the sheet music angle almost negligible and practically incidental . . . these publishers concentrating on the disc artists. Both have some of the Colored songstresses under contract and it is only natural that they record certain favored numbers. The white publishers are getting on to this and also entering many, many “blues” on the market.129

The Commercialization of the Blues, 1920–26

Billboard, March 24, 1923.

Seymour and Jeanette, Pittsburgh Courier, November 20, 1926.

Mamie Smith was first noticed in the African American press at the end of 1908, when, as Mamie Gardner, she was teamed with comedian-dramatist Sam Gardner in a stock company headed by Salem Tutt Whitney and Homer Tutt.130 At the Lincoln Theater in Knoxville, Tennessee, “Mrs. Mamie Gardner as ‘Danny the Kid,’ was indeed fine, and good judgment was displayed in giving this young lady such juvenile parts.”131 In company with performer Will Smith, Mamie Gardner left Sam Gardner during the theatrical season of 1914–15 and was henceforth known as Mamie Smith.132 She entered into a professional relationship with Perry Bradford in the summer of 1916, when she opened with his Made in Harlem Company at the Lincoln Theater in New York City.133 According to

one reviewer, Smith “received three and four encores at every show” singing Bradford’s “No One Knows What The Thing Called Love Will Do,” the song that launched her recording career four years later.134 The star of Made in Harlem was Bradford’s longtime stage partner Jeanette Taylor, an accomplished singer, dancer, and male impersonator.135 The team of Bradford and Jeanette developed an act that suited Jeanette’s blues singing talents. In 1918 Sylvester Russell proclaimed her “one of the best of the ‘blues’ singers and an artist.”136 By all accounts, Bradford and Jeanette were one of the top acts on “colored time”; but Jeanette was known to leave occasionally, once with String Beans, and later with “Cry Baby” Godfrey.137 She spent most of 1918 teamed with her sister Helen in a blues-singing act that featured “one of Mule Bradford’s compositions, ‘The Harlem Blues.’”138 The team of Bradford and Jeanette was permanently terminated in 1919, when both parties married other persons.139 Jeanette formed a highly successful act with her husband Seymour James, touring big-time white vaudeville circuits with their own band, the Synco-Jazzers.140 Billed as Seymour

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and Jeanette, they remained popular until Seymour James’s untimely death in 1926.141 Jeanette continued touring with the Synco-Jazzers, and the Paramount recordings they made together in 1927 document the well-seasoned blues singing talents and technique of the singer who almost got the groundbreaking OKeh record deal that fell to Mamie Smith.142 In 1920 Perry Bradford all but abandoned his stage work to concentrate on songwriting and publishing. The Defender explained: “Mule Bradford, who was married a year ago and who has now quit the show business and has accepted a regular job at a regular salary with a player roll concern in New York. Mule says that he and the madam now have a little Mule, so it behooves him not to accept any open time. . . . Sophie Tucker is singing Mule’s latest song hit, ‘The Thing Called Love.’”143 Bradford had been aggressively promoting “That Thing Called Love” since 1916, when Mamie Smith introduced it in his Made in Harlem revue. Marie Cahill, “the most popular and well known coon shouter on the stage,” featured the song in her vaudeville act in 1919.144 In January 1920 the Freeman reported: “The song, ‘The Thing Called Love,’ by Perry Bradford, is gaining in popularity with the public and the performers are scoring a big success with it and is sure to be the hit of the year, and now also on music rolls and on records sung by Mammie [sic] Smith, that incomparable singer of syncopated melodies.”145 This premature announcement refers to an unproductive venture with the Victor Recording Company. Bradford confessed in Born with the Blues that it was Jeanette Taylor, not Mamie Smith, who he first tried to get into a recording studio. He said his initial plan was to hook her up with Wilbur Sweatman: Sweatman rehearsed my vaudeville partner Jeanette and went downtown and tried in vain to sell her to Columbia, singing vocals with his jazzband. . . . After Columbia gave Jeanette the works, I contacted Mr.

King, the Victor top man. He . . . set a recording session for Jeanette, but we went out of town to do some vaudeville dates. As soon as we came back I doubled back to see Mr. King again, not for Jeanette, but for Mamie Smith who had sung in the show Made in Harlem. Mr. King let Mamie make a test record of “That Thing Called Love,” with me playing piano for her, but it was never released.146

One month after the failed session for Victor, Mamie Smith recorded “That Thing Called Love” for OKeh. Sales quickly dispelled the notion that a sufficient market did not exist for popular music recorded by black artists.147 In August, Smith cut her second record for OKeh, featuring Bradford’s “Crazy Blues,” and it became a smash hit.148 Her progress was chronicled in the African American press via a series of “news” reports that may have been generated by OKeh’s advertising department. Early in 1921 the Defender published an article calling Mamie Smith “the rage of the east” and “the supreme phonograph star. . . . During her comparatively short career as a star, Miss Smith has done more than any other singer in America to popularize the genuine jazz and blues songs.”149 According to this same article: Miss Smith was asked the secret of her perfect mastery of the “blues” song. “The typical blues song,” said Mamie, “comes from the very heart and to sing it well you have to feel it. It is a peculiar and individual type of music which goes back for generations. In my opinion it is the foundation of real American folk music, much more so than the Indian or plantation melodies, for the real ‘blues’ music has a fascination about it which gets into the blood and is certainly the most popular form of syncopation today, not only in America but, I am informed, in London and Paris.’”150

In March 1921 the “rage of the east” ventured west to the Avenue Theater in Chicago, where she

The Commercialization of the Blues, 1920–26

was heralded as “the biggest advertised star of the record world”: One would imagine from the records that she was a rough, coarse shouter. To the contrary, she was a splendid reproduction of May Irwin, who made this class of amusement what it is today and what it will remain. One of Miss Smith’s features was that she rendered her numbers clean and void of all foreign dancing, “slapping-the-finger” acts, and added to her personality a good lesson in stage dressing. Her three gowns made the audience gasp. . . . Miss Smith is a sensation in records and came back and made good on the stage. Her first two numbers just “got by.” Her last number, the “Crazy Blues,” justly called the King of all Blues, hit the audience in Baby Ruth order and took a real curtain call and would have done honor to any artist in the business. Miss Smith is one of the overnight successes, and made good and will enjoy packed house wherever she appears.151

From Chicago, Mamie Smith and Her Jazz Hounds headed south, where they appeared in large mainstream theaters. Their stop at the Coliseum Theater in Dallas was ballyhooed in the Dallas Journal: “Lovers of jazz music who miss Mamie Smith’s Revue tonight at the Coliseum will overlook one of the best accelerated musical treats of the year. . . . Her ‘Hounds’ give more spontaneous, shoulder-shaking harmony in a minute than the average so-called ‘jazz’ orchestra could give during an entire year of effort. But this is only natural, as since time immemorial, Negroes have been masters of folk melodies and ragtime tunes, and modern jazz is nothing more than ragtime with a little moonshine jazz.”152 In this atmosphere of distorted characterizations, Mamie Smith began to gain celebrity as a national crossover record star. Three years after

“Crazy Blues” was released, the OKeh Record Company bragged, “Thousands upon thousands fell in love with this great blues number, bought it, and today it still stands as the greatest selling Race record of all time.”153 Before long, however, Mamie Smith began to hear footsteps coming from behind. At the Lafayette Theater in January 1923 she made a big hit, but drew criticism, “because [of] some of the lines of the catchy ‘Mame [sic] Smith Blues,’ which referred to imitators. That was at least bad taste. On the whole the act is a great one.”154 Late that same year Smith disclosed to a Billboard interviewer that “her pet aversion is the fear that the public will regard Bessie Smith, another blues singer, as a sister, a fact she most strenuously denies.”155 By 1923, Variety was obliged to acknowledge that blues records were changing the nature of music-industry economics: Colored singing and playing artists are riding to fame and fortune with the current popular demand for “blues” disk recordings. . . . Mamie Smith is generally credited with having started this demand on Okeh records. Not only do these disks enjoy wide sales among the colored race, but have caught on with the Caucasians. As a result, practically every record making firm from the Victor down has augmented its catalog with special “blues” recordings by colored artists.156

The power of record company publicity was such that when Smith appeared at the Elmore Theater in Pittsburgh in May 1925 she was advertised as “the originator of the blues.”157 That same year, a report from the Washington Theater in Indianapolis reflected: “At one time Mamie was the queen of the blues without question, but numerous record manufacturing companies have put before the public a number of blues singers, some heretofore unheard of, and have acclaimed them as queens and empresses of the

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blues. Mamie has apparently forsaken the blues and has turned to the jazz sentimental.”158 Though her early OKeh recordings include a few convincing blues renditions, most notably “Crazy Blues,” Smith had never really turned away from New York–style “jazz sentimental.” Mamie Smith was a relative unknown before she made records; her resultant fame allowed this “business woman, as well as singer” to tour successfully throughout the 1920s.159 Her death in 1946 was reported by the Associated Negro Press under the headline, “Mamie Smith, ‘Mother Of The Blues,’ Passes.”160 Mamie Smith and Edith Wilson both gained entrance to recording studios through the intercession of blues composer Perry Bradford. Sarah Martin’s first OKeh recordings, made in New York City in October 1922, were the result of her professional association with another conspicuous blues composer, Clarence Williams. At the time of her first session, Martin was reportedly “demonstrating numbers for the Clarence Williams Publishing Company in the McCrory five and ten-cent stores.”161 Like Edith Wilson, Sarah Martin was a product of Louisville, Kentucky’s rich black music culture. Unlike Wilson, Martin’s blues was not of the New York sort. Her overnight rise to national prominence obscured two full decades of varied stage experience, mostly in southern vaudeville.162 No doubt encouraged by their successful incursion into the white record-buying market with Mamie Smith’s “Crazy Blues,” OKeh Records energetically promoted Sarah Martin. The Defender informed that she was “under a heavy contract with the Okeh people, and Mr. Heineman (white) president of the concern, is sparing no pains or money to make her the topnotcher in her line. In the ‘Record Trade’ of this issue you will find [a] one page ad, also a likeness of Miss Martin. This is lots of publicity to get, and in an ofay paper too.”163 Kansas City Call, December 14, 1923.

Chicago Defender, May 5, 1923. This ad contains a very early appearance of the term “Race Records.” The term appeared again in a June 2, 1923, Defender ad commemorating the “Second Anniversary [of ] Black Swan Records,” as well as in the Pittsburgh Courier of that same date, in an ad for the J. Kapp Company: “Get the Latest Race Record . . . We have all the Columbia, Okeh and Paramount Race Records.”

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Kansas City Call, September 14, 1923.

In the summer of 1923, Sarah Martin embarked on an extraordinary concert tour in company with the W. C. Handy Band, who were also OKeh recording artists. They opened in Boston, then headed to Wilmington, Delaware; Frederick, Maryland; Lynchburg and Richmond, Virginia; Raleigh, Durham, Greensboro, and Charlotte, North Carolina; Columbia and Greenville, South Carolina; Augusta and Atlanta, Georgia; Birmingham, Alabama; Nashville and Memphis, Tennessee; Paducah and Louisville, Kentucky; Kansas City, Missouri; Cairo, Illinois, and other cities.164 They played in large white theaters and concert halls, attracting capacity audiences of both races.165 The Defender emphasized that: “In the concert tour of the Handy-Martin forces they play and sing selections which they have recorded for Okeh records.”166 The presentation incorporated pedagogic as well as promotional elements, with

Handy delivering a “curtain speech on the history of the Negro folk lore music and its relation to present-day blues.”167 Brandishing his baton in front of an eightpiece band, Handy was classy company for a “blues queen.” His incomparable songwriting talents and aggressive self-promotion had established him in the public consciousness not only as “the originator of the blues idea in musical composition,” but a recognized agent of Dvořák’s prophesy about the elevation of African American folk music.168 Caught up, perhaps, in the spirit of the program, the mainstream Nashville press wrote of Martin’s performance with Handy’s Band at the Ryman Auditorium: “Sarah Martin, phonograph star, sang ‘Blues’ galore, in a rich, resounding voice, which not only filled the auditorium, but was probably heard on Church street. When she reached the ‘Laughing, Crying Blues’ the 3,000 persons assembled for the celebration of Blue Thursday showered her with applause such as any prima donna might be very proud of. It was the ultimate in artistry of its kind.”169 Evidently, OKeh’s heavy promotion of Sarah Martin produced the desired result: “Okeh record dealers in the cities where she has appeared are having more calls for her records than they can take care of.”170 While admiring the commercial boon, some African American music critics began to openly question the public’s enthusiasm for the style and quality of vaudeville entertainment currently being presented by what they saw as a surfeit of blues queens. “Billboard” Jackson complained of “Too Much Sameness”; adding that, “the record companies have just about plugged these folks so persistently that the public is growing a bit tired of them”: The women singers of the Race who recorded these numbers have made fame and fortune for the recording concerns since Mame [sic] Smith sang the first number into the tin horn at a master record.

The girls, too, have fared well. This gave rise to the demand for personal appearances of artistes who were pioneers in a new field for our women. . . . BUT—they became a gang of imitators. To see one was to see all of them. The singer and a pianist, a low blues number, a change to a slightly better dress while the usually mediocre pianist does a solo bit. Then a flash costume and a risqué song about “Never loved but,” etc. with something about “another woman’s man” for an encore. All using the same costume routine, the same song routine, the same drape set and the same record sales in the lobby. Girls, get some originality about your presentation!171

Sarah Martin succeeded in differentiating herself from other aspiring blues queens by incorporating histrionic effects and expositive “demonstrations” in her stage act, first noted in connection with the Porter Grainger–Bob Ricketts composition “Laughin’ Cryin’ Blues”: “more than a jazz rendition, her acting made it quite dramatic, tense and thrilling, and the audience yelled, applauded and cat-called.”172 At New York’s Lafayette Theater, “Miss Martin proved an artist of rare dramatic ability in emotionalizing the blues songs, which provoked uncontrollable tears and laughter from her audience.”173 Such dramatizations earned her a reputation as “the most emotional blues singer appearing before the public today.”174 In Kansas City, Martin introduced “something new—a surprise for blues fans . . . Sara’s own special interpretation of how one feels blue, and it certainly registers a hit.”175 In advance of a midnight ramble at the Lyric Theater in New Orleans, she went so far as to “declare that very few white persons know what the word ‘blues’ means, although they have been using the word for years. She will not only sing the blues, but will have the blues on the stage.”176 Capitalizing on the powerful mystique that surrounded record-making, Martin came up with an Chicago Defender, January 5, 1924.

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illustrative stage sketch titled “How Records Are Made.”177 Publicity for a midnight ramble at the Lincoln Theater in Kansas City promised: “Miss Martin will actually make records on the stage under the direction of Winston Holmes, who has recently managed the recording of Kansas City artists for the Okeh company.”178 Not long after her celebrated tour with W. C. Handy, OKeh Records decided to record Sarah Martin with a more fundamental type of blues accompaniment. Late in 1923 OKeh released her “Roamin’ Blues,” which they advertised as: “The first blues guitar record out.”179 The guitarist was fellow Louisvillian Sylvester Weaver. OKeh recording engineer Ralph Peer, a white man, wrote a personal letter to Sarah Martin: “‘Roamin’ Blues’ with guitar accompaniment is the biggest seller you have had since ‘Sugar Blues.’ It might be well for you to rearrange your act so that this is your feature number using guitar accompaniment. It seems to me that this would make a wonderful encore number to be used very near the end of your act.”180 In its buildup of “Roamin’ Blues,” OKeh declared: “Three years ago OKeh put over a big idea: the making of real, honest-to-goodness Race records. First came ‘Crazy Blues’ by Mamie. Thousands upon thousands fell in love with this great blues number. . . . OKeh next developed the standard Race record accompaniments by famous colored orchestras and by noted pianists. The latest OKeh novelty—just out—is a remarkable blue guitar number—the first ever recorded in America. New OKeh Race artists have been discovered by special recording expeditions into the South.”181 There was nothing particularly original about OKeh’s “standard Race record accompaniments”; they simply reflect the typical configuration of vaudeville theater pit bands and pianists. “Special recording expeditions into the South,” however, were a new development, and may have alerted record

makers to “blue guitar numbers” and the latent talent present in southern black communities. Following the success of “Roamin’ Blues,” Sylvester Weaver accompanied Sarah Martin on several more sessions, and she also recorded with Clifford Hayes’s Louisville Jug Band. However, no mention has been found of either Weaver or the jug band appearing on a vaudeville stage with Martin. In 1924 she went on tour with Henry C. Callens at the piano and her husband William J. Myers on banjo. When she sang “Roamin’ Blues” at the Monogram Theater that spring, “She was accompanied by her husband, who is an accomplished banjoist.”182 At the end of 1923 the great blues comedy team of Butterbeans and Susie traveled as a supporting act for Sarah Martin, an arrangement that accentuated the artificiality of the “blues record star” system. “Butter and Sue” had been headliners in African American vaudeville for years before Martin achieved recognition, but their charismatic appeal was late to dawn on the record-makers. The enthusiasm they provoked from theater audiences was bound to pose a problem for any featured star. When the Sarah Martin Revue appeared in Shreveport, Louisiana, a Billboard writer went so far as to claim: “Her act was injured by the fact that Butter Beans and Susie, preceding her, used blues numbers very effectively, and therefore took the edge off of her work.”183 In another sense, Sarah Martin and Butterbeans and Susie were well-matched traveling companions; equally respected in the profession for their fundamental decency and uncommon consideration toward fellow performers. When Martin became ill on tour in Alabama, Butter and Sue “retained their rooms at Birmingham, in order to spend the week with her.”184 Martin returned the favor by recommending them to the OKeh Record Company.185 They were already top box-office attractions on the black theater circuit, but, as Butterbeans

The Commercialization of the Blues, 1920–26

Chicago Defender, August 23, 1924.

acknowledged: “when we made the records, that made us draw double.”186 Swamped with “blues queen” acts that were criticized for their sameness, vaudeville audiences were primed for Butterbeans and Susie’s blues-and-comedy-drenched variety show. Their dance routines, seasoned by their apprenticeship with Alex Tolliver’s storied dancing chorus; their confrontational humor, deeply affected by the work of String Beans and Sweetie May; their command of up-to-the-moment vernacular expressions, comic timing, and well-selected repertoire of songs, are the epitome of “husband-and-wife” team vaudeville. They were by no means the only record artists presenting husband-and-wife team comedy on the T.O.B.A. circuit; there were George Williams and Bessie Brown,

Charles and Effie Tyus, Viola McCoy and Billy Higgins, Virginia Liston and Sam Gray, Cow Cow Davenport and Dora Carr, Hezekiah and Dorothy Jenkins, Arnold and Irene Wiley, Coot Grant and Kid Wesley “Sox” Wilson, and others. Butter and Sue were the cream of this bumper crop, and they enjoyed the longest and arguably most successful stage career of any act in African American vaudeville.187 Once established as OKeh record stars, Butterbeans and Susie became prime favorites at midnight frolics for exclusively white audiences, which by the mid-1920s had become an important factor in T.O.B.A. economics. Butter and Sue were a particular attraction at Charles Bailey’s 81 Theater in Atlanta. Bailey aggressively promoted his Friday

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night “frolics” in the daily Atlanta Constitution. In February 1925 the paper published an announcement indicative of both the profitability of Bailey’s frolics and the popularity of Butterbeans and Susie: “Because of the tremendous regular patronage won by the ‘frolics,’ which the theater offers to white people whenever a really ‘big time’ bill is booked, arrangements have been made to have all seats in the orchestra reserved. . . . Butterbeans and Susie are to return as the featured headliners of the new revue. People who were part of the audience that gave them nearly 20 encores last month will . . . hear a new program of songs and line of comedy patter.”188 Jodie Edwards reminisced: On a certain night, probably, sometime it might be a Wednesday or a Friday night, they’d have a midnight show, for the whites. The biggest of officials, like the mayor, either I played in front of the governor in some of them places like that. The best of people used to come to those theaters to see that midnight show. . . . If you was getting 75 cents for your show, for the Colored, for your regular show, that midnight show probably you might be getting two dollars and a half, per person; and turn ’em away. Because evening time, they come back stage . . . not no one or two—forty and fifty, as many as they could get back there, and looking out from the wings. That’s the way it was.189

In July 1925 Bailey staged a big summer blowout featuring Butterbeans and Susie, Bessie Smith, and other well-known performers, which he advertised with a special parade “featuring all the stars on the bill, with the result that the crowd flocked to the theater.” At the midnight show Butter and Sue “had things their own way. . . . Susie sang ‘When My Man Shimmies.’ Butterbeans rendered the ‘A-B-C Blues’ and in a conversational number they brought on a

red-hot finish, which worked them almost as hard as did their opening number, which was their famous ‘Hellish Rag.’ Their appearance was the signal for a big ovation. Every number brought an encore, and their finish worked them silly. What more does an artist want from an appreciative audience?”190 Butter and Sue packed the 81 Theater’s midnight frolics for years thereafter.191 Jodie “Butterbeans” Edwards readily acknowledged Butler “String Beans” May’s patrimony: “I took mostly all his style, and his songs, and stuff like that. . . . He could do anything.”192 Susie Edwards may have seen String Beans in a somewhat different light. When theater owners began billing their act simply as “Butterbeans,” just as the team of May and May had often been billed as “String Beans,” Susie strongly protested: I seen String Beans get mad at Sweetie, his wife, then, grab any little girl and go on and do the show, you know. You don’t do that. So we went to a playhouse, had a big sign out: “Butterbeans.” And it was time for the show, almost. I told him [the theater manager], I said, “Listen, you got your billing wrong: ‘Butterbeans and Susie.’” He said, “It’s too late now.” I said, “Well, it’s too late for me to go on. I’m not going on until you put out there: ‘Butterbeans and Susie.’”193

Between May 1924 and August 1930 Butterbeans and Susie recorded seventy sides of lively, confrontational, domestic comedy blues, framed on boasts, toasts, gross insults, threats of violence, and double entendre. String Beans’s irreverent language and intensely cynical comic spirit hovers around these recordings. His influence is conspicuous on their 1925 record “Brown Skin Gal,” which not only contains an example of the “Elgin movements” metaphor, but also the “words of different colors of race,” for which Beans was criticized ten years earlier:

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Chicago Defender, June 12, 1926.

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Now everybody claims a man dark color Is only crazy about a high yellow. A high yellow she’ll throw you, And that ain’t all. Every night when you come home Another mule in your stall. Now a brown has got Elgin movements From her head to her knees, Automatic work and twenty years guarantee. Now the world will tell you That a brown skin gal is alright. But a high yellow get twenty-five years old She draws up just like tripe. Now look here boys, Just let me get you told. I say a brown skin gal She serves the best jelly roll. That’s why a brown skin gal Is the best gal after all.194

Another distinct echo is heard in their famous song “Get Yourself A Monkey Man, Make Him Strut His Stuff,” wherein Sue warns Butter: “I’d keep you looking like something that the buzzards had.”195 Their 1924 OKeh hit “A to Z Blues,” with its gleefully detailed threat of torture with a razor, is darkly redolent of Butler May’s notorious use of his own “carving implement.”196 On paper, many of Butterbeans and Susie’s song lyrics seem extraordinarily crude and even sadistic; however, the key to the team’s unique artistry and appeal lies in their irresistible charm, a loveable quality that, along with their potent vernacular humor, lubricates every shocking, roughhouse indignity they casually let fly. String Beans’s impress on Butter and Sue did not dissipate over the course of their lengthy career. Their final LP recording from 1960 includes a

selection titled “Street Piano,” which the album producers erroneously credited to LeMay (i.e., “Bud LeMay,” the entrenched phonetic misinterpretation of Butler May).197 The scenario depicted in the lyrics—“They threw pennies out the window, crying ‘Play some more’ / My sister started eagle rocking around the floor / When the street piano played that ragtime melody”—evokes String Beans’s own childhood experience playing from the back of a truck on the streets of his hometown Montgomery, Alabama.198 String Beans never experienced the crossover celebrity or the degree of commercial success enjoyed by his greatest disciples. In 1926 a Pittsburgh Courier columnist said Butterbeans and Susie were “without a doubt the biggest individual box-office attraction of which the T.O.B.A. boasts and the salary demanded and received is far above 99% of that paid Ofay teams on the biggest circuits.”199 On Saturday night, June 12, 1926, the Consolidated Talking Machine Company—the parent company of OKeh Records—in association with the Musicians Union, Local 208, staged an elaborate OKeh “Cabaret and Style Show” at the Coliseum in Chicago. The Defender added a four-page section to its regular edition of that date, to cover and publicize what had to be the biggest race record promotion yet attempted: “there will be at least 25,000 persons on hand to witness an event, the likes of which has never been seen west of New York.”200 OKeh’s roster included Louis Armstrong, Sarah Martin, Lonnie Johnson, Shelton Brooks, King Oliver, and other luminaries of the jazz and blues age; yet a front-page headline noted: “Butterbeans And Susie To Head Line-Up—Galaxy of National Stars on Bill.”201 The special four-page spread included block ads for three local record stores—Erskine Tate’s Vendome Music Shop, “Headquarters for OKeh Records”; the Rialto Music House; and the

The Commercialization of the Blues, 1920–26

Community Music Store, which promised: “To each and every customer ordering OKeh Records, we will give a beautiful picture of any of the artists listed below at a special price of 1 CENT EACH . . . We have pictures of . . . Clarence Williams, Sara Martin, Butterbeans and Susie, Bertha Chippie Hill, Richard M. Jones’ Jazz Wizards, and Louis Armstrong.” In the same section, the Chicago-based Consolidated Theatrical and Musical Exchange advertised: “Cafes, Theaters, Hotels, Clubs, Dance Halls, Lodges, Summer Resorts—We can furnish you with OKeh Race Record Stars for your entertainment.” Following OKeh’s lead, Columbia tested the blues market in 1921–22 with a sampling of New York–style blues singers.202 In 1923 Columbia sealed its commitment by signing Bessie Smith and Clara Smith to exclusive contracts, and inaugurating its 13/14000-D race records series with discs by its two new southern blues stars.203 Over the ensuing decade nearly 700 records were issued in the series, featuring well over 200 different single artists and groups.204 Columbia’s advertising department heralded Bessie Smith’s recording career with a rustic greeting: “Folks—Say ‘Howdy’ to Bessie Smith . . . a bright new star in the firmament of colored vocal artists.”205 Shortly after the release of her first records, Smith made a southern tour, appearing at T.O.B.A. theaters in Atlanta, Birmingham, Nashville, New Orleans, Macon, Memphis, and elsewhere. She had traveled this route many times before; but this time, with the prestige and influence of Columbia Records added into the mix, her professional appearances were distinguished by radio broadcasts, advance publicity in mainstream newspapers, and sold-out midnight shows for white audiences. Atlanta’s Decatur Street theater district had been Bessie Smith’s base of operations for fifteen years, but when she brought her revue back to the 81 Theater as a record star in June 1923, the local white populace suddenly took notice. The mainstream

Atlanta Journal tempered its obvious enthusiasm with a note of condescension: Of all the excellent programs by Colored talent that have won high favor with WCB’S [sic, radio station WSB] audiences the entertainment by Bessie Smith, singer of “blue” songs for the Columbia records . . . stands unique in its welcome departure from orthodox broadcasting. . . . The Bessie Smith revue, by the way, an attraction touring Colored theaters, is going to give a special performance for white people only, it is announced on Friday night at 11:15 at 81 Decatur St. “Blue” songs originated down in Memphis, where Handy’s adaptations of the old-time levee melodies started a new trend in Tin Pan Alley technique. Genuine “blues” and the Broadway version all base their tune and verses on what is supposed to be darky dialect, superstition and custom, wherefore Tuesday’s entertainments were eminently qualified for their places. Among the numbers recognized by phonograph owners are: “The Gulf Coast Blues,” “Aggravatin’ Papa,” “Tain’t Nobody’s Business If I Do” and “Oh Daddy Blues,” all by Bessie Smith and all sung in a way that evidenced why the records are about the most popular of their kind before the public.206

A novel method of record marketing was noted a few weeks later, when Bessie Smith and company hawked her latest disc in the aisles of the Frolic Theater in Birmingham: “Bessie Smith, with Irvin Johns at the piano, before their own special drop, opened full stage with ‘Nobody’s Bizness If I Do,’ with the ‘Gulf Coast Blues,’ which received heavy applause, leaving the house in a riot, following. During this act Irvin Johns, the pianist, offered an instrumental rendition that drew hands. ‘Buzzing’ Harris announced ‘The Gulf Coast Blues’ for sale and went down into the audience to sell copies.”207

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The appeal of Bessie Smith’s Columbia records across the race line was reasserted in a newspaper report from 1925, when she was again the feature of a midnight show at the 81: “The program was greatly enjoyed by the white people who filled the house. . . . According to the management practically all seats in the house were taken for this special performance as early as Thursday morning. Miss Smith is a great favorite in Atlanta. Few white homes here are without her records made by the Columbia Phonograph Company. A prominent white music dealer told a reporter of the Preston News that Bessie Smith’s records actually out-sell everything else in the catalog.”208 Midnight frolics were often advertised as an opportunity for white folks to see in person the great singers whose names they recognized from race records. Promotion for a midnight frolic at the Lyric Theater in New Orleans touted: “Bessie Smith, world famed record maker, will be the chief luminary. . . . Bessie is a caramel heavy of Ethiopia’s stageland, with a voice that drags out the last ounce of enthusiastic applause from white witnesses. Her records are played in nearly every home with a phonograph in the country.”209 Bessie Smith was easily the most popular of all midnight frolic blues stars.210 At the Bijou Theater in Nashville, “she played a special show for white only and knocked all the tin off the roof of the theater. Trouble was had in getting the people to leave the theater as they cried for more.”211 In Memphis, Thursday-night midnight frolics at the Palace Theater on Beale Street were often previewed over WMC radio’s Wednesday-night programs, which were also called midnight frolics. When Bessie Smith brought her revue to Memphis in October 1923, she gave “a concert of Negro folk songs that will be remembered by WMC as long as a midnight frolic is broadcast from the roof of the Commercial Appeal”:

With a talented group of entertainers, Bessie let her crack jazz orchestra open the frolic, with Baby Cox singing “Way Down Yonder in New Orleans.” Her drawls were delicious and the spirit of jazz was at home when she gave vent to the popular song. She appears with Bessie at the Beale St. Palace theater with a special midnight frolic, which was given at 11 o’clock Thursday night for white people only. . . . The star of the frolic, Bessie Smith, greeted the atmosphere with “Tain’t Nobody’s Business but My Own,” which she gave with unction and a rich Negro Accent. Accompanied by Irvin Johns, her pianist, she followed with “Beale Street Mamma.” . . . The program was arranged with the courtesy of A. Barrasso of the Beale St. Palace theater.212

The Theater Owners Booking Association, of which Anselmo Barrasso was a prominent member, was instrumental in promoting race record stars. The newly developed record star system squarely aligned the commercial interests of T.O.B.A. managers with those of record manufacturers. In May 1925 the T.O.B.A. announced that, “in co-operation with Frank B. Walker of the Columbia Phonograph company, they have gotten out a complete new and attractive line of lithographs of the two stellar Columbia favorites, Bessie and Clara Smith. These lithographs will be supplied gratis to all T.O.B.A. theaters playing these two stars.”213 Newspapers, radio stations, and music stores also collaborated with the record companies to fully exploit the commercial potential of the blues. When the Bessie Smith Revue visited Pittsburgh in March 1924, the power of the airwaves was again brought to bear, “through the courtesy of the Goldman & Wolf Music Company”: On next Friday evening, arrangements are being made to have Bessie Smith sing over either station KDKA or station WCAE, accompanied by her

The Commercialization of the Blues, 1920–26

Kansas City Call, November 30, 1923.

pianist. Bessie Smith is playing at the New Lincoln theater next week, and from all indications there will be a sell-out of the house on every evening. . . . Much credit is due the Goldman & Wolf Music Shop for the interest which they are taking in the various race stars who appear in our city . . . we could reciprocate somewhat by purchasing our records at this store. All of Bessie Smith’s latest hits are obtainable at this store.214

Similarly, when Clara Smith came to Pittsburgh, “Goldman and Wolfe [sic], uptown race record headquarters . . . arranged to hold a concert on Saturday afternoon at 2:30 P.M. at which time Clara Smith and her pianist Stanley Miller, will be present to meet the many friends who are desirous of

meeting them and hearing them. . . . The concert has been arranged at the request of many patrons of the above dealers, and many of Clara Smith’s famous and well known records will be placed on sale during this concert.”215 Urban community music shops represented the retail element of a complex commercial network supporting and profiting from the blues record star system. Record shop advertisements in black weeklies were typically tied to activity in local T.O.B.A. theaters. Some record shops of the era were owned by African Americans. A number of more engaged black record shop proprietors served as unofficial agents for aspiring recording artists. In Dallas, Texas, R. T. Ashford was the African American proprietor of a record shop on the

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Kansas City Call, March 20, 1925.

corner of Central Avenue and Elm Street. Ashford’s daughter, Lurline Holland, described: “In the music shop, three soundproof rooms—they called [them] booths or cubicles to play on the Victrola before buying the records. Two or three people could sit in and hear.” In the 1920s Ashford “facilitated a recording contract” with Columbia Records for local blues singer Lillian Glinn, and accompanied Blind Lemon Jefferson to Chicago on his first Paramount recording session.216 In Los Angeles, the Spikes brothers (Johnny and Reb), African American songwriters and owners of a Central Avenue music store, promoted concerts and blues singing contests, booked appearances by Kid Ory’s Sunshine Orchestra, and in 1922 issued a few records on their own Sunshine label.217

Kansas City Call, June 11, 1926.

In Kansas City, black record shop proprietor Winston Holmes left his imprint on several facets of the record business.218 He advertised Trixie Smith’s Black Swan records for sale in his store as early as February 1922, and he actively supported her appearance at Kansas City’s Lincoln Theater that fall.219 In 1923 he arranged for Bennie Moten’s Kansas City Orchestra, with vocalists Ada Brown and Mary H. Bradford, to record in Chicago for OKeh Records: “It was Mr. Holmes’ original idea to have Kansas City talent record for the Okeh company and it was solely through his efforts the negotiations were successfully completed for the trip.”220 After the session, “Recording engineer, R. S. Peer, of the General Phonograph corporation congratulated Mr. Holmes on the excellence of the artists which he presented.”221

The Commercialization of the Blues, 1920–26

Late in 1924 Holmes issued “the first phonograph record made in Kansas City” on his own Meritt Records label.222 One side features local artists Lena and Sylvester Kimbrough, backed by the Paul Banks Kansas City Trio, singing “Cabbage Head Blues.”223 This is an early blues variant of the eighteenth-century British ballad “Our Goodman,” which seems ready-made for confrontational humor in black vaudeville.224 It includes this signature exchange: Sylvester: I’m going to ask one question, Sweet mama don’t you lie to me. Now, whose head is on that pillow, Where mine ought to be? Lena:

Lord, Lord daddy, You blind and surely cannot see. That’s nothing but a cabbage head Your mama gave to me.

Sylvester: Lord I’ve traveled this country Twenty-five long years or more, But I’ve never seen a cabbage With a moustache on before.

Black-owned record companies were an anomaly in the 1920s; the recording industry was almost entirely under white control. Labels like Meritt and Black Swan could only offer weak competition against companies such as OKeh and Columbia, which had access to nationwide networks for the advertising, manufacture, and distribution of their product. In the spring of 1926 Holmes issued a Meritt record featuring two sermons preached by Kansas City–based Rev. J. C. Burnett, “The Downfall of Nebuchadnezzar” and “I’ve Even Heard of Thee.”225 Sensing that Holmes had a potential hit record, Columbia enticed Rev. Burnett to record the same two sermons for release in their 14000-D series

catalog. Columbia’s “cover” of Holmes’s original Meritt production became one of the biggest-selling sermon records of the race record era.226 Not long thereafter, Holmes abandoned Meritt Records, leaving a catalog of just six known discs. Within a year of her 1923 recording debut, Bessie Smith was deemed “Empress of the Blues,” a designation that has stood the test of time.227 Press reports were quick to extol her popularity and financial success: “she boasts an enviable salary. In every city in which she has appeared since her debut in ‘Jazz Land’ her coming has been so heralded that police reserves had to be called out to hold the crowds in line.”228 T.O.B.A. theater owner and dean of black theatricals Sherman H. Dudley declared that Bessie Smith and her sister record stars were “all getting good salaries, more than any acts have been paid before. The managers want more box office attractions and are willing to pay for them. I think this is the greatest achievement in the history of Colored vaudeville.”229 However, not all black music critics and performers held the blues queens in high esteem, or even wished them well. Billy McClain, grand old man of the African American stage, engaged in a bit of fogyism when he complained in an open letter to the Defender: “Performers, for the love of Mike, please draw a gun on the blues and jazz numbers. People are tired of them. Bring them something new.”230 Culturally conservative northern commentators began making predictions in the black press—a manifestation, perhaps, of “wish-fulfillment journalism”—that “The twilight of blues songs is at hand. . . . Some years ago everybody was singing something about the moon. . . . Then came the blues—a million kinds. I see the passing of the ‘ebony grand opera.’”231 Record envy may have motivated another writer-performer to draw the novel conclusion that “People will not go to the theaters to hear a blues singer. They have their radios

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Chicago Defender, November 22, 1924.

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and phonographs and they don’t have to attend the theater to hear them.”232 Sylvester Russell stoked the discussion with his familiar potion of pettifoggery and regional prejudice: When the T.O.B.A. Circuit began to grow there was not enough first class performers to supply the houses without playing a lot of ignorant dull-witted comedians and soubrets, who came up from the lower element of the South and the result was a general demoralization of respectability in colored theaters. . . . Record female stars who were drawing cards, now fail to do so because of their careless usage of words. For instance, one in Chicago who has sung a song with the words “Dog-gone-Your-soul” repeated the same burlesque in profanity last week. A miserable patronage followed as a warning.233

Salem Tutt Whitney countered the negativity in a column headed “What Hypocrites We Mortals Be”: We rave about the classics and when one of our great artists is giving a recital we slip around the corner and go to hear Mamie Smith, Sarah Martin or Bessie Smith sing the blues. Just now we hear folks howling, “Down with the blues,” and the blues factories are working overtime trying to supply the demand. For every record of the classics you will find 50 records of jazz and blues. We plead for clean shows, yet a lewd show will pack the theater, while the clean show is likely to have to borrow money to get out of town. “String Beans” was notorious for his vulgarity, yet he was the biggest drawing card on the Colored time, and most of us went to see him, and the reason the rest of us didn’t see him was because we couldn’t get in the theater.234

In hindsight, it does seem that the T.O.B.A.’s fortunes rested too heavily on the celebrity of the blues

queens. By mid-decade the novelty value of race record stardom was beginning to wear thin, and the effects were starting to show at the box office. Likely as a response to the theatrical situation, in the summer of 1926 Bessie Smith formed a revue and set out to tour the rural South, “under a tent which has a seating capacity of 1,500 people.”235 Her “Harlem Frolics Revue” consisted of three dozen performers, featuring comedian/stage manager Dinah Scott; a female dancing chorus; and a small orchestra headed by William H. “Bill” Woods.236 Like the big tented minstrel shows, the Bessie Smith Revue traveled in their own Pullman car: “The car has seven state rooms and lower accommodations for 35.”237 That summer, a music columnist for the Pittsburgh Courier, who identified himself as “Observer,” observed: “Bessie Smith, erstwhile ‘Blues Queen,’ is touring the South under canvas. She has an excellent show and bids fair to report a successful season.”238 Earlier, the same critic had recommended just such an approach, as a remedy to what he saw as the current over-plentitude of blues queens in vaudeville: [I]t would be a relief, to say the least, to thousands of ticket buyers who have had their fill aplenty of this form of work and at the same time it would take [the blues queens] off the circuit entirely, giving the managers a breathing spell and themselves a chance to reform their turns so that when they do hop back on the “time” they will not appear shopworn, tiresome or unwelcome. . . . For years the thousands upon thousands of people who crave “different” amusement have been reading of this “Star” or that, have been buying records carrying their blue and topical numbers, but have never had a chance to view the artists in person, for the simple reason that they live in small towns in districts never played by them. These ruralities have plenty of money and are more than willing to spend

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Kansas City Call, November 23, 1923.

it. . . . The blindest can readily see that a “Blues Tent” should hit from the start. . . . In other words, a good show of the kind is certain to make big money and at the same time . . . would not interfere with any existing circuit. We’re for it sink, line and hooker.239

Bessie Smith’s southern tent show tour seems to have been a success; the show remained on the road well into the month of November. In January 1927 her “Harlem Frolics” were back on the theater circuit.240 She went out again under canvas for the summer of 1927.241 Bessie Smith proved to be the best-selling artist in the Columbia Record Company’s race series, and Clara Smith followed not far behind. When Clara Smith came to the Elmore Theater in Pittsburgh early in 1925, the Courier declared: “This Columbia

Pittsburgh Courier, March 15, 1924.

record star . . . is one of the leading blues singer [sic] of the day and will sing the blues, and not try to sing semi-blues in musical comedy fashion, as has been tried by several black singers who have played here recently.”242 Clara Smith also retained her earlier southern vaudeville reputation as “a rattling good talker.” At the Lincoln Theater in Kansas City, a reviewer praised her as “Columbia record’s most entertaining star” and an “ace of harmonistic humor. . . . She proceeds to advise both sexes on how to obtain domestic peace and happiness by each doing as they please and when she asked if any man or woman in the house loved his wife or her husband, not a soul arose.”243 Ma Rainey began her recording career in 1923, the year of the commercial ascendancy of southern

The Commercialization of the Blues, 1920–26

Clara Smith, Kansas City Call, June 12, 1925.

vaudeville blues. Rainey was the quintessential southern singer; in her twenty years on vaudeville and tent show routes she had attained iconic status in the South, but she seldom ventured north of the Mason-Dixon. Even after she became a record star, Rainey was rarely observed in a midnight frolic for white people. Her style of blues singing appealed primarily to southern black folks. At the beginning of 1923, Ma Rainey wrote from Texas to inform that she and “her company of fourteen ‘Broadway Strutters’” had just closed

an extended season under canvas and were set to “go into theaters under the booking direction of E. L. Cummings,” the notorious Pensacola, Florida– based T.O.B.A. agent.244 In Chicago at the end of the year, she made her first recordings for the Paramount Record Company. Strikingly characteristic Paramount ads appeared regularly in the Chicago Defender and other widely circulated black weeklies. Paramount’s publicity for Ma Rainey is an example of effective “re-branding” of a blues artist for popular consumption. Without concern for history or tradition, Paramount introduced Ma Rainey—like an archaeologist unveiling the Venus of Willendorf—to what they must have assumed was a clueless public. A February 2, 1924, Chicago Defender ad blathered: “Discovered at Last—Mother of the Blues.” Gertrude Rainey had been known as “Ma” since the fall of 1913, but the title “Mother of the Blues” was a 1924 advertising invention with no historical basis. Nevertheless, it stuck. A brief dust-up over sloppy publicity arose in 1925, when Variety ran a short article about Ma Rainey in which, according to the Defender, she was “accused of having reached the fine age of 60 years. While we knew that Ma had been in our midst for a long time, we had an idea that she was only 59. . . . Ma is a native of Pensacola, Fla, according to the same writer.”245 Rainey responded in an open letter “to those inquirers who want to know her age that she may have gone to school with their mothers, but she is not too old to be a box office attraction. Nuff sed.”246 Rainey had no difficulty backing up her claim: “Blues” singers come and they go, but the way Ma draws them in she should be called the “mother of packin’ ’em in” along with her title of being the mother of the “blues.” . . . She is heard singing as only the mother of the “blues” can sing, but unseen until she steps from

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a big Paramount talking machine. Oh, boy! What a flash Ma does make in her gorgeous gowns, backed up by her Georgia jazz band, one of the best fivepiece bands heard here in a long time.247

The entertainment columns of black community newspapers had long been crucial to the development of the black entertainment profession. The Indianapolis Freeman was an especially important instrument for growth, as well as an outlet for reports from itinerant performers, and a platform for frank communication between African American players, critics, and theater owners. After 1920, however, there was a passing of the entertainment news torch from the Freeman to the Chicago Defender, Pittsburgh Courier, and to a lesser extent, other local weeklies. With the dawning of the race record industry, the African American press was bombarded with advertisements from record labels touting their latest releases in large, eye-catching block ads.248 Mainstream commercial interests saw the black community press as a ready-made conduit to the black consumer. The Freeman did not carry race record ads, nor did it publish related “puff ” pieces, pseudo-news articles promoting record artists.249 Perhaps this was a factor in the Freeman’s imminent demise; in any case, the “old standby” for African American performers faltered and failed by the mid-1920s, while the Defender, Courier, and others prospered.250 The flood of new record company advertising introduced distortions that infected entertainment news reportage. “Billboard” Jackson drew attention to this tendency in his December 23, 1923, survey of “The Gifts of the Year in Colored Amusements”: “The paid-for ‘write-up’ and the purchased review, the price of which is sometimes cleverly and sometimes not so cleverly concealed in the advertising charges, is morally dishonest, and is such a

shameful practice that one actually wonders at the prevalence of these faults in otherwise editorially erect publications.” Record company promotions of blues singers demonstrate a troubling proclivity to fictionalize biographical and historical details, creating a bizarre dissonance with the expertise of in-group entertainment columnists. The enormous success of Bessie Smith’s initial Columbia record releases was followed by an effort to portray her as a fresh new face. Smith had been playing theater dates in Chicago since 1912; nevertheless, in May 1924 the Defender carried this announcement: “Chicagoans will have their first opportunity to give the famous Columbia record star, Bessie Smith the once over Monday night at which time ‘The Empress of Blues Singers’ opens a week engagement at the Avenue.”251 Before the end of her Avenue Theater engagement, she paid a “pleasant visit” to the Defender: “The famous Columbia Blues Empress was looking the picture of health and stated that she was more than enjoying her first visit professionally, to the Windy City.”252 In 1925, when she appeared at the Liberty Theater in Chattanooga, a “T.O.B.A. News” column claimed, even more disingenuously, that it was “the ‘Empress of Blues’ first appearance in Chattanooga, which is the singer’s home town. Likely she’ll receive a big reception.”253 Record companies seemed determined to present all their southern blues artists as “new discoveries,” irrespective of their prior reputations in vaudeville. The companies apparently saw no advantage in drawing attention to past history; perhaps they lacked the necessary background information. In any case, they sustained the ruse as a promotional strategy, and none of the interested parties seem to have objected. If the intention was to obliterate any recollection of the blues in southern vaudeville prior to the arrival of race records and the T.O.B.A., then the effort was a smashing success. It explains why

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so many histories of the blues begin with Mamie Smith’s first recording session.

The Theater Owners’ Booking Association While it may be a truism that the Theater Owners Booking Association was “tough on black actors,” the question remains, “How so?” In light of the instability, disorganization, and random abuses that characterized African American vaudeville prior to 1921, the establishment of a central booking agency might have served the interests of both owners and performers; but the performers invariably ended up with the short end. Three years after the institution of the T.O.B.A., conditions prompted performer Henry “Gang” Jines to reflect: “years ago before there was even a circuit, the acts were better off, getting $40 to $50 per team, than they are now.”254 On T.O.B.A. time the average vaudeville single received $45 to $60 per week, while the average team (generally two performers) was paid $80 to $90; but if they wanted to work they were obliged to travel wherever the booking agent sent them, and absorb the high cost of railroad fares themselves. Theater owners did not pay for transportation, as had sometimes been the case during the previous decade. All acts on the T.O.B.A. had a 5 percent booking commission automatically deducted from their paycheck and forwarded to the T.O.B.A. office. Theater owners were notorious for finding excuses to make further deductions from the payment promised. As the 1920s progressed, high transportation costs and capriciously applied deductions were responsible for reducing the majority of T.O.B.A. performers to virtual poverty. From Kansas City, performer Charles O’Neal remonstrated: “The money they pay make a talented performer become a traveling tramp . . . acts and companies traveling on

contracts that will not meet the necessary expense account.”255 “Billboard” Jackson spelled out conditions in a 1922 essay titled “Traveling The Colored Circuits”: It is . . . decidedly unfair to engage acts at salaries that provide only a mere living in these times of high prices and then to completely nullify its value to the act by routing the artist as to compel the spending of virtually all of it in transportation costs. . . . An act was offered St. Louis to follow Philadelphia. The act gets around $400 for ten people. The fare is $34.00 each . . . Let the officials get together, lay out the circuits so as to permit the artists to have something more than just “eats” money after paying their fares, and there is no doubt that the result will be improved acts.256

It is fair to say that during the heyday of the T.O.B.A., short-term profit, not “improved acts,” was the guiding principle. In the earlier era, when theater stock companies were in vogue, players could settle into a town for months at a time and draw an ostensibly regular paycheck, while incurring no travel expenses. Theater-based stock companies virtually disappeared during the T.O.B.A. era, replaced by itinerant vaudeville acts; vaudeville “units” of three or four acts traveling in support of record stars; and most commonly, tabloid (“tab”) companies, consisting of ten to sixteen players, typically organized around a few name performers surrounded by a cast of unknown actors and chorus girls. The blues queens/record stars were the only performers who experienced actual economic benefit under the T.O.B.A. system. Artist contracts and booking correspondence indicate that record stars such as Butterbeans and Susie commanded $200 or more per week; George Williams and Bessie Brown got $175 or $200; the Clara Smith unit and the

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Letter from Samuel E. Reevin to Charles H. Douglass (Courtesy C. H. Douglass Business Records Collection, Middle Georgia Regional Library).

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(Courtesy C. H. Douglass Business Records Collection, Middle Georgia Regional Library)

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Ida Cox unit were each paid $275; Ma Rainey and her Georgia Wildcat Band of five musicians commanded $350; while the Bessie Smith Revue topped all black vaudeville attractions at $600 per week.257 The higher-priced acts were heavily publicized in both black and white local newspapers, promoting personal appearances and available recordings. The elevated salaries reflect their extraordinary drawing power in an otherwise increasingly dull black vaudeville market. A 1926 report from Dallas confirmed: “Vaudeville does not pay at the Ella B. Moore theater, but record singers are an exception to this rule. Ida Cox and her vaudeville unit following one week behind Clara Smith and her unit proved a real drawing card as usual.”258 Unprecedented publicity helped create a rush of box office furor not seen since the salad days of Butler May: Time was when once in a while word would come that this or that artiste drew crowds that required special police attention, but within one week mail has come to us that shows that the thing has become epidemic with the blues singers of the race. Just last week newspaper clippings and private advices from St. Louis, Mo., prove that Charles Turpin . . . had to call upon the police of that city to help control the mob that wanted to hear Sarah Martin. At the same time Mr. Horowitz was pleading with the Cleveland (O.) police to come out to his Globe theater to stabilize the stream of people who insisted upon hearing Bessie Smith. From Macon, Ga., comes word that Mr. Douglass had to ask the bluecoats to maintain lines for the patrons who wanted to hear Clara Smith. Ida Cox, Esther Begou [sic] and Ethel Waters, all playing in T.O.B.A. houses, have been the causes for similar reports from time to time. That’s why we may need a “Blues Squad.” Besides the talent the girls

possess, the tremendous publicity released by the record companies concerning them about half of which went into the 217 Negro-owned publications is responsible.259

There were, however, nowhere near enough “blues queens” to accommodate the circuit, and there were hundreds of worthy performers who were not record stars; the latter group was suffering.260 In September 1923 Paul Carter, an old stalwart of the vaudeville highway, submitted an upbeat report from the semi-annual meeting of the T.O.B.A. to Billboard columnist J. A. Jackson: “Paul Carter . . . is very optimistic about the results that will accrue. He mentions the fact that there are acts now on the circuit that are drawing from $150 to $450 and that some companies are getting a thousand dollars or more for touring the time. He himself is preparing to put out a comedy sketch, called ‘Mariah,’ that has already been passed on by the powers that be and been booked at a salary that is satisfactory.”261 Little more than one year later, Carter wrote Jackson again with far less sanguine news: Paul Carter, erstwhile owner of the “Mariah” Company, a tabloid that he starred over the T.O.B.A. Time . . . informs in a letter from Chicago that he has been obliged to close the show and release his people. In discussing the reasons . . . Paul, who has played every theater on the circuit . . . declares . . . that there is not a Negro performer who would not be glad to tour this time, if travel was reasonably arranged and some other conditions improved. “I have worked five straight weeks and am no better off than when I started, and there are plenty of shows in my shape, only they are too proud to admit it. . . . “I . . . know what the people want, but I cannot afford to pay the salaries necessary to produce the

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shows desired. We have always been obliged to get four good people and eight poor ones, robbing the latter to pay the better ones in order to remain within the figure that we have been obliged to accept for the shows. . . . “A comparatively small increase in the amount spent on the performers, reasonably consecutive booking and the routing of acts and companies so as to minimize the large sums spent on transportation would operate to place the performers in each town free from nervous strain.”262

Adjustments were not forthcoming; low fees were the very thing that made tab companies attractive to theater managers. There is every indication that the quality of presentations in black theaters suffered, for the reasons raised in Paul Carter’s letter. Another performer expressed his outrage by asking, “Is the T.O.B.A. circuit for ‘tab’ shows altogether? . . . I have often heard it said (and rightfully too) that all ‘tab’ shows are identical in structure and rendition. There are, of course, ‘tabs’ that show constructive thought. . . . The type I have reference to is the usual one that seems to thrive over the T.O.B.A. circuit, whose comedians for no rhyme or reason cork their faces, and mistaking vulgarity for art, simply wallow in filth. Yet they work continuously, insulting the intelligence and morals of our people week after week.”263 Sherman H. Dudley jumped in on the side of the owners: It seems to me that the days for our vaudeville acts are nearing the end. I speak . . . as a booking agent and a manager. I have a very good three-act bill this week and good pictures . . . and with plenty of good advertisement. . . . I will lose money . . . and have lost each week I used a vaudeville bill. . . . On the contrary, the worst little tab we get will get by, and the good tabs make money for any theater

they play. . . . My advice to all vaudeville acts is to organize tabs for the present, as that is what the managers want; so give it to them. It is what the public wants also.264

Dudley was a charter member and official representative of the T.O.B.A.; at the same time, he was a veteran performer and the organizer of a “Colored Actors Union.”265 Dudley insisted that the aim of his union was to get the “Colored Actor” to “work in harmony with the Manager to help build up the show business in general.”266 To achieve this goal, he wanted to “classify acts” and institute a sliding pay scale that reflected their comparative “worth.”267 Fellow performers may have wondered where his real loyalties lay; at least, this was the underlying attitude reflected in a “Shot from the Lake Shore” that landed on the pages of the Pittsburgh Courier: In a recent issue of the Courier there appeared an article written by our old friend, S. H. Dudley, regarding the decadence of vaudeville and the advance of tabloids as attractions on the T.O.B.A. circuit. . . . We are forced to disagree with this idea; we cannot speak for the class of theaters and audiences who would rather see a set of barelegged choristers, backed by a team of so-called “comedians.” . . . We can, though, speak for the business as typified in the class of houses and with audiences of the sort drawn to the Koppin, Detroit; Grand, Chicago; Globe, Cleveland; Lyric, Louisville. . . . Managers at these houses report that when they are able to get a worthwhile vaudeville bill they do a jamup business. . . . There are several very meritorious tab companies on the T.O.B.A. They are more of an exception than a rule, however . . . we think the advice for all acts to form tabs is not only illogical but untimely, inasmuch as both branches are notoriously underpaid, with the vaudeville end of it getting the best of it.

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One of the T.O.B.A.’s distinctive letterheads (Courtesy C. H. Douglass Business Records Collection, Middle Georgia Regional Library).

A vaudeville bill costs real money unless the acts work for a cut; a tab is a house “gift,” either on salary or percentage. That’s the answer.268

The trend toward tab companies only increased as the 1920s wore on.269 Percentage dates also became increasingly common. Their profitability depended on energetic advertising, but T.O.B.A. engagements were often contracted less than a week in advance, leaving little time for adequate promotion. Payment on percentage was less of a gamble for big-name artists and record stars, who could sometimes demand a 60 percent share of gross receipts. Most companies however, only got 50 percent, and the results were often disastrous. It was not unusual for acts to finish a weeklong percentage date without sufficient funds to pay transportation to their next scheduled gig. In such cases, they often wrote an I.O.U. to the theater owner, with the T.O.B.A. arranging payback from the ensuing engagement. A letter from the Liberty Theater in Greenville, South Carolina, to the proprietor of the Douglass Theater in Macon, Georgia, written by Annie Mae Cox of Jimmie Cox’s Georgia Red Hots, a tab show, rather pathetically implored: “Dear Sir: In close [sic] find contracts please addvance [sic] fifteen dollars as we have

been working three weeks percentage + lost. Yours for Business.”270 The Theater Owners’ Booking Association constituted an improbable confederation of shareholders, some of whom had been engaged in African American theater enterprises for more than a decade prior to its organization. Principals constituted Old South diehards, first-generation eastern European immigrants, and a number of African American theater owners and managers. Among the African American contingent were Sherman H. Dudley, E. B. Dudley, “Chintz” Moore, C. H. Douglass, and Charles Turpin.271 Texas native S. H. Dudley had a memorable stage career before settling in Washington, D.C., in 1911, to launch his theatrical empire. E. B. Dudley (no relation) and “Chintz” Moore also both came up from the performers’ ranks. Adept on both violin and trumpet, E. B. Dudley was the orchestra leader with Pat Chappelle’s Rabbit Foot Minstrels in 1905.272 In 1908, after leading the band and orchestra with Millican’s Plantation Minstrels, the Rufus Rastus In Dixie Company, and the Dandy Dixie Minstrels, Dudley took charge of the bandstand at Ocmulgee Park in Macon.273 In 1910 he left the orchestra of the Airdome Theater in Jacksonville to tour with Billy Kersands’s Minstrels.274 He got into theater management as early as 1911, at

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the Imperial Theater in Jackson, Tennessee.275 In 1914, following stints as manager of the Palace Theater in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and Dunbar Theater in Columbus, Ohio, Dudley settled in as manager of the Vaudette Theater in Detroit.276 Later he managed Detroit’s Koppin Theater, a main stop on the northern end of the T.O.B.A.277 Allen “Chintz” Moore claimed Galveston, Texas, as his hometown.278 His nickname probably derived from his “human bed bug” (chinch) comedy routine, very popular on the southern vaudeville and minstrel routes during the first decade of the twentieth century.279 By the autumn of 1915, Chintz and wife Ella B. Moore were managing the Park Theater in Dallas.280 C. H. Douglass was engaged in show business long before opening his Douglass Theater in Macon, Georgia, in 1912. In 1905 he managed the vaudeville stage at Macon’s Ocmulgee Park, and in 1907 he became co-owner with Peter Worthy of the Florida Blossom Minstrels.281 Charles Turpin also came into the T.O.B.A. with years of theater management experience. Born in Columbus, Georgia, in 1870, he was in St. Louis with his family by the age of ten.282 His brother, Tom Turpin, the ragtime pianist and composer, owned a saloon, the Rosebud, where in 1903 Charles Turpin served as “mixer.”283 By 1910 he was running the Booker T. Washington Airdome, which he transformed into a permanent “brick-front” theater in 1913.284 White theater boss Charles P. Bailey was the archetypal villain of the T.O.B.A.; yet his Arcade (“81”) Theater was the most significant southern platform in the early history of African American vaudeville—without the 81 Theater it is conceivable that no one would ever have heard of Bessie Smith!285 To call Bailey “a colorful character” would be a gross understatement. Tim Owsley once tried to come to Bailey’s defense, portraying him as “a business man to the letter”; but he nevertheless conceded that

“For years Chas. P. Bailey has been the most feared man of all the South.”286 Ethel Waters’s autobiography includes an account of a confrontation with Bailey, which probably took place in 1923.287 When she insisted that Bailey have the stage piano retuned to suit her accompanist, he snarled, “No Yankee nigger bitch is telling me how to run my theater.” Their argument escalated, and Waters became so fearful for her safety that she snuck out of Atlanta early one morning, without collecting her pay or even retrieving her costumes, props, or stage drop.288 Owsley was not the only black performer who attempted to excuse Bailey’s behavior. Frank Montgomery once actually claimed Bailey as a friend; and Salem Tutt Whitney, who knew as much about the realities of African American theater business as anyone, penned this rationale in 1928: Chas. P. Bailey is one of the richest and most unique figures in Race show business. From a little house where umpteen shows a day was the policy, he built two large theaters on Decatur St. He still retains his 81 theater, which is now managed by his brother, Tom Bailey. Mr. Bailey, known in these parts as the theatrical king, seems to delight in the role of a tight-fisted, hardboiled showman. But . . . once when we needed money badly he loaned us the amount required. . . . Again when we played his house on a guarantee and the business was good he gave us quite a sum of money over the amount called for in the guarantee.289

The “81” was such a pivotal venue that dealing with Bailey was practically inescapable for vaudeville performers working in the South. In response to an outraged letter from the team of McDonald and Leggett, “after what they call a ‘horrible week’ at 81 theater, Atlanta, Ga.,” the Chicago Defender mused: “They enumerate half a hundred things to

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kick about and swear that no matter how long they are in the business ‘never again.’ That’s what they all say.”290 Another notoriously unregenerate southern manager was E. L. Cummings, who operated the Belmont Street Theater in Pensacola. Not long after the T.O.B.A. organized, a letter of protest came from performer Garnett Warbington, who claimed: “The salaries of nearly all the acts that recently played for him [Cummings] were cut under all kinds of pretenses and excuses. He closes acts at his will, not even giving them a satisfactory reason why, and you can’t say anything for fear of landing in jail, as a police captain (a family friend) is always in and around the theater.”291 Another performer advised members of the profession that “Florida is a good State to stay away from, as the colored companies are not getting a fair deal from house managers.” The writer complained “that his company was fined $75 and the amount collected because two chorus girls went to a dance while playing a house on the M. & P. Circuit. Appeals to the heads of the circuit failed to obtain an adjustment.”292 The “M. & P.,” or Managers and Performers’ Co-Operative Circuit, was organized by E. L. Cummings in 1922 as an early challenge to T.O.B.A. sovereignty. Bailey and Cummings were so hardboiled that they were habitually locking horns with T.O.B.A. officials, and on occasion, organized their own independent booking agencies in opposition. Cummings’s M. & P. Circuit bucked the T.O.B.A. from February through October 1922, when “for a certain consideration Mr. Cummings was willing to close his office and to transfer to the T.O.B.A. the entire M. and P. circuit and to bind himself not to re-enter the booking game after the life of the contract.”293 Milton Starr of the Bijou Theater in Nashville was the first president of the T.O.B.A., but at the annual meeting on January 5, 1922, Clarence

Bennett, joint proprietor with L. S. Boudreaux of the Lyric Theater, New Orleans, was unexpectedly elected president.294 The questionable wisdom of his selection immediately became apparent in his acceptance speech. Bennett said: There is a condition prevailing especially in the South, which, despite any personal opinion we may hold, must be met, and that is the necessity, now recognized by all sane statesmen, of the segregation of the races, with honor to all. This segregation must infallibly make for the best interests of the white and the colored races. The colored man must be taught to respect his own color, and, while not infringing on the white, that he will find the open road to the best interest of his people. . . . It must be plain to all managers that this is the method that we must pursue to gain in the whole theatrical world the recognition which our collective investment means. . . . every manager must adopt a permanent policy, not being led astray for the moment by the prospects of quick profits. It could not be expected that the colored performers of the present day could hope to compete with those of the white race who have engaged in the theatrical profession for some centuries. In words of an ancient humorist, “Don’t shoot the musician—he is doing the best he can.”295

In his enthusiasm, Bennett was entirely too frank, and his words inspired an immediate backlash from those most affected: “The colored members of the profession and the press of the race has taken exception to some of the opinions expressed in the article, particularly that part of the statement that would encourage closing the door of equal opportunity to the colored artist.”296 Before October 1922, Milton Starr was reinstalled as T.O.B.A. president, and he held that post for the greater part of the decade.297

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Milton Starr was one of several Jewish theater owners and managers on the circuit. According to the 1940 U.S. Census, Starr was a native Tennessean.298 His brother Alfred Starr established the Bijou Theater at 412 Cedar Street in Nashville in 1913.299 Milton Starr must have been an astute manager and businessman: by 1925, he also owned African American theaters in Charleston and Columbia, South Carolina, and Augusta, Georgia.300 Although he was never described as “the performers’ friend,” Starr rarely ran afoul of the African American press. One occasion that did inspire adverse criticism concerned the complex politics of a midnight frolic at the Bijou featuring Ethel Waters and her Vanities, at which he tried to accommodate both races: Manager Milton Starr hit upon the novel idea of presenting a midnight performance on Friday night and insulted Race patrons and placated the whites by giving them the main floor—and this, too, in a strictly Race theater. Patrons who resented being seated in the gallery were forced to purchase box seats at enormous prices and to this humiliation was added the presence of policemen who insulted Race patrons who attempted to purchase orchestra seats. The situation is unprecedented here and is rendered the more embarrassing in that our people are barred from all white theaters except one.301

After this report appeared in the Chicago Defender, Tim Owsley put another face on the affair: Milton Starr, president of the only Race vaudeville circuit, jim crowed a midnight performance at his theater in Nashville. . . . Nashville is in Dixie. Milton Starr is a white man—what else could he do in Dixie? . . . He has got to obey the laws of the state of Tennessee when it comes to allowing our people and

white people to mix. . . . What happened in Nashville can happen and would happen in the following cities if it was not for the civil rights law controlling the cities of the different states: Chicago, New York, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati.302

Samuel Elias Reevin, treasurer and general manager of the T.O.B.A. for the entirety of its history, was another Jew living in Tennessee. Born in Russia in 1881, he immigrated to the States before 1905 and was in Chattanooga in 1907 when he became a naturalized citizen.303 Reevin was owner of the Liberty Theater in Chattanooga. The T.O.B.A. was neither an artists’ agency nor an arts agency; it represented the managers and their pursuit of profits. Nevertheless, as the association’s most visible representative, Reevin consistently demonstrated his respect for black talent, which he understood must be reasonably compensated. In other words, Reevin was genuinely concerned for the condition of African American vaudeville. Salem Tutt Whitney described him as “a credit to Colored show business”; Pittsburgh Courier columnist William G. Nunn praised him as “sincere . . . honest . . . popular. . . . Those in the theatrical world, from the owners and managers . . . [and] actors . . . will testify to that fact. . . . Reevin is heart and soul for the T.O.B.A.—He has an almost-uncanny grasp of the theatrical situation from every possible angle.”304 Charles Henry Douglass of Macon, Georgia, was one of the South’s outstanding black businessmen. He built his Douglass Theater in 1911 or 1912, on property adjacent to the Colonial Hotel which, with renovations, became the Douglass Hotel.305 Like many black theaters in the 1920s, the Douglass often presented a mixed bill of movies and vaudeville, but at other times only movies. Strict segregation was apparently not enforced at the Douglass Theater. There are several references to white people attending the regular performances,

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Interior and exterior views of the Douglass Theater (Courtesy Douglass Business Records Collection, Middle Georgia Regional Library).

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though it seems they were restricted to the theater box seats.306 The Douglass Theater also held special midnight shows for whites only.307 Bessie Smith played the Douglass in the fall of 1923, while on the triumphant southern tour that followed her initial Columbia record releases: Her rendition of jazz and blues created such a demand that every performance was a turnaway, even with chairs placed in the aisles. The boxes were filled with white patrons. The advertisements placed by Douglas [sic] and the Columbia Record Company, for whom Bessie records, drew such interest as to prompt the Macon Telegraph to sponsor a special performance at 10:30 p.m. for white persons only. The Macon News co-operated in the venture. So successful was the project that Mr. Douglas is being importuned to make the practice a steady one. Since the town has no other vaudeville house, and his theater is a clean, goodsized and well operated one, there is every reason to expect that at least when the better artistes of the race are billed that there will be much demand for arrangements to accommodate white patronage by one or more special performances or by seat reservations.308

When he reported this news in Billboard, J. A. Jackson commented, “This sort of thing will bring prosperity to T.O.B.A. houses and contribute no little towards the amity of the races.”309 Douglass was well qualified to attest to the fact that Macon could stand a dose of racial “amity.” Only a little more than a year before this report was published, his life was threatened by a lynch mob, as an orgy of racial violence converged on his theater. On July 29, 1922, John Glover, a young black man, created a disturbance at a local poolroom, threatening the patrons with a pistol. When the police arrived Glover shot and killed a deputy sheriff and

two patrons. His escape initiated a manhunt that devolved into a blanket search of black homes and businesses, including the Douglass Hotel. Something like a white race riot ensued; blacks were randomly beaten, arrested, and shot at. Douglass’s life was threatened, “and twenty police officers guarded his home through the night.”310 After Glover was finally captured two days later, he was grabbed up by a mob of “400 angry white men” and lynched. His mutilated body was then taken to the downtown area “and dumped . . . in the street, where his clothing was cut to shreds and sold as souvenirs. Later, the nearly nude body was dumped in the foyer of the Douglass Theater. Someone shouted, ‘Get the gasoline,’ but the police arrived just before the body could be incinerated inside the theater.” The local daily Macon Telegraph referred to the event as “Macon’s Orgy.”311 C. H. Douglass’s property holdings made him a prominent citizen, but also a target of racists who “had pent up disgust for successful blacks.”312 In 1925 he received praise from a white woman “studying conditions of the Colored race” in the South, who wrote to the Chicago Defender because, she said, “I want you to know what a clean, modern house [Douglass] has and the good will he is creating between the races. . . . I don’t know of a single organization or institution that is doing as much as his theater to promote better feelings between the races.”313 J. A. Jackson and Defender music editor Tony Langston echoed this sentiment in their columns.314 When Douglass died in 1940 his obituary stated, “As a member of the local Business Men’s League and Chamber of Commerce, he was instrumental in getting many things for his race.”315 A 1978 retrospective claimed: “no benevolent appeal ever failed to meet his prompt and generous response . . . he should be remembered because of his shrewdness as a businessman and a philanthropist.”316 As a

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member of the Theater Owners Booking Association, however, he demonstrated more shrewdness than philanthropy. Douglass’s seeming lack of generosity toward performers was the subject of a “Shots From The Lake Shore” column, which placed him in the worst of T.O.B.A. company: The boys were “singing ’em” about the manner in which a certain class of vampire managers took advantage of every situation to make the old pay check look sad on retribution night. . . . Seemed as though the pair had played a theater in Atlanta, Ga. The use of a spotlight being required they placed it on the requisition list at the rehearsal and found it being used when cued, just like they had ordered. Pay night, however, they found a deficiency of $2, and upon inquiry were told it was deducted for the services of the operator for the use of and the work required for the spot. A protest brought a menacing eye-wobble from the cracker manager and the boys, remembering that they couldn’t lay up anything “hanging around” Georgia, swallowed their Adam’s apples and went on to the next stand, which was Macon. Everything started off great at Macon. The house is owned and operated by a member of the race who is rated as the wealthiest in that part of Georgia. Pay night arrived and everybody seemed happy when ZING! just like that they noted, the old two simoleons had again been deducted. This time all concerned being of the same general complexion, they let out a yell, but it gained them nothing but the same explanation which had been given them at the Atlanta theater. These were the only two houses on their tour, however, where it was done and the fact that the Macon and Atlanta managers, “trade notes and visits” from time to time would lead to the idea that an understanding exists between them.

Be that as it may, we agreed with the performers that it constituted about the cheapest display of gouging that had ever come to our attention.317

Personal grudges and vendettas were often aired in the black entertainment press. This account might be dismissed, were it not for the voluminous evidence Douglass left behind in the basement of his theater, in the form of artist contracts, and correspondence with the T.O.B.A.318 The bulk of the correspondence is between Douglass and Sam E. Reevin, who, in addition to his responsibilities as treasurer and general manager, served as the T.O.B.A.’s southeastern booking agent.319 Extant correspondence between Reevin and Douglass constitutes a one-sided conversation, for the most part limited to Reevin’s letters to Douglass.320 It is nonetheless clear that Douglass’s stinginess regarding performers’ fees caused friction between the two. T.O.B.A. theater managers were not obliged to accept all acts offered them by the booking agent. Douglass frequently refused to accept higher-price acts, and complained about the quality of the acts he was getting. Reevin responded: “I cannot agree with you in the paragraph of your letter, that if I continued sending shows like the ones I have been sending, many Theatres will be forced to go into pictures. . . . I am giving the Managers just what they want, and willing to pay for—I cannot send a thousand dollar show for three hundred dollars, or a three hundred dollars show cannot be as good and cannot do the business that a thousand dollar show can and will do—the T.O.B.A. is booking the best shows in the business, and the Theatres that are willing to pay the price are getting them.”321 Macon constituted a smaller vaudeville market than Atlanta, Birmingham, and some of the other cities Reevin was booking, which may explain why he sometimes agreed to “cut salaries of . . . acts for Macon.”322 But judging from the letters, it appears

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Letterhead used by Charles P. Bailey in his T.O.B.A.-era attempt to run an opposition circuit (Courtesy C. H. Douglass Business Records Collection, Middle Georgia Regional Library).

that he was never able to satisfy Douglass. Reevin wrote: “the harder I try to prove that it is my desire to have you as a friend, the worse matters get.”323 A functioning circuit required a degree of continuity between venues, and this sometimes enhanced an ungenerous manager’s bargaining power concerning artist fees. Acts were often willing to accept a reduction rather than suffer a whole week’s layoff. However, the poor salaries paid to vaudeville players had a damaging effect on the quality of shows presented on the T.O.B.A., resulting in diminished box office activity and, consequently, increased financial strain on theater owners. Over the course of the T.O.B.A. era, this self-destructive cycle contributed to the dissolution of African American vaudeville. In the summer of 1927 Douglass leased his theater to a white man named Ben Stein.324 Stein’s brother Louis owned an African American theater in Valdosta, Georgia, and the brothers reportedly had other theater interests in Lake City, Florida.325 Business at the Douglass Theater suffered under Stein’s management, and there was a corresponding shift away from vaudeville in favor of motion pictures.326 Stein’s correspondence with the T.O.B.A. was, if anything, more contentious than Douglass’s had been. While Stein employed the booking services of the T.O.B.A., he was neither a stockholder nor a franchisee. In the latter part of 1927, he booked

vaudeville acts through Charles and Tom Bailey’s rival vaudeville circuit.327 When Stein did book performers through the T.O.B.A. it was sometimes on a “split-week” (threeday) basis, with theaters in Augusta, Georgia, or Columbia, South Carolina, booking the same attraction for the balance of the week. Most dates were contracted on a 50/50 percentage basis rather than a set price. A June 1928 appearance by “Bessie Smith’s Unit” of nine performers, contracted at 60 percent of receipts to the artist, is the last act booked by the T.O.B.A. at the Douglass Theater for which documentation exists. After the stock market crash of 1929, C. H. Douglass regained control of his theater.328 The demise of black vaudeville cannot be attributed to a single cause; numerous factors contributed. Greed and shortsightedness on the part of many theater owners may have accelerated the process, but it is doubtful that there was anything T.O.B.A. officials could have done to reverse the trend. Over the course of the 1920s, vaudeville entertainment became passé; it lost its appeal, overshadowed by the novelty of motion pictures, especially “talkies.” As a result of the Great Depression, the masses of theatergoers who supported small-time vaudeville no longer had disposable income for entertainment. Vaudeville was more costly for theaters,

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and therefore required a higher admission price than movies. These conditions were common to stage shows of every stripe and color; but there were other problems more specifically endemic to the world of T.O.B.A. vaudeville. At the close of 1929 Reevin made a ten-day tour of the northern end of the T.O.B.A. circuit, in order to confer with theater owners and study business conditions. He found “that the show houses are suffering from lack of patronage there, as in other parts of the country . . . a condition of where necessity comes ahead of luxury and amusements.” He also encountered widespread dissatisfaction with the quality of shows being presented, and a “demand for bigger shows with more stars,” which Reevin pronounced impractical: “if those who attend the theaters are affected by the present condition of unemployment, that which it takes to back up the demand is in the oiling.”329 To a considerable degree, this was a problem of the T.O.B.A.’s own making. Sherman Dudley was a theater manager and T.O.B.A. officer, but he cast a stone anyway: “The managers never encouraged the producers of these shows for the T.O.B.A. to put out shows of the better kind by classifying them and paying a decent salary to those who would and could produce better attractions. Nor would they do things to build up their business. All they cared for was to count the receipts and live for the day without looking in the future. . . . Of course, I know there is a depression but even before this depression came the colored stage show was gone.”330 In Salem Tutt Whitney’s opinion, “the selfishness, greed and pig-headedness of some of the managers were the basic reasons for the decline. . . . ‘Keep ’em broke (referring to the actors) and you can handle ’em,’ proved to be an asinine as well as an unprofitable slogan. . . . The methods of these managers not only cheapened the actor, but it cheapened the class

of entertainment with the inevitable result that the patronage fell below a paying basis.”331 The entertainment editor of the Pittsburgh Courier expressed bitter condemnation: At one time a fairly decent organization insofar as the road shows were concerned; the [T.O.B.A.] has now become the laughing stock of the country . . . the miserable exhibition of starved actors and actresses who are “bumming” their way from town to town. . . . [The public] wanted class and artistry and something new in the way of jokes. . . . They didn’t relish the idea of girls appearing on the stage in frayed, dirty costumes—and with run-over shoes. Why these conditions prevailed, they did not know, but they did know that they weren’t to spend their money going to such shows and then wishing they hadn’t come.332

To cast the failures of the T.O.B.A. simply in terms of white theater owners exploiting black actors is an oversimplification; after all, the organization had a representative number of black participants. At the February 1930 annual meeting of the T.O.B.A. in Memphis, Charles H. Turpin was re-elected president; S. H. Dudley, vice president; Dr. J. A. C. Lattimore, secretary; and Sam E. Reevin, treasurer and manager. “The officers, with the exception of Mr. Reevin, are all race men, and no one doubts the sincerity and force of the big Tennessee theatrical magnate.”333 In 1930, the T.O.B.A. faced “the biggest crisis of its career.”334 Reevin made a heroic, if ultimately futile, effort to rescue the black vaudeville profession from the brink. Even S. H. Dudley seemed to lack the stomach for a fight to save the circuit. Not long after the Memphis meeting, Dudley sold his flagship Mid-City Theater in D.C. to a white corporation.335

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Reevin’s efforts were acknowledged in the Pittsburgh Courier: The “big shots” of the T.O.B.A. realize . . . that this year will either make or break them. They realize that no organization is threatening them so much as the rapid advancement of the amusement projectionists. Their danger is in lack of efficient competition, rather than from competition. . . . And Sam E. Reevin, astute, shrewd, affable . . . who has been one of the mainsprings of the organization since its inception in 1920 . . . who has ruled judiciously and wisely, and who has made friends by the thousands in the theatrical world . . . is fully prepared to meet the emergency which faces his organization.336

The writer revealed that when Reevin made his tour of northern T.O.B.A. theaters earlier in the year, he took the radical step of advising managers to close their theaters for the summer: “He early felt the power which the talkies would have over a public longing for some change, and he prepared to meet it in the most effective way. . . . He decided to give them their fill of ‘canned music’ as he called it. He wanted to satiate them with this brand of amusement, so that when his ‘in-the-flesh’ revues started coming though again, there would be a real demand.”337 By “canned music,” Reevin was referring to talking pictures and related technologies. As talking films increasingly supplanted vaudeville, miserly theater owners replaced their bands and orchestras with electric musical devices and synchronized phonographic soundtracks. In the fall of 1928, pianist Caggie Howard reported that, after more than a decade of “faithful service” to the Hippodrome Theater in Richmond, Virginia, he had been laid off: “The Vitaphone and Movietone took my job.”338 In May 1929 Dave Peyton reported: “Hundreds of

musicians have been put out of theaters all over the country due to the coming of the Vitaphone and Movietone.”339 Sam Reevin seems to have had a thorough understanding of the perils threatening the T.O.B.A., but he found no practical solution and eventually resorted to a somewhat awkward, yet obviously sincere, appeal to race pride: It is up to the public to do its share, if the heritage of the Negro on the stage is to be perpetuated. You and I know that the Negro contributes humor, comedy, pathos and strange harmony, which are gifts which God gives to no other race. There is a haunting strain of tragedy, covered by an assumption of light-heartedness, which makes of your people a truly theatrical group. . . . People must realize that the show game in this country—not only among colored people, but among all classes, is facing a crisis. . . . We are asking the theatrical editors of the various papers with national influence to do all they can to awaken that race consciousness which is necessary to perpetuate the profession. We are trying to do our part, and if we can get the proper co-operation and help from the public, we feel sure that it won’t be long before we give them just what they want—if they want anything—at a price which will be in keeping with their wages . . . if the public feels that they need recreation, go to the houses that want your patronage—and not to houses which segregate you and send you to “peanut heaven.” They show by this that they don’t want you. And in the final analysis, you find no more talent on those stages than you do right in your own home neighborhood. Remember, let’s pull together. If you attend, then we can give you the best.340

Reevin appealed directly to Irvin C. Miller, Maceo Pinkard, S. H. Dudley, and Tim Owsley,

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who he said “have something tangible to offer. And underlying their admitted ability is an inherent sense of race pride, which almost forces them to go along with any constructive program which might perpetuate the heritage of the Negro on the stage.”341 However, there was no appetite for what Reevin prescribed. Post-mortems began to appear as early as 1931: “The T.O.B.A. Colored circuit has gone from bad to worse—with some houses keeping open only by shifting policies and playing straight pictures.”342 Whitney, ever optimistic, philosophized: “Vaudeville, so they say, and there must be much truth to the saying, is shot to pieces. Yet there are some who are working with profitable consistency.”343 In the 1930s performers no longer had the option of traveling full-time on a vaudeville circuit. Vaudeville in general was all but finished as a viable entertainment medium. The principal causes of its demise are clear: “talking pictures,” the Great Depression, and changes in popular taste, compounded by the avarice and short-sightedness of T.O.B.A. theater owners. Key southern vaudeville houses such as the 81, Bijou, Palace, Douglass, and others remained in operation for many more years, sporadically featuring road show variety companies, but their primary importance was as movie houses for the African American public in the stubbornly segregated South. Naturally, the roster of African American vaudeville professionals significantly diminished as a result of this contraction. Then again, the grueling vaudeville life was not conducive to longevity. Over the course of the 1930s Bessie Smith, Clara Smith, and Ma Rainey all met their end. As Whitney pointed out, however, some African American stars succeeded in prolonging their careers. They survived by diversifying their activities and seizing the professional opportunities still available to them; tent shows, burlesque, cabarets,

and dabbling in motion pictures and legitimate theater. Some former T.O.B.A. artists continued to make records well into the second half of the twentieth century. Not so many years earlier, blues queen record stars and the extravagant publicity they received were considered to be the salvation of the T.O.B.A. In the second half of the 1920s the recording industry turned its attention toward guitarists, jug bands, barrelhouse piano players, and other practitioners of what became known as the country blues. The elevation of these rustic, down-home artists to the position of record celebrities was a novelty in itself. It is worth noting that the market for country blues records did not extend nearly as far across the race line.344 A commercial model based to some extent on white folks’ voguish interest in the blues, which had briefly prevailed during the first half of the 1920s, imploded; and the blues became again black music for an exclusively black audience.

Country Blues Guitar Guitar players had long been present in black southern communities; their association with proto-blues songs went back at least as far as Howard Odum’s study, twenty years prior to the first country blues records. “Parlor” guitarists and Hawaiian guitar specialists also preceded and informed the new wave of blues guitar recordings. To what degree and what proportion these forces mingled in the development of blues guitar defies objective analysis.345 It remains a mystery why guitarists did not play a greater role in early black vaudeville. One rather curious explanation for the scarcity of the guitar on the early black professional stage comes in a Chicago Defender column written by veteran minstrel man Coy Herndon:

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A few years ago one could go to a barber shop or any place where the “gang” congregated and you could hear some of the most wonderful imitations on the guitar with a common pocketknife; the strains of Hawaiian music would simply flow, but with a show it was considered a jinks [sic] to even have a guitar on the show. Now you seldom see the boys play them. Others started playing them and some of the most successful acts are the guitar acts, while our people have almost forgotten how to play one. . . . I can remember how all the boys would play the “harp”—we called it a mouth organ. It became a jinks and we all stopped it.346

The “jinx” factor Coy Herndon described has yet to be corroborated. An almost unfathomable aspect of Herndon’s testimony is that when he wrote it, in 1925, he was traveling the southern states with the Silas Green Minstrels! Herndon was surely referring to African American show folk in particular when he wrote “our people have almost forgotten how to play” the guitar. Notwithstanding his unquestionable expertise—Herndon had been traveling with minstrel companies since 1909—his fascinating commentary may simply reflect his own perspective. The “pocketknife” style he refers to as “Hawaiian music” was elsewhere recognized as “southern guitar.” A late 1916 report from Culligan’s Nashville Students testified: “Ray Williams, trombone player, joined the show in Portland [Oregon], and has added a great deal to both show and band. He is playing a southern solo in the last act on the guitar, with the steel.”347 Howard Odum was not reminded of Hawaiian guitarists when he observed “knife songs” performed in rural Mississippi during the course of his 1905–08 field research: “Its name is derived from the act of running the back of a knife along the strings of the instrument, thus making it ‘sing’

Chicago Defender, June 22, 1929.

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Ed Andrews, as depicted in an OKeh Record Company ad, Chicago Defender, June 21, 1924.

and ‘talk’ with skill. . . . It is undoubtedly one of the negro’s best productions.”348 The fact remains that blues guitarists very seldom performed in theaters, even after achieving record stardom.349 In the rare instance when blues guitar was heard on the black vaudeville stage, it was presented as a “novelty.” The African American profession was still under the influence of an urge to elevate folk music sources, rather than reproduce them in raw form. Vaudeville audiences happily accepted folk songs arranged for the stage, but, it seems they would not pay a theater admission to hear the same sort of guitar players they saw and heard on the street. The urban theatergoing public and management expected professionalism from stage performers. The public was unfamiliar with

the concept of a “folk singer,” but they were quite familiar with African American street singer-guitarists, who were generally perceived as beggars. At first, record companies took a tentative, haphazard approach to recording blues guitarists. Sylvester Weaver, credited as the first, accompanied Sarah Martin and also recorded two slide guitar solos for OKeh in October and November 1923.350 His solo efforts represent a distinctive amalgam of blues, folk, Hawaiian, and parlor guitar elements, judged by David Evans to be “well within the stylistic spectrum of southern folk-blues guitar.”351 Less well-remembered early blues guitar recordings include those by Reese Dupree, Ed Andrews, and Hezekiah and Dorothy Jenkins.352 When Reese LaMarr Dupree started making records in 1923, he was a New Jersey–based “singing cabareteer” and dance hall operator. Born on the outskirts of Macon, Georgia, in 1883, Dupree landed in New York City before 1910.353 In 1916, at the Lafayette Theater, he appeared with a piano accompanist singing “The Call of Dixie Land,” “Bachelor Days,” “Honolulu Blues,” and “Walking the Dog.”354 After recording two piano-backed blues songs for OKeh in December 1923 he was plugged as the “first man of our Race to record blues songs for this company.”355 A January 1924 report noted: “Fletcher Henderson, the Columbia star, and Reese DuPree of the Okey [sic] Recording Co. of New York will make their first appearance at the Laurel Garden. . . . They will be assisted by Miss Clara Smith, the well known artist of the Columbia Recording Co. of New York.”356 At his second OKeh session in February 1924, Dupree recorded “Norfolk Blues” and “One More Rounder Gone,” accompanied by guitarists J. M. “Doc” Miller and Kelly Thompson, playing perfunctorily in ragtimecum-blues style.357 Dupree’s stage and recording career was overshadowed by his business dealings. Working out of

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Asbury Park, New Jersey, and later Philadelphia, he became a big-time booking agent and promoter.358 By 1943 he was said to have “taken every name colored band in the country on various tours of the South.”359 In 1962 he returned to his Georgia homeland, where he died in 1963.360 In the spring of 1924, Ed Andrews recorded two blues songs for an OKeh field unit in Atlanta, the earliest recordings of a blues singer accompanying himself on guitar.361 David Evans notes: “Andrews was certainly a folk-blues performer; but his record suffers from pedestrian performances.”362 Biographical information about this recording pioneer may not be retrievable. Certainly the most prominent act—one of the only acts—known to have featured blues guitar playing on T.O.B.A. time was the team of Hezekiah and Dorothy Jenkins. Hezekiah Jenkins, whose given name was Zeb Manigault, was born in Columbia, South Carolina, sometime between 1888 and 1894.363 During the mid-1910s he toured the South with Allen’s New Orleans Minstrels, singing “Poor Me,” “My Own Rag,” and other original compositions.364 In 1917, at the Washington Theater in Indianapolis, he introduced two more originals, “I’m Goin’ to Pizen You” and “Florida Blues.”365 In 1922 he wrote from the 81 Theater in Atlanta to “warn the world at large to lay off ‘Hen-Pecked Man,’ which he says carries a copyright.”366 By 1922 Jenkins was traveling in company with Dorothy Owens Jenkins.367 Known as Jenkins and Jenkins, they developed a blues singing act that featured Hezekiah on harmonica and Dorothy on guitar. At the Lincoln Theater in Baltimore that summer, they pleased with “humorous chatter, imitations of musical instruments and some fine harmonica jazzing by the former.”368 Back at the Lincoln in early 1923, “Jenkins played the harmonica in a gifted manner, while his partner . . . accompanied on guitar.”369

In the fall of 1924 Jenkins and Jenkins made their first recording for Columbia, singing “Mouth Organ Blues” and “Hen Pecked Man,” with their own harmonica and guitar accompaniment.370 At Chicago’s Grand Theater in 1926, their “guitar and mouth organ finish was out of the ordinary and the man’s ‘Keyhole’ song went over fine.”371 Dorothy and Hezekiah Jenkins’s professional relationship appears to have ended that year, with Dorothy moving into the shadows and Hezekiah continuing as a harmonica soloist. At the Lincoln Theater, Baltimore, in 1928 and again in 1929, he “almost stopped the show” with his “rendition of ‘blues’ on a mouth organ.”372 “Deviating from the procedure of the regular Lincoln shows . . . He just ‘wow-wowed’ those ‘Bugle Blues’ out of this world.”373 Meanwhile, in August 1924 Papa Charlie Jackson began his prolific recording career for Paramount, singing blues songs to the accompaniment of a sixstring banjo, which is strung like a guitar. Jackson’s playing weds old-time banjo strumming effects with what were becoming recognizable blues guitar strategies. An ad for his debut recording touted “the famous Blues-singing-Guitar-playing man. Only man living who sings, self-accompanied for Blues records . . . can sing and play the Blues even better than a woman.”374 While Jackson’s records were obviously popular, little is known of his stage career. During the summer of 1925 he played with Jimmy O’Bryant’s Washboard Band at the States-Congress Theater in Chicago, his adopted hometown.375 In February 1926 he headlined a bill at the Lyric Theater in his native New Orleans.376 Jackson was 51 years old when he died in Chicago in 1938.377 Another New Orleans native, the famous guitarist Lonnie Johnson began recording blues for OKeh in November 1925.378 Johnson was an excellent singer and a master of his instrument. David Evans has suggested that Johnson “helped to pave

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(Courtesy Kip Lornell)

the way for the rise of country blues on records by providing a model of the male guitar-accompanied blues singer in a more sophisticated form.”379 The watershed moment in the recording of country blues guitar came when Blind Lemon Jefferson made his first blues records for Paramount in March 1926. It may well be that country blues guitar did not “come of age” until Blind Lemon Jefferson began recording. Jefferson was neither the

first blues singer-guitarist, nor the first to make commercial recordings; but, according to David Evans, he was “the first popular star of folk (or ‘country’) blues . . . he became the first to epitomize the solo guitar-playing bluesman.”380 Likewise, Butler “String Beans” May was not the first performer to sing a blues song on a black vaudeville stage, but he was the first popular star of the blues, and the first to epitomize the piano bluesman. Blind Lemon Jefferson was also perceived as coming forth with the “real blues.” Texas blues songster Mance Lipscomb declared Blind Lemon was the “First man that ever knowed what ‘The Blues’ was made outa.”381 According to Evans, “If the titles were not enough to convince a potential record buyer that Jefferson represented something different, the buyer only had to listen to the first lines of these songs followed by dazzling guitar responses: ‘Well, the blues come to Texas loping like a mule.’”382 This is the opening line of Blind Lemon’s first blues record, “Got the Blues,” and the “dazzling guitar response” he followed it with is the “String Beans Blues.” String Beans and Blind Lemon performed their blues in very different contexts, Beans in theaters and Jefferson on the street: “He hung out round on the track, down on Deep Ellum. . . . They give him privilege ta play in a certain districk in Dallas. They

A passage from the first verse of Blind Lemon Jefferson’s initial Paramount recording, “Got the Blues,” incorporating both vocal and instrumental phrases (Transcribed from the recording by David Evans. Transposed to the key of G for comparison).

The Commercialization of the Blues, 1920–26

call that ‘on the track.’ Right beside the place where he stood round there under a big old shade tree. . . . An people stawted ta comin in there, from nine-thirty until six o’clock that evenin’. It was jest hunnuds a people up and down that track. They went fur that. Country people, an a lot of town people.”383 Jefferson’s recorded guitar adaptations of String Beans’s inventions helped to preserve “the String Beans effect” in the blues for another generation. Jefferson’s variant of the “Elgin movements” metaphor directly inspired Robert Johnson’s famous “Walking Blues,” palpably connecting the Delta blues legend to Papa String Beans. But Blind Lemon’s greatest tribute to String Beans was his creative interpretation of that abiding snatch of melody and rhythm in “String Beans Blues.” Jefferson was the first on record to adapt the figure for guitar.384 He sometimes used it as an introduction, but was just as likely to insert it anywhere in a song. By the time Blind Lemon made his first record, in 1926, String Beans had been dead for nine years. Young country blues guitarists might never even have heard of String Beans. Regardless, the “String Beans Blues” theme appears in a remarkable number of country blues guitar recordings of the 1920s and 1930s, largely as a result of Blind Lemon’s influence. Links between southern vaudeville stage blues and the country blues that subsequently predominated are found in the songs, metaphors, and melodies that passed from one blues style directly into the other. Adaptations of the music of String Beans, Baby Seals, Virginia Liston, Benton Overstreet, and countless other early black vaudevillians are prominent in country blues recordings of the 1920s and 1930s; leading to the conclusion that even if there was practically no guitar blues in African American vaudeville, the songs and styles of vaudeville stage stars left a deep impress on blues guitarists. Country blues came of age in the shadow of popular vaudeville blues.

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Introduction

in the Secular Songs of the Southern Negroes,” 259); neither does he use the term “blues” to describe any of the songs he transcribed or collected (see Lynn Abbott and Doug Seroff, Ragged but Right: Black Traveling Shows, “Coon Songs,” and the Dark Pathway to Blues and Jazz [Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2007], 25–26). 6. For other perspectives on the songs Odum collected, see Evans, Big Road Blues, 35–37; David Evans, “Formulaic Composition in the Blues: A View from the Field,” Journal of American Folklore, no. 120 (Fall 2007): 482–99; and Marybeth Hamilton, In Search of the Blues: Black Voices, White Visions (London: Jonathan Cape, 2007), 32–39. 7. African American newspapers of years 1899–1909 preserve a copious enumeration of the black stage repertoire; nowhere in these reports is there mention of a blues song. The generic term “blues” first appeared in print in 1909, on the sheet music cover of Robert Ebberman’s publication of Robert Hoffman’s arrangement of the song “I’m Alabama Bound”: “Also Known As The Alabama Blues” (see Lynn Abbott and Doug Seroff, “‘They Cert’ly Sound Good to Me’: Sheet Music, Southern Vaudeville, and the Commercial Ascendancy of the Blues,” American Music 14, no. 4 [Winter 1996]: 406–8), reprinted in David Evans, ed., Ramblin’ on My Mind: New Perspectives on the Blues [Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2002], 53–55). 8. Twelve-bar and/or “AAB” verse patterns, while sometimes present, were not necessarily part of the earliest published blues. For an early consideration of the twelve-bar structure as a building block in the blues, see Salem Tutt Whitney, “Seen and Heard While Passing,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 26, 1914, quoted in Abbott and Seroff, “‘They Cert’ly Sound Good to Me,’” 87. 9. Evans, Big Road Blues, 58. 10. Abbott and Seroff, Ragged but Right, 4. 11. There are, however, numerous interviews and some published autobiographical reminiscences of this era, which we found useful.

1. “The Pekin And Ollie Demsey [sic] Always Make Good,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 21, 1909. 2. The Freeman documented performances of “Some of These Days” by blues pioneers including Estelle Harris (“Notes From The Savoy Theater, Memphis, Tenn.,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 24, 1910); Trixie Smith (J. Chicken Rell [sic] Beaman, “Notes From Airdome, Tampa, Fla.,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 27, 1911); and Willie and Lula Too Sweet (Geo. Slaughter, “Lyre Theater, Louisville, Ky.,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 16, 1911). “Lovie Joe” was sung by Bessie Smith (“The American Theater Jackson, Miss.,” Indianapolis Freeman, March 18, 1911), Trixie Smith (J. Chicken Rell [sic] Beaman, “Notes From Airdome, Tampa, Fla.,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 27, 1911); Estelle Harris (“Notes From The Savoy Theater, Memphis, Tenn.,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 24, 1910); and the Too Sweets (Geo. Slaughter, “Lyre Theater, Louisville, Ky.,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 16, 1911). “I Got the Blues, But I’m Too Mean to Cry” was done by Bessie Smith (“Theater News Of Rome, Ga.,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 1, 1913); and String Beans (“Penographs Caught of Butler “String Beans” May at the Crown Garden,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 16, 1914). Other conspicuous “ragtime-cum-blues” hits from this period include Shelton Brooks’s “I Wonder Where My Easy Rider’s Gone” and “All Night Long,” and Irving Berlin’s “Stop That Rag” and “Grizzly Bear.” 3. Howard W. Odum, “Folk-Song and Folk-Poetry as Found in the Secular Songs of the Southern Negroes,” Journal of American Folk-Lore 24, no. 93 (July–September 1911): 255–94; 24, no. 94 (October–December 1911): 351–96. 4. David Evans, Big Road Blues: Tradition and Creativity in the Folk Blues (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982), 35. 5. Odum does not include blues among his “three general classes” of Negro songs (“Folk-Song and Folk-Poetry as Found 311

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Notes to pages 8–11

Chapter 1 1. Mainstream daily papers in several locales also published instructive ads and articles, but without the overview embedded in the Freeman reportage it would be impossible to assess the scope or direction of black vaudeville entertainment in early-twentieth-century southern parks and saloon-theaters. For background information on the Indianapolis Freeman see Lynn Abbott and Doug Seroff, Out of Sight: The Rise of African American Popular Music, 1889–1895 (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2002), xii–xiii. 2. “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 24, 1902. 3. “Route,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 23, 1899; “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 7, 1899. James Bland, “Close dem Windows” (Boston: White, Smith & Co., 1897); George R. Wilson, “When a Coon Sits in the Presidential Chair” (Milwaukee: C. K. Harris, 1898). “Bring You Back” may be Ben Harney’s “You May Go but This Will Bring You Back” (New York: F. A. Mills, 1898). 4. A Freeman report of July 12, 1902, mentions “Buddie Glenn, of Texas, with his many years experience.” 5. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 14, 1905; “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 9, 1905. 6. For more on Charles Wright and other male coon shouters, see Abbott and Seroff, Ragged but Right, 23–24. 7. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 4, 1899, lists Minnie Williams, Sallie Cottrell, Flora Williams, Lillian Casey, Laura Hayes, Hattie Carter, Louise Shannon, Mamie Wilson, Mamie Clark, Fannie Settles, Estelle Freeman, Bettie Watson. 8. Reports in “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 14; November 4, 1899, enumerate the Little Solo’s musicians: Sidney Ostes, solo Ba cornet; Ed Walker, tenor; Wm. Matthews, baritone; Nelson Turner, solo alto; G. B. Rhone, slide trombone; Prof. Evans, clarinet; Bud Glenn, snare drum; and John Green, bass drum. G. B. Rhone, leader of orchestra; Edw. Walker, pianist; Wm. Matthews, trombone; Prof. Evans, clarinet; Prof. Anderson, Ba cornet; and Nelson Turner, double bass. See Abbott and Seroff, Ragged but Right for more on Anderson and Rhone. 9. “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 8, 1900. 10. “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 27, 1900. 11. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 12, 1900; “Solo Theatre Notes, Houston Tex.,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 25, 1900. 12. “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 27, 1900. 13. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 18, 1899.

14. Abbott and Seroff, Ragged but Right, 87–107. 15. “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 8, 1900. According to “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 22, 1900, the members of Rhone’s Olympic Theater orchestra were Eugene Hester, John L. Evans, Nelson Turner, Richard J. Anderson, and Harry Oliver. 16. “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 22, 1900; January 12, 1901. 17. “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 12, 1901. The report went on to note: “The other top liners in our company are: Della Harris, Fannie Settle, Louise Shannon, Jessie Alexander, Hattie Payton, Birdie Smith, Emma Smith, Ferdonia Smith, Rosa Franklin, George Washington and Eddie Wilson.” 18. “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 12, 1901. 19. “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 26, 1901. 20. “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 17, 1901. 21. See Wayne W. Wood, Jacksonville’s Architectural Heritage (Jacksonville: University Press of Florida, 1996), 87. 22. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 29, 1899. For more on Pat Chappelle’s life and career, see Abbott and Seroff, Ragged but Right, 248. 23. 1897 Jacksonville City Directory. 24. “Pat Chappelle,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 30, 1900. 25. The Exchange Garden Theater was first mentioned in the Indianapolis Freeman on May 19, 1900. It was not listed in the Jacksonville City Directory until 1903. 26. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 19, 1900. Sam Robinson, described in this report, may or may not be the vaudeville entertainer by the same name, who teamed with Baby Mack from 1923 to 1926 and recorded several blues titles for OKeh in 1925 and 1926. Two of those titles are reissued on Document DOCD-5390. 27. “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 12, 1902. 28. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 28, 1903. 29. “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 27, 1905; Abbott and Seroff, Ragged but Right, 230, 410. 30. “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 27, 1905. 31. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 21, 1905. 32. “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 20, 1900. 33. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 18, 1900. 34. According to the Evening Metropolis (Jacksonville), January 1, 1904, cited in Peter Dunbaugh Smith, “Ashley Street Blues: Racial Uplift and the Commodification of Vernacular Performance in La Villa, Florida, 1896–1916,” diss., Florida State University, 2006, John M. Robinson participated in a “New Year’s Eve and Emancipation celebration” at Mason

Notes to pages 11–16 Park January 1, 1904, in the capacity of choral director of the Stanton School in Jacksonville. 35. “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 29, 1900. 36. “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 4, 1902. 37. “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 27, 1905. 38. “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 24, 1901; “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 5, 1903; October 27, 1906. 39. “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 29, 1900. Skits produced at the Exchange Garden in 1903 included “A Trip to Africa,” “Uncle Primus, the Fiddler,” and “Strangers in Ragville” (“The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 29; September 26; December 5, 1903). 40. Jacksonville City Directory, 1904; 1905. It seems O’Toole died shortly after opening the Little Savoy, and was succeeded by a relative, Walter G. O’Toole. 41. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 12, 1904; “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 9, 1905. 42. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 1, 1905. 43. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 24, 1903. 44. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 22, 1905. The nature of the venue, an “open air stage” in a public park, may account for the high attendance number. 45. 1905 Jacksonville City Directory. 46. For more on Beulah Henderson, “America’s Only Colored Lady Yodeler,” see Lynn Abbott and Doug Seroff, “America’s Blue Yodel,” Musical Traditions, no. 11 (Late 1993). 47. “Lincoln Park,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 13, 1908. 48. In an interview with Butterbeans and Susie (Jodie and Susie Edwards), conducted in 1960 in connection with their Festival label LP from that year (reissued on GHB BCD-135), Butter and Susie remembered “Poor Boy” as a pioneer vaudeville blues singer. 49. “Lincoln Park, Jacksonville, Fla.,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 23, 1908. 50. Ibid. 51. “Frank Crowd,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 24, 1910. 52. “The Globe Theater,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 8, 1910. 53. “The Globe Theater At Jacksonville, Fla.,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 21, 1910. 54. Ads, “The Central Concert Hall,” Tampa Morning Tribune, August 10; September 7, 1899. 55. Ads, “The Central Concert Hall,” Tampa Morning Tribune, August 10; 15; 22; 29, 1899.

56. “The Buckingham Theater,” Tampa Morning Tribune, January 14, 1900. The statement appears in a letter signed by “Chappelle & Donaldson.” See Abbott and Seroff, Ragged but Right for more on Arthur “Happy” Howe. 57. Ads, “The Central Concert Hall,” Tampa Morning Tribune, August 15; 22; 29; September 1, 1899. This early mention of the title “Sugar Babe” is evocative, but its claim of originality is impossible to verify. Published variants and recorded versions of “Sugar Babe” by musicians of both races span the course of the twentieth century; from “What Are You Going to Do When the Rent Comes Round,” recorded in London, England, in 1906 by African American entertainer Pete Hampton (Beka Grand 9821), to “Chattanooga Sugar Babe,” recorded in 1998 by American traditional guitar virtuoso Norman Blake (Shanachie CD 6027). “Sugar Babe” was said to be “One of the most attractive musical numbers” of Cole and Johnson’s 1907–8 musical comedy “The Shoo-Fly Regiment” (“At the Theater—Lyceum Theatre,” [Harrisburg, Pennsylvania] Patriot, November 9, 1907 [America’s Historical Newspapers, NewsBank]); “About The Theaters,” Evening Press [Grand Rapids, Michigan], March 6, 1908 [America’s Historical Newspapers, NewsBank]. See also R. Emmet Kennedy, More Mellows (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1931), 159–60; and Guthrie T. Meade Jr., with Dick Spottswood and Douglas S. Meade, Country Music Sources: A Biblio-Discography of Commercially Recorded Traditional Music (Chapel Hill: Southern Folklife, 2002), 505. 58. “Took the Floor,” Tampa Morning Tribune, September 28, 1899; “Two Very Popular Theaters,” Tampa Morning Tribune, May 5, 1900; “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 5, 1906. 59. Ad, “The Buckinghan [sic],” Tampa Morning Tribune, March 13, 1900. 60. See Abbott and Seroff, Out of Sight, 92; Ragged but Right, 227. 61. Ad, “Buckingham Theatre and Saloon” and “The Mascotte,” Tampa Morning Tribune, December 27, 1899. 62. Ad, “Fowler’s Minstrels,” Tampa Morning Tribune, January 14, 1900. 63. “The Buckingham Theater: A Tip to the Public,” Tampa Morning Tribune, January 14, 1900. 64. The name “Mascotte” referred to a two-stack, threemasted steamship that served in the Spanish-American War and is represented on the official seal of the city of Tampa. Ed Johnson, “Good Luck Symbol in Tampa’s Official Seal,” Tampa Morning Tribune (undated clipping, University of South Florida Library, Tampa).

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Notes to pages 16–23 65. “Two Very Popular Theatres,” Tampa Morning Tribune, May 5, 1900. 66. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 21, 1900. 67. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 28, 1900. 68. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 7, 1900. 69. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 19, 1900. Levy may have been the composer of “Sassafras Rag,” published in 1905 (Chicago: Arnett-Delonais Co.) as by “J. Levy.” 70. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 14, 1900. 71. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, March 24, 1900. 72. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 21; May 5, 1900. 73. “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 22, 1900. 74. For a detailed account of the Rabbit’s Foot Minstrels, see Abbott and Seroff, Ragged but Right, 248–90. 75. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 7, 1900. 76. “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 15, 1900. 77. “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 5, 1902. 78. Ad, Tampa Morning Tribune, November 25, 1900. 79. “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 8, 1900. 80. Ad, Indianapolis Freeman, March 1, 1902. 81. “Ben Hunn on the Colored Performer,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 19, 1902. 82. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 22, 1902. 83. “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 26, 1901. 84. Ad, “The Mascotte Theatre,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 4, 1902. 85. “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 5, 1902. In black theatrical parlance, when “the ghost walks” the performers get paid (see Abbott and Seroff, Out of Sight, 108). The Douglass Club was an African American “headquarters for members of the theatrical profession” in New York City (“Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 29, 1900). The reference to the “Buffalo spread” is likely intended to describe a banquet put on by an African American actors’ organization of the time, the “Benevolent Order of Colored Professionals, more familiarly known as the Buffaloes” (“B. O. of C. P. Sermon,” Indianapolis Freeman, March 25, 1899). 86. “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 12, 1902. 87. “Will H. Dorsey,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 23, 1911; 1900 U.S. Census (Thanks to Pen Bogert). 88. “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 6, 1901. 89. R. S. Donaldson, “Dirty Performers,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 24, 1902. 90. “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 21, 1904. The proprietor of the Red Fox was A. N. Rushing. 91. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 30; August 6, 1904. It was noted in the August 6 report that Kennedy “celebrated his 27th birthday on the 20th of July.”

92. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 14, 1905. 93. “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 9, 1905. 94. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 7, 1906; ad, “The Budweiser Theater, Tampa, Fla.,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 28, 1906. 95. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 2, 1906. 96. “Budweiser Theatre,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 23, 1906. 97. “The Budweiser Theater, Tampa, Florida,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 17, 1906: Dorsey, piano and violin, with S. B. Foster, violin and cornet; George Rhone, violin and trombone; Frank Hopkins, violin and baritone; Tomas Ponce Reyes of Havana, cello and cornet; Walter Mitchell, tuba and double bass; Clarence “Piccolo” Jones, flute and piccolo; Harvey Purnsley, clarinet; R. J. Anderson, cornet; Amos Gilliard, trombone; Pearl Moppin, trombone; and Freddie Goodwin, traps. 98. Abbott and Seroff, Ragged but Right, 290. 99. Helen Gordon Litrico, “The Palace Saloon” (Fernandina Beach: Land & Williams, 1981). 100. “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 5, 1901; 1901 Fernandina City Directory, reproduced in Nassau County Genealogist, Summer 2001; Fall 2001. Information concerning John Collie appears in the fall edition, 78. 101. “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 3, 1902. 102. “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 17, 1902. 103. Willie Mae Ashley, unpublished manuscript, quoted in Jan H. Johannes Sr., Yesterday’s Reflections II (Jacksonville: Drummond Press, 2000): “The 1895 census listed 1,391 colored and 1,120 whites in the City of Fernandina.” A facsimile of the 1901 Fernandina City Directory, reproduced in Nassau County Genealogist, Summer 2001; Fall 2001, contains twenty-three pages of citations for black residents and sixteen pages for whites. 104. Jan H. Johannes Sr., Yesterday’s Reflections II, 34. 105. Teen K. Peterson, Nassau County Public Library, Fernandina Branch, and James Cusick, Curator, Florida History, Smathers Library, University of Florida, conversations with Doug Seroff, April 2003. 106. “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 4, 1903. 107. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 3, 1903. 108. “Macon, Ga.,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 13, 1908. 109. “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 29, 1902. 110. “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 3, 1903. 111. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 23, 1903. 112. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 20, 1903. 113. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 7, 1904. 114. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 23, 1904. 115. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 22, 1902.

Notes to pages 23–30 116. See Abbott and Seroff, Ragged but Right, 248–49. 117. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 24, 1903. 118. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 19, 1903. 119. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 4, 1906. Tenia Mizell was no doubt singing the Herbert Ingraham song “I’ll Be Back in a Minute, But I Got to Go Now” (Chicago: Will Rossiter, 1906), a coon song that swept the black vaudeville and minstrel show routes that summer. 120. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 24, 1906. 121. “Notes From Havana,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 24, 1906. 122. Harry Bradford, “The Colored Vaudeville Artist In Cuba,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 11, 1909. 123. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 10, 1903. 124. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 29, 1903. 125. Letters from T.O.B.A. Manager Sam E. Reevin to C. H. Douglass, March 10 and 23, 1925 (Douglass Business Records Collection, Middle Georgia Archives, Washington Memorial Library, Macon, Georgia). See Abbott and Seroff, Ragged but Right, 303–4 for more about Bob Russell. 126. The precise location of Lincoln Park has not been established. According to Charles J. Elmore, All That Savannah Jazz (Savannah: Savannah State University Press, 1999), 54, it was located in West Savannah. 127. Goette’s Savannah city directories of 1902, 1903, 1905, 1906. 128. Savannah Tribune, April 26, 1902. 129. “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 24, 1902. 130. Ibid. 131. “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 8, 1902. 132. “An Excellent Manager,” Savannah Tribune, November 8, 1902. A Tribune editorial on May 2, 1903, went so far as to chastise “those men [who] would crowd around bar rooms conducted by those of an opposite race, passing those of colored men in doing so.” 133. Savannah Tribune, January 24, 1903. 134. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 25, 1903. 135. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 20, 1903. 136. Walter L. Crampton, “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 2, 1904. 137. “Under the Present Jim Crow Law, ‘Cut Out’ Lincoln Park,” Savannah Tribune, March 9, 1907. 138. “Mr. Whiteman To Be In Charge Of Lincoln Park,” Savannah Tribune, March 15, 1919; “Lincoln Park Improved,” “J. A. Jackson’s Page,” Billboard, March 18, 1922. The Billboard article states: “W. J. Whiteman, the manager of Lincoln Park, Savannah, Ga., announces that the oldest resort in that State will be opened for the season on April 16. . . . Price’s Jazz Band

and the Black and Tan Orchestra have both been engaged to enliven things.” According to Elmore, All That Savannah Jazz, 54–57, jazz bands provided music at Lincoln Park during the 1920s. 139. “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, March 8, 1902. According to Elmore, All That Savannah Jazz, 4: “In 1893 . . . Charles W. Lawson operated a saloon on 41 West Broad Street, and advertised it as the finest saloon and concert hall in the city at which concerts were held nightly, featuring the most popular songs.” 140. 1900 U.S. Census. Thanks to Sharon Lee, Bull Street Library, Savannah. 141. “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 28, 1902. 142. “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 12, 1902; ad, “Mrs. Stiles New Pleasure Palace Theatre,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 12, 1902. 143. “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 8, 1902. 144. “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 20, 1902. 145. Ibid. 146. “Still Another Enterprise,” Savannah Tribune, November 27, 1909. 147. Editorial, Savannah Tribune, January 1, 1910. 148. Elmore, All That Savannah Jazz, 39. 149. “Seen Only By A Favored Few,” Macon Telegraph, March 2, 1894. The park was on Ocmulgee Street, now Riverside Drive. It was located at the edge of the Pleasant Hill District, a middle-class black community that dates back to Reconstruction. Pleasant Hill is on the National Register. Ocmulgee Park seems to have disappeared during the 1930s, and has since become a subdivision known as Holton. Thanks to Muriel McDowell-Jackson, Middle Georgia Regional Library, Macon. 150. “Opening of the Pavilion,” Macon Telegraph, May 6, 1894. 151. “To Open Easter Sunday,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 4, 1908. 152. The beautifully renovated Douglass Theater on Martin Luther King Boulevard, near the corner of Cherry Street in Macon, was reopened in January 1997. It currently hosts live performances, films, lectures, etc. To learn more, go to www. douglasstheatre.org. 153. C. H. Douglass, “Managing A Negro Theatre,” “Report of the Sixteenth Annual Convention of the Negro Business League,” 1915. Thanks to Muriel McDowell Jackson, Middle Georgia Regional Library, Macon, Georgia. 154. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 10, 1905; April 21; 28, 1906. 155. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 10, 1905. 156. “Ocmulgee Park,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 14, 1906.

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Notes to pages 30–32 157. In 1932 Collier and Douglass became in-laws. Douglass’s son, Charles H. Douglass, Jr., married Collier’s daughter Henrietta. Thanks to Muriel McDowell-Jackson for providing this information, and for research assistance in the Douglass Business Records Collection. 158. Minnie D. Singleton, “Chas. Collier Famed Showman Final Rites Today at 4 P. M.,” Macon Telegraph, October 4, 1942. The 1912 Macon City Directory lists Charles Collier’s business as “soft drinks.” 159. “Ocmulgee Park, Macon, Ga.,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 30, 1908. Personnel of the Ocmulgee Park orchestra included Piccolo Jones, piano and director; E. B. Dudley, first violin; Walter H. Childs, cornet; Amos L. Gilliard, trombone; Walter Law, double bass; John Clark, traps; Irvin Dickson, clarinet; Charles Crenshaw, second cornet. 160. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 7, 1910. 161. “Chas. Collier’s Aggregation At Macon, Ga.,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 13, 1910. 162. “Playing To Packed Houses,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 30, 1910. 163. “Ocmulgee Park, Macon, Ga.,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 27, 1910. Mamie Payne broke into the profession as a child, in an act headed by her famous parents Ben F. Payne and Susie Payne. See Abbott and Seroff, Out of Sight, 372–73. 164. “Ocmulgee Park, Macon, Ga.,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 1, 1910; “Collier’s Amusement Factory, Macon, Ga.,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 19, 1910. 165. James DeCosta, “Ocmulgee Park, Macon, Ga.,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 15, 1911. Following the death of Prof. Eph Williams in 1921, Charles Collier became sole owner and pilot of the Silas Green From New Orleans Company, a role he retained until his death in 1942. To learn more, see Abbott and Seroff, Ragged but Right, 306–55. 166. “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 4, 1902. Other performers on Florida and Georgia’s turn-of-the-century black vaudeville stages who were specifically designated in Freeman reports as “coon shouters” or “coon song singers,” or otherwise identified as performing coon songs, include Richard Barnett (“Stage,” December 22, 1900), Hattie Bluford (“Stage,” October 5, 1901; August 9, 1902), Anita Borden (“Stage,” September 9, 1905), Pauline Cottrell Crampton (“Stage,” December 20, 1902), John W. Dennis (“Stage,” June 14; August 30, 1902; March 7; 14; April 25; September 5; October 10; November 7; 14; 1903; April 30; June 4; July 2, 1904), Vergie De Owens (“Stage,” February 14, 1903), Maggie De Voe (“Stage,” March 7; April 25, 1903), Wingie Donaldson (“Stage,” April 5, 1902), Mae Fisher (“Stage,” June 15; July 13, 1901), Trixie Ford (“Stage,” July 13, 1901), James J. Helton

(“Stage,” January 11, 1902), May Lange Hicks (“Stage,” April 13, 1901; December 5, 1903), Grace Hoyt (“Stage,” November 8, 1902), Fred W. Johnson (“The Stage,” June 27, 1903), Annie Jones (“The Stage,” February 22, 1902), Joseph A. McMurray (“Stage,” April 21; May 5, 1900), Tina Mizell (“Stage,” December 20, 1902), Lucy Pettus (“Stage,” January 11, 1902), Lizzie Roberts (“The Stage,” April 14; 28; May 19, 1900), Paul Simmons (“Stage,” April 5, 1902), Carrie Smith (“The Stage,” April 21; May 19, 1900; June 22, 1901), and Lillie Wheeler (“Stage,” June 22; July 13; August 24, 1901; November 1, 1902). 167. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 28, 1900; “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 13, 1901; “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 24, 1905. 168. Selections from Jessie Thomas’s 1900–2 repertoire include “Ain’t That A Shame,” “Go Way Back and Sit Down,” “I’ve Got Troubles of My Own,” “Fare Thee Honey, Fare Thee Well,” “Please Don’t Take No Ten Cent Drink On Me,” “Every Darkey Had a Raglan On,” and “If I Ever Get Back To Tennessee” (“Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 26; November 9; December 7, 1901; June 14; December 20, 1902). 169. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 18, 1900. 170. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 19, 1900; “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 27, 1902. 171. J. W. Seer, “The Globe Theater, Jacksonville, Fla.,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 1, 1910. For more about Carrie Hall, including an extensive list of her stage repertoire, see Abbott and Seroff, Ragged but Right. 172. Cleveland Gazette, January 19, 1895 (America’s Historical Newspapers, NewsBank); “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 9, 1899. 173. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 14, 1900; “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 23, 1901; “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 6; November 14, 1903. 174. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 18, 1900. 175. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 10, 1904. 176. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 19; August 18; November 24, 1900. 177. “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 23, 1901. 178. Roy Acuff, “Charmin’ Betsy,” ARC 7–02–53, recorded 1936. In 1928 Jim Jackson recorded this song under the title “Going ’Round The Mountain” (Victor 38525, reissued on Document DOCD-5115). Jackson’s recorded repertoire from 1927 to 1930 preserves many early-twentieth-century songs and references. For more on Jackson’s historically referential recordings, see Abbott and Seroff, Ragged But Right. Other early race recordings of “Charming Betsy” include the Cotton Top Mountain Sanctified Singers, “She’s Coming Round the

Notes to pages 32–36 Mountain,” Brunswick 7119, and Henry “Ragtime Texas” Thomas, “Charmin’ Betsy,” Vocalion 1468, both from 1929. For additional “hillbilly” recordings of “Charming Betsy,” see Meade, Spottswood, and Meade, Country Music Sources, 504. 179. Pen Bogert, “African American String Bands and Brass Bands in Louisville 1835–1900,” unpublished paper, presented at “Crossroads” Conference, Middle Tennessee State University, April 19, 1996. 180. Ibid.; Pen Bogert letters to Doug Seroff, March 14, 1994; September 5, 1995. 181. Pen Bogert letter to Doug Seroff, May 4, 2003. For a capsule biography of Whallen, see Abbott and Seroff, Out of Sight, 361. 182. “John H. Whallen,” New York Clipper, March 5, 1892. 183. Abbott and Seroff, Out of Sight, 360–73. 184. “Riverview,” Kentucky Irish American, May 6, 1899. Thanks to Pen Bogert. 185. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 7, 1904. 186. “Gossip Of The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 3, 1914. 187. For more on the Clark family see Abbott and Seroff, Ragged but Right, 192–96, 365–70. 188. Daphne Duval Harrison, Black Pearls: Blues Queens of the 1920s (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1988), 170, 173–74. 189. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 16; 30, 1900. The location of the park was revealed in an ad in the Kentucky Irish American, July 13, 1901. Thanks to Pen Bogert. 190. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 30, 1900. 191. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 16; 30, 1900. 192. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 9; 16; 30; July 7, 1900. 193. “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 1, 1902. 194. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 1, 1903. Able’s offerings included “Davy Jones’ Locker,” “A Lock of Mother’s Hair,” “Tildy,” and “Satisfied with Life” (“The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 12, 1903). 195. It was difficult to discover the precise location of Ninaweb Park, because the Freeman never published the address, and there is no mention of the park in Louisville city directories of the early 1900s. Thanks to Pen and Brenda Bogert, who found Ninaweb Park listed in a Louisville city directory from 1935, i.e., after the city limits had expanded southward. 196. “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 1, 1901. 197. “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 22, 1901.

198. “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 22; July 27; September 7, 1901. 199. R. W. Thompson, “Tom Logan,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 29, 1906. 200. See Abbott and Seroff, Out of Sight, 130–37, for an account of that tour. 201. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 19, 1903. 202. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 26, 1903. 203. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 7, 1904. 204. As early as the spring of 1903, Sarah Dunn (née Martin) was traveling with the Metropolitan Colored Amusement Company of Louisville, under the management of Joe Clark, Jr., in the side show tent of Pawnee Bill’s Wild West Company (“Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 14, 1903; “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 16, 1903). Although she is identified as “Sara” on all of her OKeh records and in related advertising copy, U.S. Census reports and other “official” documents consistently state that her given name was “Sarah” (1900 U.S. Census; 1920 U.S. Census [AncestryLibray.com]). See also Pen Bogert, liner notes to “Sara Martin in Chronological Order,” Document DOCD-5395–5398. 205. “Chicago Notes,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 11, 1906. 206. “Shifting Scenes,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 23, 1904. 207. “Tom Logan Dead,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 5, 1908; “Another Chapter Closed,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 12, 1908. 208. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 25, 1906: “The party, besides Mr. Able baritone, embraced Miss Nellie Miller, Miss Pollie Tinsley, Messrs. Eddie M. Gray and ‘Bus’ Graves.” 209. “Metropolitan Stock Company,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 13, 1908. 210. “Stage News,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 11, 1910. 211. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 25; September 12; 19, 1903. 212. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 12, 1903. 213. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 26, 1903. 214. Brown’s death certificate claims that he was eighty when he died, January 29, 1939. However, the 1900 U.S. Census Jefferson County, Louisville, enumeration district 43, 1, says that Robert Brown, colored musician, was born March 1863. Thanks to Pen Bogert. 215. Kansas City American Citizen, December 22, 1893. For more on the Falls City Brass Band, see Bogert, “African American String Bands and Brass Bands in Louisville.” 216. For more on Tobe Brown’s musical activities in Kansas City, see Abbott and Seroff, Out of Sight, 315–18.

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Notes to pages 37–39 217. Juli Jones, “Dahomey!—Broadway In Chicago,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 25, 1909; Sylvester Russell, “Chicago Weekly Review,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 14, 1912. 218. “Chicago Cullings,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 1, 1918. For more on Benjamin L. Shook and his orchestra, see Abbott and Seroff, Out of Sight, 265–70. Brown may have also played with Doc Cook’s orchestra in Chicago (“Chicago Cullings,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 2, 1918). 219. The Indianapolis Freeman reported in its “Stage Notes” column of March 20, 1920, that Brown was “slowly recovering” from a “stroke of apoplexy.” According to his death certificate, Robert L. “Tobe” Brown died January 29, 1939, and is buried in Eastern Cemetery in Louisville (Doug Seroff conversation with Pen Bogert, September 13, 2001). 220. John Randolph, “Lucien Brown,” Storyville, no. 47 (June-July 1973): 176–88. Switching from drums to clarinet and saxophone, Brown recorded as a member of the Dixieland Jug Blowers, Earl McDonald’s Original Louisville Jug Band, and Ma Rainey’s Georgia Band. Early in 1920, Lockwood Lewis served as saxophonist and entertainer with W. C. Handy’s Memphis Blues Band, which also featured William Grant Still on cello and oboe, on a tour of midwestern cities (“Handy’s ‘Memphis Blues Band’ Going Big Through Pennsylvania,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 31, 1920). Lockwood Lewis later recorded with the Dixieland Jug Blowers, Earl McDonald’s Original Louisville Jug Band, The Missourians and Fess Williams Royal Flush Orchestra. 221. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 25, 1903. 222. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 14, 1903. 223. Indianapolis Freeman, January 23, 1904. 224. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 16, 1904. A 1910 retrospective claimed John Goodloe had begun his career with Oliver Scott’s Minstrels and P. G. Lowery in about 1902 (“The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 24, 1910). Freeman documentation establishes that he traveled with the Great Southern Medicine Company as an “eccentric comedian” for at least one year before arriving at the Blue Ribbon saloon-theater in November 1903 (“Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 19, 1902; June 13, 1903; “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 14, 1903). Goodloe was still on the stage in 1925, when he reported from Chillicothe, Ohio, that “everything is going good with the K. G. Barkroot show” (“A Note Or Two,” Chicago Defender, July 25, 1925). 225. “Smart Set Notes,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 24, 1906. 226. Sylvester Russell, “Syndicated Stage Notes,” Indianapolis Freeman, March 25, 1905.

227. Caron’s Louisville city directory for 1910. Thanks to Pen Bogert for research assistance. 228. “Tick Houston Theater, Louisville,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 1, 1910. In seeming contradiction with Tick Houston’s initial proclamation of intent, an August 25, 1911, entry in the Jefferson County, Kentucky Corporation Book states the Ruby Amusement Company was capitalized at $2,100, divided into twenty-one shares, of which seven shares were owned by Alfred Houston and his wife Estella Houston, while the remainder were divided between L. Schang and Clarence Bitzer, white grocers operating in Louisville’s black West End, and Mrs. M. Stoecker, also white. Thanks to Pen Bogert. 229. Pen Bogert letter to Doug Seroff, March 14, 1994. 230. Don Marquis, In Search of Buddy Bolden, First Man of Jazz (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1978), 59; “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 27, 1905. 231. Perhaps the earliest published document of this legend is in Frederic Ramsey and Charles Edward Smith, eds., Jazzmen (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1939), 3–6, 13–14. 232. “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 27, 1905. 233. Marquis, In Search of Buddy Bolden, 61. A report from Lincoln Park in the Freeman of May 27, 1905, claimed: “From 1200 to 3500 [sic] people attend the performances nightly.” A note on June 10, 1905, stated, “The S. R. O. sign is a common thing.” On June 8, 1907, the nightly attendance was estimated at “from 900 to 1,200 people.” A report on September 19, 1908, said, “We can seat 1,600 people.” 234. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 9, 1904. 235. E. Belfield Spriggins, “Excavating Jazz” (parts 3 and 4), Louisiana Weekly, May 20; 27, 1933, quoted in Lynn Abbott, “Remembering E. Belfield Spriggins, First Man of Jazzology,” 78 Quarterly, no. 10 (n.d.): 19–20. Spriggins further noted that Bush was originally from the town of Plaquemine, Louisiana. Spriggins spelled the last name “Busch.” 236. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 7, 1904. 237. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 9, 1904. 238. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 14, 1904. 239. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 24, 1905. Published in 1903, “The Preacher and the Bear” proved to be an immensely popular coon song. Arthur Collins recorded it about the same time Anatole Pierre sang it at Lincoln Park, and Sousa’s Band recorded it in 1906. Several “hillbilly” recordings of “The Preacher and the Bear” were issued during the 1920s and 1930s, and in 1937 an excellent version was recorded by the Golden Gate Jubilee Quartette (Bluebird 7205, reissued on Document DOCD-5472). Its resilience was tested as late as 1970, when black singer/comedian Rufus Thomas recorded a lively

Notes to pages 39–42 version for Stax (Rufus Thomas, “The Preacher and the Bear,” Stax STA-0071, 1970). For more, see Meade, Spottswood, and Meade, Country Music Sources, 492–93. 240. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 9; May 7; 14, 1904. 241. Marquis, In Search of Buddy Bolden, 45. On the basis of information drawn from police reports and city directory listings, Marquis further notes that, “Leda [sic] Chapman was a prostitute who plied her trade at North Liberty and Conti streets in the District. She was eighteen years old in 1900. . . . Emma Thornton, also eighteen in 1900, probably knew Buddy for a short time when she lived at 2618 Josephine, only a few blocks from his address on First.” 242. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 14, 1904. 243. Edgar Malone, lyrics, Ted S. Barron, music, “Billy” (Leo Feist, 1904); Edward Madden, words, Theodore F. Morse, music, “Make a Fuss Over Me,” F. B. Haviland, 1904; Thomas S. Allen, “Scissors to Grind,” Walter Jacobs, 1904. “Billy” was originally sung at the mainstream Avenue Theater in New York in a melodrama called “The Street Singer”; “Make a Fuss Over Me” was a coon song; “Scissors to Grind” took its inspiration from a street vendor’s cry: “Scissors to grind, scissors to grind, bring out everything that’s dull and don’t leave none behind.” 244. “The New Crown Garden Theater,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 19, 1913. 245. “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 27, 1905. 246. “Lincoln Park Notes,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 8, 1907. 247. Advertising placard for “A Grand Pic-Nic and Base Ball Game,” May 23, 1904. The placard promised dancing from 6:00 p.m. until 4:00 a.m. (John Robichaux Collection, Hogan Jazz Archive, Tulane University). 248. Advertising placard for “A Grand Excursion Pic-Nic,” September 24–25, 1907 (John Robichaux Collection, Hogan Jazz Archive, Tulane University). 249. The final quip is a provocative precursor of the signature refrain “Sing ’em blues,” in the famous, pioneering blues hit of 1912, “Baby Seals Blues.” Between 1919 and 1926, Robichaux led the band at New Orleans’s major T.O.B.A. outlet, the Lyric Theater (Lynn Abbott, “‘For Ofays Only’: An Annotated Calendar of Midnight Frolics at the Lyric Theater, Part I,” Jazz Archivist 17 [2003]: 2–4). Among the members of Robichaux’s band at Lincoln Park in 1909, trumpeter James Williams and trombonist J. Baptiste Delisle are pictured in a late-1890s photograph of Robichaux’s band (Al Rose and Edmond Souchon, New Orleans Jazz: A Family Album [Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1967], 180). Banjo/guitarist Arthur “Bud”

Scott went on to play on dozens of recordings, including with King Oliver’s Dixie Syncopators; drummer Louis Cottrell recorded with A. J. Piron’s New Orleans Orchestra; bassist Henry Kimball recorded with Fate Marable’s Society Syncopators; and clarinetist Lorenzo Tio recorded with Jelly Roll Morton and His Red Hot Peppers, A. J. Piron’s New Orleans Orchestra, and others. 250. “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 27, 1905. 251. Ibid. Magdalene Tartt later recorded for Paramount as Magdalene Tartt Lawrence. 252. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 10, 1905. 253. “Elaborate Supper,” Nashville Globe, December 6, 1907. 254. “News Of The Players,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 7; September 8, 1917. 255. “Coney Island Minstrels,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 18, 1907. 256. The Indianapolis Freeman of July 7, 1917, notes that Rhoda’s mother, Mrs. C. A. Robertson, had migrated from New Orleans to Los Angeles and “purchased a home, 1468 21st St. She is the well-known founder of the Holy Ghost Catholic Church. Her sister, Mrs. Georgia A. Robertson, is a police officer in the city, the only one of color in the United States.” Rhoda’s brother “Zoo” Robertson eventually settled in Los Angeles, too. 257. “M’Neil Heard From,” Chicago Defender, February 21, 1925. 258. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 10; 24, 1905; “Lincoln Park At New Orleans,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 17, 1909; “Lincoln Park At New Orleans, La.,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 31, 1909. 259. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 10, 1905. 260. “Lincoln Park Notes,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 8, 1907. The Labormen’s Social Club was also identified as the “Labormen’s Union” and the “Laboring Man’s Union Social Club.” 261. “Lincoln Park Auditorium—New Orleans, La.,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 7, 1907. 262. That Joseph Haywood and Buddy Bartley (Bottley, Botly, Bently, Bodly, etc.) were one and the same person is confirmed by a police report in the daily New Orleans Times-Picayune, August 9, 1906: “Assault to rape—Joseph Haywood, alias Buddy Bartley, $500 bonds” (America’s Historical Newspapers, NewsBank). Thanks to John McCusker for sharing this citation. In later years, Buddy Bartley and Buddy Bolden became tightly intertwined in oral history–driven accounts of New Orleans jazz and its relationship to Lincoln and Johnson parks. In “A Memory of King Bolden,” Evergreen, no. 37 (1965),

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Notes to pages 42–44 Danny Barker introduced the character Dude Bottley, brother of the Lincoln Park aeronaut, to serve as a vehicle for his own perspective on Buddy Bolden and the early days of jazz. Barker convincingly reprised Dude Bottley in Buddy Bolden and the Last Days of Storyville (London: Cassell, 1998). See also William J. Schafer, “Thoughts on Jazz Historiography: ‘Buddy Bolden’s Blues’ vs. ‘Buddy Bottley’s Balloon,’” Journal of Jazz Studies 2, no. 1 (December 1974); Donald M. Marquis, “Lincoln Park, Johnson Park and Buddy Bolden,” Second Line (Fall 1976). 263. “The Tramp Social Club At New Orleans,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 8, 1908. 264. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 19, 1909; “Lincoln Park Of New Orleans,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 31, 1909. 265. “New Orleans Stage Notes,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 14, 1908. 266. “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 20, 1901. 267. “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 31, 1902. Also noted was the troupe’s “rag-time pianist,” Tony Jackson. 268. “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 15, 1901. 269. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 9, 1904. The members of the Olympia Quartette were identified as “L. R. Brown, first tenor; John E. Lewis, second tenor; E. Gant, baritone; A. J. Duconge, bass.” 270. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 24, 1905. 271. “Lincoln Park Notes,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 8, 1907. 272. “Lincoln Park Auditorium,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 19, 1908. 273. “Kenner And Lewis Amusement Company,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 14, 1908. 274. “New Orleans (La.) Stage Happenings,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 2, 1909. 275. “Opening Of Dixie Park At New Orleans,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 10, 1909. 276. Advertising placard for “Grand Opening of Dixie Park,” March 27, 1910 (John Robichaux Collection, Hogan Jazz Archive, Tulane University). 277. V. P. Thomas, “New Orleans News,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 17, 1909. 278. “Opening of Dixie Park In New Orleans,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 10, 1909; “Dixie Park Auditorium, New Orleans, La.,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 24, 1909; “Kenner & Lewis Amusement Company,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 15, 1909; “Dixie Park Auditorium, New Orleans, La.,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 5, 1909. “Ziz,” or “zizz,” was a buzzword of the era before “jaz,” or “jazz.” With the Georgia Up-to-Date Minstrels

at the end of 1898, Julius Glenn and A. T. Gillam closed the olio with “their new act entitled ‘Zizz’ which keeps the audience in an uproar” (“Fine Negro Talent,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 24, 1898). A feature of the 1903 edition of P. G. Lowery’s vaudeville show was the Zizz Quartet (“The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 4, 1903). In 1911 the team of Andrew Trible and Jeff DeMount advertised themselves as “De Boys Wid De Ziz,” featuring “The Famous Ziz Rag” (Ad, “Oh Look who’s Here,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 1, 1911; “Passing Show At Washington, D. C.,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 22, 1911). The Dixie Park announcement of April 24, 1909, identified Sweetie Matthews as “Lue Sweetie Matthews.” 279. “Allen’s Troubadours,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 24, 1909. 280. “Allen’s Troubadours,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 19, 1909; “Allen And Allen At The Pekin Theater, Savannah, Ga.,” Indianapolis Freeman, March 19, 1910. 281. “Allen’s Troubadours At Lincoln Park, New Orleans,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 5, 1909. 282. “Allen’s Troubadours,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 19, 1909. 283. “Allen & Allen At The Air Dome, Jacksonville, Fla.,” Indianapolis Freeman, March 12, 1910. 284. “Lincoln Park, New Orleans,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 26, 1909. 285. “Lincoln Park At New Orleans,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 3, 1909. 286. Ibid. 287. “Lincoln Park At New Orleans, La.,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 14, 1909. 288. Abbott, “Remembering Mr. E. Belfield Spriggins.” 289. W. P. Bayless, “Passing Show At Washington, D. C.,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 7, 1911. Graham may have been the source of the Memphis Jug Band’s 1928 recording “Whitewash Station Blues” (Victor 38504; reissued on Document DOCD-5022). 290. John H. Williams, “New Orleans,” Chicago Defender, June 5, 1915. 291. Kenner and Lewis’s travels of 1909–11 were well covered in the Freeman, beginning with “Kenner And Lewis Amusement Company At Pensacola,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 9, 1909; and ending with “McKinner Street Theater, At Augusta, Ga.,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 22, 1911. 292. Jelly Roll Morton, 1938, quoted in Bill Russell, “Oh, Mister Jelly”: A Jelly Roll Morton Scrapbook (Copenhagen: JazzMedia, 1999), 45. Also see Lawrence Gushee, “A Preliminary Chronology of the Early Career of Ferd ‘Jelly Roll’ Morton,”

Notes to pages 44–53 American Music 3, no. 4 (Winter 1985): 389–412. Freeman citations of October 9, 1909, and August 20, 1910, document appearances of the Kenner and Lewis Amusement Company at the Belmont Street Theater in Pensacola. The 1910 engagement reportedly lasted eight weeks. 293. “Gossip Of The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 3, 1911. 294. W. M. Benbow, “What’s What Down In New Orleans,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 16, 1915. 295. Frank A. Young, Jr., “‘Papa Lew,’ Famous Cakewalker, Expires,” Louisiana Weekly, February 17, 1940. 296. Jennette M. Green, “Mr. Russell Corrected On His Knowledge Of J. Ed Green’s Career,” Indianapolis Freeman, March 12, 1910. 297. “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 1, 1901. 298. Ibid.; “From Ben Hunn,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 29, 1901. 299. “Death Defeats Thomas Kinnane,” Memphis Commercial Appeal, April 3, 1910. 300. “Jim Kinnane Is Dead After Colorful Life,” Memphis Commercial Appeal, November 12, 1930. 301. Ibid. 302. “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 11, 1901. 303. Two weeks prior to opening at the Rialto, Elliot and Hill were identified as the manager and musical director, respectively, of the Royal Pavilion on State Street, Chicago (Ad, “The Royal Pavilion,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 11, 1901). 304. “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 1, 1901. 305. “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 15, 1901. 306. “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 22, 1901. 307. “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 6, 1901. 308. Kinnane is brought to notice on several early race records. Southern vaudevillian Willie Jackson’s 1926 recording “Old New Orleans Blues,” Columbia 14136-D, reissued on Azure AZ-CD-13, advised: “You ever go to Memphis, stop down at Jim Kinnane’s / That’s a place where monkey women will learn just how to treat a man.” In 1929 an eponymous recording by blues pianist Roosevelt Sykes, “Roosevelt Blues,” OKeh 8776, reissued on Document DOCD-5116, posed this question: “Have you ever been to Memphis and stopped at Uncle Jim Kinnane’s?” Whereupon Sykes alleged: “He will pay more for a woman [than] any farmer will pay for land.” Similarly, another blues pianist, Rufus “Speckled Red” Perryman, recommended stopping by Jim Kinnane’s in his 1930 recording “Speckled Red’s Blues,” Brunswick 7164, reissued on Document DOCD-5052; Delta blues artist Louise Johnson mentioned “Jim Kinnane’s,” as well as “Church’s Hall,” in her 1930 recording “On

the Wall,” Paramount 13008, reissued on Document DOCD5157; and guitarist Robert Wilkins added to the legend with his 1935 recording “[I wish I was down at] Old Jim Canan’s,” originally unissued Vocalion, released on Document DOCD-5014. 309. “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 15; 22, 1901. 310. “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 31, 1901. 311. Ibid. 312. Ad, “Lew Hall’s Ragtime Opera Company,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 27, 1901. 313. “Reminiscences Of The Colored Profession,” Indianapolis Freeman, March 11, 1905. The 1872 touring party was said to have included Warren Fisher, Tom Gwinn, Billy Baxter, Bob Mahoney, Tina Mahoney, Matt Reynolds, Bob Bacon, Howard King, Ike Simond, “and a few others.” See also Eugene Kerr Bristow, “Look Out for Saturday Night”: A Social History of Professional Variety Theater in Memphis, Tennessee, 1859–1880 (diss., University of Iowa, 1956), 104–5. 314. Planter’s Journal, September 15, 1906, quoted in Church and Church, The Robert Churches of Memphis, 14–15. 315. “Memphis Herald,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 10, 1901. 316. Ibid.; “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 31, 1901. Memphis comedian Johnny Green and stage manager J. Ed Green are two different people. 317. “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 7, 1901. 318. “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 14, 1901. 319. “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 12, 1901. 320. “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 9, 1901. 321. After 1906, Desoto Street below Madison was renamed South Fourth Street. Thanks to David Evans. 323. “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 8, 1902. 324. “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 22, 1902. 325. “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, March 1, 1902. 326. Ibid. 327. “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 18, 1902. 328. “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 12; 26, 1902. 329. See Abbott and Seroff, Ragged but Right, for more about Green’s productive career as stage manager for the Smart Set Company (1904) and Ernest Hogan’s Rufus Rastus (1905–6). 330. “Pekin Theater At Memphis Tenn.,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 3, 1909; “The Pekin At Memphis,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 25, 1909. 331. “The Pekin Theater, Memphis, Tenn.,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 1, 1909. 332. “The Pekin At Memphis,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 15, 1910. The Pekin band had expanded to four pieces; Walter

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Notes to pages 53–55 Williams remained on cornet, Murray Smith came in on piano, Ed Butler switched to trombone, and Dick Thomas replaced Harry Jefferson on traps. 333. Memphis City Directory for 1909. 334. “The New Royal Theatre, Memphis, Tenn.,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 11, 1908; Memphis City Directories for 1909, 1910, 1911, 1912. 335. “The Royal Theater Memphis,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 21, 1908; “Royal Theater, Memphis, Tenn.,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 19, 1908; “Royal Theater, Memphis,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 26, 1908; “Memphis Theater Notes,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 23, 1909; Jas. Edw. Simpson, “Memphis Stroll,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 20, 1909; James Edw. Simpson, “Memphis Stroll,” Indianapolis Freeman, March 6, 1909; “Royal Stock Company, Memphis, Tenn.,” Indianapolis Freeman, March 20, 1909; “Royal Theater, Memphis, Tenn.,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 3, 1909. 336. Cuba Austin recorded with such influential bands as McKinney’s Cotton Pickers, the Chocolate Dandies, and the Jean Goldkette Orchestra (Brian Rust, Jazz Records A-Z 1897–1942, 1970 [New Rochelle: Arlington House Publishers, 1978]). In 1925 a report from McKinney’s Syncos (later McKinney’s Cotton Pickers) declared that their “outstanding feature this season is the drummer Cuba Austin, who is also a clog dancer worth mentioning” (“McKinney’s Syncos,” Chicago Defender, August 8, 1925). 337. “Theater Royal, Memphis, Tenn.,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 2, 1910. 338. “Royal Theater, Memphis, Tenn.,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 9, 1910. 339. “Theaters At Memphis, Tenn.,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 10, 1908. 340. For confirmation that Long Willie Too Sweet is Willie Perry and Lula Too Sweet is Susie Johnson, see “Gem Theater, Memphis, Tenn.,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 28; December 19, 1908. 341. “Gem Theater, Memphis, Tenn.,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 4, 1909. 342. “Generoso Barrasso Is Taken By Death,” Memphis Commercial Appeal, July 8, 1935. 343. “Mrs. Rosa Barraso [sic], 79, Dies At Home,” Memphis Press Scimitar, December 26, 1938. 344. James E. Simpson, “Memphis Stroll,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 6, 1909. 345. “Amuse U Theater, Memphis,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 18, 1909. The Amuse U’s four-piece pit band

consisted of Prof. Jackson, piano; Will Blake, cornet; Jack McDowell, bass; and Alexander Dukes, drums. 346. “The Amuse U Theater No. 2, At Memphis, Tenn.,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 6, 1909. 347. “Profession At Memphis,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 29, 1910. 348. Alexander Dukes was the father of “Little Laura” Dukes (1907–1992), for many years a member of Will Batts’s South Memphis Jug Band and other Memphis string bands. In the 1970s Laura Dukes told interviewers that when she was five years old (ca. 1912), her father “put me on a stage with a lady that had a show here in Memphis. Her name was Laura Smith. . . . The first song that I sang was ‘Balling the Jack.’” “The show wasn’t but one block from Beale. That was at Fourth and Gayoso.” Fourth and Gayoso was the site of Fred Barrasso’s Savoy Theater (Fred J. Hay, ed., Goin’ Back to Sweet Memphis— Conversations with the Blues [Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2001], 162–63; Little Laura Dukes interviewed by Robert Springer, “I Never Did Like to Imitate Nobody,” Blues Unlimited, no. 125 [July–August 1977]: 20; Harris, Blues Who’s Who, 163). 349. “Savoy Theater, Memphis, Tenn.,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 16, 1910; “Savoy Theatre, Memphis,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 18, 1910. 350. “The Sandy [sic] Theater, Memphis, Tenn.,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 7, 1910. 351. At least one precedent venture was noted: in 1907 the Gayoso Amusement Company operated an amusement park “for Colored people only” at 14 Central Avenue, which included a stage for vaudeville shows, known as the Central Avenue Colored Airdome Theater (ad, Indianapolis Freeman, September 7, 1907). 352. “Arcade Theater, Atlanta, Ga.,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 11, 1909. 353. “Warns The Performers,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 20, 1912. 354. The Mule (Perry Bradford), “Atlanta Show Shop,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 29, 1914. Under the heading “Who Bailed Bailey?” the Pittsburgh Courier of June 6, 1925, reproduced an article from a Chattanooga daily indicating that Charles P. Bailey had been arrested in that city and “lodged in jail on a charge of drunkenness. Bailey is said to have had on his person when arrested diamonds aggregating 22 karats, two quarts of whiskey and a pair of brass knuckles and a large roll of ‘greenbacks.’” 355. Ethel Waters with Charles Samuels, His Eye Is on the Sparrow (Garden City: Doubleday, 1951), 165.

Notes to pages 55–61 356. Juli Jones, “Negro Theatres,” Indianapolis Freeman, March 13, 1909: “I have before me proof that there are 112 Negro theatres managed and controlled by Negroes. . . . Chicago has the largest; Knoxville, Tenn., New Orleans, La., Richmond, Va., Memphis, Tenn., Washington, D.C., Louisville, Ky., and Columbus, Ohio, have houses that can play any ordinary show. The other houses in different States are mostly 5 and 10 cent theatres, vaudeville and moving pictures. This showing proves the old proverb, ‘From little acorns big oaks grow.’”

First Interlude 1. J. Ed. Green, “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 18, 1901. 2. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 29, 1903; May 21, 1904. Rudi Blesh and Harriet Janis, They All Played Ragtime: The True Story of an American Music (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1950), 154. It would appear that this information was supplied by Glover Compton. 3. Sylvester Russell, “Robert T. Motts Dead,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 15, 1911; “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 4, 1904; ad, Indianapolis Freeman, July 2, 1904. 4. R. T. Motts letter to Elwood Knox, in “Actors And Actresses Club,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 3, 1906. 5. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 7, 1906; “Robert T. Motts Dead.” 6. “J. Ed. Green,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 11, 1908. 7. These block ads ran weekly from December 22, 1906, through March 1907. 8. “Solving The Problem,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 2, 1907; “Cincinnati Will Have Stock Company,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 23, 1907. 9. Juli Jones, Jr., “Chicago Show Items,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 1, 1908. 10. Ad, “Plays To let On Royalty,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 15, 1906; “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 9, 1907. 11. Ad, Foster Music Supply, Indianapolis Freeman, May 15, 1909; Bradford, “What The Colored Vaudevillians Are Doing In New York And The East,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 23, 1909; Carey B. Lewis, “Stroll Notes,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 31, 1913. 12. Juli Jones, Jr., “Chicago Vaudeville,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 15, 1908. The name “Dahomian Stroll” harkened back to the Dahoman Village exhibit at the 1893 Chicago World’s Columbian Exposition, and also to Williams and Walker’s 1902

musical comedy hit In Dahomey. A much later report credited Sylvester Russell with coining the famous nickname (“Sylvester Russell Dead,” Chicago Defender, October 11, 1930). 13. Juli Jones, “State Street Proper,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 24, 1907. 14. Juli Jones, “Well, Dahomey,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 9, 1909. 15. Juli Jones, “‘Dear Old Dahomey’ In Chicago,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 23, 1909. 16. Juli Jones, Jr., “Gloriously Great Dehomey!” Indianapolis Freeman, August 21, 1909; “Dehomey!—Broadway in Chicago,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 25, 1909. 17. Juli Jones, “Glorious Dehomey,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 12, 1909. 18. “Chicago Show Shop,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 8, 1908; Juli Jones, “Show Shop,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 12, 1908; Sylvester Russell, “Eighth Annual Review,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 9, 1909. 19. “Pekin Stock Company,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 13, 1909. 20. “Pekin Notes,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 11, 1908; A. E. Christy, “Pekin Notes,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 11, 1908. 21. Alberta Christy, “Pekin Notes,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 18, 1908. 22. Juli Jones, Jr., “Chicago Show Shop,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 19, 1908; Julie [sic] Jones, “Chicago Show Shop,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 31, 1908. Sylvester Russell later insinuated that Brooks was merely “serving as an usher for the Grand . . . when Green picked him up.” 23. “Vaudeville Notes,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 12, 1908. 24. “Pekin Stock Company,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 13, 1909; Sylvester Russell, “A Review Of The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 17, 1909. For information on other productions of the season, see “‘The Chambermaid,’” Indianapolis Freeman, April 3, 1909; “‘The Idlers,’” Indianapolis Freeman, April 10, 1909. 25. Juli Jones, “Glorious Dehomey,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 12, 1909. 26. Juli Jones, “My Hot Dehomey!” Indianapolis Freeman, July 3, 1909. 27. “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 21, 1902; November 8, 1902; Juli Jones, “Dehomey From End To End,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 10, 1909. 28. Juli Jones, “Dehomey In Its Glory,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 17, 1909.

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Notes to pages 61–64 29. Juli Jones, “Dehomey In Uproar,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 24, 1909; “Sylvester Russell’s Review,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 25, 1909. According to Sylvester Russell, “The J. Ed Green Enterprises,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 23, 1909, the name “Chester” was an abbreviated version of Green’s turn-ofthe-century stage cognomen, “The Bronze Chesterfield.” 30. Juli Jones, “Dehomey In Uproar,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 24, 1909. 31. Ad, “Chester Amusement Co.,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 4, 1909. 32. According to Juli Jones, Sr. [sic], “Dehomey The Big Works,” July 31, 1909, “The midnight show given by the Stroll actors in honor of Bobby Winston and Rube Foster has brought about wonders. From the outlook we may see a real Negro Showman organization that will be worth while.” In “The J. Edward Green Enterprises,” Sylvester Russell confirmed: “two recent benefits given at midnight for a ball player and a performer respectively, met with such unexpected success that an actor organization . . . was established.” 33. Juli Jones, Jr., “Gloriously Great Dehomey!” Indianapolis Freeman, August 21, 1909. 34. “Roll On, Dehomey, Roll,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 11, 1909. 35. “The J. Edward Green Enterprises.” 36. “Roll On, Dehomey, Roll.” 37. Juli Jones, “Dehomey!—Broadway In Chicago,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 25, 1909. 38. “Roll On, Dehomey, Roll.” 39. Ibid. 40. Ibid. 41. Juli Jones, “Dehomey In Chicago,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 18, 1909; “Dehomey!—Broadway In Chicago,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 25, 1909. 42. Juli Jones, “Dehomey In Chicago,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 18, 1909. 43. “Dear Old Dehomey In Chicago,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 9, 1909. 44. “Dehomey In An Uproar,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 16, 1909. 45. Sylvester Russell, “Bert A. Williams In ‘Mr. Lode Of Koal,’” Indianapolis Freeman, October 16, 1909. 46. “Dehomey In An Uproar.” The “third class booking agent” was probably Frank Q. Doyle. The “two big theatrical politicians of Dehomey” may have been Duke Brannon (possibly Brennon, or Brennan), current manager of the Grand Theater, and Chicago booking agent Charles O. Harding. Early in 1911, Sylvester Russell wrote of a similar meeting “which

was held at the booking office of Charles O. Harding, a white booking agent, January 24th, in which he and Duke Brennon (white) manager of the Grand . . . made an effort to control the bookings of colored theaters in the middle West, in favor of the two Grand Theaters, as against the little Monogram Theater on the next block, which is doing a thriving business. . . . Harding and Brennon disagreed, and decrepitating its possibility. . . . Prominent performers have recently complained that white booking agents of the ‘small time’ are getting entirely too insolent” (Sylvester Russell, “Musical and Dramatic,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 11, 1911). 47. “Dehomey In An Uproar.” 48. Juli Jones, “Dahomey In Peace,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 23, 1909. 49. Juli Jones, “Old Dehomey!” Indianapolis Freeman, October 30, 1909. 50. Sylvester Russell, “Tenth Annual Review,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 25, 1909. 51. “Sylvester Russell Notes,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 4, 1909. 52. Sylvester Russell, “Robert T. Motts Dead,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 15, 1911. 53. For a book-length treatment of the Pekin Theater, see Thomas Bauman, The Pekin: The Rise and Fall of Chicago’s First Black-Owned Theater (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2014). 54. The last installment appeared without fanfare on February 12, 1910. 55. “Foster’s Moving Pictures,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 9, 1913; “Foster’s Colored Moving Pictures,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 23, 1913; “The Vineyard Of Photo Plays,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 20, 1913. In 1926 Tim Owsley claimed that “The first Race motion picture was [William] Foster’s production, ‘The Railroad Porter’” (Tim Owsley, “Now,” Chicago Defender, June 5, 1926). Foster demonstrated an interest in movies as early as 1907, when he made “a successful tour of the South with the Gans-Nelson pictures,” i.e., film footage of the classic September 3, 1906, title bout between the African American lightweight boxing champion Joe Gans and Battling Nelson of Denmark (“The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 9, 1907). Temporarily abandoning his filmmaking ambitions, Foster (as “Juli Jones”) worked for many years as sports writer for the Chicago Defender. In the mid-1920s he relocated to Los Angeles. Finally, in 1929, he “was appointed as a director at Hollywood for the Pathe Movie corporation.” A news report said “Foster’s first picture is almost completed. ‘Black and Tan’ [is] the name he has given it” (“Bill Foster Gets Chance to Enter Movies,” Chicago Defender, June 1, 1929).

Notes to pages 64–70 56. “Notes From The Airdome Theater, Jacksonville, Fla.,” Indianapolis Freeman, March 19, 1910. 57. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 11, 1909; “Dahomey In Chicago,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 12, 1910; Sylvester Russell, “J. Ed. Green Overtaken By Death, Which Suddenly Claimed Its Own,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 26, 1910. 58. “J. Ed Green Passes Away,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 26, 1910. 59. “J. Ed Green Probably To Have A Benefit,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 19, 1910; “J. Ed Green Passes Away.” 60. Cary B. Lewis, “Last Tribute Of Respect Paid J. Ed. Green,” Indianapolis Freeman, March 5, 1910. 61. Jennette [sic] M. Green, “Mr. Russell Corrected On His Knowledge Of J. Ed Green’s Career,” Indianapolis Freeman, March 12, 1910. Green’s burial was delayed several days in order for his staunchest supporter, S. H. Dudley, to be present (“Last Tribute Of Respect Paid J. Ed. Green”). 62. The Stroller, “National and Local Theatrical and Stage Notes,” Chicago Broad Ax, October 14, 1911.

Chapter 2 1. The 1900 U.S. Census gives “Aug 1891”; the 1910 U.S. Census gives “abt 1894”; May’s World War I Draft Registration card gives “26 May 1891” (Ancestry Library.com). His death certificate, for which his older sister Blanche apparently provided the data, gives August 18, 1894. While generally classified as “Colored” or “Black,” the 1910 U.S. Census called him “Mulatto,” and his World War I draft registration card says his eyes were blue. 2. Montgomery, Alabama, city directories 1902–7. See Doug Seroff and Lynn Abbott, “The Life and Death of Pioneer Bluesman Butler ‘String Beans’ May: ‘Been Here, Made His Quick Duck, And Got Away,’” Tributaries, no. 5 (2002). Thanks to Joey Brackner, Folklife Program Manager, Alabama State Council on the Arts, for research assistance. 3. Joseph Nesbitt interviewed by Doug Seroff, May 27, 1991. 4. Ibid. Nesbitt’s testimony reverberates in a song titled “Street Piano” from Butterbeans and Susie’s 1960 Festival label LP (Festival M-7000, reissued on GHB BCD-135). The album notes credit the song to “LeMay,” probably a misnomer for Butler May. 5. “Benbow’s Chocolate Drops, Pensacola, Fla.,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 10, 1909. 6. “Benbow’s Chocolate Drops At Pensacola, Fla.,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 17, 1909. Regarding “Prof. Noner Barras,”

a subsequent report (“Kenner & Lewis Amusement Co. At Pensacola, Fla.,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 30, 1909) cites “Prof. N. Barrios.” 7. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 8, 1909. 8. “Kenner And Lewis Amusement Company At Pensacola,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 9, 1909. 9. “Kenner & Lewis Amusement Co., at Pensacola, Fla,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 30, 1909; “Kenner And Lewis Amusement Company,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 13, 1909. Alfred Bryan, words, Maxwell Silver, music, “Music Makes Me Sentimental (Blame the Music, Don’t Blame Me)” (New York: F. A. Mills, 1908). 10. For information on Howard’s tenure with Tolliver’s Smart Set, see Abbott and Seroff, Ragged but Right (where he is indexed as H. B. Howard). 11. “The Luna Park Theater, Atlanta, Ga.,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 18, 1909. 12. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 25, 1909. Another correspondence, from the Unknown Theater in Pensacola, said Willie Owens was “scoring nightly with the late coon rage, ‘I’m Just Crazy About the Woman with the Mary Jane’” (“The ‘Unknown’ Theater Becomes Well Known,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 12, 1910). And at the Dreamland Theater in Opelika, Alabama, later that spring Beatrice Howe was singing “Black Man, It’s After Hours, and You Can’t Come In” and “I Love to Wear My Mary Janes ’Cause They Fit Me Like a Perrene” (“Dreamland Theater, Opelika, Alabama,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 12, 1910). 13. “Luna Park Theater, Atlanta, Georgia,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 29, 1910. 14. “Luna Park On Top,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 12, 1910. 15. “Luna Park, Atlanta, Ga.,” Indianapolis Freeman, March 19, 1910. 16. “The Globe Theater At Jacksonville, Fla.,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 21, 1910. 17. “Luna Park Theater, Atlanta, Georgia,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 16, 1910. 18. Ad, Indianapolis Freeman, September 2, 1911. 19. “Luna Park Theater, Atlanta, Georgia,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 16, 1910. E. Ray Goetz, words, Ford T. Dabney, music, “Oh! You Devil Rag” (New York: Shapiro, 1909). 20. “The Exchange Theater, Jacksonville, Fla.,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 27, 1909. 21. “The Exchange Theater, Jacksonville, Fla.,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 1, 1910; “The Exchange Theater,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 22, 1910. Earl C. Jones, words, George

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Notes to pages 70–74 W. Meyer, music, “Whistle and I’ll Wait for You” (New York: Maurice Shapiro, 1908). 22. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 6, 1910. 23. “The Queen Theater, Montgomery, Ala.,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 27, 1910. 24. “Belmont Street Theatre, Pensacola, Fla.,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 17, 1910. 25. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 1, 1910. 26. “Temple Theater, New Orleans,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 12, 1910. 27. In Alan Lomax, Mister Jelly Roll: The Fortunes of New Orleans Creole and “Inventor of Jazz” Jelly Roll Morton (New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1950), 143–44, Morton gives this agglomerated recollection of his circa 1909–12 activities: “Myself, I was glad to get out of Memphis with the Number One company on the Barrasso circuit. . . . Buster Porter was the main comedian, until he was later replaced by String Beans and Sweetie May. . . . The show was a hit and we toured for two years, although I quit from time to time because I could make more money catching suckers at the pool table. . . . Finally, in Jacksonville, my girl friend, Stella Taylor, got dissatisfied and so I quit, too.” Among the other members of the Alabama Rosebuds, Edna Landry Benbow made blues recordings during the 1920s as Edna Hicks (They are reissued on Document DOCD5428 and 5431). Leroy White was a black vaudeville comedian/ producer whose career can be traced into the 1940s. In 1935 and 1936 he toured with Ida Cox (“Ida Cox Tops In Stage Hit,” Chicago Defender, August 10, 1935; “Ida Cox Starred By R.K.O.,” Chicago Defender, April 25, 1936). He is not the same person as white minstrel performer Leroy “Lasses” White. 28. “The Amuse Theatre, Vicksburg, Miss.,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 10, 1910. 29. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 21, 1911. 30. “Pekin Theatre,” Savannah Tribune, January 7, 1911. 31. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, March 4, 1911; Lou Hall, “The New Savoy, Memphis, Tenn.,” Indianapolis Freeman, March 11, 1911. 32. “Majestic Theater, Hot Springs, Ark.,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 8, 1911. 33. Tim E. Owsley, “Write Up Of All The Theaters Of Atlanta, Ga.,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 13, 1911. 34. Ibid. 35. “One shiver from Murphy, one comic step in dancing and one comedy scene with his wife Miss Francis, and you are sure that he is very good, but when you hear him sing his own original songs, you are fully aware that there is but one

Bert Murphy” (“Musical And Dramatic,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 11, 1911). 36. Sylvester Russell, “Bert Murphy Dead,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 13, 1917. For more on Murphy’s claim to “He’s in the Jail House Now,” see Jocelyn R. Neal, The Songs of Jimmie Rodgers: A Legacy in Country Music (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2009). 37. Lou Hall, “James Sisters,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 20, 1911. 38. Sylvester Russell, “Untimely Death Of String Beans,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 24, 1917. 39. Juli Jones, “My Hot Dehomey!” Indianapolis Freeman, July 3, 1909. 40. See Juli Jones, Jr., “Chicago Show Items,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 1, 1908; Juli Jones, Jr., “Chicago Vaudeville,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 15, 1908. 41. Waters with Samuels, 77. 42. As late as 1926 it was written: “The Monogram Theater, carrying on a vaudeville policy, is packing and jamming them in at all shows. There is but little doubt that this is the best paying proposition anywhere on the T.O.B.A. Circuit. . . . [manager] Miller can always rely upon the folks from Chittling Switch to keep the wolf away from the doors” (Observer, “Shots From The Lake Shore,” Pittsburgh Courier, May 1, 1926). 43. Sylvester Russell, “Chicago Weekly Review,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 12, 1911. 44. Sylvester Russell, “Chicago Weekly Review,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 20, 1912. 45. Sweatman and Reeves played together on “Maple Leaf Rag,” an unnumbered cylinder recorded ca. 1903–4 for the Metropolitan Music Store, Minneapolis, Minnesota. See Mark Berresford, That’s Got ’Em!: The Life and Music of Wilbur Sweatman (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2010), 43–44. Sweatman’s recorded output, 1916–35, is reissued on Jazz Oracle BDW 8046. 46. Gary [sic] B. Lewis, “At The Chicago Theaters,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 1, 1910. 47. The Gale Piano Company and the offices of the Chicago Defender were also located at this strategic address. 48. Ad, Indianapolis Freeman, October 22, 1910. Notably, Dorsey arranged many of Shelton Brooks’s early hits for publication. According to Cary B. Lewis, “At The Chicago Theaters,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 17, 1910: “Dorsey came to Chicago two years ago. For one year and a half he has been at the Monogram as musical director. Having a natural aptitude for music, he began to make it a study. Later he opened an office at

Notes to pages 74–77 3159 State street and went into the business of arranging songs. Since that time he has been connected with Shelton Brooks . . . He has arranged the music for ‘Some of These Days,’ ‘When the Sun Goes Down,’ ‘Mum’s a Word,’ ‘Chief Bunga Boo,’ ‘Juel,’ and ‘Just Whisper One Sweet Word to Me.’ . . . He has three other songs in preparation by Shelton Brooks.” 49. Cary B. Lewis, “At The Chicago Theaters,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 19, 1910. 50. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 30, 1909; Sylvester Russell, “Chicago Weekly Review,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 20, 1911; Abbott and Seroff, Out of Sight, 329. 51. The song was apparently a variation of Will Marion Cook’s “It’s Hard to Find a King Like Me,” which was featured in Williams & Walker’s 1905–6 “Ethiopian comic opera,” Abyssinia (Carle B. Cooke, “Professional Letter From New York,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 7, 1905). 52. “‘String Beans’ A Riot In Lexington,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 23, 1911. 53. Sylvester Russell, “Chicago Weekly Review,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 27, 1911. 54. “Cincinnati Theatres,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 3, 1911. 55. “Cincinnati, O., Show Shop News,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 10, 1911. 56. Sylvester Russell, “Chicago’s Weekly Review,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 1, 1911. 57. “Lyre Theater Louisville, Ky.,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 29, 1911. 58. “The Lyre Theater, Louisville, Ky.,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 5, 1911. 59. “Allen And Allen At The Pekin Theater, Savannah, Ga.,” Indianapolis Freeman, March 19, 1910. A coon song with a similar theme—“You all can have your yaller gals, Creoles and Octoroons . . . Gimme a kitchen mechanic for mine”—was introduced by Williams and Walker in their 1903 musical comedy production In Dahomey (Tom Logan, “I’ll Take a Kitchen Mechanic for Mine” [New York: Shapiro, Bernstein & Co., 1902]). G. W. Allen’s up-to-date take was recorded twice in 1922 by a black vocal harmony group, the Excelsior Quartette, as “Kitchen Mechanic Blues” (OKeh 8033 and Gennett 4881, both reissued on Document DOCD-5288). “Kitchen Mechanic Blues,” recorded by Clara Smith in 1925, is an unrelated song. 60. “Billy Kersands’ Minstrels,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 25, 1910. 61. “Down In Dixie Minstrels,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 5, 1910. “Casey Jones” is a topical ballad about a turn-of-the-century train wreck. It was recorded as early as

1909 by Billy Murray and the American Quartette (Victor 16483) and subsequently by many white and black artists (Meade, Spottswood, and Meade, Country Music Sources, 44–45). “Casey Jones” was performed in southern vaudeville by Virginia Liston (“At The New Crown Garden Theater,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 3, 1913); Laura Smith (“The Cincinnati Theaters,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 8, 1911); Tom Young (“Ivy Theater, Chattanooga, Tenn.,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 20, 1910); and Buzzin’ Burton (“The Alabama Blossoms At Corinth, Miss.,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 19, 1910). String Beans performed “Casey Jones” in New Orleans at the Temple Theater (“Temple Theater, New Orleans,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 12, 1910). 62. See Abbott and Seroff, “‘They Cert’ly Sound Good to Me,’” 53–55. 63. Maggio’s composition is unrelated to the 1901 Chris Smith and Elmer Bowman composition by the same name. 64. “Cincinnati Theaters,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 19, 1911. 65. Sylvester Russell, “Chicago Weekly Review,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 9, 1911. 66. “May And May,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 9, 1911. 67. Ibid. Charles O. Harding was an influential white booking agent. See Sylvester Russell, “Chicago Weekly Review,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 16, 1911. 68. “‘String Beans’ A Riot In Lexington,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 23, 1911. 69. “Lyre Theatre, Louisville, Ky.,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 30, 1911. 70. Henry “Ragtime Texas” Thomas, “Fishing Blues,” Vocalion 1249, 1928, reissued on Yazoo CD 1080/1; Lovin’ Spoonful, “Fishing Blues,” Do You Believe in Magic, Kama Sutra LP 8050, 1965; Taj Mahal, “Fishing Blues,” Giant Step/De Ole Folks at Home, Columbia LP CS9924, 1969. 71. “Still Making Good,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 28, 1911. 72. “Cincinnati Theaters—The Pekin And Gaiety,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 21, 1911. 73. Ibid. 74. “Still Making Good.” 75. Sylvester Russell, “Chicago Weekly Review,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 18, 1911. 76. Ibid. 77. Sylvester Russell, “Chicago Weekly Review,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 25, 1911.

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Notes to pages 77–81 78. “Russell’s Chicago Notes,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 18, 1911. 79. Sylvester Russell, “Chicago Weekly Review,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 2, 1911. 80. “Cincinnati Theaters—The Pekin—The Gaiety,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 2, 1911; “Cincinnati News—Theaters And Otherwise,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 16, 1911. 81. George Slaughter, “The Lyre Theatre,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 13, 1912. Nothing is known of Charles May beyond the fact that he was not one of String Beans’s brothers. 82. Geo. Slaughter, “May And May,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 13, 1912. 83. “Gossip Of The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 24, 1912. 84. “Globe Theater—Jacksonville, Fla.,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 27, 1912. 85. Sylvester Russell, “Chicago Weekly Review,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 1, 1912. The allusion to Ethiopia and the phrase “stretched forth his hand” references Psalms 68:31: “And Ethiopia shall hasten to stretch forth her hands to God.” Among African Americans, it prophesied “a grand and glorious future for the race” (“Stepping Stone To Success,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 13, 1893). The passage was brought to life on an early Freeman masthead (see Abbott and Seroff, Out of Sight, xiii). In 1915 it graced the cover of W. C. Handy’s “Hail to the Spirit of Freedom.” David Evans, who has conducted fieldwork in Ethiopia, reports that it is widely cited by modern Ethiopians, “sometimes humorously to refer to begging” (David Evans letter to the authors, August 13, 2015). 86. Sylvester Russell, “Musical And Dramatic,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 8, 1912. 87. “The New Crown Garden,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 15; 22, 1912. 88. Sylvester Russell, “Musical And Dramatic,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 17, 1912. 89. Butler May, “How To Get A Good Write Up,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 31, 1912. Dago & Russell’s (or Russell & Dago’s) was a popular State Street cabaret. 90. Sylvester Russell, “Chicago Weekly Review,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 7, 1912. 91. Cary B. Lewis, “Editor Abbott’s Visit,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 14, 1912. 92. Abbott and Seroff, Ragged but Right, 91. 93. “Gossip of the Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 21, 1912. 94. K. C. E., “The New Crown Garden,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 31, 1912.

95. K. C. E., “New Crown Garden,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 7, 1912. 96. Will E. Skidmore and Renton Tunnah, “Pray for the Lights to Go Out” (Little Rock: Skidmore Music, 1916). 97. “Pray for the Lights to Go Out,” words by Gene Cobb, music by O. F. Tiffany, July 28, 1915; “Pray for the Lights to Go Out,” words by Clyde Olney, music by Clarence Woods, September 18, 1915. Thanks to Wayne Shirley. 98. Other titles in Skidmore’s “Deacon Series” include “It Takes a Long, Tall Brown Skin Gal to Make a Preacher Lay His Bible Down,” “Somebody’s Done Me Wrong,” and “When I Get Out of No-Man’s Land (I Can’t Be Bothered with No Mule).” 99. See Abbott and Seroff, Ragged but Right. 100. “Pray for the Lights to Go Out,” George O’Connor, Columbia A2143, 1916. 101. See Meade, Spottswood, and Meade, Country Music Sources, 498. 102. Hambone Willie Newbern, “Nobody Knows (What the Good Deacon Does),” OKeh 8679, 1929, reissued on Document DOCD-5003. An ad for the Perry Bradford Music Publishing Company, Indianapolis Freeman, November 17, 1917, listed “There’s No One Knows What Deacon Jones Did Do, Ah Lawd, When the Lights Went Out,” described as “a down home shout.” 103. “Pray for the Lights to Go Out,” Golden Gate Quartet, Columbia 37499, 1947, reissued on Document DOCD-5638. Orlandus Wilson notes from a conversation with Doug Seroff, April 8, 1994; Orlandus Wilson interviewed by Doug Seroff, February 24, 1995. 104. O. H. Daniels, “Criterion Theater, Kansas City, Mo.,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 28, 1912. 105. “From May And May,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 4, 1913. 106. Cary B. Lewis, “Music And Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 11, 1913. 107. Cary B. Lewis, “Music And Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 18, 1913. 108. Carey B. Lewis, “The Grand Theater,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 25, 1913. 109. “Gossip of the Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 17, 1913; “New Orleans (La.) Theaters,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 31, 1913. 110. Block ad, “Look What Has Happened,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 5, 1913. 111. “String Beans Takes A New Partner,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 19, 1913. 112. Ibid.

Notes to pages 81–88 113. Walker W. Thomas, “Pensacola, Fla., Theatrical News,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 1, 1913. 114. Ad, Indianapolis Freeman, January 24, 1914. 115. Sylvester Russell, “Chicago Weekly Review,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 17, 1914. 116. May and May, “Essie [sic] May, Butler May,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 24, 1914. 117. “New Crown Garden Theater,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 24, 1914. 118. “The New Crown Garden Theatre, Tim E. Owsley, Prop.,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 31, 1914. 119. T. E. Price, “Bessemer, Ala.,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 31, 1914. 120. M. R. Smith, “May & May Will Head Big Company,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 7, 1914. 121. “The Pekin, The Lincoln, Cincinnati, Ohio,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 7, 1914. 122. “The Pekin, Dayton, Ohio,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 21, 1914. 123. “Gossip of the Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 28, 1914. 124. Sylvester Russell, “Chicago Weekly Review,” Indianapolis Freeman, March 7, 1914. 125. Herbert T. Meadows, “St. Louis News,” Indianapolis Freeman, March 21, 1914. 126. “Gossip of the Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, March 28, 1914. 127. “‘String Beans,’ Comedian of Color, Much Sought,” Louisville Herald, March 26, 1914. Thanks to Pen Bogert. 128. Docket 85099, Jefferson Circuit Court, Common Pleas Branch, Commonwealth of Kentucky. Thanks to Pen Bogert. 129. “With the Law and the Lawyers,” Louisville Leader, April 18, 1914. Thanks to Pen Bogert. 130. Sylvester Russell, “Chicago Weekly Review,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 16, 1914. 131. In writing Butler May’s obituary, Billy E. Lewis finally spelled it out: “He was said to be at times cruel to women; it may be so, but he was fine among men” (Billy Lewis, “String Beans Passed,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 24, 1917). 132. Sylvester Russell, “Chicago Weekly Review,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 25, 1914. 133. Sylvester Russell, “Chicago Weekly Review,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 21, 1914. 134. Abbe Niles, “Notes to the Collection,” in W. C. Handy, ed., Blues: An Anthology (New York: Albert & Charles Boni, 1926), 43. Race recordings of “Blind Man Blues” include Katie Crippen, Black Swan 2003, 1921, reissued on Document DOCD-5342; and

Sara Martin, OKeh 8090, 1923, reissued on Document DOCD5396. Also related are Blind Lemon Jefferson, “Bad Luck Blues,” Paramount 12443, 1926, reissued on Document DOCD-5017; and the “answer song” by Hattie Hudson, “Doggone My Good Luck Soul,” Columbia 14279-D, 1927, reissued on Document DOCD5163. Thanks to David Evans. 135. “String Beans Stopped The Cars,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 2, 1914. 136. “At The New Crown Garden Theatre,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 16, 1914. 137. Marshall and Jean Stearns, “Frontiers of Humor: American Vernacular Dance,” Southern Folklore Quarterly 30, no. 3 (September 1966): 228–29. In a 1960 interview with Herb Abramson, Jodie “Butterbeans” Edwards also likened String Beans to Ray Charles. 138. “At The New Crown Garden Theatre.” 139. “Stage Notes,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 30, 1915. 140. “What’s Doing on the Dudley Circuit,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 23, 1914. 141. Arthur Porter, “Cincinnati, O. Theatricals,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 23, 1914. 142. Price & Porter, “Cincinnati, Ohio Theatrical Budget,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 30, 1914. 143. Clay Price and Arthur Porter, “Cincinnati (O.) News,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 6, 1914. 144. Sylvester Russell, “Chicago Weekly Review,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 13, 1914. 145. Sylvester Russell, “Chicago Weekly Review,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 20, 1914. 146. “The Arrants,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 14, 1914. 147. “Billing The Arrants,” Indianapolis Freeman, March 14, 1914. 148. The Mule, “Atlanta Show Shop,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 29, 1914. 149. “Billy Arnte Not Dead,” Chicago Defender, December 30, 1922. 150. “Gossip of the Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 18, 1914; “Champion Theatre, Birmingham, Alabama,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 25, 1914. 151. The Mule, “Atlanta, Ga.,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 1, 1914. 152. “String Beans, the Big Noise—People Mad to See Him,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 8, 1914. 153. The Mule, “Atlanta Show Shops,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 11, 1914. Cow Cow Davenport, a conspicuous heir to the early vaudeville blues treasury, recorded “What It Takes” for Gennett in 1925 (unissued).

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Notes to pages 88–93 154. Mule Bradford, “The Good Book Says ‘Thou Shalt Not Steal,’” Indianapolis Freeman, October 16, 1915. 155. “Mule Bradford Says String Beans Stole His Song,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 26, 1917. 156. “Stage Notes,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 30, 1915. Baby Mack continued to chart a successful career. She recorded for OKeh in 1926, accompanied by Louis Armstrong and Richard M. Jones. She also recorded duets with Sam Robinson. Her solo recordings and some of the duets are reissued on Document DOCD-5390. 157. Block ad, “Hey There! Where?” Indianapolis Freeman, September 5, 1914. 158. “Champion Theatre, Birmingham, Ala.,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 10, 1914. 159. “Gossip Of The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 10, 1914. 160. “New Crown Garden Theater,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 29, 1913; “Miss Ella Goodloe Now On Successful Vaudeville Tour,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 20, 1913. 161. “Champion Theatre, Birmingham, Ala.,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 10, 1914. 162. Sylvester Russell, “Chicago Weekly Review,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 31, 1914. 163. Ibid. 164. Columbus Bragg, “On And Off The Stroll,” Chicago Defender, October 31, 1914. 165. Price & Porter, “Playing Cincinnati, O.,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 7, 1914. 166. Sylvester Russell, “Chicago Weekly Review,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 5, 1914. The article by “another newspaper man” has yet to be unearthed. 167. Butler May, “String Beans Denies He Used Smut In Chicago,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 12, 1914. 168. Will M. Lewis, “Annual Review Of The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 16, 1915. 169. W. Kid Jines, “Weekly Reviews From Memphis, Tenn.,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 12, 1914; “What’s What On The S. H. Dudley Circuit,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 26, 1914. 170. “Cincinnati (O.) Theatrical Notes,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 6, 1913. 171. Sylvester Russell, “Chicago Weekly Review,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 25, 1913. 172. “Gossip of the Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 14, 1914. Both notices appeared simultaneously in the same column.

173. “Gossip of the Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 19, 1914. 174. J. H. Gray, “Gibson’s New Standard Theatre, Philadelphia,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 9, 23, 1915. 175. Lester A. Walton, “‘Stringbeans’ In A Clean Act; Carita Day Shines Brilliantly,” New York Age, January 21, 1915. 176. “‘Stringbeans’ A Riot,” New York Age, January 28, 1915. 177. Sylvester Russell, “Chicago Weekly Review,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 20, 1915. 178. Porter & Brown, “Cincinnati News,” Indianapolis Freeman, March 20, 1915. The full title of Minor’s song was alternately given as “If Luck Don’t Change, There’s Going to Be Some Stealing Done” or “If Luck Don’t Change, There’ll Be Some Stealing Done” (“The Union Theater, Indianapolis,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 20, 1912; The Mule, “Atlanta, Ga.,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 1, 1914; “Stage Notes,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 18, 1916). As early as 1907, this same title was credited to David D. Smith, a comedian and quartet singer with the Billy Kersands Minstrels (“The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 12, 1907; “Billy Kersands Minstrels,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 25, 1908). Blind Willie McTell’s 1929 recording, “Love Changing Blues” (Victor 38580, reissued on Document DOCD-5006) seems to be related to these earlier titles. 179. “String Beans And Sweetie May And Gray And Dunlop At Star Theatre Pittsburgh,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 3, 1915. 180. “Gray & Dunlop Great Favorites At Philadelphia,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 17, 1915. 181. “Gibson’s New Standard Theatre, Philadelphia, Pa.,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 17, 1915. 182. “Gibson’s New Standard Theatre, Philadelphia, Pa.,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 24, 1915. 183. S. H. Dudley, “What’s What On The S. H. Dudley Circuit—Week of May 10, 1915,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 15, 1915. 184. “What’s What On The S. H. Dudley Circuit—Week of April 26, 1915,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 1, 1915. 185. L. B. Mound, “Movies And Vaudeville At The Douglass Theatre, Macon, Ga.,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 26, 1916; see Waters with Samuels, 75. 186. “‘Stringbeans’ In Town,” New York Age, May 27, 1915. The “airship” reference harks back to Ernest Hogan, who in 1907 abandoned his most successful musical comedy production Rufus Rastus mid-season in order to pursue a delusory hot air balloon enterprise. For more about this, see Abbott and Seroff, Ragged but Right, 51.

Notes to pages 93–99 187. “Dudley Bookings Good Attractions,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 12, 1915. 188. “‘Happy Days,’” New York Age, June 10, 1915. 189. Sylvester Russell, “Chicago Weekly Review,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 20, 1915. 190. Salem Tutt Whitney, “Seen and Heard While Passing,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 12, 1915. For more on Whitney, see Abbott and Seroff, Ragged but Right. 191. Billy E. Jones, “New York News,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 19, 1915. 192. Salem Tutt Whitney, “Seen and Heard While Passing,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 26, 1915. 193. Salem Tutt Whitney, “Seen and Heard While Passing,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 3, 1915. 194. “Mule And Jeanette Bradford Drawing Large Crowds At Gibson’s Standard Theater,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 31, 1915. 195. “Stage Gossip,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 7, 1915. 196. Frank Montgomery, “Frank Montgomery Very Much Alive,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 14, 1915. 197. Salem Tutt Whitney, “Seen and Heard While Passing,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 14, 1915. 198. “Stage Gossip,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 28, 1915; H. Woodard, “See The Attractions At The Douglass, Macon, Ga.,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 18, 1915. 199. Mr. Wm. Benbow, “Wm. Benbow And String Beans At Tampa Fla.,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 18, 1915. 200. Butterbeans and Susie, “Get Yourself A Monkey Man, Make Him Strut His Stuff,” OKeh 8147, 1924, reissued on Document DOCD-5544; Viola McCoy and Billy Higgins, “Get Yourself A Monkey Man And Make Him Strut His Stuff,” Vocalion 14912, 1924, reissued on Document DOCD-5417. 201. Howard W. Odum and Guy B. Johnson, Negro Workaday Songs (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1926), 173. 202. See Madelyn Greene & the 3 Varieties, “Sally Won’t You Come Back (to Our Alley),” Bluebird 11126, 1941. 203. “The Exchange Theater At Jacksonville, Fla.,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 6, 1909; “Colored Aristocracy Minstrels,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 29, 1910. 204. Frankie “Half Pint” Jaxon, “Fan It,” Banner 32524, 1928; Vocalion 1257, 1929, both reissued on Document DOCD-5258. 205. Herbert T. Meadows, “St. Louis Theatrical Notes,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 30, 1915. 206. “String Beans Packs Booker Washington In St. Louis,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 6, 1915.

207. “Big Times At The Crown Garden, Indianapolis, This Week,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 13, 1915. 208. Viola McCoy, “I Don’t Want Nobody (That Don’t Want Me),” Vocalion 14818, 1924; Viola McCoy and Billy Higgins, “I Don’t Want Nobody (That Don’t Want Me),” Ajax 17069, 1924, both reissued on Document DOCD-5417. 209. Ida Cox, “I Love My Man Better Than I Love Myself,” Paramount 12056, 1923, reissued on Document DOCD-5322. 210. Ida Cox, “Any Woman’s Blues,” Paramount 12053, 1923, reissued on Document DOCD-5322; Bessie Smith, “Any Woman’s Blues,” Columbia 13001-D, 1923, reissued on Frog DGF-41. Other recordings that include the “better than I love myself ” refrain include Anna Bell, “Every Woman Blues,” QRS R7007, 1928, reissued on Document 5375; Texas Alexander, “98 Degree Blues,” OKeh 8705, 1929; Skip James, “Cherry Ball Blues,” Paramount 13065, 1931, reissued on Yazoo CD 2009, and more (see also Michael Taft, Prewar Blues Lyric Poetry: A Web Concordance, http://www.dylan61.se/michael%20taft,%20 blues%20anthology.txt.WebConcordance/framconc.htm). Two later renditions of “I Love My Man Better Than I Love Myself ” by Cow Cow Davenport’s last wife Peggy Taylor are preserved on home-recorded acetates made sometime during the 1940s; issued on Document DOCD-5586. Cow Cow accompanies Taylor on piano. In their 1926 book, Negro Workaday Songs, Howard W. Odum and Guy B. Johnson used the “I Love My Man” stanza to “illustrate generally the interplay between the folk blues and the formal blues.” They cite a recording of “Any Woman’s Blues” as its source (Odum and Johnson, Negro Workaday Songs, 1926), 25–26. 211. “Queen Theatre, Chattanooga,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 23, 1916. 212. “Palace Theatre, Augusta, Ga.,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 10, 1918. 213. Ad, Indianapolis Freeman, November 20, 1915. 214. “String Beans And His High Life Set,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 18, 1915. 215. “Mr. and Mrs. Vernon Castle Visit Lafayette Theatre,” New York Age, December 9, 1915. 216. Ad, Indianapolis Freeman, January 1, 1916. 217. Ibid.; J. H. Gray, “Gibson’s New Standard Theater, Philadelphia, Pa.,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 8, 1916. 218. J. H. Gray, “Gibson’s New Standard Theater, Philadelphia,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 22, 1916. 219. “Model Stock Company At Dallas, Tex.,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 29, 1911. 220. Ad, “Stringbeans,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 5, 1916.

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Notes to pages 99–106 221. Sylvester Russell, “Chicago Weekly Review,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 12, 1916. 222. Billy Lewis, “String Beans Still At Washington Theater, Indianapolis, Ind.,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 21, 1916. 223. “String Beans In Chicago Turning Them Away,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 12, 1916. 224. Sylvester Russell, “Chicago Weekly Review,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 19, 1916. 225. Salem Tutt Whitney, “Seen and Heard While Passing,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 19, 1916. 226. Salem Tutt Whitney, “Seen and Heard While Passing,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 23, 1916. 227. Ad, “Stringbeans,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 19, 1916. 228. Ad, Indianapolis Freeman, March 18, 1916, identified Archie Jones thusly. See Abbott and Seroff, Ragged but Right, 231, for more about Archie Jones’s “Hebrew impersonations.” 229. “String Beans And Company A Big Hit In Louisville, Ky.,” Indianapolis Freeman, March 4, 1916. 230. “String Beans At The Ruby Theater, Louisville, Ky.,” Indianapolis Freeman, March 11, 1916. 231. Buddie (S. A.) Austin, “The 81 Theatre, Atlanta, Ga.,” Indianapolis Freeman, March 18, 1916. 232. “String Beans Still Holds His Reputation,” Indianapolis Freeman, March 25, 1916. See also Ralph Matthews, “Clarence Muse Writes Book On Theatre,” Baltimore Afro-American, July 23, 1932. 233. “Atlanta, Ga.,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 1, 1916. 234. “The 81 Theatre, Atlanta, Ga.,” Indianapolis Freeman, March 18, 1916. 235. Waters with Samuels, 89. 236. “String Beans And Benbow,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 5, 1916; “String Beans And Benbow’s Big Review Packing The Booker Washington Theater,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 19, 1916. 237. “Woolen’s [sic] Bon Tons,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 26, 1916. For more about Wooden’s Bon Tons, an offshoot of Alexander Tolliver’s Big Show, see Abbott and Seroff, Ragged but Right. 238. Baby Benbow was a woman of many aliases: Robbie Lee Peoples, Robbie Lee Cox, Baby McGarr, Baby Ali, Baby Carre, and others. According to one source, her maiden name was Margaret Barbara Lee Carr (Bob Eagle and Eric S. LeBlanc, Blues—A Regional Experience [Santa Barbara: Praeger, 2013], 508). While the matter could be clearer, it is most likely that she was the artist who recorded for OKeh in 1923 as Baby Benbow (OKeh 8098, reissued on Document DOCD-5506).

239. “String Beans And Benbow.” 240. “The String Beans And Benbow’s Big Review In Indianapolis,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 26, 1916. 241. Ibid. 242. “String Beans And Benbow.” 243. Ibid. 244. “The String Beans And Benbow’s Big Review In Indianapolis.” 245. “About Beans And Benbow Co.,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 26, 1916. 246. “Stage Notes,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 9, 1916. 247. Chas. T. Kirkman, “Detroit Theatrical News,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 16, 1916. 248. “String Beans And Benbow,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 14, 1916. The Crown Garden was renamed the Washington Theater following renovation in 1916. 249. Ibid. 250. Ibid. 251. “String Beans And Benbow,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 14, 1916. Overstreet does not appear to have traveled with the Review. 252. Billy Lewis, “String Beans And His Future,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 14, 1916. Testimony to the potency of String Beans’s personal style was provided by Jelly Roll Morton, who informed Alan Lomax that: “[String Beans] always wore a big diamond in his front tooth. He was the first guy I ever saw with a diamond in his mouth, and I guess I got the idea for my diamond from him” (William Russell, “Oh, Mister Jelly”: A Jelly Roll Morton Scrapbook [Copenhagen: JazzMedia, 1998], 50; “Unrecorded Interview Material and Research Notes by Alan Lomax, 1938–1946” [PDF file on Disc 8 of Jelly Roll Morton: The Complete Library of Congress Recordings by Alan Lomax, Rounder 11661–1888–2, 2005], 189). 253. Billy Lewis, “String Beans Still At Washington Theater, Indianapolis, Ind.,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 21, 1916. 254. Billy Lewis, “String Beans And Benbow,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 21, 1916. This review identified the remaining members of the Beans and Benbow Review as Ethel Hudson, Marie Burton, Marion Taylor, Ethel Williams, Roy Rush, Willie Rush, Harold Williams, and Jerry Reed. The latter four constituted the company quartet. 255. Russell, “Oh, Mister Jelly,” 50–51. Compare with “Unrecorded Interview Material and Research Notes,” 189. 256. “Morton & Morton,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 13, 1914. 257. Sylvester Russell, “Musical And Dramatic,” Chicago Defender, April 22, 1911.

Notes to pages 106–111 258. Sylvester Russell, “Chicago Weekly Review,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 7, 1911. 259. Sylvester Russell, “Chicago Weekly Review,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 5, 1912. 260. Ibid.; Cary B. Lewis, “Byron Brothers Have Return Engagement at the Grand . . . ,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 5, 1913; “Ruby Theater, Louisville, Ky.,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 26, 1913; “Dramatic Notes,” Chicago Defender, November 1, 1913. In 1922, Tony Langston wrote: “Shelton Brooks, now recognized by the fair-minded as the Race’s leading comedian . . . is a classic in blackface. Shelton Brooks is the only artist in vaudeville who is able to hit with a single, using a piano. . . . As a story teller Mr. Brooks has no superiors and the beauty of his work lies in the fact that he is original throughout. . . . He sings songs of his own composition.” (Tony Langston, “Shelton Brooks Is Feature at the Avenue . . . ,” Chicago Defender, April 22, 1922). 261. Sylvester Russell, “Chicago Weekly Review,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 19, 1916; “String Beans,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 19, 1916. 262. “Routes,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 28, November 4, 1916; “News Of The Players,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 4, 1916. 263. Jode, “Cincinnati, O., Show Talk,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 2, 1916. 264. Ibid. 265. Sylvester Russell, “Chicago Weekly Review,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 30, 1916. 266. J. H. Gray, “Gibson’s New Standard Theater,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 20, 1917. 267. “News Of The Players,” Indianapolis Freeman, March 3, 1917. 268. Sylvester Russell, “Chicago Weekly Review,” Indianapolis Freeman, March 17, 1917. 269. Sylvester Russell, “Chicago Weekly Review,” Indianapolis Freeman, March 24, 1917. 270. Ibid. 271. “Big Vaudeville Bill At Washington Theater, Indianapolis,” Indianapolis Freeman, March 31, 1917. 272. “Vaudeville Still Going Big At Washington Theater, Indianapolis,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 7, 1917. 273. “String Beans Takes Old Cincinnati, Ohio, By Storm,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 7, 1917. 274. Ibid. 275. Billy Lewis, “The Smart Set Company,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 21, 1917. 276. “Cincy Theatrical Notes,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 14, 1917.

277. Sylvester Russell, “Chicago Weekly Review,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 3, 1917. Blanche “Billie” Young was the namesake daughter of famed minstrel performer “Clever” Billy Young (“Stage Gossip,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 28, 1915). She is probably the Billie Young who recorded with Jelly Roll Morton in 1930 (Robert M. W. Dixon, John Godrich, and Howard Rye, Blues & Gospel Records 1890–1943, 4th ed. [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997], 1069). Chicago Defender reporter Bob Hayes noted her death in his “Here And There” column of May 4, 1940. For more on Billie Young, see “Secrets of Love, Struggles, Disappointments and heartbreaks of Comedienne Revealed in Diary,” “Billie Young Took Name From Father,” Baltimore Afro-American, January 9, 1932 (Black Studies Center, ProQuest), noted in Eagle and LeBlanc, Blues: A Regional Experience, 406. For more on the third member of the original Jazz Girls, Eloise Johnson, see “Eloise B. Scott remembers a Great theatrical era,” Daily Defender, December 24, 1975; and “88 Year Old Eloise Scott Remembers Vaudeville,” Pittsburgh Courier, January 21, 1978 (Black Studies Center, ProQuest). 278. “News Of The Players,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 2, 1917. 279. Jack Trotter, “New York Notes of Stage And Sport,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 16, 1917. 280. Salem Tutt Whitney, “Seen And Heard While Passing,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 2, 1917. 281. “String Beans And Benbow,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 5, 1916. 282. Block ad, “New Lincoln Theatre,” Baltimore Afro-American, June 16, 1917. 283. “‘Stringbeans’ Joins C. W. Park’s Colored Aristocrats,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 21, 1917. 284. Ibid. See also Abbott and Seroff, Ragged but Right. 285. Block ad, “All Next Week—the original Smart Set Co.,” Norfolk Journal and Guide, June 30, 1917; “The Smart Set,” Norfolk Journal and Guide, June 30, 1917. 286. “News Of The Players,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 18, 1917. 287. William B. Smith, “Colored Aristocrats Makes [sic] Effort To Quiet Race Riot,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 1, 1917. 288. Ibid. 289. David P. Dorsey, “Pittsburgh (Pa.) Stage Notes,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 1, 1917. 290. “The Blue Grass State,” Chicago Defender, September 8, 1917. 291. Ad, Nashville Globe, September 7, 1917; “Theatricals,” Nashville Globe, September 14, 1917. See Abbott and Seroff, Ragged but Right, 148–49, for more about this engagement.

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Notes to pages 111–116 292. “News Of The Players,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 29, 1917. “Pork Chop’s” (or “Pork Chops’s”) real name was Roy Gibson (“J. A. Jackson’s Page,” “The Walter L. Main Band And Minstrel,” Billboard, May 27, 1922; “J. A. Jackson’s Page,” “Here And There Among The Folks,” Billboard, September 16, 1922). 293. Jodie and Susie Edwards interviewed by Herb Abramson and others, 1960 (Hogan Jazz Archive via GHB Foundation). Press reports suggest that the first time Edwards and Edwards appeared as a team was March 1917 at the Douglass Theater in Macon, Georgia, as members of the Tolliver Smart Set (Belfair [sic] Washington, “Tolliver’s Big Show,” Indianapolis Freeman, March 24, 1917; Abbott and Seroff, Ragged but Right, 149). 294. “String Beans In Atlanta, Ga.,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 6, 1917. 295. “A Note Or Two,” Chicago Defender, October 20, 1917. 296. “A Note Or Two,” Chicago Defender, November 3, 1917. 297. “A Letter,” Chicago Defender, November 17, 1917. 298. “Famous Comedian Passes Away. Butler May, A Native of Montgomery, Dies In Jacksonville, Fla.,” Montgomery Emancipator, November 24, 1917. The house where the funeral was reportedly held has since been demolished, the property absorbed into the campus of Alabama State University. Thanks to Joey Brackner. 299. “‘String Beans’ May Famous Comedian Dies in Florida,” Montgomery Times, November 21, 1917. 300. Sylvester Russell, “Chicago Stage Notes And Other Comment,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 15, 1917. 301. Frank S. Reed, “The One And Only ‘String Beans’ Laid To Rest At His Home In Montgomery, Ala.,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 1, 1917. 302. W. M. Benbow, “A Tribute To My Pal ‘String Beans,’” Indianapolis Freeman, December 1, 1917. 303. Salem Tutt Whitney, “Seen and Heard While Passing,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 1, 1917. 304. “Final Curtain Rings Down on 3 Actors,” Chicago Defender, November 24, 1917. 305. Eleanor Wilson Morton, “A Tribute,” Chicago Defender, December 8, 1917. 306. “Note Or Two,” Chicago Defender, August 27, 1921; “The Standard,” Chicago Defender, August 30, 1924; Bob Hayes, “Here and There With Bob Hayes,” Chicago Defender, September 15, 1928. See also “‘Bonnie Bell’ Drew Is Dead,” Chicago Defender, March 25, 1944 (Black Studies Center, ProQuest). 307. Bob Hayes, “Here and There With Bob Hayes,” Chicago Defender, February 28, 1942 (Black Studies Center, ProQuest).

308. “Edwards And Edwards,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 26, 1918. 309. Jodie and Susie Edwards interviewed by Herb Abramson and others. Jodie Edwards claimed that southern theater owners were resistant to the idea of billing him as “Butterbeans”: “they wouldn’t do it. Because they was afraid that if we get to drawing, we wanted that big money, and they didn’t want to do it, so they wouldn’t do it for a year. We’d go back to them towns, and they wouldn’t bill us like that.” Newspaper commentaries from the period in question tend to bear out his assertion. 310. “At The Star,” Pittsburgh Courier, November 17, 1923. 311. Sylvester Russell, “Chicago Weekly Review,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 6, 1918. 312. “Theatrical News Of The Metropolitan Theater, Memphis, Tenn.,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 6, 1918; “What The Show Folk Are Doing In Memphis,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 6, 1918. 313. “Butter Beans & Hawthorne,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 9, 1918. 314. Salem Tutt Whitney, “Seen and Heard While Passing,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 1, 1917. For example, Butler May is not included in Sheldon Harris’s Blues Who’s Who, A Biographical Dictionary of Blues Singers (New York: Da Capo Press, 1979). 315. Abbe Niles, “Ballads, Songs And Snatches,” The Bookman 67, no. 3 (May 1928): 290–91, noted with commentary in Elliott S. Hurwitt, “Abbe Niles, Blues Advocate,” in Evans, ed., Ramblin’ on My Mind, 115–16. 316. In light of other things that Morton told Lomax about String Beans during the Library of Congress interview, it is unfortunate that Lomax did not delve further. Lomax’s Mister Jelly Roll mentions String Beans only once in passing (143). For additional mentions of String Beans in the Morton-Lomax interview sessions, see Russell, “Oh, Mister Jelly,” 46–52; “Unrecorded Interview Material and Research Notes,” 187–89, 199. 317. Marshall and Jean Stearns, “Frontiers of Humor,” 227–35. 318. See Seroff and Abbott, “The Life and Death of Pioneer Bluesman Butler ‘String Beans’ May”; Abbott and Seroff, “‘They Cert’ly Sound Good to Me.’” 319. Marshall and Jean Stearns, “Frontiers of Humor,” 238. Ethel Waters accurately identifies String Beans as Butler May in His Eye Is on the Sparrow, 89. 320. The Titanic went down on April 15, 1912. Beans’s “Titanic Blues” was first noted in Walker W. Thomas, “Pensacola, Fla.,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 1, 1913. 321. Abbe Niles, “Ballads, Songs and Snatches,” The Bookman 67, no. 3 (May 1928): 290–91.

Notes to pages 116–120 322. Dorothy Scarborough, From a Southern Porch, 1919, quoted in Roger D. Abrahams, preface to 1963 reprint edition of Dorothy Scarborough, On The Trail Of Negro Folksongs (1925; Hatboro: Folklore Associates, 1963), vi–vii. 323. Essential studies of “Shine and the Titanic” are included in Roger D. Abrahams, Deep Down in the Jungle: Negro Narrative Folklore from the Streets of Philadelphia (1963; Chicago: Aldine, 1970), and Bruce Jackson, “Get Your Ass in the Water and Swim Like Me”: Narrative Poetry from Black Oral Tradition (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1974). David Evans draws on these sources to define “Shine” as “a sort of black Everyman” (Big Road Blues, 292). 324. As interpreted by blues-minstrel Jim Jackson (“Traveling Man,” Victor 38517, 1928, reissued on Document DOCD5115): The policeman got right in after this man, He run and jumped on the Titanic ship And started up that ocean blue. He look out and spied that big iceberg, And right overboard he flew. All the white ladies on the deck of that ship Said that man certainly was a fool. But when that Titanic ship went down He’s shooting craps in Liverpool. In Luke Jordan’s recording of “Traveling Coon” (Victor 20957, 1927, reissued on Document DOCD-5045), the black protagonist is identified as “Shine.” For more on “Traveling Coon,” see Paul Oliver, Songsters and Saints: Vocal Traditions on Race Records (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 93–95. For a guide to country music recordings of “Traveling Coon”/“Traveling Man,” see Meade, Spottswood, and Meade, Country Music Sources, 510. 325. R. W. Thompson, “Short Flights,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 20, 1912. 326. Robert Johnson, “Walking Blues,” Vocalion 03601, 1936, reissued on Columbia C2K 46222; Blind Lemon Jefferson, “Change My Luck Blues,” Paramount 12639, 1928, reissued on Document DOCD-5019. 327. Sippie Wallace, “Off and On Blues,” OKeh 8197, 1924, reissued on Document DOCD-5399; Sodarisa Miller, “Broadway Daddy Blues,” Paramount 12261, 1924, reissued on Document DOCD-5497; Edmonia Henderson, “Brownskin Man,” Paramount 12095, 1924, reissued on Document DOCD-5513; Eva Taylor, “Everybody Loves My Baby,” OKeh 8181, 1924, reissued

on Classics 679; Trixie Smith, “Everybody Loves My Baby,” Paramount 12249, 1925, reissued on Document DOCD-5333. 328. Jenkins and Jenkins, “Sister, It’s Too Bad,” Columbia 14100-D, 1925, reissued on Document DOCD-5481; Clara Smith, “I’m Tired of Being Good,” Columbia 14117-D, 1925, reissued on Document DOCD-5366. 329. The Pine Mountain Boys (Dock Walsh and Garley Foster), “Wild Women Blues,” Victor 23592, 1931. 330. Peg Leg Howell, “Papa Stobb Blues,” Columbia 14238, 1927; and “Fairy Blues,” Columbia 14356-D, 1928, both reissued on Matchbox MBCD-2004. 331. Blind Blake, “Panther Squall Blues,” Paramount 12723, 1928, reissued on Document DOCD-5025; Barbecue Bob, “She Moves It Just Right,” Columbia 14546-D, 1929, reissued on Document DOCD-5048; Feathers And Frogs, “How You Get That Way,” Paramount 12812, 1929, reissued on Document DOCD-5370. 332. Rob Robinson and Meade Lux Lewis, “I Got Some of That,” Paramount 13028, 1930, reissued on Document DOCD-5314. 333. Charley Jordan, “Got Your Water On,” ARC 6–06–61, 1936, reissued on Document DOCD-5099. 334. Trixie Butler, “Take It Easy Greasy,” Bluebird 6392, 1936, reissued on Document DOCD-5295. A much later allusion crops up in Arthur “Big Boy” Spires, “About to Lose My Mind,” Chance 1137, 1953: “She got eyes like diamonds / Her teeth shine just the same / She got a Elgin movement / And hair like a horse’s mane.” 335. “The Dixie Theater, Charlotte, N. C.,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 26, 1910. 336. Davenport and Carr, “Alabama Mis-Treater,” OKeh 8306, 1926, reissued on Document DOCD-5141. 337. Cow Cow Davenport, “Alabama Mistreater,” Vocalion 1227, 1928, reissued on Document DOCD-5141. 338. Lomax, Mister Jelly Roll, 144–45. 339. Cleo Gibson, “I’ve Got Ford Movements in My Hips,” OKeh 8700, 1929, reissued on Document DOCD-5471. 340. R. T. Hanen, “She’s Got Jordan River in her Hips,” Victor 23288, 1931, reissued on RST BDCD-6015. 341. Washboard Sam, “River Hip Mama,” Bluebird 9039, 1942, reissued on Document DOCD-5176. 342. Count Basie, as told to Albert Murray, Good Morning Blues (New York: Random House, 1985), 98. 343. Stanley Crouch, “Body and Soul,” in Notes of a Hanging Judge: Essays and Reviews, 1979–1989 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 245. 344. Buddy Guy, “American Bandstand,” Chess (originally unissued), 1963. It is included on MCA/Chess CHD2–9337. 345. “Ship-Wreck Blues” seemingly appropriates the melody of “Titanic, Fare Thee Well.” Compare it with Virginia

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Notes to pages 120–121 Liston’s 1926 recording of her stage hit of 1913, “Titanic Blues” (Vocalion 1031). The melody of “The Long Lost Blues” is likewise recognizable as “Keep A-Knocking.” 346. Haenschen’s Orchestra, “Sunset Medley,” Columbia Personal 60782, 1916, reissued on Archeophone 1003 (this unique recording, which features a piano accompanied by traps, unites “A Bunch of Blues” with “Babes in the Woods”); Handy’s Orchestra of Memphis, “A Bunch of Blues,” Columbia A-2418, 1917, reissued on Memphis Archives MA7006; Original Memphis Five, “A Bunch of Blues,” Edison 51246, 1923. 347. Billie Young, “When They Get Lovin’ They’s Gone,” Victor 23339 (take 2), 1930, reissued on Document DOCD-5573. 348. David Evans letter to the authors, August 7, 2015. 349. Charlie Davenport, “Atlanta Rag,” Gennett 6869, 1929, reissued on Document DOCD-5141. 350. Cow Cow Davenport, “Cow Cow Blues,” Vocalion 1198, 1928, reissued on Document DOCD-5141. String Beans’s influence on Davenport is also manifest in Davenport’s well-documented piano dance stage act, which he almost certainly appropriated from Beans’s famous dancing pianologue. See Ernest Session, “The Lyric,” Chicago Defender, October 20, 1923; Gang Jines, “Turpin’s House,” Chicago Defender, May 2, 1925. 351. The figure appears at the beginning of George H. Tremer’s “Spirit Of ’49 Rag” (Gennett 6242, 1927, reissued on Document DOCD-5590), in a declaratively ragtime setting. Examples of blues piano recordings that begin with the “String Beans Blues” theme include pianist Jimmy Flowers’s introduction to Frankie Jaxon’s 1929 hit “Fan It” (Vocalion 1257, reissued on Document DOCD-5258); and Pinetop Burks’s “Sun Down Blues” (Vocalion 04107, 1937, reissued on Document DOCD-5232). 352. Examples range from Q. Roscoe Snowden’s restrained 1923 piano solo “Deep Sea Blues” (OKeh 8119, reissued on Document DOCD-5336), to Clarence Profit Trio, “Down Home” (Brunswick, 1939, originally unreleased, issued on Document DOCD-5656), to Texas barrelhouse blues pianist Wilson “Thunder” Smith’s post–World War II recording “Little Mama Boogie” (Aladdin 166, 1946, reissued on Imperial LP 9180), to white ragtime specialist Johnny Maddox’s 1950s showpiece “Johnny Maddox Special” (Dot 15021, 1952, reissued on Dot LP 3000). “Johnny Maddox Special” may be the latest recorded example of the “String Beans Blues” theme. In a 2014 conversation with Doug Seroff, Maddox was unable to identify the source of his inspiration for the lick. The same figure is heard on Sammie Lewis & Mandy Randolph’s 1923 recording “I Got Another Lovin’ Daddy” (Gennett Special 11427, reissued on Document DOCD-5481).

353. Moon Mullican, “Grandpa Stole My Baby,” King 1244, 1953, reissued on Western LP 2001. 354. “Jim Jackson’s Jamboree—Part I,” Vocalion 1428, 1929, reissued on Document DOCD-5115. The figure is also present in several of Speckled Red’s own recordings, including “House Dance Blues” (Brunswick 7137, 1929) and “St. Louis Stomp” (Bluebird 7985, 1938), both reissued on Document DOCD5205. 355. Charlie Spand, “Mississippi Blues,” unissued Paramount test pressing, 1929, released on Document DOCD-5150; “Moanin’ The Blues,” Paramount 12856, 1929, reissued on Document DOCD-5108. Note that the String Beans figure does not appear on the issued take of “Mississippi Blues” (Paramount 12917, reissued on Document DOCD-5108). 356. Blind Blake (with Charlie Spand), “Hastings St.,” Paramount 12863, 1929, reissued on Document DOCD-5108. 357. See Blind Blake, “Too Tight Blues No. 2,” Paramount 12824, 1929, reissued on Document DOCD-5026. Blake uses the same figure on “Too Tight,” Paramount 12431, 1926, reissued on Document DOCD-5024. Variations can also be heard on Blake’s “Tampa Bound,” Paramount 12442, 1926; and “Stonewall Street Blues,” Paramount 12431, 1926, both reissued on DOCD-5024. See also Chris Smith’s liner notes to Document DOCD-5277, regarding the “String Beans Blues” introduction to “Hometown Skiffle—Part II,” Paramount 12886, 1929. 358. Johnny Dunn’s Original Jazz Hounds, “Hawaiian Blues,” Columbia A3729, 1922; Edith Wilson (accompanied by Johnny Dunn’s Original Jazz Hounds), “What Do You Care (What I Do),” Columbia A3674, 1922; both tracks reissued on JSP CD 1522–2. A central theme in “Bluin’ The Blues” (music by H. W. Ragas [New York: Leo Feist, 1919]), recorded by the Original Dixieland Jazz Band in 1918 (Victor 18482, reissued on Jazz Heritage CD 525840), is built around a reductive interpretation of the “String Beans Blues” motive. 359. Daddy Stovepipe, “Tuxedo Blues,” Gennett 6212, 1927, reissued on Document DOCD-5166. 360. Dallas String Band, “Sweet Mama Blues,” Columbia 14290, 1927, reissued on Document DOCD-5162. 361. The “String Beans Blues” figure is prominent in Blind Lemon Jefferson’s first recording “Got The Blues.” According to Charles Wolfe and Kip Lornell in The Life and Legend of Leadbelly (New York: Harper Collins, 1992, 44), “This recording exploded like a bombshell on the fledgling blues scene in 1926. Sales of over one hundred thousand were rumored.” 362. Blind Lemon Jefferson’s birth year is given as 1893 or 1897 (Alan Governar, “Blind Lemon Jefferson: The Myth and

Notes to pages 121–122 the Man,” Black Music Research Journal 20, no. 1 [Spring 2000]: 7). String Beans continued to perform until shortly before his death in November 1917, but there is no documentation of him ever performing in Texas. Lack of evidence notwithstanding, String Beans may have appeared in Texas, or Jefferson may have witnessed String Beans performing in the neighboring states of Arkansas or Louisiana. 363. David Evans wrote of Blind Lemon: “he must have had plenty of opportunities to listen to pianists and jazz musicians in theaters and clubs and to translate their musical ideas into this solo-guitar idiom” (“Musical Innovation in the Blues of Blind Lemon Jefferson,” Black Music Research Journal 20, no. 1 [Spring 2000]: 96). 364. Blind Lemon Jefferson, “Got The Blues,” Paramount 12354, 1926, reissued on Document DOCD-5017; “Corinna Blues,” Paramount 12367, 1926, reissued on Document DOCD-5017; “Black Snake Moan,” OKeh 8455, 1927, reissued on Document DOCD-5018; “Mean Jumper Blues,” Paramount 12631, 1928, reissued on Document DOCD-5019; “That Crawling Baby Blues,” Paramount 12880, 1929, reissued on Document DOCD-5020; “Rambler Blues,” Paramount 12541, 1927, reissued on Document DOCD-5018; “Hangman’s Blues,” Paramount 12679, 1928, reissued on Document DOCD-5019; “Lock Step Blues,” Paramount 12679, reissued on Document DOCD-5019; “That Black Snake Moan No. 2,” Paramount 12756, 1929, reissued on Document DOCD-5020; and “Dynamite Blues,” Paramount 12739, 1929, reissued on Document DOCD-5020. All contain adaptations of “String Beans Blues.” 365. “Rock Island Blues,” Vocalion 1111, 1927; “Furry’s Blues,” Victor 38519, 1928; “Good Looking Girl Blues,” Vocalion 1132, 1927; “Black Gypsy Blues,” Vocalion 1527, 1929. All four recordings are reissued on Document DOCD-5004. 366. Sam Collins, “New Salty Dog,” Banner 32311, 1931, reissued on Document DOCD-5034; Kid Prince Moore, “Honey Dripping Papa,” ARC 6–09–56, 1936, reissued on Document DOCD-5180; Edward Thompson, “Seven Sisters Blues,” Paramount 12873, 1929, reissued on Document DOCD-5165; Blind Boy Fuller, “Cat Man Blues,” Vocalion 03134, 1936, reissued on Document DOCD-5091 (take 1) and DOCD-5092 (take 2). 367. Ishman Bracey, “Left Alone Blues,” Victor 21349, 1928, reissued on Document DOCD-5049. 368. Mississippi Sheiks, “Church Bell Blues,” OKeh 8876, 1930, reissued on Document DOCD-5084; Tommy Griffin, “Hey Hey Blues,” Bluebird 7179, 1936, reissued on Document DOCD-5426.

369. Barbecue Bob (Robert Hicks), “Cloudy Sky Blues,” Columbia 14205-D, 1927, reissued on Document DOCD-5046; “Goin’ Up The Country,” Columbia 14316-D, 1928, reissued on Document DOCD-5046; “Meat Man Pete,” Columbia 14412-D, 1928, reissued on Document DOCD-5047. 370. Jack Kelly and His South Memphis Jug Band, “Highway No. 61 Blues,” Banner 32844, 1933, reissued on Document BDCD-6005. 371. Big Bill, “Selling That Stuff,” Champion 16395, 1932, reissued on Document DOCD-5050; Buddy Moss, “Misery Man Blues,” Banner 33267, 1934, reissued on Document DOCD-5124; Little Hat Jones, “Little Hat Blues,” OKeh 8794, 1929, reissued on Document DOCD-5161; Arthur Pettis, “Two Time Blues,” Victor 21282, 1928, reissued on Document DOCD-5158. 372. William Harris, “Keep Your Man Out of Birmingham,” Gennett 6661, 1928, reissued on Document DOCD-5035. Paul Oliver’s liner notes to this CD point out that “Keep Your Man Out of Birmingham” “was based on Priscilla Stewart’s ‘Jefferson County Blues’” (Paramount 12402, 1926, reissued on Document DOCD-5476). Song lyrics are almost identical, but the melody and time of the two pieces are dissimilar; and Priscilla Stewart’s version, with piano accompaniment, bears no trace of “String Beans Blues.” 373. Mattie Delaney, “Down the Big Road Blues,” Vocalion 1480, 1930, reissued on Document DOCD-5157. 374. Buddy Boy Hawkins, “Shaggy Dog Blues,” Paramount 12489, 1927, reissued on Document DOCD-5035. 375. David Evans, “Musical Innovation in the Blues Of Blind Lemon Jefferson,” 108. 376. Freddie Spruell, “Tom Cat Blues,” Paramount 12665, 1928, reissued on Document DOCD-5158; Pearl Dickson, “Little Rock Blues,” Columbia 14286, 1927, reissued on DOCD-5159. 377. Kansas Joe [McCoy], “I’m Going Crazy,” Vocalion 1705, 1932, reissued on Document DOCD-5216; Shorty Bob Parker, “Rain and Snow,” Decca 7526, 1938, reissued on Document DOCD-5180; Josh White, “Low Cotton,” Oriole 8267, 1933; reissued on Document DOCD-5194. White also plays variations on “String Beans Blues” on “Black And Evil Blues,” Melotone 12537, 1932; “Greenville Sheik,” ARC 6–05–63, 1932; and “Blood Red River,” Oriole 8267, 1933; all reissued on Document DOCD-5194. 378. John Lee, “Alabama Boogie,” Federal 12054, 1951; Munroe Moe Jackson, “Move It On Over,” Mercury 8127, 1949; both tracks are reissued on Document DOCD-5223. Munroe Moe Jackson is an alias for country music comedian–bass fiddle player Andy Boyett, who was at one time a member of Bill Monroe’s Bluegrass Boys. Thanks to Richard Spottswood.

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Chapter 3 1. “The Lewis Stock Company,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 29, 1910. 2. “People’s Theater, Houston, Tex.,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 5, 1910. 3. “People’s Theater at Houston, Tex.,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 30, 1910; “Alabama Chocolate Drops,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 14, 1910. 4. “Palace Theater, Houston, Tex.,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 18, 1910. 5. “Palace Theatre, Houston, Texas,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 16, 1910. 6. “Lyric Theater, Shreveport,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 8, 1909. 7. “World Beaters’ Company,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 24, 1909. 8. Baby F. Seals, “You Got to Shake, Rattle and Roll, or My Money Ante [sic] Gwine” (New Orleans: L. Grunewald, 1910); “You’ve Got to Shake, Rattle and Roll, or My Money Ain’t a-Gwine,’” Indianapolis Freeman, February 12, 1910. 9. “People’s Theater, Houston, Texas,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 26, 1910. 10. “The Palace Theater At Houston, Texas,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 2, 1910; “Ruby Theater, Galveston, Tex.,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 28, 1910; “Palace Theatre, Houston, Texas,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 16, 1910. 11. “Ruby Theater, Galveston, Texas,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 7, 1910; “Ruby Theater At Galveston, Tex.,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 21, 1910. 12. “Ruby Theater, Galveston, Tex.,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 28, 1910. 13. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 6, 1910. 14. “The Pekin Theater, Savannah, Ga.,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 27, 1910. 15. “The Stage,” June 23, October 6, 1906; “The Florida Blossoms,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 11, 1908. 16. J. Harry Jackson, “The Stage,” March 3, 1900; “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 6, 1906; “Richards & Pringle’s Minstrels,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 21, 1907; “The Florida Blossoms,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 11, 1908. 17. Paul Carter, “The Colored Audience,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 27, 1912. The song lyric “I had a good gal, but the fool laid down and died” appears in a 1928 recording titled “Banjo Blues,” by Peg Leg Howell and Eddie Anthony (Columbia 14382-D, reissued on Document MBCD-2005), an African American guitarist and a fiddler, who reportedly

played for tips on Atlanta’s Decatur Street (see Sheldon Harris, Blues Who’s Who for more about Peg Leg Howell). Their “Banjo Blues” is derivative of the “Dallas Blues,” a pastiche of “floating blues verses” set to a simple piano score (Lloyd Garrett, words, and Hart A. Wand, music, “Dallas Blues” [Chicago: Frank K. Root, 1918]). However, the “had a good gal” verse does not appear in the published version of “Dallas Blues” (see Abbott and Seroff, “‘They Cert’ly Sound Good to Me,’” for more about “Dallas Blues”). The whole verse, as recorded by Howell and Anthony: “I had a good woman but the fool laid down and, I mean down and, I mean died. / I had a good woman but the fool laid down and died. / I got the banjo blues and I’m too darned mean to cry.” 18. “Luna Park, Atlanta, Ga.,” Indianapolis Freeman, March 19, 1910. 19. “Palace Theatre, Houston, Texas,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 16, 1910. 20. Bessie Smith, “Weeping Willow Blues”/“The Bye Bye Blues,” Columbia 14042-D, 1924, reissued on Frog CD DGF42. Paul Carter and Charles H. Booker, words; Charles H. Booker, music, “A Woman Gets Tired of One Man All the Time” (Memphis: Yancy & Booker Music, 1920); “Carter & Mitchell,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 6, 1920. 21. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 16, 1904. 22. “The Cincinnati Theaters,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 17, 1910; “Gossip Of The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 17, 1911. When the Goats sponsored a “ramble” at the Pekin Theater in August 1911, Love and Love were on the bill (“Gossip Of The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 26, 1911). 23. “The Maceo Theater, Columbia, South Carolina,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 19, 1910. 24. “The Loves Make Good In Louisville, Ky.,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 28, 1912. 25. “Garden Theater, Louisville, Ky.,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 15, 1911. 26. “Ruby Theater—Louisville, Ky.,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 7, 1911. 27. Geo. Slaughter, “G. E. C.’s Benefit, Louisville,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 14, 1911. 28. “The Bill At Dudley’s Theater, Washington, D.C.,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 20, 1912; “Gossip of the Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 3; 10, 1912; “What’s What On The Dudley Circuit,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 20; 27; August 3; 17, 1912. 29. “The Loves Make Good In Louisville, Ky.,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 28, 1912. 30. “Atlanta (Ga.) Theatricals,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 14, 1913; “The Central Theater, Atlanta, Ga.,” Indianapolis

Notes to pages 129–139 Freeman, June 14, 1913; “Atlanta, Ga.,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 12, 1913. 31. “Gossip Of The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 23, 1913. 32. J. W. Seer, “Globe Theatre, Jacksonville,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 24, 1910; “Globe Theater, Jacksonville,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 8, 1910. 33. Baby F. Seals, “Bijou Theater, Greenwood, Miss.,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 21, 1911. 34. Ibid. 35. Ibid. 36. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 4, 1911. 37. Tim E. Owsley, “Theaters In Atlanta, Ga.,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 3, 1911. 38. “The One Billy M’Clain In Europe,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 15, 1911. 39. Baby F. Seals, “Discussing Billy M’Clain’s Letter,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 12, 1911. Seals alludes to a letter written to the Freeman the previous year by Billy Henderson (“Recommends Wide Berth,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 11, 1910). Henderson complained that the manager of the People’s and Palace theaters in Houston, with the cooperation of the local police, had prevented his troupe from leaving town, and forced them, against their will, to extend their engagement at the theater. 40. “Gossip Of The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 16, 1911. 41. K. C. E., “Crown Garden,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 6, 1912. 42. “Why Criticism Helps The Profession,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 13, 1912. Freeman commentaries reveal that William Rainey had been using Seals’s original song-skit “Woman Pay Me Now.” 43. Sylvester Russell, “Chicago Weekly Review,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 27, 1912. 44. Baby F. Seals, “Seals Replies To Well-Known Critic,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 10, 1912. 45. “The Successful Career of Baby F. Seals,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 27, 1912. 46. C. Marshall, “At Crown Garden Theater,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 3, 1912. 47. K. C. E., “Crown Garden, Tim Owsley Manager,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 17, 1912; “Gossip Of The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, March 2, 1912. 48. Sylvester Russell, “Baby Seals At The Monogram,” Indianapolis Freeman, March 2, 1912. 49. Sylvester Russell, “Chicago Stage Notes,” Indianapolis Freeman, March 9, 1912.

50. “Seals and Fisher Heard From,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 6, 1912. 51. “Cincinnati, Ohio,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 13, 1912. 52. “Frank Hendon Informs Stage Struck [Girls],” Indianapolis Freeman, April 13, 1912. 53. Cartoon, “Seals & Fisher Playing Before White Audiences,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 27, 1912; “Baby F. Seals And The Managers,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 27, 1912; Jas. H. Price, “The Olio, Louisville, Ky.,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 27, 1912. 54. “Why Seals & Fisher Are In Nashville,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 11, 1912. 55. “Twelfth Avenue Theater, Nashville, Tenn.,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 25, 1912. 56. Ad, “Majestic Theatre, Nashville,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 1, 1912. The performers Seals specifically solicited had all been part of his Bijou Theater adventure in Greenwood, Mississippi, two years earlier. 57. David D. Smith, “Nashville (Tenn.) Theaters,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 27, 1912. 58. “Booker Washington Airdome, St. Louis, Mo.,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 14, 1912. 59. “Criterion Theater, Kansas City, Mo.,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 28, 1912. 60. K. C. E., “New Crown Garden,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 5, 1912. 61. Baby F. Seals, “Baby Seals Blues” (St. Louis: Seals & Fisher, 1912). 62. Lomax, Mister Jelly Roll, 148. 63. “The New Crown Garden,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 12, 1912. 64. Frank Hendon, “Informs Stage Struck Girls,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 26, 1912. 65. “News From Yankee Robinson’s Annex Band, With Yankee Robinson’s Three Ring Circus,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 9, 1912. 66. “Notes From J. C. O’Brien’s Famous Georgia Minstrels,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 11, 1914. 67. “The Team of Jenkins and Jenkins,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 1, 1913. 68. “New Lincoln Opera House, Galveston, Tex.,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 12, 1913. 69. Walter S. Fearance, “St. Louis, Mo.,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 23, 1913; “Galveston, Tex.,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 6, 1913; “Alcazar Theater, Galveston, Texas,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 20, 1913. 70. Charles Anderson, “Sing ’Em Blues,” OKeh 8124, 1923, reissued on Document DOCD-5380; Ida Cox, “Mama Doo Shee

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Notes to pages 139–144 Blues,” Paramount 12085, 1923, reissued on Document DOCD5322; Teddy Grace, “Mama Doo-Shee,” Decca 2603, 1939. 71. Ethel Finnie, “Don’t You Quit Me Daddy,” Ajax 17015, 1923, reissued on RST JPCD-1521–2; Sara Martin, “Don’t You Quit Me Daddy,” OKeh 8166, 1924, reissued on RST JPCD-1501– 2; Ida Cox, “Mister Man—Pt. 2,” Paramount 12275, 1925, reissued on Document DOCD-5324; Peg Leg Howell, “Fo’ Day Blues,” Columbia 14177-D, 1926, reissued on Matchbox MBCD-2004; Blind Lemon Jefferson, “Long Lonesome Blues,” Paramount 12354, 1926, reissued on Document DOCD-5017; Papa Charlie Jackson, “Mumsy Mumsy Blues,” Paramount 12366, 1926, reissued on Document DOCD-5625; Hound Head Henry (accompanied by Cow Cow Davenport), “Hound Head Blues,” Vocalion 1209, 1928, reissued on Document BDCD-6040; Alura Mack, “Old Fashioned Blues,” Gennett 6767, 1929, reissued on Document DOCD-5189; Joe Calicott, “Traveling Mama Blues,” Brunswick 7166, 1930, reissued on Document DOCD-5002; Mississippi Moaner (Isaiah Nettles), “It’s Cold In China Blues,” Vocalion 03166, 1935, reissued on Document DOCD-5157; Jesse Thomas, “D Double Due Love You,” Miltone 232, 1948; Memphis Slim, “The Come Back,” United 156, 1953. The phrase “double do love you” does not appear in Memphis Slim’s 1959 remake version, “The Comeback,” Vee Jay 343. 72. Bessie Smith, “Preachin’ the Blues,” Columbia 14195D, 1927, reissued on Frog DGF44. Other recorded references to lyrics associated with “Baby Seals Blues” are heard in Ida May Mack’s “Mr. Moore Blues,” Victor 21690, 1928, reissued on Document DOCD-5321; Dora Carr’s “Bring It On Home Blues,” OKeh 8130, 1924, reissued on Document DOCD-5375; and Milton Sparks’s “No Good Woman Blues,” Decca 7066, 1934, reissued on Document DOCD-5315. In 1922 Ray Prisby of Youngstown, Ohio, marketed a blues song titled “Sing ’Em,” published by the Refousse Music Publishing Company of New York (“J. A. Jackson’s Page,” “Here And There Among The Folks,” Billboard, July 22, 1922). 73. “Memphis (Tenn.) Show Notes,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 1, 1913. 74. “Making Them Laugh At Atlanta, Ga.,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 15, 1913; “Gossip Of The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 22, 1913; “The Globe Theater, Jacksonville, Fla.,” Indianapolis Freeman, March 22, 1913. 75. “Jacksonville, Fla.,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 12, 1913. 76. “Baby Seals Plays His Home Town,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 21, 1913. 77. Ad, “Gayety Theatre,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 26, 1913. 78. “Seals And Fisher Return To America,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 23, 1913.

79. “At The Olio In Louisville,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 30, 1913. 80. “Seals And Fisher At Winchester, Ky.,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 13, 1913. 81. Baby F. Seals, “Things Beneficial To Performers,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 18, 1913. 82. “What’s What On The S. H. Dudley Circuit,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 25, November 1; 8; 15; 22, 1913. 83. The Wolf, “Washington, D. C.,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 25, 1913. 84. Will Lewis, “A Review Of The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 27, 1913. 85. “With Sprouting Horns Baby Seals Becomes A Full Fledged Elk,” Indianapolis Freeman, March 7, 1914. 86. Bradford and Ward, “New York To Have Commission To Censor Artists,” Indianapolis Freeman, March 21, 1914. 87. W. M. Benbow, “What’s What Down In New Orleans,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 16; 23, 1915. 88. Wm. Benbow, “What’s What Down In New Orleans,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 30, 1915. 89. W. A. Davis, “Lincoln Theatre, Galveston, Texas,” Indianapolis Freeman, March 27, 1915. 90. “Hippodrome Theatre, Galveston, Texas,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 5, 1915. 91. “The Johnson-Fisher Stock Company Spring Record Breaker,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 2, 1917; Eugene Anderson, “Metropolitan Theatre, Memphis, Tenn.,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 3, 1917; “Broadway Theater Opens,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 8, 1918; “Johnson-Fisher Co.,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 7, 1918. 92. “Harlem Girls In New Revue,” Chicago Defender, October 15, 1927. 93. “Baby Franklin Seals Writes Four New Songs,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 17, 1915. 94. Baby F. Seals, “Things Performers And Managers Should Think About,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 7, 1915. 95. “News Of The Players,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 2, 1915. 96. “Baby Seals, Passed Away,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 5, 1916. “Blaine” is possibly a corruption of the abbreviation for Birmingham. 97. A search of the records of the State of Alabama Department of Public Health in 1994 failed to find any document recording the death of H. Franklin Seals in Alabama. Later, there was another “Baby” Seals, comedian Ernest “Baby” Seals, who was prominent in black vaudeville during the 1920s and enjoyed some celebrity in the 1960s as Pigmeat Markham’s “second

Notes to pages 144–147 banana” (Dewey “Pigmeat” Markham, Here Come The Judge! [New York, Popular Library, 1969]). In a 1961 interview, Ernest “Baby” Seals claimed to be a nephew of the original H. Franklin “Baby” Seals (Marshall and Jean Stearns notes from interview with Ernest Seals, March 1, 1961 [Center for Jazz Studies, Rutgers University]). 98. “Colored Singers And Players To Fame And Fortune By Discs,” Variety, August 2, 1923; “Fame And Fortune—‘Blues’ on Discs Making Race Composers Rich,” Chicago Defender, October 6, 1923. 99. Tim Owsley, “Now,” Chicago Defender, October 2, 1926. 100. K. C. E., “New Crown Garden,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 5, 1912. 101. Charles Anderson, “Sing ’Em Blues,” OKeh 8124, 1923, reissued on Document DOCD-5380. 102. Sylvester Russell, “Chicago Weekly Review,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 31, 1914. In His Eye Is on the Sparrow, Ethel Waters claims to have been the “first woman—and the second person—ever to sing” “St. Louis Blues” professionally. She said she was inspired to feature it after having heard it sung by “Charles Anderson, a very good female impersonator” (Waters with Samuels, 72). 103. W. C. Handy, Father of the Blues (New York: Macmillan, 1941), 123. 104. Sylvester Russell, “Chicago Weekly Review,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 24, 1915. “St. Louis Blues” is one of the unissued titles from Anderson’s final OKeh recording session in 1928. 105. Sylvester Russell, “Charles Anderson A Great Singer,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 13, 1913. 106. “Columbia And Dunnick Theaters, Indianapolis— James L. Nicholson, Manager,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 29, 1916. 107. “Handy, Music Composer,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 22, 1917. 108. “Wooden’s Bon Tons Captured Charlotte by Overwhelming Majority,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 6, 1917. 109. “Smart Set Show Notes,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 21, 1917. 110. Billy Lewis, “Vaudeville Still Holding at the Washington Theatre, Indianapolis,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 17, 1917. 111. Ibid. The 1900 U.S. Census lists this African American family in Birmingham: James Anderson (1878 Alabama) husband; Frances Anderson (1872 Alabama) wife; Charles Porter (1891 Alabama) stepson (AncestryLibrary.com). According to “Hits And Bits,” Chicago Defender, May 9, 1931, Charles Anderson’s mother’s given name was Frances.

112. “Memphis Theater Notes,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 23, 1909. 113. “Theater Royal of Memphis,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 15, 29, 1910. 114. “The American Theater Jackson, Miss.,” Indianapolis Freeman, March 18, 1911; Wayne Burton, “The Show Is A Success,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 9, 1911. 115. Sylvester Russell, “Chicago Weekly Review,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 24, 1912. 116. “The New Crown Garden,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 31, 1912. 117. “Gossip Of The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 2, 1912. 118. “St. Louis, Mo.,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 23, 1913. Anderson’s recorded versions of “Sleep, Baby, Sleep,” OKeh 4980, 1923, and “Yodle Song—Coo Coo” [sic], OKeh 4980, are both reissued on Document DOCD-5380. 119. “New Crown Garden Theater,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 13, 1913. 120. “At The Unique Theater, Detroit, Mich.,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 13, 1913. 121. In an edgy memo in the Freeman, Coleman Minor accused Anderson of stealing his song, “and tell[ing] the people you are the author of it” (“At The Crown Garden Theatre, Indianapolis,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 2, 1915; Coleman Minor, “Lincoln Theatre, East Liberty, Pa.,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 25, 1915). 122. “Stage Gossip,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 5; 19, 1916. 123. “Charles Anderson’s Indianapolis Follies At Pittsburgh, Pa.,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 2, 1916. 124. “Stage Notes,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 11, 1916. 125. “Vaudeville This Week At The Washington Theatre, Indianapolis—A Bill Of Good Attractions—Good Houses Ruling Regardless Of The Frosty Weather,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 17, 1917. 126. “News Of The Players,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 14, 1917. 127. Sylvester Russell, “Musical And Dramatic,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 24, 1917. 128. Seymour James, “Pittsburgh Theater News,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 23, 1918. For more on Anderson’s early experiments as a “‘yodeler blues’ singer,” see Lynn Abbott and Doug Seroff, “America’s Blue Yodel,” Musical Traditions, No. 11 (Late 1993): 2–11. 129. “Jacksonville Theatrical Notes,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 16, 1910.

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Notes to pages 147–152 130. For example, an 1892 dispatch from Helena, Arkansas, made it known that “W. Cleveland, the colored ventriloquist, in company with Dr. McNeal, was in the city . . . performing on the public square. He is known as the best colored ventriloquist in the South” (“A Colored Ventriloquist,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 2, 1892). 131. This birth date for Woods is derived from a statement in “Jacksonville Theatrical Notes,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 16, 1910: “He is only twenty-two years old.” 132. “Stage Notes,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 17, 1908; “Plant Juice Vaudeville Co.,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 5, 1908. 133. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, March 6; 20; April 3, 1909. 134. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 24; May 8, 1909. 135. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 22, 1909. 136. “Plant Juice Medicine Company,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 24, 1909. 137. “Muskogee, Okla.,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 14, 1909. 138. “Jacksonville Theatrical Notes,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 16, 1910. 139. “Gossip Of The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 6, 1911. 140. Billy [sic], “The New Crown Garden Theater Indianapolis,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 2, 1911. 141. “How Woods Became a Great Ventriloquist,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 23, 1911. 142. “Gossip of the Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 27, 1912. 143. Sylvester Russell, “Stage Notes and Stroll News,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 12; 26, 1914. 144. “Rex Theater Has Grand Opening,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 10, 1912. 145. “The New Circle Theater, Philadelphia,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 1, 1912. 146. “The New Crown Garden Theater,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 1, 1913. 147. Sylvester Russell, “Johnnie Woods Takes Foremost Rank as a Ventriloquist,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 24, 1913. 148. Ad, Savoy Theater, Memphis, Indianapolis Freeman, April 26, 1913; ad, Star Theater, Savannah, Indianapolis Freeman, May 17, 1913; ad, Globe Theater, Jacksonville, Indianapolis Freeman, May 24, 1913; “Gossip Of The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 14, 1913; Cary B. Lewis, “Miller And Lyles Return To The Grand,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 12, 1913.

149. Walter Fearance, “At The Booker Washington Theater,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 19, 1913. 150. Cary B. Lewis, “Baboons At The Grand,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 26, 1913. 151. Verner Massey and Little Tommy, “To Mr. Jonnie [sic] Woods,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 26, 1913. 152. “Sam Evans, Ventriloquist, and His Doll,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 6, 1913; “Sam Evans, Ventriloquist,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 27, 1913. 153. Will Lewis, “A Review Of the Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 27, 1913. 154. Indianapolis Freeman, January 10, 1914. 155. Sylvester Russell, “Johnnie Woods, Ventriloquist, at the New Monogram,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 1, 1914. 156. “The New Crown Garden Theatre,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 29, 1914. 157. Sylvester Russell, “Stage Notes and Stroll News,” Indianapolis Freeman, March 6, 1915. 158. “The Whitman Sisters And Johnny Wood [sic] At the Washington Theater,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 3, 1917. 159. “Johnny Woods Sick,” Chicago Defender, June 2, 1928; Sylvester Russell, “Sylvester Russell’s Review,” Pittsburgh Courier, August 4, 1928. 160. Salem Tutt Whitney, “Timely Topics,” Chicago Defender, August 4, 1928. 161. Tim Owsley, “The Crown Garden Theater,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 27, 1913. 162. “Gossip Of The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 17, 1912. 163. “The Profession At Jacksonville, Fla.,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 14, 1910. 164. Tim E. Owsley, “At The New Crown Garden Theater,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 11, 1913. 165. “The New Crown Garden,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 21, 1912. 166. “Cincinnati Theatres,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 3, 1911. 167. Walker W. Thomas, “Pensacola, Fla. The Belmont Theater,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 22, 1911; “Cincinnati Theaters,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 5, 1911. 168. “Gossip Of The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 26, 1911; Sylvester Russell, “Chicago Weekly Review,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 2, 1911; Sylvester Russell, “Musical And Dramatic,” Chicago Defender, September 2, 1911. “A Fat Gal Am the Best Gal, After All” resonated with African American performers. At the Monogram Theater in 1912, Billy Mills’s “song, ‘A Fat Gal Am the Best Gal After All,’ was immense” (Sylvester

Notes to pages 152–156 Russell, “Chicago Weekly Review,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 20, 1912); and with Rogers’s Greater Shows in 1915, Jessie Tolliver was “pleasing the people singing a fat ‘gal’ is the best ‘gal’ after all” (Sam McReynolds, “Rogers’ Greater Shows,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 28, 1915). 169. Geo. Slaughter, “Lyre Theater, Louisville, Ky.,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 16, 1911. 170. “Auditorium Theater, Philadelphia, Pa.,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 26, 1912. 171. “Acts Of The Week At The Crown Garden, Indianapolis,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 23, 1911. 172. “Crown Garden Theater,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 23, 1911. 173. Sylvester Russell, “Chicago Weekly Review,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 14, 1911. 174. Sylvester Russell, “Chicago Weekly Review,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 21, 1911. 175. J. D. Howard, “At the Theaters In Indianapolis,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 11, 1911. 176. K. C. E., “New Crown Garden,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 14, 1912. 177. Tim Owsley, “The Crown Garden Theater,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 27, 1913. 178. Although the original 1912 sheet music edition of “The Memphis Blues” informed that it was “better known as ‘Mister Crump,’” Handy did not commit the “Mister Crump” lyrics to “The Memphis Blues” melody in a sheet music publication until 1949. See Abbott and Seroff, “‘They Cert’ly Sound Good to Me,’” 84–88. 179. Will Lewis, “A Review Of The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 27, 1913. 180. L. B. Maund [sic], “Macon, Ga.,” Indianapolis Freeman, March 4, 1916. 181. In 1923 news came from Detroit that, “Mrs. Lula Too Sweet, wife of Willie Too Sweet, an actor, died last week after a serious illness of some time” (Henry D. Garnett, “Michigan,” Chicago Defender, July 28, 1923 [Black Studies Center, ProQuest]). 182. “Stage Gossip,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 30, 1916; “Lee’s Creole Belles At Summer Theater, Paris, Tex.,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 13, 1917; “Lee’s Kentucky Troubadors [sic] Meet With Great Success,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 12, 1917; “News of the Players,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 3; 24, 1918. 183. Sylvester Russell, “Chicago Weekly Review,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 14, 1918. 184. K. C. E. (Elwood Knox), “New Crown Garden,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 14, 1912. Newspaper reportage

confirms that Too Sweet performed the following original song parodies during 1911 and 1912: “Lovey Joe,” “Some Of These Days,” “Fat Gal Is De Best Gal After All,” “Nothing New Under the Sun,” George M. Cohan’s “Yankee Prince,” “You’ll Never Know What A Good Fellow I Have Been ’Till I Have Gone Away,” “Monkey Rag,” and “Everybody’s Doing It” (Geo. Slaughter, “Lyre Theater, Louisville, Ky.,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 16, 1911; “Acts Of The Week At The Crown Garden, Indianapolis,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 23, 1911; J. D. Howard, “At The Theatres In Indianapolis—Bert Williams A Big Feature In The Follies,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 4, 1911; K. C. E., “New Crown Garden,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 14, 1912; ad, Indianapolis Freeman, September 21, 1912). 185. “Cincinnati, O., Theatricals,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 28, 1912. 186. “At The Theatres In Indianapolis—Bert Williams A Big Feature In The Follies.” 187. “Gang” (Henry Jines), “Washington Theater,” Chicago Defender, April 28, 1923; “Whitmans At Monogram,” Chicago Defender, July 30, 1927. Recordings credited to “Papa Too Sweet,” probably attributable to Willie “Too Sweet” Perry, include Papa Too Sweet (accompanied by Tampa Red and Georgia Tom Dorsey), “(Honey) It’s Tight Like That”/“Big Fat Mama,” OKeh 8651, 1928, reissued on Document DOCD5073; and Vance Dixon and His Pencils (vocals by Papa Too Sweet), “Laughing Stomp,” Columbia 14608, and “Pete, the Dealer in Meat (Meat Man Pete)”/“Who Stole the Lock?,” Columbia 14673, all three recorded in 1931, reissued on RST JPCD-1519–2. 188. Odum, “Folk-Song and Folk-Poetry as Found in the Secular Songs of the Southern Negroes,” 374. 189. Ibid., 256. 190. Ibid., 257. 191. Ibid., 374. A similar approach is demonstrated on race records such as Charley Patton’s “Tom Rushen Blues,” Paramount 12877, 1929, reissued on Document DOCD-5009; and Sleepy John Estes’s “Lawyer Clark Blues,” Bluebird 8871, 1941, reissued on Document DOCD-5016. 192. “Pastime Theater At Athens, Georgia,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 14, 1910. 193. “Pastime Theater, Athens, Ga.,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 22, 1910. 194. “The Pastime Theater, Athens, Georgia,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 15, 1910; “Pastime Theater, Athens, Ga.,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 22, 1910; “Pastime Theater, Athens, Ga.,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 26, 1910.

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Notes to pages 156–159 195. “Pastime Theater, Athens, Ga.,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 29, 1910, February 12, 1910; “Pastime Theater Hitting Them Hard,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 12, 1910. 196. “Pastime Theater, Athens, Ga.,” Indianapolis Freeman, March 19, 1910. The reference suggests Young may have been singing “Alabama Bound.” 197. “Ivy Theater, Chattanooga, Tenn.,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 20, 1910. 198. “The Dixie Theater, Charlotte, N. C.,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 26, 1910. 199. “Pekin Theatre,” Savannah Tribune, January 7, 1911. 200. “Pekin Dots,” Savannah Tribune, February 18, 1911. 201. “The Globe Theater, Jacksonville, Fla.,” Indianapolis Freeman, March 11, 1911. A retrospective by Julian Bagley suggests “Hug up Close to Jack Johnson” was probably a parody of the popular “Grizzly Bear.” 202. “Pastime Theater, Athens, Ga.,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 16, 1911; “Pastime Theater—Athens, Ga.,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 16, 1911. 203. “Globe Theater—Jacksonville, Fla.,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 27, 1912. 204. “Rex Theater Has Grand Opening,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 10, 1912. 205. “The New Globe Theater, Jacksonville, Fla.,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 27, 1913. 206. Julian E. Bagley, “Moving Pictures in an Old Song Shop,” Opportunity 5, no. 12 (December 1927): 369–72. Thanks to David Evans. 207. “Notes From J. H. Mahoney’s Mobile Minstrels,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 19, 1916. 208. “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 17, 1903; “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 28, 1903. 209. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 1; August 5, 1905. 210. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, March 17, 1906; January 19, 1907. 211. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 2; August 4; September 8; October 20, 1906; July 11, 1908. 212. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 23, 1906. 213. “Tick’s Big Vaudeville,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 19, 1908. 214. Cecil Mack, lyrics, Chris Smith, music, “You’re in the Right Church but the Wrong Pew” (New York: Gotham-Attucks Music, 1908). 215. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 8, 1909. 216. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 12, 1909. 217. “Barrasso’s Stock Company, Vicksburg, Miss.,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 1, 1910.

218. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 17, 1910. Williams’s clever quip about “going where the weather suits my clothes” had come forth that same year as the title of a popular sheet music hit: Dave Clark, words, Albert Gumble, music, “I’m Going Where the Weather Suits My Clothes” (New York: Jerome H. Remick, 1910). Thanks to Wayne D. Shirley. 219. “Globe Theater, Jacksonvile [sic], Fla.,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 31, 1910; J. W. Seer, “The Globe Theater, Jacksonville, Fla.,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 21, 1911. 220. “The Globe Theater, Jacksonville, Fla.,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 25, 1911. 221. Tim Owlsey [sic], “The Globe Theater, Jacksonville, Fla,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 11, 1911; “The Globe Theater, Jacksonville, Fla,” Indianapolis Freeman, March 11, 1911. 222. Frank Crowd, “The Globe Theater, Jacksonville, Fla.,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 1, 1911. 223. “Notes From The Blue Steel Stock Company, With The Argyle Show,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 12, 1914. 224. “J. L. Williams, Sensational Trombonist,” “The Florida Blossom Show,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 14, 1915. J. L. Williams and J. H. “Blue Steel” Williams are two different people. 225. Ibid. See Abbott and Seroff, Ragged but Right, 290–306, for more about the Florida Blossom Minstrels. 226. “Notes From Florida Blossom’s Company,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 1, 1916. 227. “Notes From J. H. Mahoney’s Model Mobile Minstrels,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 17, 1916. 228. “Notes From J. H. Mahoney’s Mobile Minstrels,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 19, 1916. 229. “Notes From J. H. Mahoney’s Mobile Minstrels,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 2, 1916. 230. “The Dixieland At Charleston, S.C.,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 13, 1917; “Stage Notes,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 20, 1917. 231. Seymour James, “Pittsburgh Theater News,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 16; 23, 1918; Jules McGarr, “Pittsburgh Theater News,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 24, 1918; Baby L. McGarr, “Pittsburgh Theater News,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 31, 1918. 232. D. P. Dorsey, “Theatrical Notes From Pittsburgh, Pa.,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 20, 1919. 233. “The New Star Theatre, Pittsburg, Pa.,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 20, 1920. 234. “Blue Steel Williams Dead,” Chicago Defender, October 31, 1925.

Notes to pages 161–163

Chapter 4 1. Ad, Parks-Tolliver [sic] Musical Comedy Company, Indianapolis Freeman, November 28, 1914; Abbott and Seroff, Ragged but Right, 126. 2. However, the “blues queen” honorific was later expropriated by cultural outsiders for commercial purposes—it became synonymous with “blues record star.” 3. John W. Work, American Negro Songs and Spirituals (New York: Crown Publishers, 1940), 32–33. Sterling Brown’s presence at the interview is noted in Derrick Stewart-Baxter, Ma Rainey and the Classic Blues Singers (New York: Stein and Day, 1970), 42. Brown was in Nashville for the 1928–29 school year, teaching at Fisk University, where Work was also teaching. Ma Rainey had an engagement at the Bijou Theater the week of March 18, 1929, which may be when the interview took place (Business files of Hatch Show Print, Nashville). Thanks to Bruce Nemerov and Paul Ritscher. 4. The most substantial sources for such evidence are Howard Odum’s 1905–8 southern field studies, published in The Journal of American Folk-Lore; more limited field studies conducted pre-1910 by Charles Peabody and other early folklorists; and the entertainment columns of the Indianapolis Freeman (1888–1920) and other publications of the era. 5. This phrase became a catchword for a new orientation in popular ragtime songs. According to an 1897 report, “The musical repertoire of Black Patti’s Troubadours is a large and varied one. It embraces the most popular airs of the standard grand and comic opera, and all up-to-date coon songs, ballads and character songs” (“Amusements,” Kalamazoo Gazette, February 10, 1897 [America’s Historical Newspapers, NewsBank]). A 1900 report from the Buckingham Theater in Tampa, Florida, said: “May Hicks, the newcomer this week, made a tremendous hit with her up-to-date coon songs” (“Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 1, 1900). Three weeks later, at the same location: “Richard Barnett is making good with his up to date coon songs and funny sayings” (“Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 22, 1900). In June 1901 a report from the Mascotte Theater in Tampa, revealed: “Mae Fisher is hitting ’em hard with her up-to-date coon songs” (“Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 15, 1901). An April 1902 communication from the Mascotte added: “Wingie Donaldson (El Brazo Colto) follows with an up to-date [sic] budget of coon songs” (“Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 5, 1902). See also Abbott and Seroff, Ragged but Right, 25–35.

6. For a more intensive consideration of the evolution of this self-directed cultural orientation, see Abbott and Seroff, Out of Sight, 357–58. 7. See Abbott and Seroff, Out of Sight, for an enumeration of other factors related to this development. 8. The first to report her date and place of birth was her brother Thomas Pridgett, in a one-page article, “The Life of Ma Rainey,” Jazz Information 2, no. 4 (September 6, 1940): 8. The first to report the February 2, 1904, date of her marriage to William Rainey was Charles Edward Smith, in his entry on “Rainey, Gertrude Pridgett” in Edward James, Janet Wilson James, and Paul S. Boyer, eds., Notable American Women 1607–1950, Volume III, P-Z (Cambridge: Belknap Press, 1971), 110–11. Smith cites their “marriage certificate (Muscogee County Court, Columbus, Ga.).” 9. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 25, 1906. Will Rainey was probably singing Jos. Mittenthal, words, Winthrop Brookhouse, music, “Let Him Who Is Without Sin Cast the First Stone” (New York: Jos. W. Stern, 1906), a provocative coon song about a chicken-stealing preacher. 10. Ad, Indianapolis Freeman, December 15, 1906, reproduced in Abbott and Seroff, Ragged but Right, 263. 11. “A Rabbit’s Foot Company,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 15, 1907. The Raineys were probably singing Ed Rose, words, Fred Fischer, music, “I’ve Said My Last Farewell (Toot, Toot, Good Bye)” (New York: Helf and Hager, 1906). 12. “A Rabbitt’s [sic] Foot Company,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 15, 1907; Abbott and Seroff, Ragged but Right, 262. 13. “Benbow’s Chocolate Drops At Pensacola, Fla.,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 17, 1909. 14. “Benbow’s Vaudeville Company, Pensacola, Fla.,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 12, 1909. 15. Italics denote authors’ emphasis. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 20, 1909; “The Luna Park Theater, Atlanta, Ga.,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 18, 1909. 16. “Georgia Sunbeam Company Doing Well,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 22, 1910. 17. “The Unknown Theater Becomes Well Known,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 12, 1910. Henry Lodge, “Temptation Rag” (New York: M. Whitmark and Sons, 1909). 18. “Belmont Street Theater, Pensacola, Fla.,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 19, 1910; “The Belmont Street Theater At Pensacola, Fla.,” Indianapolis Freeman, March 5, 1910. 19. “Opening Of Ocmulgee Park Theater,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 23, 1910. This report erroneously placed the park in Gertrude Rainey’s hometown, Columbus, Georgia.

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Notes to pages 163–167 20. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 7, 1910. Kerry Mills, “That Fascinating Ragtime Glide” (New York: F. A. Mills, 1910). 21. Different birth dates appear on various official documents, including the U.S. Census reports of 1900 and 1910, her 1923 marriage license application, and her 1937 obituary notice in the Baltimore Afro-American. The 1900 U.S. Census gives her birth date as “July 1892” and her age as 7. The 1910 U.S. Census estimates her birth date as “abt 1894” and gives her age as 16. Her 1923 marriage license application gives her birth date as April 15, 1894. A feature article in the Chicago Defender, March 28, 1936, apparently based on information supplied by Bessie Smith herself, gives April 15, 1898. Her obituary in the Baltimore Afro-American, October 9, 1937, gives April 10, 1895. See also Paul Oliver, Bessie Smith (New York: A. S. Barnes, 1959), 1; Derrick Stewart-Baxter, Ma Rainey and the Classic Blues Singers, 44; Chris Albertson, Bessie (New York: Stein & Day, 1972), 24–25; Harris, Blues Who’s Who, 462; Eileen Southern, Biographical Dictionary of Afro-American and African Musicians (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1982), 343; Paul Oliver, “Smith, Bessie,” in The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz (London: Macmillan, 2nd ed., 2002) 3, 604; Chris Albertson, Bessie (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), 7; Michelle R. Scott, Blues Empress in Black Chattanooga: Bessie Smith and the Emerging Urban South (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2008), 139n4. 22. “7,000 Attend Funeral of Bessie Smith,” Baltimore Afro-American, October 9, 1937. Compare with Albertson, Bessie (1972), 26; Albertson, Bessie (2003), 11–13. 23. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 8, 1909. 24. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 12, 1909. Evelyn White, one of Bessie Smith’s stagemates on this early appearance, had a particularly noteworthy career. During the 1920s she toured with the Silas Green from New Orleans Company, billed as “Dixie’s own favorite blues singer” (“Silas Green Show,” Chicago Defender, February 19, 1927). Evelyn White’s minstrel show career can be followed in Abbott and Seroff, Ragged but Right. 25. “Luna Park, Atlanta, Ga.,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 13, 1910. Jack “Ginger” Wiggins plowed straight through the T.O.B.A. era as a “challenge buck dancer.” An article by Bob Hayes in the Chicago Defender, August 13, 1938, referred to “the late Jack ‘Ginger’ Wiggins.” 26. “Luna Park Theater, Atlanta, Georgia,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 27, 1910. 27. “Pekin Theatre, Memphis, Tenn.,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 3, 1910. 28. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 24, 1910.

29. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 1, 1910. The original letter was probably submitted by the Pekin’s amusement director, J. Arthur Conley. 30. “Belmont Theater, Pensacola,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 19, 1910. 31. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 17, 1910. 32. “Pensacola, Fla.,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 7, 1911. 33. “The Savoy Theatre, Memphis, Tenn.,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 22, 1910; “Arcade Theatre, Atlanta, Ga.,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 5, 1910; “Belmont Theater, Pensacola,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 19, 1910; “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 17, 1910. 34. “The Savoy Theatre, Memphis, Tenn.,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 22, 1910. 35. “Savoy Theatre, Memphis, Tenn.,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 5, 1910. 36. “The Savoy Theater, Memphis,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 12, 1910. 37. “F. A. Barrasso’s Tri-State Circuit, Mobile, Ala.,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 11, 1911. 38. “The American Theater Jackson, Miss.,” Indianapolis Freeman, March 18, 1911. 39. “Jacksonville, Fla.,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 17, 1911. 40. “Notes From Pekin Theater, Savannah, Ga.,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 22, 1911. 41. “Gossip Of The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 12, 1911. 42. “Bijou Theater, Bessemer, Ala.,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 14, 1911. 43. “Gossip Of The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 4, 1911. A short item informs: “That Boy, Wayne M. Burton, now in his tenth week at Birmingham, Ala . . . Now with the Chamberlain shows.” 44. Wayne Burton, “The Show Is A Success,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 9, 1911. Again, black comedian-producer Leroy White, who was staging the shows, should not be confused with white minstrel performer Leroy “Lasses” White, author of the landmark 1912 composition “Negro Blues.” 45. “Notes From Lyre Theater, Louisville, Ky.,” Indianapolis Freeman, March 2, 1912. 46. Geo. Slaughter, “Louisville, Ky.,” Indianapolis Freeman, March 9, 1912. 47. The Lyre Theater opened under the management of Julius J. Seals, an African American. African American brothers William and Louis Evans, who also owned Louisville’s Garden Theater, purchased and renovated the Lyre in July 1911. Around the first week in October 1911, the Evans brothers gave it over

Notes to pages 167–171 to William Hogan and Leonard Haley (“Lyre Theatre A Beautiful New Playhouse,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 16, 1910; “The Lyre Theater, Louisville, Ky.,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 5, 1911; George Slaughter, “Lyre Theater, Louisville, Ky.,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 14, 1911). 48. “Louisville Theaters—The Ruby—The Lyre,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 2, 1911. 49. “The Alabama Blossoms At Corinth, Miss.,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 19, 1910; “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 25, 1911; “Houpperto Amphitheater Birmingham, Ala.,” Indianapolis Freeman, March 11, 1911; “That Boy, Wayne W. Burton, At Pensacola, Fla.,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 8, 1911; “Gossip Of The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 5; October 14; December 8, 1911; Wayne Burton, “The Show Is A Success,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 9, 1911. 50. Marshall and Jean Stearns, Jazz Dance: The Story of American Vernacular Dance (New York: Macmillan, 1968), 233. 51. “Eastern Theatrical News,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 1, 1912. 52. Sylvester Russell, “Frank Kirk, Comic Musical Tramp, Scores Immensely at the Monogram,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 22, 1912. 53. “Gossip Of The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 29, 1912. 54. “The New Crown Garden,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 29, 1912. 55. “Cincinnati Theatricals—The Pekin,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 10, 1912. 56. “Cincinnati, Ohio—The Pekin,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 10, 1912. 57. “Booker Washington Airdome, St. Louis, Mo.,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 28, 1912. “Dixie White” may be Evelyn White. 58. “Gossip Of The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 30, 1912. 59. “Gossip Of The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 25, 1913. 60. “Gossip Of The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, March 1, 1913. 61. “Gossip Of The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 24, 1913; “Circle Theater, Philadelphia, Pa.,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 31, 1913; The Owl, “New York News,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 14, 1913; “Gossip Of The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 5, 1913; “Globe Theater, Jacksonville, Fla.,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 13, 1913; The Owl, “New York News,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 18, 1913; “Auditorium Theater, Philadelphia,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 8, 1913. It was during this

tour that Burton introduced his new nickname: “The Burtons, Buzzin’ Wayne and Effie [sic], playing United time, Beacon theater, this week.” 62. “Theater News Of Rome, Ga.,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 1, 1913. 63. J. W. Seer, “Globe Theater, Jacksonville, Fla.,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 21, 1911. 64. Ibid. 65. “Mrs. Rainey’s Letter Of Protest,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 28, 1911. 66. F. J. W. Seer, “Globe Theater, Jacksonville, Fla.,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 4, 1911. For more information on Eugene Francis Mikell, see Southern, Biographical Dictionary of Afro-American and African Musicians, 271. 67. “Wizard Theater, Norfolk, Va.,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 1, 1911. 68. “Gossip Of The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 20, 1911. 69. “Stage Notes,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 19, 1911. 70. “The Stage Review,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 6, 1912; C. D. M., “Largest Vaudeville Bill Ever Put On In Colored Playhouse,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 27, 1912. 71. “Colored Theater In Columbus, Ga.,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 20, 1912. 72. “Gossip Of The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 14, 1913; “Miller, Lyles and Marshall Organize an Amusement Company . . . ,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 21, 1913. “Strawberries,” a.k.a. “Here Comes the Strawberry Man,” was a 1909 sheet music production—Thomas S. Allen, “Strawberries” (Boston: Jos. M. Daly, 1909). “Easy Rider” was Shelton Brooks’s current blues-tinged hit, a.k.a. “I Wonder Where My Easy Rider’s Gone.” “The Blues” may have been H. Franklin Seals’s “Baby Seals Blues.” 73. “Cincinnati, Ohio,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 28, 1913. 74. “Gossip Of The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 9, 1913. 75. Albertson, Bessie (1972), 27–28. 76. Juli Jones, Jr., “From Chicago To Atlanta,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 7, 1914. 77. L. Don Bradford, “L. Don Bradford in Atlanta, Georgia,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 28, 1914. 78. Ibid. 79. The Buzzer, “Atlanta, Ga., Theatres,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 25, 1914. 80. The Mule, “Atlanta Show Shops,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 11, 1914. 81. The Mule, “Atlanta Show Shops,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 18, 1914.

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Notes to pages 172–174 82. The Mule, “Show Scoops by the Mule,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 1, 1914. 83. “Bradford Signs,” Chicago Defender, November 8, 1924. “Double Crossin’ Papa” and “He’s a Mean, Mean Man” were actually recorded by Edith Wilson for Columbia on December 17, 1924. That same month, however, Bessie Smith recorded Bradford’s song “Sinful Blues.” 84. H. D. Garnett, “The Koppin,” Chicago Defender, March 8, 1924. 85. “Bessie Smith’s Revue,” Chicago Defender, August 7, 1926; “Bessie Smith Well Received,” Pittsburgh Courier, January 21, 1928. 86. “Bessie Smith Packs Grand,” Chicago Defender, January 29, 1927. 87. Ad, Elmore Theater, Pittsburgh Courier, October 27, 1928. The Taskiana Four, Victor recording artists, made a tour with the Dinah Scott Revue in 1928. See Lynn Abbott and Doug Seroff, To Do This, You Must Know How (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2013), 175. 88. Bob Hayes, “Here And There,” Chicago Defender, October 22, 1938. 89. Abbott and Seroff, Ragged but Right, 354. 90. “Chattanooga, Tenn.—Queen Theater,” Indianapolis Freeman, March 20, 1915. 91. “Notes From The Florida Blossoms Co.,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 18, 1915; Abbott and Seroff, Ragged but Right, 290–306. 92. “Notes From The Florida Blossom’s Company,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 1, 1916. 93. Morrison, “Chattanooga, Tenn., News,” Indianapolis Freeman, March 4, 1916. 94. “New Queen Theatre Birmingham Ala.,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 29, 1916. 95. “Notes From The Florida Blossoms Co.,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 29, 1916. 96. Bessie Smith’s Baltimore Afro-American obituary identified Lonnie and Cora Fisher as the stage managers of the fabled Moses Stokes Company. 97. Allan McMillan, “New York Sees Bessie Smith; Wonders Where She’s Been,” Chicago Defender, March 28, 1936. This statement has received very little notice over the years. Paul Oliver referenced it in his 1959 book Bessie Smith, 2–3. Sandra J. Lieb brought it up in her Mother of the Blues: A Study of Ma Rainey (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1981), 16, only to reject Cora Fisher in favor of Ma Rainey, the subject of her study: “Bessie herself asserted that her inspiration was Cora Fisher, an obscure singer from Chattanooga, but the statement is dubious” because Smith “had a vulnerable ego

and felt extremely competitive with other women blues stars,” so “she probably would not have cared to attribute her art to another reigning blues queen.” 98. “Notes From The Florida Blossoms Co.,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 14, 1916. 99. “Rainey’s Big Comedy Four At Nashville, Tenn.,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 11, 1913. 100. “Gossip Of The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 22, 1913. 101. “Theatrical News Of Pensacola, Fla.,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 17; 24, 1914; “Pensacola, Fla., Theatrical Notes,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 7; 21, 1914. 102. Ad, Indianapolis Freeman, May 1, 1915. For a more complete history of Alexander Tolliver’s Smart Set, see Abbott and Seroff, Ragged but Right, 121–56. 103. Al Wells, “Alexander Tolliver’s Big Show,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 23; November 6, 1915. The Raineys only traded as “Assassinators of the Blues” for two or three months. The last time they used the slogan in print was in an ad that ran in the 1915 Christmas Day issue of the Freeman. The comedy team of Dude Kelly and Amon Davis styled themselves “Assassinators of the Blues” early in 1911 (“Kelly And Davis,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 14, 1911). 104. Al Wells, “Alexander Tolliver’s Big Show,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 29, 1916. 105. Al Wells, “Alexander Tolliver’s Big Show,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 12; October 7; October 21, 1916. 106. Tolliver’s band for the 1916 season was headed by clarinetist Fred Kewley with Willie Hightower, cornet; “Zoo” Robertson, trombone; David Jones, mellophone; “Caggie” Howard, piano; J. W. Craddock or John Porter, string bass and tuba; and “Rabbit” Robinson, drums. For more, see Abbott and Seroff, Ragged but Right, 135–39. 107. Al Wells, “Alexander Tolliver’s Big Show,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 17, 1916. 108. Al Wells, “Alexander Tolliver’s Big Show,” Indianapolis Freeman, March 11, 1916. 109. Belfair [sic] Washington, “Tolliver’s Big Show,” Indianapolis Freeman, March 24, 1917. 110. “Knox Receives Letter,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 13, 1917. 111. Arthur Violet, “New Queen Theater, Birmingham, Ala.,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 20, 1917. 112. L. B. Mound, “The Douglass,” Chicago Defender, January 26, February 2, 1918. 113. Billy E. Lewis, “Smith and Tolliver, the Girls from Down Home, Singers,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 6, 1918. For

Notes to pages 175–178 information and photographs of Mabel Tolliver, see Abbott and Seroff, Ragged but Right, 122–25. 114. Billy E. Lewis, “Bessie Smith, The Girl From Down Home With the Big Voice,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 25, 1918. 115. Tony Langston, “The Monogram,” Chicago Defender, June 22, 1918. 116. Sylvester Russell, “Chicago Weekly Review,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 29, 1918. 117. Sylvester Russell, “Sylvester Russell’s Review,” Pittsburgh Courier, December 28, 1929. Russell died in Chicago, October 1, 1930 (“Sylvester Russell Dead,” Chicago Defender, October 11, 1930). 118. Ad, “Douglas Gilmor Theatre,” Baltimore Afro-American, September 13, 1918, reproduced in Albertson, Bessie (1972), 29; (2003), 16; Secret Sam, “Secret Service,” Chicago Defender, September 28, 1918. 119. “Notes From The Liberty Theatre,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 7, 1918. 120. Eddie Green, “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” (New York, Pace & Handy Music, 1918). 121. Bessie Smith, “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” Columbia 14250, 1927, reissued on Frog CD DG45. 122. Ma Rainey, “Hear Me Talking To You,” Paramount 12668, 1928, reissued on Document DOCD-5156. Other recordings of this song include Leona Williams (a.k.a. Leonce Lazzo), “Bring It With You When You Come,” Columbia A3815, 1923, reissued on Document DOCD-5523; Alberta Hunter, “Bring It With You When You Come,” Paramount 12018, 1923, reissued on Document DOCD-5423; Cannon’s Jug Stompers, “Bring It With You When You Come,” Victor 23263, 1930, reissued on Document DOCD-5033. Recorded versions of this song from the 1960s “folk music revival” include the Jim Kweskin Jug Band, “Wild About My Loving,” Vanguard LP VSD-2158, 1963; and the Lovin’ Spoonful, “Wild About My Lovin,” Kama Sutra LP KLP 8050, 1965. 123. “Stage Notes Of Atlanta, Ga.,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 25, 1920. The “peanut circuit boss” referred to the manager of the rival 91 Theater. Regarding “Flu,” Defender columnist Joseph “Jonesy” Jones later noted that “Flue (just plain Flu), the actor’s friend, still conducts her eatery at 93 Decatur St. and a hotel at 102 1/4” (“Says Jonesy,” Chicago Defender, July 11, 1925). 124. Pete Porter, “Drake-Walker Company To Open Reevins’ New $10,000 Theater In Chattanooga, Tenn., October 15,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 29, 1917. 125. Pete Porter, “Queen Theatre, Chattanooga, Tenn.,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 22, 1917.

126. Porter, “Drake-Walker Company To Open Reevins’ New $10,000 Theater In Chattanooga, Tenn., October 15.” 127. “News Of The Players,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 6, 1917. The nature and ultimate disposition of Ma Rainey’s suit against the railroad are not known. 128. “News Of The Players,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 10, 1917. 129. “News Of The Players,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 8, 1917. 130. “News Of The Players,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 16, 1918. 131. “Young” Knox, “The Washington Players Going Big All Thru The South,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 17, 1918. 132. Ad, “In All The World No Shows Like These,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 30, 1918. This ad actually refers to “Madam Reaney’s [sic] Southern Beauty Shows.” In December Park updated his ad to state: “I Own or Control the Madam Rainey Southern Beauty Shows” (ad, “Wanted For C. W. Park Enterprises,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 14, 1918). 133. Cornell and Russell, “Death Of W. M. Rainey,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 12, 1919. 134. Ibid. 135. “Notes From C. W. Park’s Smart Set Show,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 6, 1919. 136. “Gossip Of The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 17, 1920. 137. Ad, “Wanted For Dan Michaels & Ma Rainey Southern Beauty Co.,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 8, 1920. For an account of the early career of black Jamaica-born performer-turned-promoter Dan Michaels (or Michael), see Bradford, “Dan Michael, One of New York’s Coming Colored Comedians,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 23, 1909. 138. “Dan Micheal [sic],” Indianapolis Freeman, July 24, 1920. 139. “News Of The Players,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 17, 1920; “Dan Michael’s Southern Beauties Last Week at the Monogram,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 17, 1920: “Other members in the company were J. H. Cambre [sic, Campbell], straight, Maud Wilson, Rosebud Wilson, Mrs. Glober, Mrs. J. H. Campbell, Elevyn [sic] White, William Hall, Vincent Abel, Rector Patterson and others.” 140. Gabriel Stanley, “Washington Theatre Indianapolis,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 24, 1920. 141. Claude D. Collins, “Gleanings From Hambone Jones Company,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 11, 1920. 142. “Gossip Of The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 30, 1920. In the parlance of black itinerant minstrel shows, to “double B. and O.” was to be able to fill a spot in both the

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Notes to pages 178–180 parade band and the stage orchestra. That Rainey’s Southern Beauties advertised this requirement suggests they were fielding a minstrel show-type street parade while plowing the Texas backroads. 143. After canonizing her as the “Mother of the Blues,” Paramount may have chosen to distance Rainey from her older ragtime repertoire. 144. Virginia Liston had thirty-six titles released on the OKeh and Vocalion labels between 1923 and 1927. They have been reissued on Document DOCD-5446 and 5447. Laura Smith recorded thirty-three titles released on the OKeh, Plaza, and Victor labels between 1924 and 1927. They have been reissued on Document DOCD-5429, 5431, 5461, and 1005. 145. “Kenner And Lewis Amusement Company,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 13, 1909. Virginia Liston, “I’m Gonna Get Me A Man That’s All,” Vocalion 1032, 1926, reissued on Document DOCD-5447. She is credited on the record label as the song’s composer. 146. 1900 U.S. Census (Ancestry.com). While the census taker’s handwriting is open to interpretation, it would appear that Virginia Crawford’s parents were William and Jennie Crawford, originally from Alabama and Mississippi, respectively. William is listed as a “Laborer.” Their oldest daughter Daisy is listed as a “Performer.” Virginia is one of four children listed as “At School.” 147. “Opening Of Dixie Park At New Orleans,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 10, 1909. 148. In “Laura Reports,” Chicago Defender, December 2, 1922, Smith stated that her birth name was Loretta Bryant. But the name Smith also appears to have had some family authority; in “Laura Smith Calls,” Chicago Defender, May 4, 1929, she reported “the sad news of the death of her older sister, Bessie Smith (not the blues queen), who died in Grand Rapids, Mich., April 22.” 149. Sylvester Russell, “A Review Of The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 17, 1909. The Simms of King and Simms’ Minstrels was probably Joe Simms (or Sims), who logged a remarkable career in black vaudeville, worthy of estimation on its own merit. He can be heard on at least one race recording, singing and trading comic barbs with Clarence Williams (Joe Sims and Clarence Williams, “What Do You Know About That”/“Shut Your Mouth,” Paramount 12435, 1927, reissued on Blues Classics CD718). 150. “The Pekin Theater, Memphis, Tenn.,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 13, 1909; “The Pekin Theater, Memphis,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 25, 1909; “The Pekin At Memphis,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 15, 1910; “The Pekin In Memphis,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 29, 1910.

151. “Amuse U Theater, Memphis,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 18, 1909; “Kenner And Lewis Amusement Company,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 13, 1909. 152. “Steward And Miller At Eldorado Theater, Pensacola, Florida,” Indianapolis Freeman, March 19, 1910. 153. That Dave Liston was from New Orleans is confirmed, or at least suggested, by an October 9, 1915, Freeman report that his father, Dave Liston Sr., had recently “died at his home in New Orleans.” Moreover, a January 6, 1917, Freeman report from Salem Tutt Whitney’s Smart Set Company noted that while playing in New Orleans: “Dave Liston, with the company AND AT HOME IN N. O. Entertained members of the Smart Set, AT THE HOME OF HIS SISTER, with a delicious, LOUISIANA GUMBO DINNER.” 154. “People’s Theater At Houston, Tex.,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 30, 1910; “Alabama Chocolate Drops,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 14, 1910. 155. “Alabama Chocolate Drops,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 28, 1910; “Houston, Tex.,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 11, 1910. 156. “Savoy Theater, Memphis, Tenn.,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 23, 1910. 157. “The Sandy [sic] Theater, Memphis, Tenn.,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 7, 1910. 158. “The Savoy Theater, Memphis,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 28, 1910. 159. “Savoy Theater, Memphis,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 4, 1910. 160. “The America [sic] Theater, Jackson, Miss.,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 25, 1910. 161. “American Theater, Jackson, Miss.,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 2, 1910. In 1912 Ed Daniels was the Savoy Theater’s business manager (ad, “Wanted! For Savoy Theatre,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 20, 1912). 162. “American Theater, Jackson, Mississippi,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 9, 1910; “The Savoy Stock Company At Memphis, Tenn.,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 6, 1910. 163. “Palace Theatre, Houston,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 2, 1910; “At The People’s Theatre, Houston, Tex.,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 17, 1910. 164. “Ruby Theatre, Galveston, Texas,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 5, 1910. 165. “Ruby Theatre, Galveston, Tex.,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 8, 1910. 166. “Ruby Theater, Galveston,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 12, 1910. 167. “Ruby Theatre, Galveston, Tex.,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 3, 1910.

Notes to pages 180–183 168. “The Amuse Theater, Vicksburg, Miss.,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 1, 1911. 169. “Circle Theater, Philadelphia, Pa.,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 27, 1911. For a view of white coon shouter Artie Hall, see Abbott and Seroff, Out of Sight, 17–21. 170. Numerous descriptive commentaries in the Freeman fail to reveal “Hambone” Jones’s given name. However, a report from the Dreamland Theater in Opelika, Alabama, in the spring of 1910, makes note of: “Will Jones, stage manager (better known as Hambone)” (“Dreamland Theater, Opelika, Alabama,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 16, 1910). 171. “At The New Crown Garden Theater,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 3, 1913. 172. Ibid. 173. “The New Crown Garden Theater,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 10, 1913. 174. “Gossip Of The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 17, 1913. 175. Cary B. Lewis, “Joe Joran [sic] and Evylin [sic] Joiner Stop Bill At Grand,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 31, 1913: “Other numbers rendered were: Do As Much For You; I Don’t Care; and Going Back To Virginia.” 176. The Tulsa Daily World of May 4, 1912, carried an ad for “Just as the Ship Went Down,” “the great ‘Titanic’ song” on sale at the local Darrow Music Company, 109 East Third Street (America’s Historical Newspapers, NewsBank). According to Meade, Spottswood, and Meade, Country Music Sources, 70, “There were over 160 songs copyright and/or published on the subject [the wreck of the Titanic] during the ensuing months.” 177. “Macon, Georgia,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 6, 1914; “Theatrical News Of Pensacola, Fla.,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 17; 24, 1914; “Pensacola, Fla., Theatrical Notes,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 7; 21, 1914; L. B. Mound, “The Douglass Theatre, Macon Ga.,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 8, 1915. It is not clear how or if Ma Rainey’s 1914 “Titanic” is related to her 1925 recording of “Titanic Man Blues” (Paramount 12374, reissued on Document DOCD-5583). 178. The song index to Dixon, Godrich, and Rye documents more than a dozen songs about the sinking of the Titanic, or songs referencing the disaster, including “God Moves On The Water,” 1136; “Sinking Of The Titanic,” 1265; “Titanic Blues,” “Titanic Man Blues,” “The Titanic,” 1289; and “When That Great Ship Went Down,” 1305. Country Music Sources documents a similar number of Titanic-related songs recorded by white artists. A collection of eighteen historical recordings of “Titanic Songs” by artists of both races has been reissued by Unsinkable Music (TSCD 22798, Canada, 1998).

179. Race issues are forthrightly addressed in Huddie Ledbetter’s “The Titanic,” Library of Congress, 1935, reissued on Rounder CD 1097. (See also an excerpt of an autobiographical manuscript written by Ledbetter, reproduced in Charles Wolfe and Kip Lornell, The Life and Legend of Leadbelly [New York: Harper Collins, 1992], 247–48.) Matters of class and hubris were raised in Vernon Dalhart’s 1925 recording “The Sinking Of The Great Titanic” (Columbia 15032-D, reissued on Unsinkable Music TSCD 22798); one verse of which asserts: “The rich folk they declared / They wouldn’t ride with the poor. / So they sent the poor below, / They were cursed and had to go.” A variation is found in the black gospel duo William and Versey Smith’s “When That Great Ship Went Down” (Paramount 12505, 1927). Dalhart’s recording also recounts: When they built the great Titanic They said what they could do. They said they’d build a ship That water would not go through. But God with his mighty hand Showed the world it could not stand. Blind Willie Johnson’s “God Moves On The Water” (Columbia 14520-D, 1929, reissued on Columbia/Legacy CD C2K 52835), and the Dixon Brothers’ (white) “Down With The Old Canoe” (Bluebird 7449, 1938, reissued on Document DOCD-8048) also touch on the subject of hubris. 180. “At The New Crown Garden, Indianapolis,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 12, 1914. 181. “At The New Crown Garden Theater,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 3, 1913. 182. Leadbelly claimed that he first sang his Titanic ballad in 1912 on the streets of Dallas in company with Blind Lemon Jefferson (Wolfe and Lornell, 44). Other Titanic blues ballads—such as “Hi” Henry Brown’s “Titanic Blues” (Vocalion 1728, 1932, reissued on Document DOCD-5098) and Richard “Rabbit” Brown’s “Sinking of the Titanic” (Victor 35840, 1927, reissued on Document DOCD-5003)—do not include the “fare thee Titanic, fare thee well” refrain. 183. “The Brooklyn Theater At Charlotte, N.C.,” Indianapolis Freeman, March 8, 1913; “At The New Crown Garden Theater,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 3, 1913; Cary B. Lewis, “Joe Joran [sic] and Evylin [sic] Joiner Stop Bill At Grand.” 184. John Queen, words; Walter Wilson, music, “Fare Thee, Honey, Fare Thee Well” (New York: Howley, Haviland & Dresser), 1901. For reference, there is white coon song shouter Marie Cahill’s 1916 recording of “Fare Thee Honey, Fare Thee

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Notes to pages 183–187 Well” on Victor 45125. “Fare Thee, Honey, Fare Thee Well” was sung at the Mascotte saloon-theater in Tampa, Florida, in 1901, by black vaudeville performer Jessie Thomas (“Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 9, 1901). 185. “Ma” Rainey, “Titanic Man Blues,” Paramount 12374, 1925, reissued on Document DOCD-5583. 186. Joe Calicott, “Fare Thee Well Blues,” Brunswick 7166, 1930, reissued on Document DOCD-5002; Johnnie Head, “Fare Thee Blues” (Parts 1 & 2), Paramount 12628, 1928, reissued on Document DOCD-5169; Memphis Jug Band, “I’ll See You In The Spring, When The Birds Begin To Sing,” Victor 21066, 1927, reissued on Document DOCD-5021. See also Blind Willie McTell and Kate McTell, “East St. Louis Blues (Fare You Well)” (Vocalion unissued, 1933, issued on JEMF LP 106); and Blind Willie McTell, “East St. Louis” (Regal unissued, 1949, issued on Document DOCD-6014). 187. Georgia White’s “Fare Thee Honey Fare Thee Well” (Decca 7405, 1937, reissued on Document DOCD-5303) also includes the couplet: “You told me way last spring, when the birds began to sing.” A Mamie Smith recording titled “Fare Thee Honey Blues” (OKeh 4194, 1920, reissued on Document DOCD-5357) is only tangentially related; it has a different melody and does not employ the chorus refrain, but does include the line “I told him way last spring, when the bluebirds began to sing.” Hezekiah and Dorothy Jenkins’s “Fare Thee Well,” Ida Cox’s “Fare Thee Well Poor Gal,” and Johnnie Temple’s “Fare You Well,” are unrelated songs. 188. “The New Crown Garden Theater,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 7, 1913. 189. “Cincinnati Theatricals,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 19, 1913. 190. “Alpha Theater, Cleveland, O.,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 2, 1913. 191. “At The New Crown Garden, Indianapolis,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 12, 1914. 192. “Stage Gossip,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 26, 1914; January 16, 1915; Herbert T. Meadows, “St. Louis Theatrical Notes,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 6, 1915. 193. Herbert T. Meadows, “St. Louis Amusement Notes,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 20, 1915. 194. “Bert A. Williams And Follies Members Entertained By Turpin,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 27, 1915. 195. “From Air Dome Theater, Columbia, Ga.,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 24, 1915. 196. “The Cincinnati Theaters—The Pekin And The Gaither,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 1, 1911.

197. “The Cincinnati Theaters,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 8, 1911. 198. “The Garden Theater, Louisville, Ky.,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 22, 1911. 199. “Laura Smith And Mattie Whitman,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 5, 1911. 200. Sylvester Russell, “Chicago Weekly Review,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 12, 1911. 201. For more on the colorful career of Mattie Dorsey Whitman, see Lynn Abbott and Doug Seroff, “Sweet Mattie Dorsey: Been Here, But She’s Gone,” 78 Quarterly, no. 8 (1994): 103–12. 202. “The Cincinnati Theaters,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 16, 1911. 203. “The Cincinnati Theaters,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 23, 1911. 204. “Gossip Of The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 23, 1911. 205. Ibid. 206. “Savoy Theater, Memphis, Tenn.,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 2; 9; 23, 1912. 207. “Savoy Theater, Memphis, Tenn.,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 23, 1912. 208. “The New Crown Garden Theater,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 17, 1913. 209. “Park Theater, Dallas, Tex.,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 13, 1913. 210. “Alcazar Theater, Dallas, Texas,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 20, 1913. 211. “Lyric Theatre, Kansas City, Mo.,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 11, 1914. 212. “Gossip Of The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 25, 1914. 213. “The Lyric Theater, Kansas City, Mo.,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 26, 1914. 214. “Lincoln Theatre, Galveston, Texas,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 15, 1915. 215. Herbert T. Meadows, “St. Louis Theatrical Notes,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 30, 1915. 216. “Theatrical Jottings,” New York Age, February 10, 1916. 217. “New Monogram,” Chicago Defender, April 22, 1916. 218. Sylvester Russell, “Chicago Weekly Review,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 18, 1918. On July 27, 1918, Freeman columnist Billy Lewis disclosed: “Laura’s home address is 3800 Indiana avenue, Chicago, Ill.” 219. Billy Lewis, “Washington Theatre,” “Laura Smith— Everybody’s Favorite,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 27, 1918.

Notes to pages 188–191 220. “The Washington Theatre,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 21, 1918. 221. “A Note Or Two,” Chicago Defender, April 26; July 5, 1919; “Gossip Of The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 30, 1919. 222. “Theatrical Notes From Pittsburgh, Pa.,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 20, 1919. 223. Sylvester Russell, “Tim Moore, Billy McCarver And Laura Smith—Rival Team Stars at the Monogram,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 3, 1920. To explain this headline, the husband-and-wife teams of Tim and Gertie Moore and Billy and Sadie McCarver shared the Monogram bill with the team of Smith and Butler. 224. Sylvester Russell, “Laura Smith Showered With Silver at the Monogram,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 4, 1919. 225. G. Stanley, “Washington Theatre Last Week,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 18, 1919. Tosti’s “Goodbye” was an emblem of “high-class” singing. 226. “Stage Notes And Cabaret News,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 6, 1919; Tony Langston, “The Monogram,” Chicago Defender, December 13, 1919. 227. Sylvester Russell, “Chicago Weekly Review,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 20, 1919. 228. Perry Bradford, “Perry Bradford Sells Song,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 14, 1920; ad, “Performers! Don’t be Misled: get the Original,” Indianapolis Freeman, March 6, 1920. 229. “Where Are They In Stageland,” Chicago Defender, July 3, 1920. 230. “A Note Or Two,” Chicago Defender, July 17, 1920. 231. “A Note Or Two,” Chicago Defender, August 1; 21; September 18, 1920. 232. “A Note Or Two,” Chicago Defender, December 4, 1920; Tony Langston, “New Show Pleases Avenue Crowds,” Chicago Defender, December 25, 1920. 233. “Laura Makes It,” Chicago Defender, September 16, 1922. 234. “J. A. Jackson’s Page,” “Varnell’s Review,” Billboard, December 30, 1922. 235. “Butler Dead,” Chicago Defender, February 24, 1923. 236. Laura Smith, “Letters,” Chicago Defender, April 28, 1923. 237. “Lincoln,” Baltimore Afro-American, June 1, 1923 (ProQuest, Black Studies Center). 238. “A Note Or Two,” Chicago Defender, January 5; 12, 1924; Jack L. Cooper, “Dixie Theater,” Chicago Defender, January 19, 1924; “J. A. Jackson’s Page,” “Varnell’s Review,” Billboard, October 20, 1923. 239. “A Note Or Two,” Chicago Defender, February 2, 1924. 240. “A Note Or Two,” Chicago Defender, April 19, 1924.

241. “A Note Or Two,” Chicago Defender, July 19, 1924. 242. “Laura Flies,” Chicago Defender, August 2, 1924. 243. Ad, “OKeh’s New And Exclusive Artist Laura Smith,” Chicago Defender, September 27, 1924. 244. “They’ve Done It,” Chicago Defender, October 4, 1924. 245. “Much Better,” Chicago Defender, January 24, 1925. 246. “A Note Or Two,” Chicago Defender, October 24, 1925. 247. “Record Star Living Here,” Baltimore Afro-American, September 18, 1926 (Black Studies Center, ProQuest). 248. W. L. Rector, “Reyno Comedians In North Carolina,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 19, 1916. 249. “Stage Notes,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 20, 1917; “A Note Or Two,” Chicago Defender, March 10, 1917. 250. R. W. Thompson, “The Passing Show In Washington,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 28, 1917. 251. “Benbow’s Merrymakers Making Good—Will Open On Klien’s [sic] Time October 8,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 6, 1917. 252. “Ideal Players Highly Entertained At Roanoke, Va.,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 27, 1917. 253. “News Of The Players,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 3, 1917. 254. “News Of The Players,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 22, 1917. Like “Hambone” Jones, “Slim” Jones managed to keep his real first name out of print. In 1925 he married Laura Smith. 255. John V. Snow, “Warning,” Indianapolis Freeman, March 19, 1918. 256. “The Washington Theatre,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 6, 1919; G. Stanley, “The Washington Theatre,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 13, 1919. 257. G. Stanley, “The Washington Theatre,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 13, 1919. 258. Sylvester Russell, “Hambone Jones And Co. At The Monogram,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 27, 1919. 259. Sylvester Russell, “Hambone Jones Dead,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 25, 1919. 260. “Ham Bone Jones Takes Ill—Goes To Detroit Hospital,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 18, 1919. 261. Russell, “Hambone Jones Dead”; John H. Mason, “The Late Hambone Jones,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 1, 1919. 262. Ad, “Ham-Bone Jones Co.,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 10, 1920. 263. See Abbott and Seroff, Ragged but Right, for more about Sam H. Gray’s professional activities prior to teaming with Virginia Liston, and also afterward, as producer/performer with the Silas Green from New Orleans Minstrel Company.

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Notes to pages 192–196 264. “Hambone Jones Co. Better Than Ever—Big Hit In Dallas, Tex.—Broke All Records In Houston, Tex.,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 17, 1920. 265. Ibid. 266. Ad, “Ham-Bone Jones Co.,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 24, 1920; “Routes,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 31, 1920. 267. Members of the Ethiopian Quartette were W. Reid Connor, first tenor; C. Collins, second tenor; J. McPheeters, baritone; and S. H. Gray, bass. Members of the Girls High Brown Chorus were Mae Harper, Maggie Elliot, Carrie Madison, Mary Green, Minerva Jackson, and Kate Keye (ad, “HamBone Jones Co.,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 21, 1920). 268. J. M. Gray, “Gibson’s New Standard Theatre, Philadelphia,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 5, 1920. 269. Claude D. Collins, “Gleanings From Ham Bone Jones Company,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 11, 1920. 270. Ibid. 271. “Chintz Moore Shot,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 11, 1920. 272. “Attention! Attention!” Indianapolis Freeman, September 11, 1920. 273. Ad, “Ham Bone Jones Co.,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 4, 1920. The ad also lists “George Williams, Rubber Legs Dancer” as a star of the current roster. George “Rubberlegs” Williams’s 1940s recordings for Continental and Savoy are backed by the likes of Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Lionel Hampton, and (perhaps) Miles Davis. 274. Indianapolis Freeman, March 5, 1921, quoted in “Feature Program With Pictures At Attucks Next Week,” Norfolk Journal and Guide, April 2, 1921. 275. “J. A. Jackson’s Page,” “Here And There Among The Folks,” Billboard, June 10, 1922. 276. “J. A. Jackson’s Page,” “Lemare’s Cabaret,” Billboard, July 22, 1922; “J. A. Jackson’s Page,” “Review Closes,” Billboard, September 30, 1922; “J. A. Jackson’s Page,” “Here And There Among The Folks,” Billboard, October 7, 1922. The “Shuffle Along Review” does not appear to have been directly connected to Shuffle Along “proper.” 277. “J. A. Jackson’s Page,” “Here And There Among The Folks,” Billboard, October 21, 1922. 278. “J. A. Jackson’s Page,” “Go Get It,” Billboard, November 4, 1922; “J. A. Jackson’s Page,” “‘Go Get It’ Has Got It,” Billboard, November 18, 1922. 279. “J. A. Jackson’s Page,” “‘Go Get It’ Gets Thru,” Billboard, January 6, 1923. 280. “J. A. Jackson’s Page,” Billy Chambers, “Chambers’ Review,” Billboard, March 24, 1923.

281. “J. A. Jackson’s Page,” “Here And There Among the Folks,” Billboard, May 19; June 23, 1923. 282. “J. A. Jackson’s Page,” “Here And There Among The Folks,” Billboard, July 28, 1923. 283. Ma Rainey, “Jealous Hearted Blues,” Paramount 12252, 1924, reissued on Document DOCD-5582. The Indianapolis Freeman of March 5, 1921, claimed “Jealous Hearted Blues” was written by Coleman Minor. The label credits Lovie Austin as composer. 284. Dixon, Godrich, and Rye. 285. Ad, Chicago Defender, November 10, 1923. 286. “OKeh Notes,” Chicago Defender, January 5, 1924. 287. “The New Crown Garden Theater,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 10, 1913. 288. Liston, Gray, and Williams receive composer credit on the label copy of Clara Smith’s Columbia, Maggie Jones’s (as “Fae Barnes”) Paramount, and Viola McCoy’s Banner records of “You Don’t Know My Mind,” all from 1924. Thanks to Roger Misiewicz. Liston’s claim to authorship of “You Don’t Know My Mind” was reiterated in a review of her 1926 appearance at the Lincoln Theater in Kansas City (“At The Playhouses,” Kansas City Call, December 31, 1926). 289. Clara Smith, “You Don’t Know My Mind,” Columbia 14013, 1924, reissued on Document DOCD-5364; Lead Belly, “You Don’t Know My Mind,” ARC originally unissued, 1935, issued on Collectibles 46776. Other recorded versions include Judson Brown, “You Don’t Know My Mind Blues,” Brunswick 7220, 1930, reissued on Document DOCD-5192; Barbecue Bob, “Honey You Don’t Know My Mind,” Columbia 14246-D, 1927, reissued on Document DOCD-5046; Pete Johnson Blues Trio, “You Don’t Know My Mind,” Blue Note 12, 1939; and Mabel Robinson, “You Don’t Know My Mind,” Decca 8580, 1941, reissued on Document DOCD-5468. 290. Virginia Liston, “You Don’t Know My Mind Blues,” OKeh 8115, 1923, reissued on Document DOCD-5446. 291. Virginia Liston, “Bill Draw,” OKeh 8173, 1924, reissued on Document DOCD-5446. 292. Virginia Liston, “Happy Shout”/“House Rent Stomp,” OKeh 8134, 1923; Virginia Liston—Sam Gray, “You Can Have It (I Don’t Want It)”/“Just Take One Long Last Lingering Look,” OKeh 8126, 1924, all reissued on Document DOCD5446. 293. Laura Smith, “Gonna Put You Right In Jail,” Banner 1977, 1927, reissued on Document DOCD-5429. 294. Laura Smith, “Texas Moaner Blues,” OKeh 8157, 1924, reissued on Document DOCD-5429; Clara Smith, “Texas Moaner Blues,” Columbia 14034-D, 1924, reissued

Notes to pages 196–201 on Document DOCD-5365; Alberta Hunter, “Texas Moaner Blues,” Gennett 5594, 1924, reissued on Document DOCD5424. 295. Clarence Williams’ Blue Five, “Texas Moaner Blues,” OKeh 8171, 1924, reissued on Classics CD 679. 296. Laura Smith, “Two-Faced Woman Blues,” OKeh 8169, 1924, reissued on Document DOCD-5429. 297. Virginia Liston, “Jail House Blues,” OKeh 8122, 1924, reissued on Document DOCD-5446. Bessie Smith recorded “Jail-House Blues” in September 1923 (Columbia A4001, reissued on Frog CD DGF40). An almost identical lyric couplet appears in black fiddle and guitar duo Andrew and Jim Baxter’s 1929 recording “It Tickles Me” (Victor 38603, reissued on Document DOCD-5167) and Julia Johnson’s “Tickling Blues” (Gennett 6519, 1929, reissued on Document DOCD-5503). 298. Laura Smith, “Humming Blues,” OKeh 8246, 1925, reissued on Document DOCD-5429. According to “A Note Or Two,” Chicago Defender, December 5, 1925, Lukie Johnson was the composer. 299. Laura Smith, “Cool Can Blues”/“Lucy Long,” OKeh 8366, 1925; “JacKass [sic] Blues,” OKeh 8331, 1926, all reissued on Document DOCD-5429. 300. Laura Smith, “Don’t You Leave Me Here,” Banner 1977, 1927, reissued on Document DOCD-5429. 301. “Alcazar Theater, Dallas, Texas,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 20, 1913; “The Washington Theatre,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 21, 1918; G. Stanley, “Washington Theatre Last Week,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 18, 1919. 302. Bob Hayes, “Here and There With Bob Hayes,” Chicago Defender, April 27, 1929. An article the following week (“Laura Smith Calls,” Chicago Defender, May 4, 1929) asserted that, “She has just made several successful recordings for the Q. R. S. rolls and Paramount Movietone.” 303. “Drake and Walker Show Scores Hit at the Grand,” Chicago Defender, June 1, 1929. 304. Bob Hayes, “Here and There With Bob Hayes,” Chicago Defender, June 8, 1929. 305. Bob Hayes, “Drake and Walker Please Grand Theater Audiences,” Chicago Defender, August 31, 1929. 306. Bob Hayes, “Here and There With Bob Hayes,” Chicago Defender, September 21, 1929; “Laura Smith Finds Success Out West,” Chicago Defender, October 19, 1929. 307. Frankye Marilyn Whitlock, “Coast Breezes,” Chicago Defender, January 11, 1930. 308. “Hits And Bits,” Chicago Defender, August 15, 1931. 309. “Old Time Singers Sang At Laura Smith Funeral,” California Eagle, February 19, 1932.

310. “At The Lincoln,” Pittsburgh Courier, March 1, 1924. According to “J. A. Jackson’s Page,” “Pittsburg Pa.,” Billboard, March 15, 1924, personnel of the OKeh Jazz Five consisted of “G. W. Jackson, H. D. Hooper, Ho. [sic] Billups, H. A. Henson and B. Cooper.” 311. “At The Elmore,” Pittsburgh Courier, April 5, 1924. 312. “Liston’s Show,” Chicago Defender, May 17, 1924. 313. Unidentified Memphis daily newspaper, quoted in “Virginia Liston,” Chicago Defender, May 31, 1924. 314. “Buncoed Again,” Chicago Defender, May 31, 1924. 315. “Star,” Baltimore Afro-American, December 20, 1924 (Black Studies Center, ProQuest). 316. “Gray And Liston,” Chicago Defender, January 3, 1925. 317. “‘Eliza Scandals,’” Chicago Defender, January 10, 1925. 318. Macon Telegraph, quoted in “Eliza Scandal Co.,” Chicago Defender, February 14, 1925. 319. “J. A. Jackson’s Page,” Billy Chambers, “Reviews,” Billboard, February 21, 1925. 320. “The Gray Show Draws,” Chicago Defender, March 14, 1925. Another review of “Eliza Scandals” indicated that Liston was being billed as the “Titanic blues singer” (J. A. Jackson’s Page,” “Eliza Scandals,” Billboard, January 17, 1925). 321. According to a Theater Owners Booking Association contract, when the “Eliza Scandals” Company of ten people played the Douglass Theater in Macon, week of February 2, 1925, they received no more than the standard payment of $325 (C. H. Douglass Business Records Collection, Middle Georgia Archives, Washington Memorial Library, Macon, Georgia). 322. “Eliza Scandal Co.,” Chicago Defender, April 11, 1925. 323. Jos. Jones, “Says Jonesy,” Chicago Defender, May 9, 1925. 324. Ibid. 325. “Virginia Liston’s 1925 Revue,” Chicago Defender, September 5, 1925. 326. “S. H. Gray Complains,” Chicago Defender, August 1, 1925. 327. “Virginia Liston’s 1925 Revue.” 328. “Benton Overstreet Out Of Jail; Claims False Charge,” Chicago Defender, August 15, 1925. 329. “Virginia Liston’s 1925 Revue”; Wyatt D. James, “Texas Tattles,” Chicago Defender, September 12, 1925. 330. Young Dud (S. H. Dudley, Jr.), “Shufflin’ Sam Co.,” Chicago Defender, December 12, 1925; John Mitchell, “Shufflin’ Sam,” Chicago Defender, February 27, 1926. 331. “A Note Or Two,” Chicago Defender, April 10, 1926. 332. “Darktown Strutters,” Chicago Defender, May 15, 1926. 333. H. D. Garnett, “Koppin Theater,” Chicago Defender, December 18, 1926.

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Notes to pages 201–204 334. “Stage—Records—Radio—Screen,” Pittsburgh Courier, February 19, 1927. This “ex-sweetheart” may have been the same “Mr. Brown” that Liston was reported to have married ten years earlier. 335. J. Ernest Webb, “Naptown Doings,” Chicago Defender, November 26, 1927. 336. “Miss Liston Marries,” Chicago Defender, October 19, 1929. 337. Harris, Blues Who’s Who, 331. 338. Laura Smith, “Little Ginger,” did not even get an entry in Blues Who’s Who. 339. It may be fair to question whether contemporary popular African American musicians and comedians entertaining sympathetic, attuned, peer-group audiences pause to consider how their coded references might be perceived fifty or one hundred years from today. Black vaudeville comedians were likewise unconcerned, their motives similarly grounded in opaque historical realities. 340. Frankie Jaxon, “It’s Heated,” Vocalion 1539, 1929, reissued on Document DOCD-5258. 341. J. D. Howard, “Cole and Johnson,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 21, 1908; Abbott and Seroff, Ragged but Right, 73–74. 342. “Allen’s Minstrels,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 27, 1909. See Abbott and Seroff, Ragged but Right, 234. 343. Coy Herndon, “Coy Cogitates,” Chicago Defender, April 15, 1925. See Abbott and Seroff, Ragged but Right, 423. 344. Peck, “Amuse Theater Vicksburg, Miss.,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 5, 1911. 345. “Circle Theater,” Philadelphia Tribune, March 21, 1914. It is not certain that this act included female impersonation. 346. “Fagingy Fagade Is Type of Harlem Theatrical Language,” Baltimore Afro-American, April 1937 (Black Studies Center, ProQuest). 347. Clarence Major, ed., Juba to Jive—A Dictionary Of African American Slang (New York: Viking, 1994), 122, defines Crow Jane as “a very black or especially dark-complexioned woman.” As late as 1982 a black fashion reporter wrote: “Unfortunately, many of our fine young black women equate manners, poise, and perhaps, charm with a Crow-Jane attitude signifying acceptance of white order” (Edith Davis, “The Importance of Beauty, Fashion and Good Attitude,” Los Angeles Sentinel, June 24, 1982 [Black Studies Center, ProQuest]). Amiri Baraka included a group of “Crow Jane” poems in his 1964 collection, The Dead Lecturer. In “Crow Jane in High Society,” she “wipes her nose on the draperies.” 348. Skip James, “Crow Jane,” Skip James Today! Vanguard LP VSD-9219, 1965.

349. Sonny Terry, “Crow Jane Blues,” Capitol 40097, 1947; Carl Martin, “Crow Jane,” Bluebird 6139, 1935, reissued on Document DOCD-5229; Julius Daniels, “Crow Jane Blues,” Victor 21065, 1927, reissued on Document DOCD-5160; Ida Cox, “Crow Jane Woman Blues,” Paramount 12738, 1928, reissued on Document DOCD-5325. Another recorded example is the seemingly mistitled “Poor Jane,” recorded by Jack Gowdlock in 1931 (Victor 23419, reissued on Document DOCD-5574). 350. Foster and Harris (Ma Rainey’s Boys), “Crow Jane Alley,” Paramount 12709, 1928, reissued on RST BDCD-6021. 351. “Sloppy” Henry, “Hobo Blues,” OKeh 8683, 1929, reissued on Document DOCD-5482. 352. Blind Willie McTell, “Bell Street Lightnin’,” originally unissued, 1933, issued on Document DOCD-5008. 353. “Rose Melville At The Park,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 8, 1911. 354. “Vaudeville In Full Blast At the Washington Theatre, Indianapolis—Ora Criswell Received With Shouts Of Applause,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 30, 1916. 355. “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 1, 22; August 31, 1901; June 7, 1902. 356. Ad, Rialto Theater, Indianapolis Freeman, May 25, 1901. 357. “Acts New To Indianapolis,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 18, 1911. The report went on to recall that Criswell made the song “In Tennessee” famous while singing it in this show. 358. “A Great Team,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 20, 1913. Abbott and Seroff, Ragged but Right, 51–53. 359. Harry Bradford, “What The Colored Vaudeville Artists Are Doing In The East,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 11, 1909. Bradford gave Criswell’s name as Ora Henry. 360. “Jacksonville Theatrical Notes,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 16, 1910. 361. “Jacksonville, Fla., Theatrical Notes,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 28, 1910. 362. “Savoy Theater At Memphis, Tenn.,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 9, 1910. 363. F. A. Barrasso, “American Theater, Jackson, Mississippi,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 9, 1910. 364. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 3, 1910. 365. Sylvester Russell, “Musical And Dramatic,” Chicago Defender, January 14, 1911. 366. “Acts New To Indianapolis.” 367. Billy E. Jones, “Eastern Theatrical Notes,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 3, 1912. Criswell was probably singing Irving Berlin and Ted Snyder’s “Piano Man” (New York: Ted Snyder, 1910).

Notes to pages 204–208 368. “Satisfactory Arrangements,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 17, 1912; Billie E. Jones, “Eastern Theatrical News,” Indianapolis Freeman, March 2, 1912. 369. Billy E. Jones, “Eastern Theatrical News,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 7; November 9, 1912. 370. Billy E. Jones, “What The Performers Are Doing,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 21, 1912. 371. Arw-Tee, “The Passing Show in Washington,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 1, 1913. 372. The Owl, “New York News,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 26, 1913. 373. Jno. H. Hall, “Washington D. C. Theaters,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 19, 1913; “Criswell And Bailey At The Crown Garden,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 23, 1913. 374. “At the New Crown Garden,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 16, 1913. 375. “The Auditorium Theater, Philadelphia, Pa.,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 31, 1913. 376. Walter S. Fearance, “St. Louis, Mo.,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 23, 1913. 377. James Austin, “The Stage,” Philadelphia Tribune, August 1, 1914. 378. “At The New Crown Garden Theater,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 20, 1913. 379. “St. Louis, Mo.,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 18, 1913. 380. “Criswell and Bailey Playing Return Engagement,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 6, 1913. 381. Sylvester Russell, “Chicago Weekly Review,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 25, 1914. 382. Sylvester Russell, “Chicago Weekly Review,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 15, 1914. 383. See Abbott and Seroff, Ragged but Right, 101, 103–4, for commentary about S. H. Dudley’s blackface characterizations. 384. “At The New Crown Garden Theatre,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 5, 1914. 385. “The New Crown Garden Theatre—Tim E. Owsley, Proprietor,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 17, 1914. The Jubalaires, a black vocal quartet under the leadership of Willie Johnson, recorded “When The Midnight Choo Choo Leaves For Alabam” for a Standard radio transcription (Standard 261), circa 1950. 386. “James Marshall And Wife,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 14, 1914. 387. Sylvester Russell, “Chicago Weekly Review,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 19, 1914. 388. Will H. Lewis, “Annual Review Of The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 16, 1915.

389. Sylvester Russell, “Chicago Weekly Review,” Indianapolis Freeman, March 20, 1915. 390. Sylvester Russell, “Chicago Weekly Review,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 17, 1915. 391. Sylvester Russell, “Chicago Weekly Review,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 24, 1915. 392. Sylvester Russell, “Chicago Weekly Review,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 1, 1915. Russell’s comment reflects the critical discernment underlying his attitudes toward the use of blackface makeup. 393. “Venable, Owens And Harper, Ora Criswell, Buster And Bailey, Dawson And Booth At The New Crown Garden,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 29, 1915. 394. Sylvester Russell, “Chicago Weekly Review,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 19, 1915. 395. D. F. Tobe, “Stage Notes From The Lyric Theatre, Wilmington, N. C.,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 9, 1915. 396. Sylvester Russell, “Chicago Weekly Review,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 8, 1916. 397. “Ora Criswell,” Chicago Defender, September 2, 1916; “Additional Stage Notes,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 2, 1916. 398. Sylvester Russell, “Chicago Weekly Review,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 14, 1916. 399. “Vaudeville In Full Blast At The Washington, Theatre, Indianapolis—Ora Criswell Received With Shouts Of Applause,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 30, 1916. 400. “Ora Criswell Holding Over At The Washington Theater,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 6, 1917. 401. Abbott and Seroff, Ragged but Right, 57–60. 402. Ralph Ellison, “Change the Joke and Slip the Yoke,” Partisan Review 25, no. 2 (Spring 1958), reprinted in Shadow And Act (New York: Random House, 1964), 45–59. Ellison offers this explanation: “[T]he Negro’s masking is motivated . . . by a profound rejection of the image created to usurp his identity. Sometimes it is for the sheer joy of the joke; sometimes to challenge those who presume, across the psychological distance created by race manners, to know his identity. . . . We wear the mask for purposes of aggression as well as for defense; when we are projecting the future and preserving the past. In short, the motives hidden behind the mask are as numerous as the ambiguities the mask conceals.” Ellison, it should be noted, was speaking of blacks in blackface performing before white audiences, not their own group. 403. “Theatrical Notes,” Nashville Globe, January 19, 1917. 404. “Vaudette Theater, Detroit, Mich.,” Indianapolis Freeman, March 24, 1917.

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Notes to pages 209–212 405. “Death Of Ora Criswell,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 2, 1917. 406. “Miss Ora Criswell Was Not Neglected During Illness,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 9, 1917. 407. “Laura Bailey Has Something To Say,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 30, 1917. 408. “Annual Review Of Colored Performers,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 29, 1917. 409. The 1940 U.S. Census gives “Birthplace: Georgia,” “Age: 52,” and “Estimated Birth Year: abt 1888” (AncestryLibrary. com). Sheldon Harris, Blues Who’s Who, 474, states, without attribution, “Born: 1895, Atlanta.” The New York, New York, Death Index notes, “Birth Year: abt 1900” (AncestryLibrary. com). A 1917 Freeman article stated that Smith was “in her 15th year of the business and has been doing a single as a headliner for over 11 years” (“News Of The Players,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 3, 1917). Another account (“Champion ‘Blues’ Singer Here,” Baltimore Afro-American, April 11, 1924) says she was “a native of Atlanta, Georgia, and a former student of Selma University of that city.” Selma University was actually located in Selma, Alabama. 410. “Gossip Of The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 29, 1910. 411. “The Florida Blossoms,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 24, 1909. 412. “The Olympia Theater At Anderson, S. C.,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 28, 1910. 413. “Gossip Of The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 29, 1910. 414. J. W. Seer, “The Globe Theatre, Jacksonville, Fla.,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 24, 1910. 415. “Globe Theater, Jacksonville, Fla.,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 31, 1910. 416. “F. A. Barrasso’s Tri-State Circuit, Mobile, Ala.,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 11, 1911. 417. J. Chicken Rell [sic, i.e., “Chicken Reel”] Beaman, “Notes From Airdome, Tampa, Fla.,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 27, 1911. 418. “Gossip Of The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 3, 1911. For more about the illustrious career of Cordelia McClain, see Abbott and Seroff, Out of Sight and Ragged but Right. 419. “Gossip Of The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 29, 1911. 420. “McKinney Theater Augusta, Ga.,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 5, 1911. 421. Jas. H. Price, “The Brooks-Smith Players At The Lyre Theater,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 28, 1911. Speedy

Smith’s character was alternately identified as “Lize, the boot black.” “That Railroad Rag” may be related to “Railroad Blues,” one of Trixie Smith’s outstanding recordings from 1925 (Paramount 12262, reissued on Document DOCD-5333). 422. “The Crown Garden Theater, Indianapolis,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 2, 1911. The other three “Lady Barbers” were “Pansy,” played by Theresa Burroughs; “Daisy,” played by Ludella Price; and “Violet,” played by Pearl Lee. 423. “Twelfth Avenue Theater, Nashville, Tenn.,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 25, 1912. 424. “The New Grand Theater, Augusta, Ga.,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 24, 1912. 425. “Lyric Theater, Miami, Fla.,” Indianapolis Freeman, March 22, 1913. 426. “Lyric Theatre, Kansas City, Mo.,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 11, 1914; “Lyric Theatre, Kansas City, Missouri,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 25, 1914. 427. Sylvester Russell, “Chicago Weekly Review,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 29, 1914. 428. Col. Brown, “Cincinnati, O., News,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 17, 1914. 429. “At The New Crown Garden Theatre—Tim E. Owsley, Proprietor,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 24, 1914. It may be worth noting that Ora Criswell was singing a song (or songs) designated as “Haunting Melody” (February 1, 1913) and “The Melody” (January 6, 1917). 430. Sylvester Russell, “Chicago Weekly Review,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 31, 1914. 431. Columbus Bragg, “On And Off The Stroll,” Chicago Defender, October 31, 1914; Columbus Bragg, “Sacred Cantata At Bethel Church,” Chicago Defender, November 7, 1914. 432. Al Wells, “Alexander Tolliver’s Big Show,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 9, 1915. 433. Harry Humbolt, “Pekin Theatre, Savannah, Ga.,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 30, 1915. 434. “Gibson’s New Standard Theatre, Philadelphia,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 15, 1916. 435. “Rose Theater News, Augusta, Georgia,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 20, 1916. 436. “Gibson’s New Standard Theatre,” Philadelphia Tribune, October 28, 1916. 437. “Vaudeville At The Washington Theatre, Indianapolis,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 14, 1917. 438. “News Of The Players,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 21; June 2, 1917. 439. “News Of The Players,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 21, 1917; J. H. Gray, “Gibson’s New Standard Theatre,

Notes to pages 212–215 Philadelphia—Speedy Smith, The Coming Comedian, Trooper Of Troop K. Receives An Ovation,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 28, 1917. 440. Billy E. Jones, “New York News,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 4, 1917. 441. “News Of The Players,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 3, 1917. 442. “The Pekin, Cincinnati, O.,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 8, 1917. 443. Sylvester Russell, “Chicago Weekly Review,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 15, 1917. 444. “Trixie Smith Heard From At Last,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 21, 1918. 445. “Stage Notes,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 13, 1919. Trixie and Camanche [sic] Muse remained together and had at least two more children. In 1925 she reported that “her four-year-old daughter Madeline can already sing and dance” (“Trixie On Watch,” Chicago Defender, March 28, 1925). Shortly thereafter news came that “Trixie Smith has a little son, born on April 25” (“A Note Or Two,” Chicago Defender, May 2, 1925). While the public documents refer to Trixie Muse, she remained Trixie Smith in the entertainment columns of the African American press. 446. “I. W. James’ Crescent Players Going Big At Bijou, Nashville, Tenn.,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 20, 1919. 447. “The Victory Theatre,” Indianapolis Freeman, March 6, 1920. 448. “News Of The Players,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 10, 1920. 449. Tony Langston, “‘Fair and Warmer’ Pleases Avenue Patrons . . . ,” “The Monogram,” Chicago Defender, July 24, 1920. 450. Sylvester Russell, “Chicago Weekly Review,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 16, 1920; Tony Langston, “‘September Morn’ Closing Engagement . . . ,” Chicago Defender, October 2, 1920. 451. Sylvester Russell, “Chicago Weekly Review,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 25, 1920. 452. Ad, “New Lincoln Theatre,” Baltimore Afro-American, May 27, 1921. 453. Lester A. Walton, “Music And The Stage,” New York Age, November 16, 1911. For an anecdotal account of the founding of the Clef Club, see Tom Fletcher, 100 Years of the Negro in Show Business: The Tom Fletcher Story (New York: Burdge, 1954), 251–52. For more on the Clef Club Orchestra, see Reid Badger, A Life in Ragtime: A Biography of James Reese Europe (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995). 454. Lucien H. White, “Europe And The Castles And Tempo

Club Affair,” New York Age, October 15, 1914; “Memphis Blues Band,” Chicago Defender, June 14, 1919. 455. Ruth E. Whitehurst, “Society ‘400’ Applauds New Sort o’ Opera,” Chicago Defender, January 28, 1922. Fiorello H. LaGuardia, who helped judge the contest, became mayor of New York City in 1933. The other named judge, Fred R. Moore, was elsewhere identified as the publisher of the New York Age. The current governor of New York State, Nathan L. Miller was also present, along with his family and staff. 456. “A New Blues Star,” Baltimore Afro-American, February 3, 1922. 457. “Trixie Wins,” Chicago Defender, February 11, 1922. The report further noted that, “Bob Slater, well known in theatricals, is credited with having unearthed Trixie Smith.” In Black Pearls—Blues Queens of the 1920s (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1988), 245, Daphne Duval Harrison mistakenly proposed that “Trixie, [was] described as the ‘dark horse’ in the contest probably because she was the lone black contender.” 458. “Champion ‘Blues’ Singer Here.” 459. Ibid. The reporter also insinuated that, “To add to the chagrin of one of the competing singers, who had laughed at Trixie on the night of the contest, the contracts of this lady were cancelled, and 30 of the numbers she was to have made were recorded by Trixie Smith, under the other girl’s name.” However, the actual corpus of recordings by Trixie Smith, Lucille Hegamin, Daisy Martin, and Alice Leslie Carter provides no evidence to support this assertion. 460. “Note Or Two,” Chicago Defender, July 1, 1922. Smith was part of the all-star “Shuffle Along Review” that played twelve weeks at the Hotel LaMare cabaret. The roster included Garland Howard, Mae Brown, and the Manhattan Quartet featuring basso Sam H. Gray, accompanied by Leroy Smith’s Orchestra (“J. A. Jackson’s Page,” “Lemare’s Cabaret,” Billboard, July 22, 1922; “J. A. Jackson’s Page,” “Review Closes,” Billboard, September 30, 1922). 461. Lucille Hegamin launched her Arto label recording career in the fall of 1920; Daisy Martin started recording for Gennett, then OKeh, in the spring of 1921; and Alice Leslie Carter recorded for Arto in August 1921. Hegamin’s earliest recordings are reissued on Document DOCD-5419; Carter’s on Document DOCD-5508; and Martin’s on Document DOCD5522. 462. “Fourteen Black Hussars,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 26, 1907; “Our London Letter,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 31, 1907; “Our London Correspondence,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 14, 1907.

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Notes to pages 215–217 463. Billy E. Jones, “Eastern Theatrical News,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 25; August 15, 1914. 464. “The Globe Theatre, Jacksonville, Fla.,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 24, 1911. The company was directed by George Freeman, Leonard Harper, and Clarence Muse. Len Kunstadt reported in “The Lucille Hegamin Story,” Record Research, no. 39 (November 1961), that her maiden name was Nelson, and she is identified in this Freeman report as Lucille Nelson. 465. Sylvester Russell, “Musical And Dramatic,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 28, 1912. 466. “A Note Or Two,” Chicago Defender, March 2, 1918. The “bunch” included Ada “Bricktop” Smith and Ferd “Jelly Roll” Morton. 467. Kunstadt, 5. 468. “A Note Or Two,” Chicago Defender, November 29, 1919. 469. Abbott and Seroff, Ragged but Right, 106, 111–14. 470. Abbott and Seroff, Ragged but Right, 139, 143–44, 153. 471. Tony Langston, “‘After Office Hours’ Pleases At Avenue; ‘Hello 1919’ Taxes Capacity Of Grand,” Chicago Defender, February 21, 1920. 472. “Daisy Scatters Xmas Joy,” Chicago Defender, January 6, 1922. 473. Many northern-resident woman blues singers recorded before Trixie Smith, beginning with Mamie Smith in February 1920. Southern vaudevillian Lizzie Miles recorded for OKeh in February 1922; Sara Martin made her first record, also for OKeh, in October 1922. A raft of southern vaudeville performers including Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, Clara Smith, and Virginia Liston were enlisted into the recording ranks in 1923. 474. “15th Infantry’s First Band Concert and Dance,” New York Age, January 28, 1922, is the source of information that James P. Johnson and his band provided instrumental accompaniment for the contestants in the Manhattan Casino blues singing contest. This information appears, without attribution, in Sam Charters and Leonard Kunstadt, Jazz: A History of the New York Scene (New York: Doubleday, 1961), 101. 475. Dixon, Godrich, and Rye, 837–39. Trixie Smith’s complete recordings, including those made for Decca in 1938, are reissued on Document DOCD-5332, 5333, and 5573. 476. “Orpheum Has Good Bill,” Chicago Defender, October 3, 1925. 477. Jackie Mabley worked under cork during the 1920s (“J. A. Jackson’s Page,” “Wesley Varnell’s Reviews,” Billboard, August 26, 1922). 478. In 1930 Trixie Smith played “Sister Dephene” in a mixedrace drama titled Lily White, a “Schubert production” (Chappy

Gardner, “‘Lily White’ Tense Play, Mixed Cast,” Pittsburgh Courier, May 24, 1930). In 1931 she toured with a Mae West show, The Constant Sinner (Billy Jones, “Stars That Shine,” Chicago Defender, November 21, 1931). In 1939 she joined rehearsals for the play Black Cotton (Ann Lewis, “Show Life Up And Down The Harlem Rialto,” New York Amsterdam News, September 16, 1939 [Black Studies Center, ProQuest]). Her film credits include at least four “all sepia” pictures: The Black King (1932), Drums o’ Voodoo (1934), God’s Step Children (1938), and Swing! (Oscar Micheaux, 1938). 479. “Trixie Muse” in the New York, New York, Death Index (AncestryLibrary.com). 480. Over the years, her first name also appeared in black press reports as Stella and/or Estella Harris. That Hot Springs was her place of birth was reported in the Freeman of August 9, 1902. The 1885 approximation of her date of birth is based on available data from various African American press reports. 481. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 8, 1899. 482. “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 20; November 10, 1900. Charles Huff was Harris’s current stage partner. 483. W. A. Seymour was a Hot Springs–based theater manager, promoter, director, playwright, and self-proclaimed “legitimate actor,” an all-around entertainment entrepreneur who promoted himself as the “Black Booth.” 484. “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 6, 1901. 485. “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 18, 1902. 486. “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 8, 1902. “Zulu Babe” was originally sung by Bert Williams and George Walker in their big musical comedy production of 1900, The Sons of Ham. 487. A Freeman report of August 9, 1902, said Johnson was “of Cincinnati, O.” According to the Freeman of October 24, 1903, his date of birth was January 8, 1882. 488. “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 25, 1902. 489. “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 12, 1902. 490. “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 24, 1902. The article specifies “R. Johnson” (not Billy Johnson) was proprietor of this company. 491. “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 7, 1902. 492. “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 12; August 9, 1902. 493. “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 12, 1902. 494. “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 2, 1902. 495. “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 30, 1902. 496. “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 18, 1902. A “Route” listing for the A Rabbit’s Foot Company in the Freeman of August 30, 1902, has them playing a two-day engagement in Birmingham, August 26–27.

Notes to pages 217–219 497. “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 18, 1902. The show was also known as Mahara’s Northern Minstrels. 498. Frank Mahara letter to George L. Knox, posted June 3, 1903, and published in “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 4, 1903. 499. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 26, 1903. 500. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 29, 1903. 501. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, March 19; May 14, 1904. 502. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 11, 1904. 503. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 16; August 6, 1904. 504. Sylvester Russell, “The Black Patti Show,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 17, 1904. 505. Ibid. 506. Billy Johnson may have doubled in both shows for at least a few days. In Sylvester Russell’s review of the opening night performance of the Smart Set Company in Newburgh, New York, on September 10, he mentions “William Johnson” in the role of “Buster” (Sylvester Russell, “‘Smart Set’ In Newburg,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 15, 1904). The Johnsons are not mentioned in a lengthy review of the Black Patti Troubadours’ late-September 1904 engagement at the Park Theater in Indianapolis (“‘A Swell Bunch,’ Says Howard,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 1, 1904). 507. “The ‘Smart Set’ Cullings,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 12, 1904. She was probably singing Will Marion Cook’s “Darktown Barbaque” (New York: John H. Cook, 1904). 508. Ibid. She was probably singing Cecil Mack and Will Accooe, “In A Birch Canoe” (New York: M. Witmark & Sons, 1904). 509. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 29, 1905. Smith’s name is attached to many proto-blues publications of the pre– World War I era, including “I’ve Got The Blues” (1901), “All In Down And Out” (1906), “You’re in the Right Church but the Wrong Pew” (1909), “The Blues (But I’m Too Blamed Mean to Cry)” (1912), and “Ballin’ the Jack” (1913). 510. “Shows Of The Week,” “Alhambra,” Variety, December 23, 1905; Sime, “Shows Of The Week,” “Imperial,” Variety, March 17, 1906; Rush, “Shows Of The Week,” “Amphion,” Variety, April 14, 1906. 511. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 2, 1906. 512. “Funny Folks Comedy Company,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 15, 1907; “The Florida Blossoms Company,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 28, 1909. Chris Smith and Billy Johnson reunited in 1911 for another tour in mainstream vaudeville: “Smith played the piano in rag time and Johnson danced in a

very novel way” (Sylvester Russell, “Chicago Weekly Review,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 5; September 2, 1911). 513. “Amuse U Theater, Memphis, Tenn.,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 19, 1910. In spite of its headline, this item brought news from the Savoy. 514. “Amuse U Theater, Memphis, Tenn.,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 19, 1910: “Will Blake, cornet; Buddy McGill, piano; Alex Dukes, drums; Jim Scott, trombone; Williams, first violin”; “Savoy Theater, Memphis, Tenn.,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 30, 1910. 515. “Unrecorded Interview Material and Research Notes,” 187. 516. “Savoy Theater, Memphis, Tenn.,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 29, 1910. 517. “Savoy Theater, Memphis,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 4, 1910; “The Savoy Theater, Memphis,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 12, 1910; “Savoy Theater, Memphis,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 19, 1910. 518. “Notes From The Savoy Theater, Memphis, Tenn.,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 24, 1910. 519. “The Savoy Theater, Memphis,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 28, 1910. 520. “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 22, 1901. 521. “Savoy Theater, Memphis,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 19, 1910. Buddy McGill’s purported familiarity with the Yaqui Indians remains unexplained. 522. “Savoy Theater, Memphis, Tenn.,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 30, 1910. 523. “Savoy At Memphis, Tenn.,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 10, 1910. 524. “The Majestic Theater, Hot Springs, Ark.,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 11, 1911. 525. Lew Hall, “The New Savoy Memphis, Tenn.,” Indianapolis Freeman, March 11, 1911; “Savoy Theater, Memphis, Tenn.,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 1, 1911. 526. “Gossip of the Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 9, 1911. Perhaps “The Blues in Indian Style” was related to the “war dance” that Buddy McGill had arranged back in 1910. 527. Fred A. Barrasso Memphis City Burial Permit #21926; Fred A. Barrasso obituary, Memphis Commercial Appeal, June 26, 1911. 528. “Metropolitan Theater, Memphis, Tenn.,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 18, 1913: “Estell Harris McGill [sic],” piano, with Alex Porter, violin; Leslie Davis, cornet; Albert Fredricks, trombone; and Charlie Porter, drums. By 1914, the Metropolitan Theater band was “under the leadership of Prof. ‘Buddie’ McGill” (“Metropolitan Theatre, Memphis, Tenn.,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 21, 1914).

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Notes to pages 219–223 529. Carey B. Lewis, “The Monogram Theater,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 7, 1913. The May 10, 1913, edition of the Freeman advertised “The Princess Prance” as written by Charles A. Hunter and Artie Matthews. 530. “The New Crown Garden Theater,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 21, 1913. 531. “The New Crown Garden Theater,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 28, 1913. 532. Walter S. Fearance, “Good Acts At The Booker Washington Annex,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 5, 1913; G. S. Baker, “Louisville, Ky.,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 19, 1913. 533. Salem Tutt Whitney, “Seen and Heard While Passing,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 12, 1914. 534. “New Additions to the Billy King Stock Company,” Savannah Tribune, January 31, 1914. 535. “The Lyric Theatre, Kansas City, Mo.,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 22; June 5, 1915. Joe Sudler recorded with Charles Elgar’s Creole Orchestra. Curtis Mosby recorded in several settings, including his own Dixieland Blue Blowers. George Wilkson’s name is elsewhere given as Wilks. 536. Edward Lankford, “Lyric Theatre, Kansas City, Missouri,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 29, 1915. Reports from the Lyric Theater consistently give Gretchen Burns’s name as “Greathan.” 537. “Kansas City, Mo.,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 3, 1915. 538. Ibid. Higgins and Overstreet later collaborated on the jazz classic, “There’ll Be Some Changes Made.” 539. “Stage Notes,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 18, 1915. 540. “Gossip Of The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 25, 1915. 541. Sylvester Russell, “Chicago Weekly Review,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 9, 1915. 542. Jelly Roll Morton, “History of the Elite No. 2,” unpublished manuscript, 1938, as given in Russell, “Oh, Mister Jelly,” 58–59. 543. “W. Benton Overstreet To Go In Vaudeville Coming Season,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 24, 1915. 544. Sylvester Russell, “Chicago Weekly Review,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 16, 1915. 545. Sylvester Russell, “Chicago Weekly Review,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 6, 1915. 546. R. W. Thompson, “The Passing Show In Washington,” Indianapolis Freeman, March 11, 1916. 547. “Last Week’s Happenings In Washington, D. C.,” Savannah Tribune, May 6, 1916. 548. Sylvester Russell, “Chicago Weekly Review,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 6, 1916; Tony Langston, “Theatrical Review,” Chicago Defender, May 6, 1916.

549. Tony Langston, “Theatrical Review,” Chicago Defender, May 6, 1916. 550. Ibid. 551. See advertisement attached to Pasquale Forte, words; W. Benton Overstreet and James Altiere, music, “I Wonder If Your Loving Heart Still Pines for Me” (Chicago: Royal Music, 1916). 552. W. Benton Overstreet, “The ‘Jazz’ Dance” (Chicago: Will Rossiter, 1917). 553. Ernest Hogan, “La Pas Ma La” (Kansas City: J. R. Bell, 1895). See Abbott and Seroff, Out of Sight, 444–45. 554. A. G. Lindsay, “A Negro Not A Coward,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 21, 1895. The article’s author asserted: “you may find a Negro anywhere that can dance every step as neat and pretty as you want to see, from the old ‘back step’ down to the ‘Pas Malas,’ the latest out.” As far back as the 1820s, newspaper reports described the back step performed at country dances and sheep shearing “jubilees” (“A Parody, On Collin’s Ode on the Passions,” Otsego Herald (Cooperstown, New York), June 19, 1820; “Shearing,” Nantucket Inquirer, June 28, 1828 (America’s Historical Newspapers, NewsBank). The “Shearing” article specifically referred to the “Narragansett back-step.” During the 1850s and 1860s, the back step was observed in the southern states, sometimes in ostensibly African American contexts, as in this line from a political parody: “I’ll gib ’em ‘Conjamingo’ back step and old ‘Jim Crow.’” (“Song. Tune—‘Old Zip Coon.’ By Old Alabama Jim,” Natchez Mississippi Free Trader, September 15, 1852 [America’s Historical Newspapers, NewsBank]). An account of a “Fiddlers’ Carnival” which took place at the Texas State Fair Grounds in Dallas in 1900 included an illustration and description of Jonas Goodwin, an African American, “who cut the pigeon-wing, sifted sand, double-shuffled, back-stepped and heel-and-toed” (“A ‘Fiddlers’ Carnival,” Dallas Morning News, April 8, 1900 [America’s Historical Newspapers, NewsBank]). 555. Recordings of instrumental versions include Handy’s Orchestra of Memphis, “That Jazz Dance,” Columbia A-2419, 1917, reissued on Memphis Archives CD MA7006; and Blake’s Jazzone Orchestra, “The Jazz Dance,” Pathe 20430, 1917. 556. Norfolk Jazz Quartet, “Monday Morning Blues,” OKeh 4345, 1921, reissued on Document DOCD-5381; Blind Willie McTell, “Georgia Rag,” OKeh 8924, 1931, reissued on Document DOCD-5007. “Monday Morning Blues” was also recorded by Mary Stafford (Columbia A3511, 1921, reissued on Document DOCD-5517). The chorus of Overstreet’s “The Jazz Dance”:

Notes to pages 223–228 First you place your hands on your hips just so, then glide, Then you do the “Suey” ’way down low then slide, Then you rise and cast your eyes to the skies, Then get ’way back, and do that happy shout; Now “Eagle Rock” from left to right then drag, Then you “set ’em,” with all your might and rag, And then you buzz around like a bee, And you sway like a ship at sea, That’s the “Jazz-dance” the little Jazz-dance that ev’ry body’s crazy ’bout. 557. Sylvester Russell, “Estelle Harris Now A Vaudeville Star,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 7, 1916. 558. Tony Langston, “Theatrical Review,” Chicago Defender, May 6; August 12; 26, 1916. 559. Tony Langston, “Theatrical Review,” Chicago Defender, May 13, 1916. 560. Sylvester Russell, “Chicago Weekly Review,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 27, 1916. 561. “Stella Harris,” Chicago Defender, May 27, 1916. 562. Tony Langston, “Theatrical Review,” Chicago Defender, May 27; June 17, 1916. 563. Tony Langston, “Theatrical Review,” Chicago Defender, August 12, 1916. “Happy Shout” was recorded by Virginia Liston in 1923 (OKeh 8134, reissued on Document DOCD-5446). 564. Tony Langston, “Theatrical Review,” Chicago Defender, July 1, 1916. Billy Farrell’s career stretched back to the early days of Sam T. Jack’s Creole Burlesque Company. 565. Tony Langston, “Theatrical Review,” Chicago Defender, August 26, 1916. 566. Tony Langston, “Theatrical Review,” Chicago Defender, June 3, 1916. This, no doubt, was a parody of Chris Smith and Cecil Mack’s late-breaking hit “Never Let the Same Bee Sting You Twice.” 567. Sylvester Russell, “Chicago Weekly Review,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 24, 1916. 568. Cary B. Lewis, “Billy King—A Big Success,” Chicago Defender, May 20, 1916. 569. Sylvester Russell chronicled plot after plot in his “Chicago Weekly Review.” 570. Ad, “The Grand Theatre,” Chicago Defender, June 24; July 15, 1916; Sylvester Russell, “Chicago Weekly Review,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 26; September 9, 1916. 571. For more on the “Walking the Dog” craze, see Abbott and Seroff, Ragged but Right. 572. W. H. Smith, “Theatrical Notes And Comments,” Chicago Broad Axe, September 9, 1916. William Foster wrote the

screenplay, under his old pen name, Juli Jones, and cabareteer Teenan Jones put up the production money. 573. Sylvester Russell, “Chicago Weekly Review,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 9, 1916. Though Russell attributed it to J. Rosamond Johnson, “I Hear You Calling Me” was actually composed by Harold Harford, words, and Charles Marshall, music (London: Boosey, 1908). Thanks to Wayne D. Shirley. 574. Ibid. The statement that Harris had authored the lyrics of “The ‘Jazz’ Dance” is not reflected on the sheet music publication. 575. “Estella Harris,” Chicago Defender, September 30, 1916. 576. Sylvester Russell, “Chicago Weekly Review,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 7, 1916. 577. Tony Langston, “Theatrical Review,” Chicago Defender, October 7, 1916. 578. Shortly before Estelle Harris’s string trio played it at the Grand Theater, “Shim-Me-Sha-Wobble” was recorded by a full military band, the American Republic Band (Pathe 20026, 1916). 579. “The Profession at Milwaukee,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 1, 1909; Cary B. Lewis, “Past Week At Chicago,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 22, 1910; “‘Bill’ Cole, Famous Musician of Pekin Fame, Passes Away,” Chicago Defender, June 29, 1918. 580. Cary B. Lewis, “Past Week At Chicago,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 22, 1910. 581. Sylvester Russell, “Chicago Weekly Review,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 14, 1916. 582. Sylvester Russell, “Chicago Weekly Review,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 25, 1916. 583. Sylvester Russell, “Chicago Weekly Review,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 16, 1916. 584. A Christmas party at the white Cort Theater in Chicago featured music “by Sam Arnold and his Pekin Quintette” (“A Joy Spreader,” Chicago Defender, December 30, 1916). Arnold spent the summer of 1917 in Milwaukee with the Weaver Brothers’ Orchestra (“A Note Or Two,” Chicago Defender, August 18, 1917). 585. “Madam Fairfax & Son, Estelle Harris, Queen of Ragtime, and a Good Show at the New Monogram,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 19, 1917. 586. Spencer Williams, “Steppin’ on the Puppy’s Tail” (Chicago: Frank K. Root, 1917). 587. Sylvester Russell, “Chicago Weekly Review,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 24, 1917. 588. Billy Lewis, “High Vaudeville At Washington Theater, Indianapolis, This Week,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 2, 1917. The comment that Overstreet “finds it difficult to keep his own

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Notes to pages 228–232 stuff [apparently referring to “playlets”] when he produces it” may allude to the fact that just one week prior to Overstreet and Harris’s arrival at the Washington Theater, the Bruce and Bruce Stock Company presented Overstreet’s skit The Grocery Man. 589. “Harris & Overstreet,” Chicago Defender, July 14, 1917. 590. “Notes From Clarence Powel’s [sic] Minstrels With the Greater Sheesley Show,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 27, 1917; ad, “Booking Independent, Ivy Theatre,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 15, 1917; “A Note Or Two,” Chicago Defender, December 22, 1917. 591. Ad, “Held Over!” Richmond Planet, November 17, 1917. 592. “News Of The Players,” Indianapolis Freeman, March 16, 1918. 593. Sylvester Russell, “Chicago Weekly Review,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 29, 1918; “Chicago Cullings,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 13, 1918. 594. “Chicago Theatrical Notes,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 9, 1918. 595. “New Song Hit,” Chicago Defender, May 24, 1919; “A Note Or Two,” Chicago Defender, August 9, 1924: “W. Benton Overstreet, piano pinger par excellence at the Standard theater, Philadelphia, threatens to invade the West this season.” Legendary brass bass player Mose McQuitty was a member of Overstreet’s Standard Theater Orchestra at least through 1924 (Chicago Defender, September 20, 1924). For more on McQuitty’s career, see Abbott and Seroff, Ragged but Right, and Alex Albright, “Mose McQuitty’s Unknown Career: A Personal History of Black Music in America,” Black Music Research Bulletin II, no. 2 (Fall 1989). 596. “Here and There With Bob Hayes,” Chicago Defender, March 1, 1930. 597. Overstreet’s 1927 sides with Elnora Johnson are reissued on Document DOCD-5514. His 1929 sides with Sam Theard are reissued on Document DOCD-5479. 598. “New Song Hit,” Chicago Defender, May 24, 1919. 599. Tom Lemonier, “Lemonier’s Letter,” Chicago Defender, September 4, 1919. 600. “A Note Or Two,” Chicago Defender, January 31, 1920. 601. “A Note Or Two,” Chicago Defender, April 3, 1920. 602. “Stella Shows ’Em,” Chicago Defender, June 7, 1924. 603. “At Louisville Theatres,” Pittsburgh Courier, December 26, 1925. 604. Observer, “Shots From The Lake Shore,” Pittsburgh Courier, May 29, 1926; Charles O’Neal, “In Old Kaysee,” Chicago Defender, November 13, 1926; “A Note Or Two,” Chicago Defender, December 3; 10, 1927.

605. Bob Hayes, “Here and There With Bob Hayes,” Chicago Defender, February 16, 1929. 606. Bob Hayes, “Here and There With Bob Hayes,” Chicago Defender, February 23, 1929. 607. Bob Hayes, “Here and There With Bob Hayes,” Chicago Defender, March 9, 1929. 608. Bob Hayes, “Here and There With Bob Hayes,” Chicago Defender, May 11, 1929. 609. Bob Hayes, “Here and There With Bob Hayes,” Chicago Defender, June 1, 1929. 610. “Maybelle Whitman and Company Aid Invalid,” Chicago Defender, September 28, 1929. 611. “Hits And Bits,” Chicago Defender, April 1, June 10, 1933. 612. Bob Hayes, “Here and There,” Chicago Defender, August 25, 1934. Hayes identified her as “the widow of Benton Overstreet, well known composer.” However, Overstreet was spotted in Detroit one week after Harris’s death was reported (Bob Hayes, “Here & There,” Chicago Defender, September 1, 1934). 613. Ad, “Estelle Harris, The Sister That Shouts,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 30, 1916. 614. All eight sides are included on Document DOCD-5512.

Second Interlude 1. “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 1, 1901. For another early idea regarding black vaudeville circuitry, see ad for Chappelle Bros. Circuit, Indianapolis Freeman, March 1, 1902. 2. “Unrecorded Interview Material and Research Notes,” 188. Compare with Russell, Oh, Mister Jelly, 50–51. 3. For information about the popularity of tent shows in the state of Mississippi, see Abbott and Seroff, Ragged but Right, 214–17. 4. “American Theater, Jackson, Miss.,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 25, 1910. 5. “American Theater, Jackson, Miss.,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 2, 1910. 6. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 29, 1910. 7. “Savoy Theater At Memphis, Tenn.,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 9, 1910. 8. “F. A. Barrasso’s Tri-State Circuit, Mobile, Ala.,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 11, 1911; “The American Theater Jackson, Miss.,” Indianapolis Freeman, March 18, 1911. 9. “Temple Theater, New Orleans,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 12, 1910. 10. “The Majestic Theater, Hot Springs, Ark.,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 11, 1911. Lizzie Miles, Virginia Liston, Jelly

Notes to pages 233–240 Roll Morton, Jimmie Cox, Happy Howe, and Tillie Johnson also appeared on the Tri-State Circuit (“The Tri-State Circuit, Vicksburg, Miss.,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 8, 1910; “The Amuse Theater, Vicksburg, Miss.,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 1, 1911; “The Majestic Theater, Hot Springs, Ark.,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 1; 22, 1911; “American Theater, Jackson, Miss.,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 3, 1910). 11. “The Tri-State Circuit, Vicksburg, Miss.,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 8, 1910. 12. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 8, 1910. 13. “Notice Performers, Memphis, Tenn.,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 30, 1911. The Tri-State Circuit was last noted in the Indianapolis Freeman in an ad of November 18, 1911. 14. 1910 U.S. Census; World War I Civilian Draft Registrations, 1917–1918 (AncestryLibrary.com). 15. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 8, 1909. He originally had a partner named Glickstein. 16. “Notes From The Airdome Theater, Jacksonville, Fla.,” Indianapolis Freeman, March 19, 1910. 17. “Globe Theatre, Jacksonville, Fla.,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 3, 1910. 18. “L. D. Joel, Manager, Goes To Atlanta, Ga.,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 24, 1910. 19. “Of Much Importance,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 5, 1910. 20. Tim E. Owsley, “Theatrical News From Atlanta, Ga.,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 22, 1911. 21. Tim E. Owsley, “Joel And Bailey Consolidate,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 27, 1911. 22. “Dissolution,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 6, 1912. 23. Ad, “Wanted!” Indianapolis Freeman, December 7, 1912; ad, “Performers Take Notice,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 21, 1912; ad, “Do You Want 10 Weeks Work in Atlanta, Georgia?” Indianapolis Freeman, December 14, 1912. The Joel Theater was located at 147 Peters Street. 24. “A Merry Christmas And Happy New Year,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 28, 1912. 25. “L. D. Joel Theater Company Purchases Grand At Chattanooga,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 11, 1913. 26. “The Joel Theater, Chattanooga, Tenn.,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 1, 1913. 27. Ad, “Don’t Lay Off Work,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 21, 1913. 28. Ad, “Arcade Theatre!” Indianapolis Freeman, August 16, 1913. 29. “L. D. Joel, Famous Theatrical King Is Not Dead,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 25, 1914.

30. Ad, “Important!” Indianapolis Freeman, June 13, 1914. 31. Joel’s last ad in the Freeman ran in the issue of May 30, 1914. 32. Joel, however, identified himself on his World War I draft registration card as proprietor of the Casino Theater, a Jacksonville moving picture house (AncestryLibrary.com). 33. Ad, “81 Theatre,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 12, 1915. 34. “The 81 Theatre,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 26, 1916. 35. Abbott and Seroff, Ragged but Right, 106–7. See also Athelia Knight, “In Retrospect: Sherman H. Dudley: He Paved the Way for T.O.B.A.,” Black Perspective in Music 15, no. 2 (Fall 1987): 152–81. 36. S. Tutt Whitney, “Seen and Heard While Passing,” Indianapolis Freeman, March 9, 1912. 37. “Dudley Adds Other Links To His Chain,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 6, 1912. 38. “What’s What On The Dudley Circuit,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 20; 27, 1912. 39. Ad, “Some are Wise, Some are Otherwise,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 28, 1912. 40. Cary B. Lewis, “Plans Perfected,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 5, 1913. 41. Sylvester Russell, “Chicago Weekly Review,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 31, 1914. 42. Sylvester Russell, “Chicago Weekly Review,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 7, 1914. 43. “Emma Griffin Dies,” Chicago Defender, September 7, 1918. 44. “The Crown Garden, 521 Indiana Avenue,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 10, 1910. 45. “The Griffin Sisters,” Chicago Defender, March 22, 1913; Ar-w-tee, “The Passing Show In Washington,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 5, 1913. 46. “Griffin Sisters,” Chicago Defender, November 22, 1913; “The Griffin Sisters,” Chicago Defender, December 6, 1913; “Griffin Sisters,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 14, 1914. 47. “Griffin Sisters Helping Stage,” Chicago Defender, January 10, 1914. 48. “Griffin Sisters,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 14, 1914. 49. Ar-W-Tee, “The Passing Show In Washington,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 23, 1915; Salem Tutt Whitney, “Seen and Heard While Passing,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 17, 1915. 50. “Griffin Benefit,” Chicago Defender, July 27, 1918; “Emma Griffin Dies,” Chicago Defender, September 7, 1918. 51. “S. H. Dudley Again Writes In Interest Of Show Business,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 30, 1915.

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Notes to pages 241–247 52. “Comments Concerning the Explanatory Letter Written by S. H. Dudley,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 27, 1915. 53. Ad, “Look What Has Happened,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 8, 1917; ad, “Consolidated Vaudeville Exchange,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 24, 1917. 54. Ad, “The Queen Theatre,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 19, 1916. 55. Ad, “The Liberty Theatre,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 20, 1917. 56. Ad, “Attention!” Indianapolis Freeman, December 15, 1917. 57. Sam E. Reevin, “An Open Letter To The Performers,” Indianapolis Freeman, March 9, 1918. 58. “Martin Klein Submits A Letter,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 4, 1918. 59. “Some Nuts For Klein To Crack. Sam Reevin Tells Mr. Klein,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 11, 1918. 60. “Martin Klein Talks Back To Mr. Reevin,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 25, 1918; “Mr. Reevin To Mr. Klein,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 1, 1918. 61. The managers were Anselmo Barrasso, representing the Metropolitan Theater in Memphis; Alfred Starr, Bijou Theater, Nashville; Charles P. Bailey, 81 Theater, Atlanta; Charles H. Douglass, Douglass Theater, Macon; L. Don Bradford, Pekin Theater, Savannah; Pete Delaney, Lincoln Theater, Pensacola; C. C. Schriner, Pike Theater, Mobile; Buddie Austin, Strand Theater, Jacksonville; J. F. Arnold, Dixie Theater, Bessemer; and J. L. Savage, New Queen Theater, Birmingham (“Southern Managers Meet; Affiliate With Mutual Circuit,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 17, 1918). 62. Tim E. Owsley, “The Plain Truth,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 24, 1918. 63. “S. H. Dudley Enterprises Add Two More Houses To Their List,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 1, 1917. 64. Ad, “Notice to All Acts,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 12, 1918. 65. Ad, “The Colored Consolidated Vaudeville Exchange,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 28, 1918. 66. Ad, “The Consolidated Time,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 5, 1919. Acts riding the Colored Consolidated time during the summer of 1919 included Jimmy and Baby Cox, Tommy Parker and Company, Watts and Willis’s Ebony Vampires, and Mary Mack’s Merry Makers of Mirth (ad, “Attractions that are Booked Solid for One Year by S. H. Dudley for the Consolidated Time,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 26, 1919; ad, “Stovall & Mack,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 26; August 16, 1919).

67. Ad, “Grand Opening Of The South’s Most Beautiful Theatre, The Palace,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 16, 1919. 68. Ad, “Last Call,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 13, 1919. 69. “Officers Of The Consolidated Time To Meet In Pensacola, Fla., Oct. 15,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 11, 1919. 70. “Gang” (W. H. G. B.), “To Boost Means Success—Come On Mr. Manager, The South Affords A Future Artist—Don’t Go Wrong,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 8, 1919. 71. “Consolidated Circuit Elect Officers,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 15, 1919. 72. “Dudley Fights For The Acts, A Hint To The Wise From One Who Knows,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 17, 1920. 73. Owsley, “The Plain Truth.” 74. “Irvin C. Miller Says,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 23, 1919. 75. Salem Tutt Whitney, “Seen and Heard while Passing,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 14, 1920. 76. Ad, “The Southern Consolidated Vaudeville Circuit, Inc.,” Indianapolis Freeman, March 6, 1920. 77. S. H. Dudley, “The White Man’s ‘Nigger,’” Indianapolis Freeman, March 20, 1920. 78. Salem Tutt Whitney, “Seen and Heard While Passing,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 24, 1920. For another, more puzzling editorial opinion, see Clay Price, “‘The Theatrical Pharisee,’ By Carter’s Summary Of The Dad And Dud, the Goat Controversy,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 24, 1920. 79. Salem Tutt Whitney, “Seen and Heard While Passing,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 24, 1920. 80. Ad, Dudley, Klein & Reevin’s United Vaudeville Circuit (Inc.),” Indianapolis Freeman, June 5, 1920; Chicago Defender, June 12, 1920. 81. Ad, “The Southern Consolidated Vaudeville Circuit, Inc,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 12, 1920. 82. Ad, “Big Special Important Announcement!” Indianapolis Freeman, July 3, 1920. 83. Ad, “Southern Consolidated Vaudeville Circuit, Inc.,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 24, 1920. 84. Ad, “Watch This Space,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 25, 1920. 85. “New Organization,” Chicago Defender, January 29, 1921. 86. “Milton Starr Makes Statement,” Chicago Defender, February 12, 1921. 87. “Important Developments In The Vaudeville World,” Chicago Defender, May 21, 1921.

Notes to pages 248–252 88. “War at End,” Chicago Defender, May 28, 1921. 89. C. A. Leonard, New York Times, reprinted in “Our Stage History, Almost Forgotten, Is Well Worth Knowing and Being Proud Of,” Chicago Defender, August 10, 1929. 90. “Big Protest,” Chicago Defender, October 8, 1921 (Garnett Warbington letter to Tony Langston).

Chapter 5 1. “Announcing a New Department,” Billboard, October 30, 1920. For background on J. A. Jackson see Anthony D. Hill, Pages from the Harlem Renaissance: Chronicle of Performance (New York: Peter Lang, 1967). 2. Louis A. Hirsch, Gene Buck, and Dave Stamper, “It’s Getting Dark On Old Broadway” (New York: Harms, 1922). The lyrics, in part: It’s getting very dark on old Broadway, You see the change in ev’ry cabaret; Just like an eclipse on the moon, Ev’ry café now has the dancing coon. Pretty choc’late babies shake and shimmie ev’rywhere Real Darktown entertainers hold the stage, You must black up to be the latest rage. Yes, the great white way is white no more, It’s just like a street on the Swanee shore; It’s getting very dark on old Broadway. 3. J. A. Jackson, “It’s Getting Darker On Broadway,” Billboard, August 5, 1922. 4. Dan Burley, “The ‘Crazy Blues,’” New York Amsterdam News, March 2, 1940 (Black Studies Center, ProQuest). 5. “String Beans And Benbow,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 5, 1916. 6. Jack Trotter, “New York Notes of Stage And Sport,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 16, 1917. 7. “J. A. Jackson’s Page,” “At The Lafayette, New York,” Billboard, September 15, 1923. 8. See Abbott and Seroff, Ragged but Right, 42–107, for background on the big shows of Williams and Walker, Ernest Hogan, Cole and Johnson, and S. H. Dudley. 9. “J. A. Jackson’s Page,” “The Year With the Colored Performer,” Billboard, December 16, 1922.

10. Albert B. Mordecai, “In New York,” Chicago Defender, June 4, 1921; “Year’s Run Record For ‘Shuffle Along,’” Chicago Defender, May 27, 1922. 11. See Tony Langston, “Big Slump in Business Affects Chicago Theaters and Other Amusements,” Chicago Defender, June 18, 1921; “A Statement,” Chicago Defender, June 18, 1921; Charles P. McClane, “Another Angle,” Chicago Defender, August 6, 1921; “J. A. Jackson’s Page,” Milton Starr, “Business Conditions,” Billboard, August 6, 1921; Lew Henry, “Bad Business,” Chicago Defender, July 1, 1922. 12. “‘Shuffle Along,’ Race Musical Comedy, is Real Broadway ‘Wow,’” Chicago Defender, August 27, 1921. 13. Ibee, “Shuffle Along,” Variety, May 1921, reproduced in Robert Kimball and William Bolcom, Reminiscing with Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake (1973; New York: Cooper Square Press, 2000), 98. 14. Mordecai, “In New York.” 15. Kimball and Bolcom, 118. 16. Gertrude Saunders interviewed by Frank Driggs, 1968 (UMKC Marr Sound Archives). 17. “Letters,” Chicago Defender, September 3, 1921. The two records and the moving picture that Saunders alluded to have not been traced. 18. Dixon, Godrich, and Rye, Blues and Gospel Records 1890–1943; Gertrude Saunders, “I’m Craving For That Kind Of Love”/“Daddy, Won’t You Please Come Home,” OKeh 8004, reissued on Document DOCD-5517. 19. Incipient scat singing, possibly influenced by Gertrude Saunders, can be heard in the recordings of Isabelle Washington (“I Want To,” Black Swan 14141, 1923, reissued on Document DOCD-5342); Maude De Forrest (“Doo Dee Blues,” Black Swan 14143, 1923, reissued on Document DOCD-5342), and others of the period. 20. Saunders interviewed by Driggs; Bill Egan, Florence Mills: Harlem Jazz Queen (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2004), 246. 21. Sylvester Russell, “‘Town Top-Piks’ Last Week At the Grand Theatre,” Chicago Defender, September 25, 1920. 22. David Evans, liner notes to Female Blues Singers, Vol. 13, Document DOCD-5517, 1997. 23. Egan, 60–61. Mills and Thompson had been featured with the Tennessee Ten in burlesque the previous year (“George Day Writes,” Chicago Defender, September 4, 1920). 24. Kimball and Bolcom, 118. 25. “J. A. Jackson’s Page,” “Now The Plantation Room,” Billboard, March 4, 1922; Egan, 66–67.

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Notes to pages 253–257 26. New York Clipper, reproduced in “Clippings,” Chicago Defender, March 4, 1922. 27. “J. A. Jackson’s Page,” “Florence Mills In Lights,” Billboard, May 20, 1922. 28. It should be noted, however, that during her February 1923 engagement at the Lafayette Theater in New York, Mills reportedly sang “Aggravatin’ Papa” and “Homesick Blues.” 29. Eva Taylor, “May We Meet Again (Florence Mills)”/“She’s Gone To Join The Songbirds In Heaven,” OKeh 8518, 1927, reissued on Document DOCD-5409; Juanita Stinnette Chappelle, “Florence,” Victor 21062-A, 1927; Bert Howell, “Bye Bye Florence,” Victor 21062-B, 1927; Egan, 249–56. 30. Ziggy Holmes, “Philly Dope,” Chicago Defender, November 12, 1921. 31. Edith Wilson as told to Paige Van Vorst, “My Story,” Mississippi Rag (February 1975): 1. 32. Bob Rusch, “Edith Wilson: Interview,” Cadence 5, no. 8 (August 1979): 20. 33. Howard Rye, liner notes to RST JPCD-1522–2; Derrick Stewart-Baxter, Ma Rainey and the Classic Blues Singers, 27; Harrison, Black Pearls, 167. 34. “Eubie Blake and His Friends,” Eubie Blake Music EBM3, 1971; Edith Wilson with Little Brother Montgomery and the State Street Ramblers, “He May Be Your Man,” Delmark DS-637, 1977. 35. “Handiwork Of Handy Lauded,” Chicago Defender, December 6, 1924; J. A. Jackson, “Picked up by the Page,” Billboard, December 6, 1924. Jackson provided details of a program presented at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York, by Vincent Lopez and his orchestra of forty pieces, which included W. C. Handy’s symphony “The Evolution of the Blues.” The concert was alleged to have “furnished ample material for discussion by the many who favor the blues as the symphonic basis for operatic music. Joseph Nussbaum created a splendid orchestration arrangement of Mr. Handy’s conception for the occasion.” 36. For a detailed consideration of this dialectical process as it related to African American vocal quartets and choruses, see Abbott and Seroff, To Do This, You Must Know How. 37. “‘Follow Me,’” “The Difference Determined,” Kansas City Call, February 9, 1923. 38. Basie, Good Morning Blues, 57. 39. Sylvester Russell, “Sylvester Russell’s Review,” Pittsburgh Courier, July 16, 1927. 40. Will M. Lewis, “Annual Review Of The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 16, 1915. 41. “The Washington Bill For This Week,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 26, 1918.

42. In 1914–15 Lankford managed the Lyric Theater in Kansas City (“The Lyric Stock Company,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 5, 1914; “Kansas City, Mo.,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 17, 1915); and in 1916 he pulled a long stint at the 81 Theater in Atlanta, serving as musical director and playing the villain in various dramatic productions (“The 81 Theater,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 22, 1916; “The 81 Theatre,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 26, 1916; S. A. (Buddie) Austin, “The 81 Theater, Atlanta, Ga.,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 6, 1916). 43. “Gossip Of The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 20, 1919. 44. G. Stanley, “The Washington Theatre,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 13, 1919. 45. Their marriage on September 22, 1920, is documented in the Marriage Records of Leavenworth County, Kansas (AncestryLibrary.com). When they played the Lafayette Theater in Harlem in December 1921, the “Gonzell White Entertainers” included fourteen performers (ad, “Lafayette Theater,” Chicago Defender, December 10, 1921). 46. “Gonzell’s Co.,” Chicago Defender, August 26, 1922. 47. “Race Talent Given A Chance In Burlesque,” Chicago Defender, August 22, 1925. 48. “Letters” (Gonzell White to “Dear Friend Tony”), Chicago Defender, October 7, 1922. 49. “J. A. Jackson’s Page,” “The Year With the Colored Performer,” Billboard, December 16, 1922. 50. Bell, “Burlesque Reviews,” “Jimmie Cooper’s Revue,” Variety, December 13, 1923. 51. “Big Acts For Burlesque,” Pittsburgh Courier, September 15, 1923; “Race Talent Given A Chance In Burlesque—Large Percentage of the Columbia Shows Are Using Race Features,” Chicago Defender, August 22, 1925. See also Observer, “Shots From The Lake Shore,” Pittsburgh Courier, April 2; 17; May 1; 8, 1926. 52. “Show Sails,” Chicago Defender, May 26, 1923. According to this report, those who made the trip included White and Lankford with Harry Smith, Gus Aiken, Jake Frazier, Amanzie “Jazzlips” Richardson, Rastus Crump, Earl Frazier, Billie Young, Margaret Johnson, Alfreda Thomas, and Mabel Webb. A later report (“J. A. Jackson’s Page,” “Gonzell White To Come Back,” Billboard, October 6, 1923) supplied this band roster: “Bill Beard, Harry Smith, Gus Aiken, Amanzie Richardson, Earl Fraser, Rastus Crump, Billy Young and Eddie Langford.” The passenger list for the S.S. Porto Rico, sailing from New York May 19, 1923, arriving at San Juan May 24, 1923, confirms: Augustus Aiken, Fred R. Crump, Earl W. Fraser, Jacob W. Fazier, Marquette Johnson, Edward Lankford, Gonzell White

Notes to pages 257–260 Lankford, Amanzie Richardson, Harry Smith, Alfreda Thomas, Billie Young, and no doubt others (AncestryLibrary.com). 53. “J. A. Jackson’s Page,” “The Gonzelle White Co.,” Billboard, July 7, 1923; “J. A. Jackson’s Page,” “In Havana, Cuba,” Billboard, August 25, 1923. 54. “J. A. Jackson’s Page,” “In Havana, Cuba.” 55. “J. A. Jackson’s Page,” “Picked Up by the Page,” Billboard, December 22, 1923. 56. J. A. Jackson, “Here and There Among the Folks,” Billboard, October 18, 1924. 57. “Going Smooth,” Chicago Defender, January 10, 1925. 58. “A Note Or Two,” Chicago Defender, April 11, 1925. 59. Band rosters from this period are given in “Gonzell And Gang,” Chicago Defender, September 20, 1924: “Earl Frazier, Rastus Crump, Smithy Frazier, Curley Brooks, Gus Aiken, Harry Smith, Johnnie Anderson”; and “Gonzell White’s Bunch,” Chicago Defender, September 5, 1925: “Harry Smith, music director; Rastus Crump, drums; Jackie Frasher [sic], trombone; Oasey Gary, cornet; Baby Adams, saxophone; Buster Maten [sic], piano.” Together or separately, Aiken and Frazier provided accompaniment for many female blues singers and also participated in early 1920s jazz band recording sessions. Details can be found in the “Index to Accompanists” in Dixon, Godrich, and Rye; Rust; and Michael Rader, K. B. Rau, with Dave Brown and Jorg Kuhfuss, “‘The Cornet Screamer’: The Mystery of Gus Aiken’s Recording Career,” Frog Blues and Jazz Annual 3 (2013) 152–62. 60. “A Note Or Two,” Chicago Defender, March 21; November 21, 1925; Dink Thomas, “The Koppin,” Chicago Defender, February 13, 1926. 61. “Gonzell White’s Bunch” (Moten’s name is given as “Maten” in the citation); “Sylvester Russell’s Review,” Pittsburgh Courier, December 25, 1926: “Harry Smith’s jazz band . . . included Ocie Gary, cornet; Jake Frazier, trombone; Fred Rastus Crump, drums, and Will Basie at the piano.” 62. Basie, Good Morning Blues, 86–87. 63. “At The Elmore,” Pittsburgh Courier, November 13, 1926. 64. Sylvester Russell, “Sylvester Russell’s Review,” Pittsburgh Courier, December 25, 1926. 65. Sylvester Russell, “Ed Lankford Dead,” Pittsburgh Courier, December 25, 1926; Gang Jines, “Edward Lankford Dead,” Chicago Defender, December 25, 1926; “Manager-Musician Dies In Indianapolis,” Pittsburgh Courier, January 1, 1927. Basie said in Good Morning Blues that Lankford died in Chicago, but the contemporaneous documentation suggests otherwise. 66. “Her Husband Dies,” Pittsburgh Courier, January 1, 1927. 67. Floyd J. Calvin, Pittsburgh Courier, January 1, 1927. Calvin was reproducing a message from Salem Tutt Whitney’s sickbed.

68. Basie, Good Morning Blues, 98. 69. Basie, Good Morning Blues, 98–105. Contemporaneous documents follow them to the 81 Theater, Atlanta, in March 1927 (“Gonzelle White In Atlanta,” Baltimore Afro-American, April 9, 1927); the Frolic, Birmingham; Frolic, Bessemer; and Palace, Ensley, Alabama, in April (“T.O.B.A. Routings,” Baltimore Afro-American, April 9, 1927; “A Note Or Two,” Chicago Defender, April 30, 1927; “Routings,” Baltimore Afro-American, April 30, 1927); the Palace, Memphis, and Bijou, Nashville, in May (“On The T.O.B.A.,” Chicago Defender, May 7, 1927; “Routings,” Baltimore Afro-American, May 7, 1927); and on to the Eighteenth Street Theater, Kansas City, in March 1928 (“A Note Or Two,” Chicago Defender, March 10, 1928). 70. Basie, Good Morning Blues, 99. 71. “Ada Scores,” Chicago Defender, September 27, 1924. 72. “Ada Scores”; “Miss Ada ‘Lawd,’” Chicago Defender, January 10, 1925. 73. “A Note Or Two,” Chicago Defender, September 27, 1924. 74. “Ada Brown Hits,” Chicago Defender, October 18, 1924. 75. Ada Brown’s three 1923 OKeh label recordings with Bennie Moten’s Kansas City Orchestra are reissued on Document DOCD-5470. 76. Ada Brown with Fats Waller and his Rhythm, “That Ain’t Right,” V-Disc 165, 1943, reissued on Document DOCD1019. 77. Observer, “Shots From The Lake Shore,” Pittsburgh Courier, June 5, 1926. Press reports locate Swanagan with Ada Brown as early as October 18, 1924, and as late as July 6, 1929. 78. “Ada Brown Triumphs,” Chicago Defender, April 3, 1926. A 1941 Chicago Defender photo shows her in company with Butterbeans and Susie in a USO camp show headed by Noble Sissle (“Sissle’s Broadway And Harlem Camp Shows Invade West,” Chicago Defender, December 20, 1941 [Black Studies Center, ProQuest]). See Blues Who’s Who, 70–72, for documentation of her continued stage successes and movie roles in the 1930s and 1940s. Blues Who’s Who also supplies some early bio data; but nothing has surfaced to support the suggestion that she “worked clubs” in Europe during the teens. A Pittsburgh Courier article of March 19, 1927 (“Ada Brown Sings ’Em With ‘Plantation Days’”) says she was formerly pianist at the Lincoln Theater in Kansas City. She died in 1950 (“Ada Brown Dies In Kansas City,” Atlanta Daily World, April 6, 1950 [Black Studies Center, ProQuest]). 79. “Joe Jordan With Daley,” Chicago Defender, September 19, 1925. The personnel of the band is given as: “Wm. Logan, cornet; Ed Allen, cornet; Clifford Turner, clarinet, sax, alto; Bennie Morton, clarinet, sax; Clarence Miller, sax; Mike

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Notes to pages 260–262 McKendrick, banjo; Joe Brown, trombone; Roy Burgin, bass; Happy Bolton, drums.” 80. Dave Peyton, “The Musical Bunch,” Chicago Defender, October 23, 1926. 81. Dave Peyton, “The Musical Bunch,” Chicago Defender, October 30, 1926: “Eddie Heywood is the pianist-leader; Henry Waite, banjo; Robert Check, trumpet; Theo. Johnson, traps; Ed Alexander, saxophone; Sweet Papa Jonas Walk, trombone.” 82. “‘7–11’ Still Going Big,” Chicago Defender, September 5, 1925. According to Rust, Jazz Records, the Original Jazz Hounds recorded six issued songs for Columbia in July and August 1925. Personnel is given as Thornton G. Brown, cornet; Jake Frazier, trombone; Bob Fuller, clarinet, alto sax; Ernest Elliot, clarinet, tenor sax; Mike Jackson, piano; Samuel Speed, banjo; and Perry Bradford on vocals. They are reissued on Frog DGF56. 83. “To Preserve Talent Of Famous Singers—Vocal Artists and Musicians of Race to Make Their Own Phonograph Records,” Chicago Defender, January 15, 1921. Though Black Swan is sometimes credited as the first black-owned and -operated phonograph record company, that distinction properly belongs to Broome Special Phonograph, which preceded Black Swan by two years. See Tim Brooks, Lost Sounds: Blacks and the Birth of the Recording Industry 1890–1919 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press), 464–70. 84. Helge Thygesen, Mark Berresford, and Russ Shor, Black Swan—The Record Label of the Harlem Renaissance (Nottingham, UK: VJM Publications, 1996). 85. “To Preserve Talent Of Famous Singers.” Black Swan ad, Chicago Defender, April 29, 1922; Thygesen, Berresford, and Shor, 58–59. 86. Laura Wilkie, “Records Racial Melodies As Sung By Members Of The Race,” Chicago Defender, June 4, 1921, reproduced from the Brooklyn Standard Union. See also Thygesen, Berresford, and Shor, 6–7. 87. “To Preserve Talent Of Famous Singers.” 88. “J. A. Jackson’s Page,” “Third Black Swan Release,” Billboard, July 30, 1921. 89. Block ad for Black Swan Records, Chicago Defender, January 7, 1922. 90. Wilkie, “Records Racial Melodies As Sung By Members Of The Race.” 91. For a document-driven account of the early career of Essie Whitman and the Whitman Sisters, see Abbott and Seroff, Out of Sight, 440–42. See also Nadine George-Graves, The Royalty of Negro Vaudeville: The Whitman Sisters and the

Negotiation of Race, Gender and Class in African American Theater, 1900–1940 (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000). 92. Sylvester Russell, “Chicago Weekly Review,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 22, 1915; “Young” Knox, “Chicago Ill.,” “Gleanings from the Stroll,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 26, 1915. 93. Waters with Samuels, 139. See also Abbott and Seroff, Ragged but Right, 20. 94. Billy E. Jones, “New York News—‘Hello, 1919,’ Big Hit,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 25, 1919. Waters was still a member of Frank Montgomery’s company in January–February 1920, when they performed at the Grand Theater in Chicago (Sylvester Russell, “Chicago Weekly Review,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 24, 1920). 95. In His Eye Is on the Sparrow, 171, Waters allowed: “I preferred being called the ‘ebony Nora Bayes’ because she was the one who never gave out with any unladylike shouts and growls but sang all her songs with refinement.” 96. Thygesen, Berresford, and Shor, 9. 97. “Ethel Must Not Marry,” Chicago Defender, December 24, 1921. 98. “No Vaudeville,” Chicago Defender, December 31, 1921. When first mentioned in the Defender, Ethel Waters and the Black Swan Troubadours were appearing at Gibson’s New Standard Theater in Philadelphia (“Sings Em,” Chicago Defender, November 26, 1921). See His Eye Is On the Sparrow, 145, for Waters’s account of New York agent Jack Goldberg’s offer to be her manager and put her into Keith vaudeville. She concluded: “I refused to sign the contract.” 99. Waters with Samuels, 146. 100. “Ethel Hits ’Em,” Chicago Defender, April 22, 1922. 101. Waters with Samuels, 146. 102. “Going South,” Chicago Defender, January 28, 1922. 103. “Musicians Quit; Ethel Waters Goes South,” Chicago Defender, February 11, 1922. 104. “J. A. Jackson’s Page,” “Ethel Waters In the South,” Billboard, April 22, 1922. 105. “Negro Jazzers Stir WGV Fans; Miss Dove Star,” New Orleans Item, April 22, 1922; “Ethel Radiates,” Chicago Defender, April 29, 1922; “Blues Star Sings For Radiophone,” Kansas City Call, May 6, 1922. The Defender noted that this early broadcast made Ethel Waters “the first of her Race to do a real ‘radio’ stunt”; and Waters reiterated in His Eye Is on the Sparrow, 158, that “We were the first colored entertainers permitted to broadcast from that station.” However, a student quartet from Straight University had sung over WGV just two nights before the Ethel Waters broadcast (Abbott, “‘For Ofays Only,’” 5, 28n10).

Notes to pages 262–267 106. “Ethel Radiates.” 107. Waters with Samuels, 173. 108. Many mainstream night clubs and cabarets featured late-night revues billed as “Midnight Frolics.” Notably, in 1915 Florenz Ziegfeld augmented his Ziegfeld Follies with a run of “Ziegfeld Midnight Frolics,” in order to “catch the late trade” on Broadway. The specter of white folks frolicking in historically black theaters below the Mason-Dixon Line was an entirely separate, distinctly southern phenomenon. It is not clear where or when these Jim Crow frolics originated, but they are noted in black press reports as early as the spring of 1920, when a member of the itinerant black New York Minstrels reported having “played a ‘Midnight Frolics’ for Ofays at Montgomery, Ala.” (Montgomery Advertiser, quoted in “Made ’Em Like It,” Chicago Defender, February 7, 1920). 109. “Negro Art,” New Orleans Item, July 3, 1923, quoted in D. Ireland Thomas, “Motion Picture News,” Chicago Defender, July 28, 1923. 110. Edw. C. Rogers, “Sing ’Em,” Chicago Defender, August 11, 1923. 111. Salem Tutt Whitney, “Observations,” “Jim Crow Frolics,” Chicago Defender, May 29, 1926. 112. Waters with Samuels, 161. 113. Jos. Jones, “Jottings From Virginia,” Chicago Defender, June 24, 1922. 114. Waters with Samuels, 146, 148. 115. In 1923 Billboard reported that Waters had “begun suit . . . against Harry Pace” for breaking her one-year contract regarding appearances with the Black Swan Troubadours (“J. A. Jackson’s Page,” “Actress Sues For Salary,” Billboard, July 28, 1923). 116. “K.-A. Contract Precludes $1,500 Weekly For Waters,” Chicago Defender, August 29, 1925. 117. “A Consolidation,” Chicago Defender, April 19, 1924. 118. “OKeh Week,” Chicago Defender, May 5, 1923. 119. Mamie Smith is routinely credited as the first black blues singer on record, but Bert Williams recorded a blues title in 1919 (see Godrich, Dixon, and Rye, Blues and Gospel Records). 120. “Pace & Handy Music Open Mail Order Department,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 25, 1920. 121. “Pace & Handy,” Chicago Defender, July 31, 1920. 122. “OKeh Record Artist Has Rapid Rise To Stardom,” Chicago Defender, July 21, 1923. 123. “J. A. Jackson’s Page,” “Crazy Blues,” April 2, 1921. 124. Before he learned the proper procedure, Bradford was

known to make up copyright numbers for songs he wished to protect. In a 1914 Indianapolis Freeman correspondence, he threatened to prosecute any “thieves” caught singing his “Jacksonville Rounders Dance,” which he said held “Copyright number 12154 Sec. B” (“Old Mule And Jeanette The Favorites—Packing Them To The Streets In Detroit,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 17, 1914). In fact, this copyright number was assigned in 1901 to a song called “Blessed Is The Man” (Wayne Shirley letter to Lynn Abbott, June 21, 1994). 125. See Mule Bradford, “Performers, Stop Doing Me, And Let Me Live!” Indianapolis Freeman, August 7, 1915. The nickname started turning up in print as early as 1910 (“The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 12, 1910). 126. “‘Mule’ Here,” Chicago Defender, February 19, 1921. 127. “Blues Shower,” Chicago Defender, August 4, 1923 (reproduced from “Avalanche Of ‘Blues’ Songs Aimed For Disc Royalty,” Variety, July 26, 1923). 128. “Information” (block ad by Rogers & Roberts), Indianapolis Freeman, May 8, 1920; “Music Lovers,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 10, 1920. See “Sing ’Em Edith,” ad for Edith Wilson’s Columbia recording of “Nervous Blues”/“Vampin Liza Jane,” placed by Perry Bradford, Inc.; and “Everybody Likes Music,” ad for Ethel Waters’s Black Swan record “Oh Daddy”/“Down Home Blues,” placed by Albury & Delaney Music Publishing Co., which appear on the same page of the Chicago Defender, November 12, 1921. See also “The Big Song Hit That Is Sweeping the Country—‘Arkansas Blues,’” a large block ad placed by Frances Clifford Music Co., Chicago Defender, December 17, 1921. 129. “Colored Singers And Players To Fame And Fortune By Discs.” 130. “The Lincoln Theater, Knoxville, Tenn.,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 26, 1908; Abbott and Seroff, Ragged but Right, 110–12. 131. “Lincoln Theater, Knoxville, Tenn.,” Indianapolis Freeman, February 13, 1909. 132. Salem Tutt Whitney, “Seen and Heard While Passing,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 5, 1915. 133. Bradford recalled in his autobiography Born with the Blues (New York: Oak Publications, 1965), 96, 98–100, that Made in Harlem had opened in 1918, with Mamie Smith featuring the song “Harlem Blues.” Detailed contemporaneous documents indicate 1916. Moreover, “Harlem Blues” is not mentioned in any known contemporaneous press report on Made in Harlem, including Billy E. Jones, “New York News,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 29, 1916; Billy E. Jones, “New York

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Notes to pages 267–270 Theatrical Notes,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 12, 1916; and Salem Tutt Whitney, “Seen and Heard While Passing,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 19, 1916. 134. Billy E. Jones, “New York News,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 19, 1916; Mamie Smith, “That Thing Called Love,” OKeh 4113, 1920, reissued on Document DOCD-5357. 135. Bradford and Jeanette were teamed at least as early as 1911 (“John L. White’s Great Alabama Minstrels Under Their Own Canvas—Playing To Crowded Performances In Bessemer, Alabama,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 7, 1911; “Gibson’s New Standard Theater, Philadelphia,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 7, 1918). 136. Sylvester Russell, “Chicago Weekly Review,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 6, 1918. 137. “A Note Or Two,” Chicago Defender, August 4, 1917; “News Of The Players,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 24, 1917; Bradford, Born with the Blues, 158. “Cry Baby” Godfrey recorded one song: “Sweet Baby, Good-Bye!” OKeh 8064, 1923, reissued on Document DOCD-5510. 138. Mrs. Baby McGarr, “Booker Washington Theater, Week Of September 9,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 21, 1918. 139. “Death Takes Well Known Dancer Here,” Chicago Defender, November 20, 1926; Tom Lemonier, “Lemonier’s Letter,” Chicago Defender, May 24, 1919. 140. A July 18, 1925, Chicago Defender report elucidated: At B. F. Keith’s—The writer lamped Seymour and Jeanette, who were on in the deuce spot and absolutely stopped them cold. This is, without doubt, the greatest man and woman turn in vaudeville, and that goes for all competitors. Jeanette is billed in front of the theater as the “Greatest Colored Male Impersonator,” and she is that. My but how neat they are, look like they stepped out of a bandbox. Two clever people and they will open their Orpheum circuit Sept. 13, with three years’ contract to fill over the big time. They are making the small jumps in their special-built Buick. A February 27, 1926, Pittsburgh Courier report provides a roster of the Synco-Jazzers: Johnnie Williams, saxophone and leader; Mary Lou Burleigh [sic], piano; William H. McCoy; Edward Temple, drums; Joe Williams, banjo; and Sylvester Briscoe, trombone. After marrying band leader Johnnie Williams, the name of the Synco-Jazzers’ pianist changed to Mary Lou Williams, later identified as one of the “first ladies of jazz.” 141. Sylvester Russell, “Seymour James Dead,” Pittsburgh Courier, November 20, 1926.

142. Two of the four selections recorded in 1927 by Jeanette James and Her Synco-Jazzers are reissued on Document DOCD-5470. All four sides are reissued on Frog DGF13. 143. “Mule Quits,” Chicago Defender, February 7, 1920. 144. Billy E. Jones, “New York News,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 27, 1919. 145. Billy E. Jones, “New York News,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 17, 1920. 146. Bradford, Born with the Blues, 114–15; see also Mark Berresford, That’s Got ’Em! The Life and Music of Wilbur Sweatman (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2010), 106–7. 147. The Defender advised: “those who desire to help in any advance of the Race should be sure to buy this record as encouragement to the manufacturers for their liberal policy and to encourage other manufacturers who may not believe that the Race will buy records sung by its own singers” (“Pace & Handy,” Chicago Defender, July 31, 1920). 148. J. A. Jackson wrote in Billboard: “It is reported that over a million dollars worth of her records were sold” (“J. A. Jackson’s Page,” “Mamie Smith And Her Jazz Hounds,” Billboard, May 28, 1921). 149. “Mamie Booked,” Chicago Defender, February 26, 1921. 150. Ibid. 151. “Mamie Smith A Hit,” Chicago Defender, March 5, 1921. 152. Dallas Journal, reproduced in “Mamie Smith Co.,” Chicago Defender, April 2, 1921. 153. OKeh Record Company advertisement, Chicago Defender, December 22, 1923. 154. “J. A. Jackson’s Page,” “Mame [sic] Smith Tops Corking Bill,” Billboard, January 13, 1923. Smith recorded her “Mamie Smith Blues” in June 1922 (OKeh 4658, reissued on Document DOCD-5359), with its reference to “imitators.” 155. “J. A. Jackson’s Page,” “Here And There Among The Folks,” Billboard, December 22, 1923. 156. “Colored Singers And Players To Fame And Fortune By Discs.” 157. “Mamie Smith, Famed ‘Blues’ Queen, Coming To Elmore For Return Engagement,” Pittsburgh Courier, May 9, 1925. Italics added by the authors for emphasis. 158. “Runaway Pen,” Chicago Defender, December 19, 1925. 159. “Headliners Coming Next Week,” Pittsburgh Courier, January 24, 1925. 160. “Mamie Smith, ‘Mother Of The Blues,’ Passes,” Norfolk Journal and Guide, November 9, 1946 (Black Studies Center, ProQuest). 161. “Another ‘First,’” “J. A. Jackson’s Page,” Billboard, November 11, 1922.

Notes to pages 270–276 162. Martin was traveling with Joe Clark, Jr.’s Metropolitan Colored Amusement Company in the sideshow minstrels of Pawnee Bill’s Wild West Company as early as February 1903 (Indianapolis Freeman, February 14; May 16, 1903). See Pen Bogert, “Louisville Women in the Blues” (parts 5 and 6), Blues News (newsletter of KYANA Blues Society), April, May 1995. 163. “Gang” (Henry Jines), “Star Theater,” Chicago Defender, May 12, 1923. The “ofay paper” referred to as “The Record Trade” remains elusive. 164. “Sara Martin And Handy’s Band,” Chicago Defender, September 8, 1923. 165. Ibid. 166. Ibid. 167. “J. A. Jackson’s Page,” “Handy Having Great Tour,” Billboard, September 8, 1923. 168. “An Admirer of C. W. Handy” [sic], Chicago Defender, April 24, 1920; “Best Sellers,” Chicago Defender, July 10, 1920; ad for Pace & Handy Music Company, Indianapolis Freeman, August 21, 1920; “Letters,” W. C. Handy, June 17, 1922; and others. 169. “J. A. Jackson’s Page,” “Handy Having Great Tour.” The mainstream New Orleans press bestowed similar honors on Martin as one “whose songs have been immortalized and preserved for all time on the phonograph records of the ‘Okeh’ and whose voice is as well known in the homes of America as any that have been supplied by the great opera organizations of the world” (“Lyric Theater Has Fine Midnight Bill,” New Orleans States, July 18, 1924). 170. “OKeh Notes,” Chicago Defender, January 5, 1924. 171. “J. A. Jackson’s Page,” “Too Much Sameness,” Billboard, December 13, 1924. 172. “At Turpins—Sarah Martin, Record Star, and Other Good Acts at Booker Washington,” Chicago Defender, June 9, 1923; “Sara Shines,” Chicago Defender, January 26, 1924. Sarah Martin with W. C. Handy’s Orchestra recorded “Laughin’ Cryin’ Blues” (OKeh 8064, 1923, reissued on Document DOCD-5395) in advance of their tour. Martin’s “ha-ha-has” and “boo-hoohoos” on the recording may not capture the spirit she demonstrated on stage. 173. L. Baynard Whitney, “Observations,” Chicago Defender, August 28, 1926. 174. Charles O’Neal, “In Old Kay-See,” Chicago Defender, September 26, 1925. 175. “At the Play Houses,” “Lincoln,” Kansas City Call, April 17, 1925. 176. “Benbow’s Show Plays For Southern Whites,” Chicago Defender, November 20, 1926.

177. Coy Herndon, “Coy Cogitates,” Chicago Defender, May 31, 1924; “Sarah Martin, OKeh Record Singer Coming Next Week,” Kansas City Call, November 9, 1923; “Sara Martin Singing At Lincoln Theatre,” Kansas City Call, November 16, 1923; Wesley Varnell, “Star Theater, Shreveport, La., December 17,” Billboard, January 5, 1924. 178. “Sara Martin Singing At Lincoln Theatre.” 179. Ad, “OKeh Race Records,” Chicago Defender, January 5, 1924; Sara Martin, “Roamin’ Blues,” OKeh 8104, 1923, reissued on Document DOCD-5396. 180. Excerpt from a March 1924 letter from Ralph Peer (Director of Record Production, General Phonograph Corporation) to Sarah Martin, variously quoted in Jim O’Neal, “Guitar Blues: Sylvester Weaver,” Living Blues 52: 18–22; Brenda Bogert, “The Story of Sylvester Weaver—the First Blues Guitarist to Record, Part 2,” Blues News (December 1994); and Barry Mazor, Ralph Peer and the Making of Popular Roots Music (Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2015). 181. OKeh ad, Chicago Defender, December 22, 1923. 182. Bob Hayes, “The Monogram,” Chicago Defender, May 17, 1924. 183. Ibid. 184. “Egg-Nogg ’N Ever’thing,” Chicago Defender, January 24, 1925. 185. Butterbeans and Susie acknowledged Martin’s role in securing their OKeh recording contract (“Gives Sarah Credit,” Chicago Defender, March 7, 1925; Jodie and Susie Edwards interviewed by Herb Abramson and others, 1960). 186. Jodie and Susie Edwards interviewed by Herb Abramson and others. 187. Veteran ragtime pianist Johnny Maddox said that he saw life-sized cardboard cut-outs of Butterbeans and Susie in the lobby of Harlem’s Apollo Theater in the early 1950s (Johnny Maddox conversation with Doug Seroff, October 1, 2014). 188. “Butterbean [sic] and Susie, 81 Theater Headline For Big White Frolic,” Atlanta Constitution, February 22, 1925 (America’s Historical Newspapers, NewsBank). Bailey staged his first midnight performance for whites on a Friday in September 1924, presenting the Liza Company, which featured Emmett Anthony (J. A. Jackson, “Here and There Among the Folks,” Billboard, October 11, 1924). 189. Jodie and Susie Edwards interviewed by Herb Abramson and others. 190. “Says Jonesy,” Chicago Defender, July 11, 1925. 191. Presumably, “A-B-C Blues” was their razor-cutting monstrosity recorded as “A To Z Blues.” Unfortunately, they never recorded their “famous ‘Hellish Rag,’” perhaps due to

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Notes to pages 276–282 squeamishness on the part of OKeh Record Company regarding offensive label copy. See “Friday Midnight Shows Resumed at 81 Theater,” Atlanta Constitution, October 14, 1928; “Butterbean [sic] And Susie Return For 81 Frolic,” Atlanta Constitution, November 25, 1928; “Novel Dance Act Wins Audience At Midnight Show,” Atlanta Constitution, November 16, 1929. 192. Jodie and Susie Edwards interviewed by Herb Abramson and others. 193. Ibid. 194. Butterbeans and Susie, “Brown Skin Gal,” OKeh 8219, 1925, reissued on Document DOCD-5544. 195. Butterbeans and Susie, “Get Yourself A Monkey Man, Make Him Strut His Stuff,” OKeh 8147, reissued on Document DOCD-5544. 196. Butterbeans and Susie, “A To Z Blues,” OKeh 8163, 1924, reissued on Document DOCD-5544. The same song was recorded by Charlie Jordan as Uncle Skipper, “Cutting My ABC’s,” Decca 7353, 1937, reissued on Document DOCD-5099; and years later by Atlanta street singer and guitar blues legend Blind Willie McTell as Pig ’N’ Whistle Red, “A To Z Blues,” 1950, issued on Savoy LP MG 16000, reissued on Document BDCD6014). McTell was undoubtedly a Decatur Street theater habitué, having also recorded his interpretations of other black vaudeville standards. 197. “Butterbeans & Susie,” Festival M-7000, 1960, reissued on GHB BCD-135. This song was not actually copyrighted by Butler May. While the liner notes credit “LeMay” as composer, they also indicate that it is “P.D.” 198. Joseph Nesbitt interview. See also Lynn Abbott, liner notes to GHB BCD-135. 199. Observer, “Shots From The Lake Shore,” Pittsburgh Courier, May 15, 1926. 200. “Music Edition Extra,” “Last Minute News,” Chicago Defender, June 12, 1926. 201. “Music Edition Extra,” “Butterbeans And Susie To Head Line-Up,” Chicago Defender, June 12, 1926. 202. Mary Stafford, Edith Wilson, Leona Williams (also known as Leonce Lazzo), and perhaps others recorded blues titles for Columbia in 1921 and 1922 (see Dixon, Godrich, and Rye). 203. Earlier in 1923 both Bessie Smith and Clara Smith had records released in Columbia’s “A-prefix” popular series. Their first Columbia Race-series recordings were: Bessie Smith, “Whoa Tillie, Take Your Time”/“My Sweetie Went Away,” Columbia 13000-D and “Cemetery Blues”/“Any Woman’s Blues,” Columbia 13001-D, both recorded in 1923 and reissued on Frog DGF41; and Clara Smith, “Don’t Never Tell

Nobody”/“Waitin’ For The Evenin’ Mail,” Columbia 13002-D, 1923, reissued on Document DOCD-5364. 204. Dan Mahony, Columbia 13/14000-D Series (Numerical Listing) (Stanhope: Walter C. Allen, 1961). 205. Columbia Record Company advertisement, Chicago Defender, May 26, 1923. 206. Atlanta Journal, quoted in “Radio Hit,” Chicago Defender, July 7, 1923. 207. Billy Chambers, “Frolic Theater,” Billboard, July 28, 1923. 208. “Entertain At Midnight Show,” Pittsburgh Courier, February 16, 1924. 209. “Lyric Midnight Show To Be A Hummer,” New Orleans States, April 9, 1925. 210. Further verification can be found in “Bessie Radiates,” Chicago Defender (reproduced from Memphis Commercial Appeal), February 23, 1924; “Bessie Pleases Ofays,” Chicago Defender, April 18, 1925; Chick Beaman letter, Chicago Defender, May 2, 1925. 211. Frank H. Crockett, “Bessie Hits ’Em,” Chicago Defender, August 4, 1923. 212. “Hit On Radio,” Chicago Defender, October 6, 1923. 213. “T.O.B.A. Mentions,” Chicago Defender, May 23, 1925. 214. “Bessie Smith To Sing Over Radio During Trip Here— Goldman and Wolf Arranges For Talented Blues Queen to Appear at Local Station,” Pittsburgh Courier, March 15, 1924. 215. “Clara Smith To Sing At Goldman & Wolf,” Pittsburgh Courier, February 16, 1924. 216. Alan Govenar and Jay Brakefield, Deep Ellum: The Other Side of Dallas (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2013). Alan Govenar, “Blind Lemon Jefferson: The Myth and the Man,” Black Music Research Journal 20, no. 1 (Spring 2000): 12. 217. “Ragtime” Billy Tucker, “Coast Dope,” Chicago Defender, May 27, July 8, 1922. 218. For accounts of Winston Holmes and his accomplishments, see John Randolph, “A Pioneer Race Recorder,” Jazz Journal 10, no. 2 (February 1957); Doug Jydstrup, “Winston Holmes: Kansas City Promoter,” 78 Quarterly 1, no. 2 (1968); Frank Driggs and Chuck Haddix, Kansas City Jazz: From Ragtime to Bebop—A History (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2005); and Paul Swinton, “‘A Kansas City Call’ Some Beginnings of K. C. Blues & Jazz: Winston Holmes & His Meritt Record Label,” Frog Blues and Jazz Annual No. 3 (London, 2013): 115–25. 219. “Trixie Smith,” Kansas City Call, February 18, 1922; “Trixie Smith Very Popular,” Kansas City Call, November 17, 1922; “Trixie Smith Packed Downtown House,” Kansas City Call, December 15, 1922.

Notes to pages 282–288 220. “Kansas City’s Record-Making Orchestra,” Kansas City Call, November 30, 1923. Standard discographical sources, including Brian Rust’s Jazz Records, and Dixon, Godrich, and Rye’s Blues & Gospel Records, state that this session took place in St. Louis. However, this newspaper article, along with at least two others (“Phonograph Records To Be Made Here,” Kansas City Call, October 26, 1923; “Dainty Mary Bradford,” Kansas City Call, November 9, 1923) indicate the session was held in Chicago. 221. “Phonograph Records To Be Made Here.” 222. “Winston Holmes Makes His First Record,” Kansas City Call, December 12, 1924. 223. Sylvester and Lena Kimbrough, accompanied by Paul Banks Kansas City Trio, “Cabbage Head Blues,” Meritt 2201, 1924, reissued on Document DOCD-5152. 224. “Our Goodman” is “Child ballad” number 274 in Francis James Child, The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, Vol. V—Part IX (1894; New York: Dover, 1965), 88–95. For more on the legacy of “Our Goodman,” see Luigi Monge and David Evans, “New Songs of Blind Lemon Jefferson,” Journal of Texas Music History 3, no. 2 (2003): 8–11. See also Meade, Spottswood, and Meade, Country Music Sources, 4; “The Library of Congress Music Division Check-list of Recorded Songs in the English Language in the Archive of American Folk Song to July, 1940” (Washington, 1942). 225. Rev. J. C. Burnett, “The Downfall Of Nebuchadnezzar”/“I’ve Even Heard Of Thee,” Meritt 2203, 1926, reissued on Document DOCD-5557). 226. According to Mahony, Columbia 13/14000-D Series, Rev. J. C. Burnett’s “The Downfall of Nebuchadnezzar”/“I’ve Even Heard Of Thee” (Columbia 14166-D, 1926, reissued on Document DOCD-5557) had a remarkable initial order of 88,750 copies. “Says Columbia Co. Stole His Records,” Chicago Defender, April 2, 1927. 227. The designation “Empress of Blues Singers” is noted in print for perhaps the first time in “Bessie Smith & Co.,” Chicago Defender, May 3, 1924. 228. “Bessie Smith Here Next Week,” Pittsburgh Courier, March 15, 1924. 229. S. H. Dudley, “Dud’s Dope,” Chicago Defender, February 16, 1924. 230. Billy McClain letter, Chicago Defender, February 23, 1924. 231. “Runaway Pen,” Chicago Defender, September 19, 1925. 232. Bill Potter, “The Blues Singer,” Chicago Defender, October 24, 1925. 233. Sylvester Russell, “Argumentation,” Pittsburgh Courier, December 26, 1925.

234. S. T. Whitney, “What Hypocrites We Mortals Be,” Chicago Defender, February 14, 1925. 235. “Bessie Smith’s Harlem Frolics Touring South,” Chicago Defender, October 30, 1926. 236. “Bessie Smith’s Revue,” Chicago Defender, August 7, 1926; “Bessie Smith’s Harlem Frolics Touring South.” 237. “Bessie Smith’s Harlem Frolics Touring South.” 238. Observer, “Shots From The Lake Shore,” Pittsburgh Courier, June 5, 1926. 239. Observer, “Shots From The Lake Shore,” Pittsburgh Courier, May 8, 1926. 240. “Bessie Smith’s Revue”; “Bessie Smith Comes To The Grand On Monday, Jan. 24,” Chicago Defender, January 22, 1927. 241. E. K. Hamilton, “A Theatrical Letter,” Pittsburgh Courier, September 24, 1927. 242. “Happenings In Local Theatres,” Pittsburgh Courier, February 28, 1925. Mamie Smith had appeared at the same theater the previous month (“Happenings In Local Theatres,” Pittsburgh Courier, January 24, 1925). 243. Charles O’Neal, “In Old Kay-See,” Chicago Defender, June 27, 1925. 244. “J. A. Jackson’s Page,” “‘Broadway Strutters,’” Billboard, January 6, 1923. 245. “Age Exaggerated,” Chicago Defender, January 31, 1925. Rainey was a Columbus, Georgia, native born in 1886. 246. “A Note Or Two,” Chicago Defender, August 15, 1925. 247. Bob Hayes, “Ma Rainey’s Review,” Chicago Defender, February 13, 1926. The personnel of Rainey’s Georgia Jazz Band for this Louisville, Kentucky, engagement was given as: “Piano, Mrs. Lil Henderson; cornet, Kid [Fuller] Henderson; sax and clarinet, Lucien Brown; banjo, George Williams; and drums, Happy Bolton, formerly Lyric theater drummer, New Orleans.” Ma Rainey was using her “big Paramount talking machine” prop as early as September 1924 (“Galla [sic] Program Headed By Madame Rainey,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 4, 1924). The gimmick of stepping out of a branded “talking machine” (phonograph prop) may have originated with the team of George Williams and Bessie Brown. At the Strand Theater in Jacksonville, Florida, in May 1924, they were said to be “a riot from the beginning, as [the] set itself drew a hand. Singing their first number from inside a large Columbia cabinet graphophone, the imitation was really great and brought the house down” (Jack L. Cooper, “Coop’s Chatter,” Chicago Defender, May 10, 1924). 248. Between 1923 and 1927, Paramount, OKeh, Columbia, Victor, Vocalion, Ajax, Meritt, Black Swan, Rialto, Emerson, Chappelle + Stinnette, and Black Patti record companies ran

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Notes to pages 288–294 block ads in the Chicago Defender that included either photographs of artists or cartoon caricatures. 249. Any assessment of post-1920 editions of the Freeman is currently limited to surviving editions from January 19 through November 2, 1924. During this period, the “Stage” columns were still in place, but the rich open forum that characterized the earlier decades of the Freeman had given way to relatively benign reportage from a few select theaters. Coverage of blues recording stars was thin, and there was not a single race record ad. 250. The Freeman was still publishing in 1925, but by the spring of 1926 it was defunct (“J. A. Jackson’s Page,” Billboard, January 24, 1925; Tim Owsley, “Now,” Chicago Defender, May 22, 1926). 251. “Bessie Smith & Co.,” Chicago Defender, May 3, 1924. 252. “Bessie Calls,” Chicago Defender, May 17, 1924 (italics added by the authors for emphasis). 253. “T.O.B.A. News,” Chicago Defender, February 28, 1925. As recently as December 1918 the same newspaper reported that Bessie Smith was playing the Liberty Theater along with Clara Smith. The placement of this disinformation in a “T.O.B.A. News” column suggests the booking agency was implicated in its dissemination. 254. “Gang” Jines, “What Do They Want?” Chicago Defender, April 5, 1924. 255. Charles O’Neal, “In Old Kaysee,” Chicago Defender, October 15, 1927. 256. “J. A. Jackson’s Page,” “Traveling The Colored Circuits,” Billboard, May 27, 1922. 257. These figures were taken from Theater Owners Booking Association contracts for Butterbeans and Susie, dated January 15, 1925; George Williams and Bessie Brown, June 25, 1925; Ma Rainey, August 14, 1925; Bessie Smith Revue, March 16, 1925; also, letters from Sam E. Reevin to C. H. Douglass (re. Williams and Brown), December 3, 1925; Sam E. Reevin to C. H. Douglass (re. Maggie Jones), October 29, 1925; Louise Mason to C. H. Douglass (re. Ida Cox), June 21, 1926; and Western Union Telegram from Sam E. Reevin to C. H. Douglass (re. Clara Smith), April 19, 1925 (All of these documents are in the C. H. Douglass Business Records Collection, Middle Georgia Regional Library, Macon, Georgia). 258. Wyatt D. James, “Texas Tattles,” Chicago Defender, November 20, 1926. 259. “J. A. Jackson’s Page,” “Blues Singers And Bluecoats,” Billboard, November 24, 1923. 260. For commentary supporting the assertion that there were not enough blues queens to satisfy the circuit, see

Observer, “Shots From The Lake Shore,” Pittsburgh Courier, May 15, 1926. 261. “J. A. Jackson’s Page,” “Opening Of New Roosevelt,” Billboard, September 15, 1923. 262. “J. A. Jackson’s Page,” “Paul Carter Discusses Reasons Leading to Closing His Show,” Billboard, December 27, 1924. 263. Babe Townsend, “Does T.O.B.A. Give Tabs Preference?” Chicago Defender, August 1, 1925. 264. S. H. Dudley, “Tab Shows,” Chicago Defender, June 5, 1926. The same article appeared in the Pittsburgh Courier, of the same date, under the title “Vaudeville Acts No Longer Pay—‘Tab’ Shows Drawing Crowds.” 265. “Honored,” Chicago Defender, May 7, 1921. 266. “Turpin In Washington,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 9, 1924. 267. Uncle Dud, “The Union,” Indianapolis Freeman, May 10, 1924. Ultimately, the Colored Actors Union failed to gain traction. During the summer of 1926 it fell from the purview of the African American press. 268. Observer, “Shots From The Lake Shore,” Pittsburgh Courier, June 19, 1926. 269. A listing of artists appearing in eighteen different T.O.B.A. theaters at the end of 1930 reveals that all or nearly all were playing tab companies, not vaudeville acts (“T.O.B.A. Doin’s—Where They Play—Week of December 30,” Baltimore Afro-American, January 4, 1930 [Black Studies Center, ProQuest]). 270. Undated letter from Annie Mae Cox and Baby Cox to C. H. Douglass, Douglass Business Records, Middle Georgia Regional Library. 271. Other African American members of the T.O.B.A. included W. J. Styles, Pekin Theater, Savannah, Georgia; John T. Gibson, Standard and Dunbar Theaters, Philadelphia; and W. S. Scales, Lafayette Theater, Winston-Salem, North Carolina. 272. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 22, 1905; June 2, 1906. 273. “Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 6, 1906; “Dandy Dixie Minstrels,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 4, 1908; “Rufus Rastus In Dixie Company,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 21, 1907; “To Open Easter Sunday,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 4, 1908. 274. “The Airdome Theater, Jacksonville, Fla.,” “Joal [sic] and Watts, Proprietors and Managers,” Indianapolis Freeman, March 26, 1910: “Theodore Reading’s orchestra of five pieces [includes] E. B. Dudley, violin . . . E. B. Dudley closes this week to take charge of the band and orchestra for Kersands’ Big Minstrels, under canvas”; “Billy Kersands Minstrels,”

Notes to pages 295–297 Indianapolis Freeman, June 11, 1910: “Mr. Willie Lewis, successor to E. B. Dudley, our band leader.” 275. “Holly Springs, Miss.,” “Notes of Eph. Williams’ Silas Green Company,” Indianapolis Freeman, November 4, 1911. 276. Ad, “Palace Theater, Chattanooga,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 3, 1912: “E. B. Dudley, Mgr. and Agt.”; ad, “The Colored Consolidated Vaudeville Exchange,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 20, 1913: “Mr. E. B. Dudley, Manager and owner of the Dudley’s Dunbar theater, Columbus, O.” In between these two positions, Dudley led the orchestra at the Ruby Theater in Louisville (Salem Tutt Whitney, “Seen And Heard While Passing,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 13, 1913: “The orchestra is first class. E. B. Dudley is director; Mrs. Dudley, pianist”). 277. “Popular Manager,” Chicago Defender, July 9, 1927. 278. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 2, 1910. 279. “The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, April 7; June 2, 1906; “A Rabbitt’s [sic] Foot Company,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 15, 1907; “Funny Folks Comedy Company,” Indianapolis Freeman, March 28, 1908. 280. Col. J. G. Griffin, “Dallas Texas,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 11, 1915; ad, “Wanted, Park Theatre, Dallas, Tex.,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 2, 1915. 281. Abbott and Seroff, Ragged but Right, 290–91. 282. 1880 U.S. Census (AncestryLibrary.com). However, according to R. C. Fisher, “Bite Fatal To Judge Turpin,” “Charles Turpin, First Race Justice In St. Louis, Buried,” Chicago Defender, January 4, 1936 (Black Studies Center, ProQuest), Turpin “was nearing his 70th birth date” when he died from complications of an insect bite on Christmas Eve 1935. The 1930 U.S. Census (AncestryLibrary.com) gives his birth year as “about 1878.” 283. Ad, “The Rosebud Bar,” St. Louis Palladium, August 29, 1903 (America’s Historical Newspapers, NewsBank). 284. “Booker Washington Airdome,” Indianapolis Freeman, July 30, 1910; “Gossip Of The Stage,” Indianapolis Freeman, January 4, 1913; Marsh, “New St. Louis Theater To Open Doors In July,” Indianapolis Freeman, June 28, 1913. 285. The 81 Decatur Street site of Bailey’s historic Arcade Theater is now occupied by buildings and parking lots on the campus of Georgia State University. Thanks to Aimee Schmidt, Georgia Council for the Arts. 286. Tim E. Owsley, “The Plain Truth,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 24, 1918. 287. The encounter remains undated, but factors suggest it may have taken place in the spring of 1923. 288. Waters with Samuels, 165–71.

289. Frank Montgomery, “Frank In South,” Chicago Defender, October 16, 1920; S. T. Whitney, “Producers,” Chicago Defender, March 3, 1928. 290. “M’Donald and Leggett,” Chicago Defender, June 20, 1925. 291. Garnett Warbington, “Big Protest,” Chicago Defender, October 8, 1921. 292. “J. A. Jackson’s Page,” “Complains Of Florida,” Billboard, October 7, 1922. The complaint came from Collington Hayes, owner of the “High Steppers” company. 293. “J. A. Jackson’s Page,” ad for the Managers’ and Performers’ Co-Operative Circuit, Incorporated, Billboard, March 4, 1922; Sam E. Reevin, “Circuits Join,” “T.O.B.A. Takes in the M. and P. Circuit,” Chicago Defender, November 11, 1922. 294. “Bennett Optimistic,” Chicago Defender, January 28, 1922. 295. “J. A. Jackson’s Page,” “The T.O.B.A. Election,” Billboard, February 4, 1922. 296. “J. A. Jackson’s Page,” “Reactions Of The Group On the Clarence Bennett Letter,” Billboard, February 25, 1922. 297. “J. A. Jackson’s Page,” “T.O.B.A. Adds Another House,” October 14, 1922. This article identifies Starr as the president of the T.O.B.A. 298. In the 1940 U.S. Census (AncestryLibrary.com); his birth year is given as 1896. Milton Starr’s parents came to America from “a little village in Russia,” several years prior to his birth. “I believe [the] family name in Russia was ‘Nossek,’ or something like that. It was common in those days for foreigners to change their names when they arrived in the United States, but I’m not sure how the name ‘Starr’ was arrived at” (Carrie Lightman Starr, “For Marco and Suzanne From Their Grandmother,” June 1, 1971, Starr Family Vertical File, Tennessee State Library, Nashville). Carrie Lightman Starr was the wife of Milton’s older brother Jacob Starr. 299. A September 6, 1918, article in the Nashville Globe said the Bijou Theater had been in operation as “a Negro moving picture house . . . for over 2 years”; and a September 19, 1925, article (“New T.O.B.A. House For Nashville, Tenn.,” Chicago Defender) also claimed the Bijou was established in 1916. However, there is a listing in the Nashville City Directory for the “Starr Theater (c)” (i.e., “colored”) at 412 Cedar Street, as early as 1913. 300. “New T.O.B.A. House For Nashville, Tenn.,” Chicago Defender, September 19, 1925. By 1930 Starr owned a reported eleven race theaters, including two in Nashville; two in Columbia, South Carolina; one each in Atlanta and Augusta, Georgia; New Bern and Raleigh, North Carolina;

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Notes to pages 297–300 and Charleston, Greenville, and Spartanburg, South Carolina (“T.O.B.A. Man Now Owns of 11 Theatres [sic]—Milton Starr’s Latest Acquisition Is Capital Theatre in Columbia, S.C.,” Baltimore Afro-American, January 11, 1930 [Black Studies Center, ProQuest]). 301. “Nashville Theater Pulls Off Jim Crow Performance,” Chicago Defender, May 8, 1926. 302. Tim Owsley, “Now,” Chicago Defender, May 15, 1926. 303. 1905 New York State Census; Naturalization Records, Tennessee, 1907–1991 (AncestryLibrary.com). 304. S. T. Whitney, “Salem Sez,” Chicago Defender, November 14, 1925; William G. Nunn, “‘Hard Times Cause of Scarcity Of Good Road Shows’—Reevin,” Pittsburgh Courier, January 1, 1930 (Black Studies Center, ProQuest). On a different occasion, Whitney claimed that the regular performances at Reevin’s Liberty Theater in Chattanooga were not strictly segregated: “white patrons attend the Liberty . . . regularly” (Salem Tutt Whitney, “Observations,” “Jim Crow Frolics,” Chicago Defender, May 29, 1926). 305. “Biography” of Charles Henry Douglass, in-house documentation prepared by Muriel McDowell Jackson, Middle Georgia Regional Library; C. H. Douglass, “Managing A Negro Theatre,” “Report of the Sixteenth Annual Convention of the Negro Business League,” 1915. The Douglass Hotel was for blacks only, and included a restaurant, billiard parlor, and liquor store. 306. “J. A. Jackson’s Page,” “They Like Our Actors,” Billboard, September 8, 1923, reproduced from Macon Telegraph, date unknown; “J. A. Jackson’s Page,” “This From Macon,” Billboard, September 15, 1923; “Douglass O.K.” (letter from Marie Gossett Harlow to Tony Langston), Chicago Defender, January 10, 1925; Salem Tutt Whitney, “Observations,” “Jim Crow Frolics.” 307. “They Like Our Actors”; “Douglass O.K.”; “Bessie Pleases Ofays.” 308. “This From Macon.” 309. Ibid. 310. Andrew M. Manis, Macon Black and White (Macon: Mercer University Press, 2004), 63–64. 311. Ibid., 56–70. 312. Ibid., 64. 313. “Douglass O.K.” 314. “Bessie Pleases Ofays”; “This From Macon.” 315. “Amazing Career Is Ended For Charles H. Douglass,” Macon Telegraph, May 2, 1940. 316. “Charles Henry Douglass, 1870–1940,” Macon Courier, December 6, 1978.

317. Observer, “Shots From The Lake Shore,” Pittsburgh Courier, June 12, 1926. In case further explication is required, the two unnamed managers referred to were C. P. Bailey and C. H. Douglass. 318. After the Douglass Theater closed in 1973 the building sat empty for more than six years. The property was purchased by the city of Macon in 1978. In April 1980, during a “cleanup project” preliminary to beginning “stabilization procedures . . . a large group of papers and other records relating to the Douglass Theater was removed from the theater offices for historical assessment and preservation.” These papers became the Douglass Business Records Collection, now housed at Middle Georgia Regional Library in Macon. The collection encompasses the broad range of C. H. Douglass’s business activities, but the greater portion concerns the operation of the Douglass Theater, including records of the motion pictures exhibited and extensive “Performing Artist Records,” including T.O.B.A. contracts; correspondence with artists and T.O.B.A. officials; T.O.B.A. “Booking” forms and “Publicity Sheets”; handbills, printed programs, etc. A few documents date back as far as 1912, but the vast majority is from the 1925 to 1928 period. So far as has been determined, the Douglass Business Records Collection is the sole surviving archive of T.O.B.A.-related paperwork (“The New Douglas [sic] Theatre—Opened to the Public on January 11, 1997,” Historic Preservation Services, 1996; “Preservation Study of the Douglass Theater, Macon, Georgia,” Draft Form 4.3, July 1, 1980). 319. Reevin’s territories included Georgia, the Carolinas, Tennessee, and parts of Alabama. The other regional booking managers were eastern representative S. H. Dudley, who booked acts from Pittsburgh eastward and as far south as the northern border of North Carolina; midwestern representative Martin Klein, who routed acts through Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, and Indiana; and E. L. Cummings, who retained responsibility for booking theaters in Florida and along the Gulf Coast (“J. A. Jackson’s Page,” “The Year With the Colored Performer,” Billboard, December 16, 1922). 320. Douglass’s letters to Reevin are presumably lost. 321. Sam E. Reevin letter to C. H. Douglass, May 27, 1925. On another occasion Reevin wrote: “It seems the Managers expect me to do the impossible—A cheap show cannot draw the crowd, and bring the business, and a high-class Attraction cannot afford to play for nothing, and no Booking Agent in the world can remedy this condition” (Sam E. Reevin letter to C. H. Douglass, April 8, 1925).

Notes to pages 300–304 322. Sam E. Reevin letter to C. H. Douglass, February 18, 1926. Additional references to artists being offered to the Douglass Theater at reduced salaries can be found in Reevin’s letters to Douglass of April 15; June 25; November 3, 1925; and Louise Mason (Reevin’s secretary) to Douglass, May 25, 1926. 323. Sam E. Reevin letter to C. H. Douglass, June 22, 1925. 324. An unsigned letter dated September 7, 1927, indicates Douglass surrendered his “3 shares of stock” in the T.O.B.A. at that time. From 1927 to 1929 Douglass turned his attention to the founding of the Middle Georgia Savings and Investment Company (“Biography” of C. H. Douglass). 325. “Douglass Theater Leased For $185,000; New Firm Takes Charge On Monday,” Macon News, June 3, 1927. Thanks to Muriel McDowell Jackson. According to this news article, Stein Enterprises leased the Douglass Theater for a period of fifteen years; however, C. H. Douglass reclaimed ownership just two years later. 326. An accounting ledger indicates: “Douglass Theatre— owned and operated by Stein Enterprises—Weekly Report from Date of Opening June 6th to August 6th 1927: . . . total receipts: $5,169.18 . . . total expenses: $5,933.07 . . . Total loss of $763.89.” 327. Sam E. Reevin letter to Ben Stein, September 19, 1927; Milton Starr letter to Ben Stein, November 9, 1927; Tom Bailey letters to Ben Stein of October 26, November 9 and 10, 1927. 328. The “Crash” resulted in the failure of Douglass’s Middle Georgia Savings and Investment Company (“Biography”). According to a document prepared in 1996: “The Douglass remained the only movie house in Macon which served black residents until the 1940s . . . use of the theatre remained fairly consistent until 1958.” In that year, the theater hosted a weekly radio talent show, and was subsequently revived as a stage for popular rhythm and blues and soul music shows. The Douglass Theater finally closed in 1973 (“The New Douglas Theatre”). 329. “Small Audiences; Folks Broke, Says T.O.B.A. Manager,” Chicago Defender, January 25, 1930. 330. “Lichtman Holds Key To Stage Situation . . . S. H. Dudley Tells of Spirit of Chain Owner,” Baltimore Afro-American, January 10, 1931 (Black Studies Center, ProQuest). 331. S. T. Whitney, “Timely Topics,” Chicago Defender, December 17, 1932. 332. William G. Nunn, “T.O.B.A. Circuit Responsible For Poor Calibre of Road Shows—Actors and Actresses Facing Starvation as Public Refuses To Attend Rotten Shows Booked Into Various Houses,” Pittsburgh Courier, December 21, 1929 (Black Studies Center, ProQuest).

333. “Coop,” “T.O.B.A. Officials Discuss Crisis In Show Game,” Pittsburgh Courier, February 15, 1930; “Charles Turpin and S. H. Dudley Head T.O.B.A.,” Chicago Defender, February 15, 1930 (Black Studies Center, ProQuest). Turpin was first elected president of the T.O.B.A. in January 1928 (“Chicago Theatrical News,” Chicago Defender, February 4, 1928). 334. William G. Nunn, “‘T.O.B.A. Facing Biggest Crisis Of Its Career This Year,’ Belief Of ‘Bill’ Nunn,” Pittsburgh Courier, August 23, 1930 (Black Studies Center, ProQuest). 335. “Mid-City Theatre, Dudley House, Sold,” Baltimore Afro-American, April 19, 1930 (Black Studies Center, ProQuest). This article explains that Dudley would retain his position as vice president and eastern booking agent for the T.O.B.A.; but “will devote his time to real estate and the book business. He also owns a racing stable.” 336. William G. Nunn, “‘T.O.B.A. Facing Biggest Crisis Of Its Career This Year,’ Belief of ‘Bill’ Nunn.” 337. Ibid. 338. “Letter Box,” Baltimore Afro-American, September 22, 1928 (Black Studies Center, ProQuest). 339. Dave Peyton, “The Musical Bunch,” Chicago Defender, May 25, 1929. Several months later, another article claimed: “At present, there are said to be more than 7,000 musicians out of work in the United States. These musicians are said to have been replaced by ‘canned music’” (“Movie Moguls to Meet Musicians’ Union in Gotham,” Chicago Defender, November 16, 1929). 340. Nunn, “‘Hard Times Cause Of Scarcity Of Good Road Shows—Reevin.’” 341. Nunn, “‘T.O.B.A. Facing Biggest Crisis Of Its Career This Year,’ Belief of ‘Bill’ Nunn.” 342. Billy Jones, “Stars That Shine,” Chicago Defender, August 22, 1931 (Black Studies Center, ProQuest). 343. S. T. Whitney, “Timely Topics,” Chicago Defender, December 17, 1932 (Black Studies Center, ProQuest). 344. Numerous cover versions of country blues hits by white recording artists in the 1920s and 1930s attest to the fact that some whites maintained an active interest in blues records, especially in the rural South. 345. For a discussion of African American parlor guitar playing, see Abbott and Seroff, Out of Sight, 251–55. Articles addressing the influence of Hawaiian guitarists in the States include Seva Venet, “The Hawaiian Tinge,” Jazz Archivist 25 (2012); and John Troutman, “‘Steelin’ the Slide’: Hawai’i and the Birth of the Blues Guitar,” Southern Cultures 19, no. 1 (Spring 2013). See also Sylvester Russell, “Chicago Weekly Review,”

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Notes to pages 305–307 Indianapolis Freeman, November 21, 1914; May 6, 1916; November 10, 17, 1917; “J. A. Jackson’s Page,” “‘Cotton Tops’ In Quarters,” “Taylor’s ‘Alabama Cotton Tops,’” Billboard, January 7, 1922. 346. Coy Herndon, “Coy Cogitates,” Chicago Defender, March 21, 1925. 347. “Culligan’s Nashville Students,” Indianapolis Freeman, December 30, 1916. A similar report from the Washington Theater in Indianapolis declared: “Harry Larkins, better known as the ‘Singing Fool,’ is a real tasty manipulator of the guitar in true southern form” (“The Washington Theatre Indianapolis,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 6, 1919). 348. Odum, “Folk-Song and Folk-Poetry,” 260–61. In “Afro-American One-Stringed Instruments,” Western Folklore 29, no. 4 (October 1970): 229–45, David Evans traces one origin of slide guitar technique in the blues to one-string African instruments. 349. Kate McTell Seabrooks, the former wife of Blind Willie McTell, told David Evans and his mother Anne Evans that Blind Willie McTell, Buddy Moss, Bumble Bee Slim (Amos Easton), and other noted blues guitarists appeared at the 81 Theater in Atlanta in the mid- or late 1930s (Kate McTell Seabrooks interviewed by Anne M. Evans and David Evans, September 10, 1975, January 19, 1976); David Evans, “Kate McTell, Part 2,” Blues Unlimited 126 (September–October 1977): 9–10; “Part 3,” Blues Unlimited 127 (November–December 1977), 20. The nature or context of these performances is not entirely explained. 350. OKeh Record Company’s initial lack of familiarity with stringed instruments and vernacular guitar music is apparent in newspaper advertisements that tout Sylvester Weaver’s “guitar-banjo accompaniment” (“Sara Sings,” Chicago Defender, May 17, 1924; “Sara Sings ’Em,” Chicago Defender, June 14, 1924), and describe guitarist Ed Andrews as “Some singin’ banjoist” (OKeh ad, Chicago Defender, July 19, 1924). 351. David Evans, “Musical Innovation in the Blues of Blind Lemon Jefferson,” Black Music Research Journal 20, no. 1 (Spring 2000): 85. For more about Sylvester Weaver and his recordings, see Pen Bogert, liner notes to “Sara Martin In Chronological Order,” Document DOCD-5395, 5396, 5397, 5398. See also Paul Garon, “On the Trail of Sylvester Weaver,” Living Blues 52 (Spring 1982): 16–17; Jim O’Neal, “Guitar Blues: Sylvester Weaver”; Brenda Bogert, “The Story of Sylvester Weaver— the First Blues Guitarist to Record”; Guido van Rijn and Hans Vergeer liner notes to Agram LP AB-2010. Sixteen of Weaver’s 1923–27 OKeh recordings are reissued on the Agram LP; others appear on Document DOCD-5112 and 5113.

352. For a more thorough chronology of early blues recordings with guitar accompaniment, 1923–26, see Evans, “Musical Innovation in the Blues of Blind Lemon Jefferson.” 353. “About A Hen That Sang Her Way Into The Movies,” Norfolk Journal and Guide, January 2, 1932 (Black Studies Center, ProQuest). The 1900 U.S. Census places Dupree in Georgia; the 1910 U.S. Census places him in New York (AncestryLibrary. com). 354. Jack Trotter, “New York Notes of Stage And Sport,” Indianapolis Freeman, October 14, 1916. 355. Ad, Chicago Defender, December 22, 1923; Reese Du Pree, “Long Ago Blues”/“O Saroo, Saroo,” OKeh 8113, 1923, reissued on Document DOCD-5482. More correctly, the first black male voices heard on an OKeh blues recording were those of the Norfolk Jazz Quartet, who recorded in 1921. 356. “New Jersey,” Chicago Defender, January 5, 1924. 357. “Dupree Goes Back To Sing For OKeh Records,” Chicago Defender, March 15, 1924; Reese Dupree, “Norfolk Blues”/“One More Rounder Gone,” OKeh 8127, 1924, reissued on Document DOCD-5482. One retrospective account names Dupree as the composer of these titles (“Band Booker Writes Tune,” Pittsburgh Courier, March 13, 1943). Composer credit on the record label copy of “One More Rounder Gone” goes to “N. E. Perkins–Reese Du Pree.” It is the first of many commercial recordings of the folk ballad known as “Delia,” or “Delia’s Gone,” about a murder committed in Savannah, Georgia, on Christmas Eve 1900. For historical context see John Garst, “Delia” (Northfield: Loomis House Press, 2012). For a chronological survey of folk variants and commercial recordings, see Sean Wilentz, “Delia,” in Sean Wilentz and Greil Marcus, eds., The Rose and the Briar: Death, Love and Liberty in the American Ballad (New York: W. W. Norton, 2005), 367–70. Another song Dupree claimed to have authored is “Shortnin’ Bread” (“Reese Du Pree Encircles His Name And Strand With Renown,” Philadelphia Tribune, January 1, 1938; “On The Air,” Philadelphia Tribune, June 2, 1938; “‘Short’nin’ Bread’ Controversy Is Entered Into By Clarence Robinson,” Pittsburgh Courier, June 4, 1938 [Black Studies Center, ProQuest]. The controversy was actually entered into by Clarence Williams). 358. Dupree moved from Asbury Park to Philadelphia in 1933 (“Reese Du Pree Encircles His Name And Strand With Renown”). 359. “Band Booker Writes Tune.” For a long list of bands booked by Dupree during the 1930s, see “Reese Dupree Plans to Climax Career With NAACP Dance,” Philadelphia Tribune, April 18, 1940 (Black Studies Center, ProQuest). For an account

Notes to pages 307–309 of his ninth annual southern tour with Jimmie Lunceford, see “Reese Dupree to Tour with Lunceford,” Pittsburgh Courier, February 24, 1945 (Black Studies Center, ProQuest). 360. Nat Middleton, Jr., “Showman Reese Dupree Succumbs at 83 in Ga.,” Philadelphia Tribune, May 11, 1963 (Black Studies Center, ProQuest). 361. Ed Andrews, “Barrel House Blues”/“Time Ain’t Gonna Make Me Stay,” OKeh 8137, 1924, reissued on Document DOCD-5169. 362. Evans, “Musical Innovation in the Blues of Blind Lemon Jefferson,” 85. 363. “Zeb Manigault, Veteran Actor, Passes Away,” New York Amsterdam News, May 31, 1941 (Black Studies Center, ProQuest). His World War I draft registration card gives his birth date as March 4, 1888, but the 1940 U.S. Census (where he was mistakenly identified as Jeb Manigault), says “abt 1894” (AncestryLibrary.com). 364. Abbott and Seroff, Ragged but Right, 239–43. 365. Billy Lewis, “Another Big Week Of Vaudeville At The Washington Theater,” Indianapolis Freeman, September 8, 1917. 366. “Note Or Two,” Chicago Defender, March 24, 1923. 367. They were both on the roster of Billy Ewing’s Vamping Along Company at the beginning of 1922 (“Star,” Baltimore Afro-American, January 27, 1922). Dorothy Jenkins’s maiden name was revealed in “A Note Or Two,” Chicago Defender, October 27, 1923. Dorothy Owens may have been touring under canvas as early as 1916 (W. L. Rector, “Reyno Comedians In North Carolina,” Indianapolis Freeman, August 19, 1916). 368. “Lincoln (Vaudeville),” Baltimore Afro-American, June 9, 1922. 369. “Lincoln Vaudeville and Pictures,” Baltimore Afro-American, January 12, 1923. A few weeks later, at another Baltimore theater, the Argonne, they closed “with some clever mouth organ playing by the male member of the duo while his partner accompanied nicely on the guitar” (“Argonne,” Baltimore Afro-American, February 2, 1923). 370. Jenkins and Jenkins, “Henpecked Man”/“Mouth Organ Blues,” Columbia 14040-D, 1924, reissued on Document DOCD-5481. Presumably, Dorothy Jenkins played guitar on their records, just as she did in their stage act. Her playing consists of rudimentary strumming of open chords. 371. “Sunshine Sammy At The Grand; Jimmy Cox Revue At Monogram,” Chicago Defender, January 9, 1926. 372. “Stage Reviews,” Baltimore Afro-American, September 1, 1928. 373. “Stage Review,” Baltimore Afro-American, February 2, 1929.

374. Paramount ad, “Well Sir! Here He Is at Last! Papa Charlie Jackson,” Chicago Defender, August 23, 1924. 375. “A Note Or Two,” Chicago Defender, August 22, 1925. The other members of the group were Jasper Taylor and Arnold and Irene Wiley. A piece in the March 6, 1926, edition of the Louisiana Weekly refers to him as “(Papa) Charlie Jackson of Chicago, the banjo wizard.” 376. Lyric Theater ad, Louisiana Weekly, February 13, 1926. The ad has him billed as “‘Sweet Papa’ Charlie Jackson.” After his stint at the Lyric, Jackson was “entertained by his sisters, Mrs. Monite Burrell and Lena Bell Jackson, of 1920 Seventh Street, at a beautiful pajama party” (“‘Papa’ Charlie Jackson Entertained By Sisters,” Louisiana Weekly, March 6, 1926). 377. Illinois Deaths and Stillborn Index, 1916–1947 (AncestryLibrary.com). 378. For a biography of Lonnie Johnson, see Dean Alger, The Original Guitar Hero and the Power of Music: The Legendary Lonnie Johnson, Music, and Civil Rights (Denton: University of North Texas Press, 2014). 379. Evans, “Musical Innovation in the Blues of Blind Lemon Jefferson,” 87. 380. David Evans, “Editor’s Introduction,” Black Music Research Journal 20, no. 1 (Spring 2000): 1. 381. Glen Alyn, I Say Me for a Parable: The Oral Autobiography of Mance Lipscomb, Texas Bluesman (New York: Da Capo Press, 1994), 191. 382. Evans, “Musical Innovation In The Blues Of Blind Lemon Jefferson,” 87. 383. Alyn, 199. 384. According to Evans, “Some of Jefferson’s guitar figures seem quite clearly to be drawn from piano ragtime and boogie-woogie figures” (“Musical Innovation In The Blues Of Blind Lemon Jefferson,” 92).

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BIBLIOGRAPHY Brooks, Tim, Lost Sounds: Blacks and the Birth of the Recording Industry 1890–1919 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2004). Charters, Sam, and Leonard Kunstadt, Jazz: A History of the New York Scene (New York: Doubleday, 1961). Child, Francis James, The English and Scottish Popular Ballads (1894; New York: Dover, 1965). Church, Annette E., and Roberta Church, The Robert Churches of Memphis: A Father and Son Who Achieved in Spite of Race (Ann Arbor: Edwards Brothers, 1974). Crouch, Stanley, Notes of a Hanging Judge: Essays and Reviews, 1979–1989 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990). Dixon, Robert M. W., John Godrich, and Howard W. Rye, Blues and Gospel Records 1890-1943, 4th ed. (Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1997). Driggs, Frank, and Chuck Haddix, Kansas City Jazz: From Ragtime to Bebop—A History (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2005). Eagle, Bob, and Eric S. LeBlanc, Blues—A Regional Experience (Santa Barbara: Praeger, 2013). Egan, Bill, Florence Mills: Harlem Jazz Queen (Lanham: Scarecrow Press, 2004). Elmore, Charles J., All That Savannah Jazz (Savannah: Savannah State University Press, 1999). Evans, David, Big Road Blues: Tradition and Creativity in the Folk Blues (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982). Fletcher, Tom, 100 Years of the Negro in Show Business: The Tom Fletcher Story (New York: Burdge, 1954). George-Graves, Nadine, The Royalty of Negro Vaudeville: The Whitman Sisters and the Negotiation of Race, Gender, and Class in African American Theater, 1900–1940 (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000). Govenar, Alan, and Jay Brakefield, Deep Ellum: The Other Side of Dallas (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2013). Handy, W. C., Father of the Blues (New York: Macmillan, 1941). ———, ed., Blues: An Anthology (New York: Albert & Charles Boni, 1926).

Books Abbott, Lynn, and Doug Seroff, To Do This, You Must Know How: Music Pedagogy in the Black Gospel Quartet Tradition (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2013). ———, Ragged but Right: Black Traveling Shows, “Coon Songs,” & the Dark Pathway to Blues and Jazz (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2007). ———, Out of Sight: The Rise of African American Popular Music, 1889–1895 (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2002). Abrahams, Roger D., Deep Down in the Jungle: Negro Narrative Folklore from the Streets of Philadelphia, 1963 (Chicago: Aldine, 1970). Albertson, Chris, Bessie (New York: Stein & Day, 1972); (New Haven, Yale University Press, 2003). Alger, Dean, The Original Guitar Hero and the Power of Music: The Legendary Lonnie Johnson, Music, and Civil Rights (Denton: University of North Texas Press, 2014). Alyn, Glen, I Say Me for a Parable: The Oral Autobiography of Mance Lipscomb, Texas Bluesman (New York: Da Capo Press, 1994). Badger, Reid, A Life in Ragtime: A Biography of James Reese Europe (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995). Barker, Danny, Buddy Bolden and the Last Days of Storyville (London: Cassell, 1998). Basie, Count, as told to Albert Murray, Good Morning Blues (New York: Random House, 1985). Bauman, Thomas, The Pekin: The Rise and Fall of Chicago’s First Black-Owned Theater (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2014). Berresford, Mark, That’s Got ’Em!: The Life and Music of Wilbur Sweatman (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2010). Blesh, Rudi, and Harriet Janis, They All Played Ragtime: The True Story of an American Music (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1950). Bradford, Perry, Born with the Blues (New York: Oak Publications, 1965). 383

384

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———, Bessie Smith (London: Cassell, 1959). Ramsey, Frederic, and Charles Edward Smith, eds., Jazzmen (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1939). Russell, Bill, “Oh, Mister Jelly”: A Jelly Roll Morton Scrapbook (Copenhagen: JazzMedia, 1999). Rust, Brian, Jazz Records A-Z 1897–1942 (New Rochelle: Arlington House, 1978). Scarborough, Dorothy, On the Trail of Negro Folksongs (1925; Hatboro, PA: Folklore Associates, 1963). Scott, Michelle R., Blues Empress in Black Chattanooga: Bessie Smith and the Emerging Urban South (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2008). Southern, Eileen, Biographical Dictionary of Afro-American and African Musicians (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1982). Stearns, Marshall, and Jean Stearns, Jazz Dance: The Story of American Vernacular Dance (New York: Macmillan, 1968). Stewart-Baxter, Derrick, Ma Rainey and the Classic Blues Singers (New York: Stein & Day, 1970). Thygesen, Helge, Mark Berresford, and Russ Shor, Black Swan: The Record Label of the Harlem Renaissance (Nottingham, UK: VJM Publications, 1996). Waters, Ethel, with Charles Samuels, His Eye Is on the Sparrow (Garden City: Doubleday, 1951). Wolfe, Charles, and Kip Lornell, The Life & Legend of Leadbelly (New York: Harper Collins, 1992). Wood, Wayne W., Jacksonville’s Architectural Heritage (Jacksonville: University Press of Florida, 1996). Work, John W., American Negro Songs and Spirituals (New York: Crown Publishers, 1940).

Dissertations Bristow, Eugene Kerr, “‘Look Out for Saturday Night’: A Social History of Professional Variety Theater in Memphis, Tennessee, 1859–1880” (diss., University of Iowa, 1956). Smith, Peter Dunbaugh, “Ashley Street Blues: Racial Uplift and the Commodification of Vernacular Performance in La Villa, Florida, 1896–1916” (diss., Florida State University, 2006).

Articles in journals Abbott, Lynn, “‘For Ofays Only’: An Annotated Calendar of Midnight Frolics at the Lyric Theater, Part I,” Jazz Archivist 17 (2003): 1–29. ———, “Remembering E. Belfield Spriggins, First Man of Jazzology,” 78 Quarterly 10 (n.d.): 13–51.

Bibliography Abbott, Lynn, and Doug Seroff, “The Life and Death of Pioneer Bluesman Butler ‘String Beans’ May,” Tributaries: Journal of the Alabama Folklife Association 5 (2002): 9–40. ———, “‘They Cert’ly Sound Good to Me’: Sheet Music, Southern Vaudeville, and the Commercial Ascendancy of the Blues,” American Music 14, no. 4 (Winter 1996): 402–54, reissued in David Evans, ed., Ramblin’ on My Mind: New Perspectives on the Blues (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2008), 49–104. ———, “Sweet Mattie Dorsey: Been Here, But She’s Gone,” 78 Quarterly 8 (1994): 103–12. ———, “America’s Blue Yodel,” Musical Traditions 11 (Late 1993): 2–11. ———, “Bessie Smith: The Early Years,” Blues & Rhythm: The Gospel Truth 70 (June 1992): 8–11. Albright, Alex, “Mose McQuitty’s Unknown Career: A Personal History of Black Music in America,” Black Music Research Bulletin 11, no. 2 (Fall 1989): 1–5. Bagley, Julian E., “Moving Pictures in an Old Song Shop,” Opportunity 5, no. 12 (December 1927): 369–72. Bogert, Brenda, “The Story of Sylvester Weaver—the First Blues Guitarist to Record, Part 2,” Blues News (December 1994): 1–2. Bogert, Pen, “Louisville Women in the Blues, Part 5,” Blues News (April 1995): 1; “Part 6” (May 1995): 1, 4. Ellison, Ralph, “Change the Joke and Slip the Yoke,” Partisan Review 25, no. 2 (Spring 1958): 212–22, reprinted in Shadow and Act (New York: Random House, 1964), 45–59. Evans, David, “Musical Innovation in the Blues of Blind Lemon Jefferson,” Black Music Research Journal 20, no. 1 (Spring 2000): 83–116. ———, “Kate McTell, Part 2,” Blues Unlimited 126 (September– October 1977): 8–16; “Part 3,” Blues Unlimited 127 (November–December 1977): 20–22. ———, “Afro-American One-Stringed Instruments,” Western Folklore 29, no. 4 (October 1970): 229–45. Garon, Paul, “On the Trail of Sylvester Weaver,” Living Blues 52 (Spring 1982): 16–17. Govenar, Alan, “Blind Lemon Jefferson: The Myth and the Man,” Black Music Research Journal 20, no. 1 (Spring 2000): 7–21. Jydstrup, Doug, “Winston Holmes: Kansas City Promoter,” 78 Quarterly 1, no. 2 (1968). Knight, Athelia, “In Retrospect: Sherman H. Dudley: He Paved the Way for T.O.B.A.,” Black Perspective in Music 15, no. 2 (Fall 1987): 153–81. Kunstadt, Len, “The Lucille Hegamin Story,” Record Research 39 (November 1961): 3–7.

Marquis, Donald M., “Lincoln Park, Johnson Park and Buddy Bolden,” Second Line (Fall 1976): 27–28. Monge, Luigi, and David Evans, “New Songs of Blind Lemon Jefferson,” Journal of Texas Music History 3, no. 2 (2003): 1–21. Niles, Abbe, “Ballads, Songs and Snatches,” Bookman 67, no. 3 (May 1928): 290–92. Odum, Howard W., “Folk-Song and Folk-Poetry as Found in the Secular Songs of the Southern Negroes,” Journal of American Folk-Lore 24, no. 93 (July–September 1911): 255–94; 24, no. 94 (October–December 1911): 351–96. O’Neal, Jim, “Guitar Blues: Sylvester Weaver,” Living Blues 52 (Spring 1982): 18–20. Pridgett, Thomas, “The Life of Ma Rainey,” Jazz Information 2, no. 4 (September 6, 1940): 8. Rader, Michael, and K. B. Rau, with Dave Brown and Jorg Kuhfuss, “‘The Cornet Screamer’: The Mystery of Gus Aiken’s Recording Career,” Frog Blues and Jazz Annual 3 (2013): 152–62. Randolph, John, “Lucien Brown,” Storyville 47 (June–July 1973): 176–90. ———, “A Pioneer Race Recorder,” Jazz Journal 10, no. 2 (February 1957): 11. Rusch, Bob, “Edith Wilson: Interview,” Cadence 5, no. 8 (August 1979): 19–22. Schafer, William J., “Thoughts on Jazz Historiography: ‘Buddy Bolden’s Blues’ vs. ‘Buddy Bottley’s Balloon,’” Journal of Jazz Studies 2, no. 1 (December 1974): 3–14. Springer, Robert, “I Never Did Like to Imitate Nobody,” Blues Unlimited 125 (July–August 1977): 19–21. Stearns, Marshall, and Jean Stearns, “Frontiers of Humor: American Vernacular Dance,” Southern Folklore Quarterly 30, no. 3 (September 1966): 227–35. Swinton, Paul, “‘A Kansas City Call’ Some Beginnings of K. C. Blues & Jazz: Winston Holmes & His Meritt Record Label,” Frog Blues and Jazz Annual 3 (London, 2013): 115–25. Troutman, John, “‘Steelin’ the Slide’: Hawai’i and the Birth of the Blues Guitar,” Southern Cultures 19, no. 1 (Spring 2013): 26–52. Venet, Seva, “The Hawaiian Tinge,” Jazz Archivist 25 (2012): 3–33. Wilson, Edith, as told to Paige Van Vorst, “My Story,” Mississippi Rag 2, no. 4 (February 1975): 1–4.

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Articles in anthologies Hurwitt, Elliott S., “Abbe Niles, Blues Advocate,” in David Evans, ed., Ramblin’ on My Mind: New Perspectives on the Blues (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2008), 105–51. Wilentz, Sean, “Delia,” in Sean Wilentz and Greil Marcus, eds., The Rose and the Briar: Death, Love and Liberty in the American Ballad (New York: W. W. Norton, 2005), 367–70.

Encyclopedia entries Oliver, Paul, “Smith, Bessie,” in The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, Vol. 3, 2nd ed. (London: Macmillan, 2002), 604–5. Smith, Charles Edward, “Rainey, Gertrude Pridgett,” in Edward James, Janet Wilson James, and Paul S. Boyer, eds., Notable American Women 1607–1950, Vol. 3, P–Z (Cambridge: Belknap Press, 1971), 110–11.

City directories Jacksonville City Directory, 1897, 1902–1905. Goette’s Savannah City Directory, 1902, 1903, 1905, 1906. Caron’s Louisville City Directory, 1910. Macon City Directory, 1912. Memphis City Directory, 1901, 1908–1909. Montgomery City Directory, 1902–1907. Nashville City Directory, 1913.

Newspapers on microfilm Billboard (“J. A. Jackson’s Page”) (1920–25) Chicago Defender (1912–32) Indianapolis Freeman (1899–1920; 1924) Kansas City Call (1922–26) Louisiana Weekly (1925–35) Nashville Globe (1907–18) New York Age (1914–18; 1922) Norfolk Journal and Guide (1921–28) Pittsburgh Courier (1923–30) Savannah Tribune (1902–10; 1918–19) Tampa Morning Tribune (1899–1900)

Electronic databases America’s Historical Newspapers, NewsBank Ancestry.com AncestryLibrary.com Black Studies Center, ProQuest

Electronic files “Unrecorded Interview Material and Research Notes by Alan Lomax, 1938–1946” (PDF file on Disc 8 of Jelly Roll Morton: The Complete Library of Congress Recordings by Alan Lomax, Rounder 11661–1888–2, 2005).

Websites Sheet Music Consortium http://digita12.1ibrary.ucla.edu/sheetmusic/ Taft, Michael, Prewar Blues Lyric Poetry: A Web Concordance, http://www.dylan61.se/michael%20taft,%20blues%20anthol ogy.txt.WebConcordance/framconc.htm

Liner notes Abbott, Lynn, liner notes to Butterbeans and Susie, GHB BCD135. Bogert, Pen, liner notes to Sara Martin in Chronological Order, Document DOCD-5395–5398. Evans, David, liner notes to Female Blues Singers, Vol. 13, Document DOCD-5517. Rye, Howard, liner notes to Johnny Dunn: Complete Recorded Works in Chronological order, Vol. 1 (1921–1922), RST JPCD1522–2. van Rijn, Guido, and Hans Vergeer, liner notes to Smoketown Strut, Agram LP AB-2010.

Interviews Edwards, Jodie, and Susie Edwards, interviewed by Herb Abramson and others, 1960 (Hogan Jazz Archive, Tulane University, via GHB Foundation).

Bibliography James, Willis Laurence, interviewed by Marshall and Jean Stearns, August 25, 1961 (Center for Jazz Studies, Rutgers University). Maddox, Johnny, interviewed by Doug Seroff, October 1, 2014. Nesbitt, Joseph, interviewed by Doug Seroff, May 27, 1991. Saunders, Gertrude, interviewed by Frank Driggs, 1968 (UMKC Marr Sound Archives). Seals, Ernest, interviewed by Marshall and Jean Stearns, March 1, 1961 (Center for Jazz Studies, Rutgers University). Wilson, Orlandus, interviewed by Doug Seroff, February 24, 1995.

Archival collections Douglass Business Records Collection, Middle Georgia Archives, Washington Memorial Library, Macon, Georgia. Hatch Show Print Business Files, Hatch Show Print, Nashville, Tennessee. John Robichaux Collection, Hogan Jazz Archive, Tulane University.

Correspondence Bogert, Pen, letters to Doug Seroff, 1993–2003.

Unpublished papers Bogert, Pen, “African American String Bands and Brass Bands in Louisville 1835–1900,” unpublished paper, presented at “Crossroads” Conference, Middle Tennessee State University, April 19, 1996. Jackson, Muriel McDowell, “Biography” of Charles Henry Douglass, in-house documentation, Middle Georgia Regional Library, Macon, Georgia.

Monographs Garst, John, “Delia” (Northfield: Loomis House Press, 2012). “Library of Congress Music Division Check-list of Recorded Songs in the English Language in the Archive of American Folk Song to July, 1940” (Washington, 1942). Litrico, Helen Gordon, “The Palace Saloon” (Fernandina Beach, FL: Land & Williams, 1981).

Riis, Thomas Laurence, “Black Vaudeville, the TOBA, and the Morton Theatre: Recovering the History 1910–1930,” 1987. Starr, Carrie Lightman, “For Marco and Suzanne from Their Grandmother,” June 1, 1971 (Starr Family Vertical File, Tennessee State Library, Nashville).

387

GENERAL INDEX

Page numbers in bold indicate an illustration.

Arto Phonograph Company, 213 Ashford, R. T., 281 “Assassinators of the blues,” 173, 348n103 Associated Negro Press, 270 “At the Lighthouse,” 194 Atlanta, Georgia, 55, 170–71 Atlanta Constitution, 276 Atlanta Independent, 69 Atlanta Journal, 170, 279 “Aunt Dinah’s Picnic,” 24 Austin, James, 25 Austin, Little Cuba, 53, 159, 322n336 Austin, Lovie, 139, 194, 354n283 Austin, S. A. “Buddie,” 100, 242, 366n61 Avery, Jimmie, 207 Ayers, George W., 138

Able, Will, 19, 34, 35, 36, 36, 38, 99 Abyssinia, 251 Acuff, Roy, 32 Aiken, Buddy, 262 Aiken, Gus, 257, 262, 368n52, 369n59 Alabama Fun Makers Company, 162 Alabama Rosebuds Company, 71, 326n27 Alhambra Hotel (Memphis), 45 Allen, G. W., 43, 75, 327n59 Allen, India, 232 Allen, Mack, 9 Allen’s New Orleans Minstrels, 158, 202, 307 Alston, Ladson Beverly “Kid,” 27, 27 Alton, Jimmy, 26 Anderson, Charles, 53, 89, 139, 144–47, 144, 147, 166, 167, 174, 232, 341n102, 341n111, 341n121 Anderson, Elmira, 189 Anderson, James, 34 Anderson, Joe, 34 Anderson, R. J. “Dickie,” 9, 312n8, 312n15 Anderson, Sadie, 164 Andrews, Ed, 306, 306, 307 Andrews, R. L., 9 Anthony, Emmett, 81, 101, 373n188 anti-blues commentaries, 127–28, 283, 285 Armstrong, Louis, 196, 278, 279, 330n156 Arnold, Charles “Pas,” 35 Arnold, J. F., 242 Arnold, Sam, 225, 226, 227, 363n584 Arnte, Billy, 113, 219, 232 Arnte, Grace, 44, 219, 232 Arnte, Mabel, 113 Arrant, Charles, 86–87, 87, 174 Arrant, Lena, 87 Arrant, Mabel, 87

Babb Frank’s Peerless Band, 43 Baby Jim, 236 Baby Josh, 38 Baby Mack, 85–87, 86, 88, 312n26, 330n156 “baby soubrettes,” 85–87, 86, 101, 101, 103, 106, 127, 129, 130, 131, 132, 143, 151–54, 151, 154, 164, 188, 332n238 “Bad Riley,” 43 Bailey, Charles P., 55, 100, 111, 164, 171, 174, 233–38, 235, 237, 241, 242, 243–48, 275–76, 295–96, 301, 322n354, 373n188 Bailey, Frank “Bozo,” 198, 199–200 Bailey, Laura (Criswell and Bailey), 107, 205–7, 205, 209 Bailey, Tom, 295, 301 Bailey’s Vaudeville Circuit, 301 Baker, Edith, 266 Baker, George, 101 Ball, Ben, 36 Baltimore Afro-American, 163, 214 band contests, 40, 41 Bandanna Land, 158, 250, 251 Bane, Kirk, 25–26 389

390

General Index banjo, 147, 184, 195, 274, 307, 319n247 Banks, Paul, 283 Barbecue Bob, 117, 122 Barber, The, 224, 225 “Barber Shop, The,” 180 Barnes, Hi Jerry, 38 Barnett, Richard H., 21, 345n5 Barras, Noner, 68 Barrasso, Anselmo, 187, 219, 232, 233, 241, 242, 247, 280, 366n61 Barrasso, Fred A., 52, 53–55, 71, 73, 158, 165–66, 179, 180, 204, 209, 218, 219, 231–33, 233, 234–35, 322n348, 326n27 Barrasso, Generoso, 54 Barrasso, Rosa, 54 Barrasso’s Big Sensation Company, 219 Barrasso’s Strollers, 165–66, 209 Barrington and Barrington, 80 Bartley, Buddy (Bottley) (Joseph Haywood), 42, 44, 319n262 Basie, Count, 120, 255, 257, 258, 369n61, 369n65 Batis, Bob, 24 Baxter, Thomas, 10, 70 Bechet, Sidney, 196 Bedsley, Charles, 164 Beechum, Charles, 80 Bell, Senator, 141 Ben “Footsie” Ball’s Peerless Orchestra, 36 Benbow, Alberta, 30, 68 Benbow, Edna Landry, 71, 138, 166, 209, 232 Benbow, Elzer, 166 Benbow, Retta, 166 Benbow, William, 30, 68, 70, 71, 96–97, 99–107, 103, 111, 113, 126–27, 163, 165–66, 179, 190–91, 231, 232 Benbow’s Chocolate Drops, 68, 70, 126–27, 163, 166, 179 Benbow’s Fun Factory, 30 Benbow’s Merry Makers, 111, 190–91 Benevolent Order of Colored Professionals (Buffaloes), 314n85 Benjamin, E. J., 166 Benjamin, Nellie, 166 Bennett, Clarence, 247, 296 Bennie Moten’s Kansas City Orchestra, 259, 281, 282 Berlin, Irving, 162, 311n2 Berry, John, 146 “Between the Firing Lines,” 192 Big Five Minstrel Company, 44 Big Road Blues (Evans), 5 Bigeou, Esther, 107, 271, 292 Billboard, 188, 192, 194, 199, 249, 267, 269, 274, 292–93, 299 Billy Kersands’s Minstrels, 294, 330n178, 376n274

Billy King Stock Company, 220–25, 229 Black, Henry, 27 Black, Perry, 34 Black Diamond Quartette, 45, 64–65 Black Patti Troubadours, 8, 17, 32, 35, 52, 54, 216, 217, 345n5 Black Swan Record Company, 215–16, 215, 260–64, 261, 271, 282, 283, 370n83 Black Swan Troubadours, 262, 263, 370n98, 371n115 “Black Volunteers, The,” 212 blackface makeup, 4, 17, 28, 78, 91, 94, 94, 101, 104, 106–7, 125, 128–29, 130, 131, 134, 143, 148, 151, 151, 153, 156–57, 156, 162, 176, 181, 185, 187, 189, 189, 191, 201–13, 215–16, 220, 221, 222, 261, 275, 333n260, 357n392, 357n402, 366n477 Blake, Eubie, 251, 252, 254 Blake, Will, 54 Blind Blake, 117, 121, 202, 336n357 Bliss, Billy, 209 Blue, Archie, 80 Blue Steel Stock Company, 158–59 blues queens, 4–5, 101, 123, 125, 161–62, 175, 178, 216, 253, 269–70, 272–73, 275, 283, 284, 285–86, 289, 292, 304, 345n2, 376n260 blues record star system, 262, 274, 280–81, 289, 292, 294, 299, 304 blues singing contests, 200, 213–16, 214, 254, 260, 282, 359n455, 359n457, 359n459, 360n474 Bly, Blaine, 47, 48, 51–52 Bogert, Pen, 33 Bolden, Buddy, 39, 320n262 “Bolivia from Possom Trot,” 203, 206, 207 Bolton, Happy, 375n247 Bonner, Harry , 129 “Booker T. Cruising on the High Seas,” 69 Booker T.’s Reception, 77 Boone, John C., 54, 166, 232 Borden, Anita, 24 Borden, Nettie, 12, 47, 50 Boudreaux, L. S., 296 Boudreaux & Bennett, 247 Bowman, H. Henri, 236 “Boy Said ‘Will You’? and the Girl Said, ‘Yes,’ The,” 70 Bracey, Ishman, 122 Bradford, Isaac, 163 Bradford, L. Don, 12, 171, 242 Bradford, Mary, 136, 281, 282 Bradford, Mittie, 163 Bradford, Perry “Mule,” 55, 86–88, 88, 94, 145, 171–72, 188, 190, 196, 253, 254, 265, 266, 266, 267–68, 270 Bradley, Billy, 12, 27

General Index Bragg, Columbus, 211 Brannon, Duke, 324n46 Brannon, Rosetta, 44, 164, 184 Brashear, Lorenzo, 262 Breaux & Whitlow, 247 Breckenridge, Steve, 34 Breckenridge Jubilee Singers, 34 Breze, Thomas, 21 Briggs, Tom, 53 “Bringing Up Husbands,” 192 Broadnax, Homer, 42 Broadway, New York, 58, 170, 217, 249–55, 264, 279, 367n2 Brooks, Clifford D., 10, 31 Brooks, Marion A., 31, 60–61, 60, 61, 62, 63–65, 86, 148, 233 Brooks, Shelton, 4, 106, 162, 206, 222, 225, 271, 278, 311n2, 326–27n48, 333n260 Brooks-Smith Players, 210 Broonzy, Big Bill, 122 Brown, Ada, 258, 259–60, 281, 282, 369n78 Brown, Babe, 94, 98 Brown, Bessie, 98, 219–21, 236, 275, 289, 375n247 Brown, Bishop, 170, 173 Brown, E. B., 9 Brown, Kittie, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 23–24, 25–26, 32 Brown, L. T., 247 Brown, Lillyn, 254 Brown, Lucien, 37, 318n220 Brown, Ora, 102 Brown, Ralph, 37 Brown, Rastus, 35, 38 Brown, Seamon, 25 Brown, Sterling, 162, 345n3 Brown, Thornton G., 260, 370n82 Brown, Tobe “T. B.,” 35, 36–37, 317n214, 318n219 Brown, Walter, 201 Bruce & Skinner Stock Company, 229 Brymn, James Tim, 21, 169 buck and wing. See dances buck dance. See dances Buckner, Rastus, 167 Bumbray, Helen, 141 Bumpsky, Kid, 101 “Buncoed in Louisiana,” 43 burlesque shows, blues and jazz in, 191, 255–60, 367n23 Burley, Dan, 250 Burnett, Rev. J. C., 283, 375n226 Burns, Gretchen, 187, 220–21, 220, 362n536

Burns, Sandy, 119, 187, 220–21, 220, 228 Burroughs, Theresa, 30, 31, 223 Burton, Ebbie Forceman, 98–101, 169, 171, 211 Burton, Marie, 332n254 Burton, Wayne “Buzzin’,” 55, 89, 99, 141, 159, 166–69, 168, 169, 171, 175, 236, 347n61 Bush, Clarence, 16, 17, 39, 318n235 Bush, William, 227 Bushell, Garvin, 262 Butler, Eddie, 164 Butler, Everett, 188, 189 Butler, Gus, 236 Butler, Leona, 164 Butler, Trixie (Trixie Colquitt), 44, 53, 117–18, 236 Butler, Willie, 164 buzzing. See dances Caffey, C. H., 247 Cahill, Marie, 268, 361n184 Cailloux, H. G., 39 Cain, Mamie, 217 cake walk. See dances Calicott, Joe, 140, 183 California Eagle, 197–98 Callens, Henry C., 274 Campbell, Arthur, 39 Campbell, Willie, 8–9 “canned music,” 303, 379n339 Cantata of Queen Esther, 27 “Captain Bogus of the Jim Crow Regiment,” 72 Carr, Dora, 118, 275 Carr, Ella, 50 Carroll, Albert, 23, 39, 42, 43 Carroll, Billy Palm, 35 Carroll, Minnie, 23 Carter, Alice Leslie, 213, 215, 254 Carter, Josephine, 254 Carter, Paul, 30, 127–28, 292–93, 338n20 Cashin, James E., 10 Castle, Irene, 98, 213–14, 214 Castle, Vernon, 98, 213 Chambers, James, 234 Chapman, Lelia, 39, 319n241 Chappelle, Pat, 10, 15, 16, 17, 17, 18–19, 20, 23, 27, 35, 130, 131, 162, 217, 294 Chappelle, Thomas, 253 Charleston Steppers, 229

391

392

General Index Chauvin, Louis, 15 Cheatham, Billy, 15 Cheri, William, 40 Chester Amusement Company, 61–62, 61, 64, 233 Chicago, Illinois, 57–65, 73–74 Chicago Broad Ax, 65, 204 Chicago Defender, 5, 44, 67, 89, 112, 113–14, 140, 141, 155, 159, 189, 189, 190, 194, 197, 200, 201, 211, 213, 214, 223, 226, 228–29, 246–47, 251, 252, 253, 257, 259–60, 259, 261, 263–64, 265, 265, 268, 270, 271, 272, 273, 275, 276, 278, 283, 284, 287, 288, 295–96, 297, 299, 304–5, 305, 306 “Chinese Jungles, The,” 12 Christian, Buddy, 195 Church, Robert R., 44, 48–51, 48 Cissel, Clarence (Cissel and Mines), 17, 18 Clarence Bush’s Ragtime Opera Company, 39, 44 Clarence Williams’s Blue Five, 196 Clark, Dick, 120 Clark, Eugene, 33, 54 Clark, James, 34, 167, 254 Clark, Joe, Jr., 33–34, 33, 38, 167, 254, 317n204 Clark, Joe, Sr., 33 Clark, P. C., 9 Clark, Robert, 33, 38 Clef Club Symphony Orchestra, 213 Clemmons Brothers, 247 Clifford Hayes’s Louisville Jug Band, 274 clog dance. See dances Cobb, Gene, 80 Cohen, Abraham, 38 Cole, Robert “Bob,” 102, 202, 217–18, 219 Coleman, George, 9 Coleman, Ruth, 198 Collie, John M., 21 Collins, Len, 163 Collins, Sam, 121, 122 Colored Actors Union, 293, 376n267 Colored Aristocracy Minstrels, 97 Colored Consolidated Vaudeville Exchange, 83, 90, 238–41, 243, 244–45, 366n66 “colored folks’ opera,” 145–47, 191, 252, 254–55, 272, 368n35, 373n169 “Colored Sporting Life,” 11 Columbia Burlesque Wheel, 255, 256, 257, 259, 260 Columbia Records, 176, 178, 253, 254, 260, 263, 264, 265, 268, 271, 280, 282, 282, 283, 284, 286, 286, 288, 299, 306, 307 Community Music Store (Chicago), 278–79

Compton, Glover, 51, 99 Coney Island Minstrels, 40 Connelly, James, 226 Consolidated Talking Machine Company, 278 Consolidated Theatrical and Musical Exchange, 279 Cook, Annie Bell, 193 Cook, C. C., 147 Cook, Irene, 171 Cook, Will Marion, 166 Cooper, Jimmie, 256, 256, 257, 260 Cooper, John W., 149 Copeland, Martha, 86, 171 copyright, 80, 85, 105, 115, 119, 120, 153, 154, 155, 265, 307, 351n176, 371n124 “Cotton Brokers,” 192 Cottrell, Louis, 40, 319n249 Cottrell, Sallie, 8–9 country blues guitar, 304–9 Cox, Annie Mae, 294 Cox, Baby, 188, 280 Cox, Ida, 97, 139, 140, 174, 182, 202, 292 Cox, Jimmie, 69, 172, 185, 188, 213, 236, 294 Cox, Magnolia, 69 Cox, Robbie Lee. See Peoples, Robbie Craddock, J. W., 348n106 Crampton, Pauline, 10, 11–12, 14, 20, 23–24, 31, 71, 83 Crampton, Walter, 12 Crawford, C. L., 164 Crawford, Pearl, 50 Crawford, Virginia. See Liston, Virginia Creole Burlesque Company, 18, 363n564 Creole Nightingales Company, 216 Crippen, Katie, 254, 329n134 Criswell, Ora (Criswell and Bailey), 45, 47, 50, 98, 201, 203–9, 204, 205, 207, 211, 212, 217, 232; blackface, 208; “Bolivia from Possum Trot,” 206, 207; with Butler “String Beans” May, 207; “Criswell Blues,” 206, 208; death, 208–9; early career, 203–4; with Laura Bailey, 205–7; reputation, 204; reviews, 204, 205, 206, 207, 208 Crosby, Goldie, 62 Crosby, Harry, 21, 22 Crosby, James, 217 Crosby, Margie, 55, 218 Crosby, Odessa, 62 Crosby, Oma, 21 Cross, Danford, 70 Cross, Dave, 68

General Index Cross, Richard “Poor Boy,” 12, 24 Cross, Ulysses E., 83 Crouch, Stanley, 120 Crow Jane, 202–3, 261, 356n347 “Crow Jane Reception, The,” 202 Crowd, Frank, 13, 158, 233, 237–38 Cuba, African American performers in, 11, 24, 257, 368–69n52 “Cuban Queen, The,” 163 Cummings, E. L., 243, 244–46, 247, 287, 378n319 “Cyclops & Cyclo,” 40 Daddy Stovepipe, 121 Daley, Ed E., 257, 259, 260 Dallas Journal, 269 Dallas String Band, 121 dances: Back Step, 223, 362n554; Buck, 10, 13, 14, 16, 17, 34, 52, 68, 71, 166, 226, 346n25; Buck and Wing, 13, 14, 15, 24, 39; Buzzing, 167–68, 172, 223, 272, 363–64n556; Cake Walk, 9, 10, 16, 33, 42, 44, 162, 216; Clog, 147, 322n336; Eagle Rock, 80, 129, 166, 278, 362–63n556; “Eccentric Dancing,” 71, 74, 99, 101, 125, 127, 167, 168, 184; Grizzly Bear, 219; Hula (Honolulu Dance), 108, 216, 258; Jennie Cooler, 13, 14; Pas Ma La, 223, 362n554; Philippine Dance, 216; Pigeon Wing, 362n554; Sailor’s Hornpipe, 192; Shimmee, 191, 208, 228, 367n2; Sifting Sand, 362n554; Suey, 362–63n556; Tango, 82, 215; Turkey Trot, 219; Walking the Dog, 103, 225 “Dancing Cafe, The,” 53 Dandy Dixie Minstrels, 294 Daniels, Ed, 180, 350n161 Daniels, Julius, 202 Daniels, Lyons, 236 Darktown Journal, The, 223 Davenport, Charles “Cow Cow,” 118–19, 119, 120–21, 229, 275, 329n153, 331n210, 336n350 Davenport, Willard, 188–89, 190 Davis, Abner, 163 Davis, Amon, 348n103 Davis, Benzonine, 38 Davis, Ed, 136 Davis, Emmet, 8 Davis, George, 9 Davis and Hayes, 8 Dayley, Ed, 257, 259, 259, 260 “Deacon Green on the Picnic Ground,” 191 Dean Music Publishing Company (Chicago), 135 “Death of Lovie Joe, The,” 152

Decatur Street, Atlanta, 55, 68, 100, 170–71, 174, 176, 279, 374n196, 377n285 Decca Records, 216 Deceived Wife, The, 192, 193 Delaney, Mattie, 122 Delaney, Pete, 242 Delisle, J. B., 40, 319n249 Dempsey, Ollie, 90, 142, 184 Dennis, John W., 21, 22, 23 Deo, Virgie, 12 DeVine, Vida, 22 “Dick Turpin, the Outlaw,” 180, 218 Dickerson, Dan, 34 Dickson, Pearl, 122 Dockstader, Lew, 155 “Dollar Bill,” 166 “Domestic Entanglement,” 198 Donaldson, R. S. “Bob,” 15, 16, 17, 17, 19, 20 Dorsey, Mattie, 177, 184–85, 186, 187, 219, 232 Dorsey, Thomas A. “Georgia Tom,” 121, 170 Dorsey, William H., 12, 19–20, 23, 25, 61, 73–74, 74, 314n97, 326–27n48 Dotson, J. I., 262 Douglass, Charles H., 20, 28–30, 29, 31, 199, 242, 243, 247, 290– 91, 292, 294, 295, 297, 299–300, 316n157, 378n318, 379n324 Douglass Club, 19, 314n85 Douglass Hotel (Macon), 297, 299, 378n305 Down in Dixie Minstrels, 76 Doyle, Frank Q., 62, 65, 73, 80, 135 Dr. Beans From Boston, 228 “Dr. Bill from Louisville,” 78 Drake, Henry, 197 Drake and Walker Revue, 197 Drew, Bonnie Bell, 114 Dudley, E. B., 30, 141, 241, 247, 294–95, 316n159, 376n274, 377n276 Dudley, Sherman H., 9, 36, 79, 90, 92, 93, 104, 129, 142, 145–46, 158, 194, 206, 212, 215, 218, 219, 228, 238–41, 238, 243, 244–48, 251, 283, 293, 294, 302, 303, 325n61, 378n319, 379n335 Dudley’s Smart Set (S. H. Dudley). See Smart Set companies Dukes, Alexander, 54, 322n348 Duncan, Clarence “Kid,” 226 Dunlop, Ora, 92, 191 Dunn, Johnnie, 252 Dunn, Sarah. See Martin, Sarah Dupree, Reese, 306–7, 380n357 Durand, Billy, 164

393

394

General Index E. B. Dudley Song Bureau (Louisville), 141 Eagle Rock. See dances Earthquake, Billy, 165, 219 “eccentric dancing.” See dances Ed Lee’s Creole Belles Company, 155 “Educational of Ignorance,” 92 Edwards, Hapel, 138 Edwards, Jodie “Butterbeans” (Edwards and Edwards, Butterbeans and Susie), 96, 111–12, 113, 114–15, 173, 188, 274–76, 275, 276, 278, 279, 289, 329n137, 334n293, 334n309 Edwards, Susie Hawthorne (Edwards and Edwards, Butterbeans and Susie), 96, 111–12, 113, 114–15, 173, 174, 188, 274–76, 275, 278, 279, 289, 334n293 Elder, Maude, 102 Eldridge, Ruth, 200 “Elgin Movements” (as metaphor), 70, 70, 115, 116, 117–18, 119, 120, 129, 182, 276, 278, 309 “Eliza Scandals,” 199, 199, 200, 355n321 Ellick, Francis (Murphy and Francis), 72, 72, 326n35 Elliott, Eddie Foy, 45, 47, 50, 56 Elliott, Ernest, 195, 370n82 Ellis, Madame, 21 Ellison, Ralph, 357n402 Elmore, Irene, 176 Emancipator, 112 Embry, John, 36, 37, 167 Emmett, Fritz K., 146 English, Dave, 34 Enterprise Cornet Band, 12 “Ethiopian minstrelsy,” 4, 5, 13, 201 Ethiopian Quartet, 193, 193 Europe, James Reese, 213 Evans, David, 5, 120, 121, 252, 306, 307–8, 328n85 Evans, Sam, 149 Fairchild, Andrew (“Fatchild,” “Fat Child”), 171, 172 Falk, Freddie “Sardines,” 166 Fernandina, Florida, 20–25 “Filipino Misfit, A,” 31 Finley, T. S., 247 Fisher, Cora Glenn, 31, 71, 163, 172, 348n97 Fisher, “Baby” Floyd (Seals and Fisher), 44, 53, 127, 129–36, 130, 131, 140–43, 142, 143, 150 Fisher, Kate, 165 Fisher, Lonnie, 31, 172, 176 Fletcher, Clinton “Dusty,” 257 Fletcher Henderson’s Jazz Masters, 262

Florida Blossom Minstrel Company, 20, 31, 127, 159, 172, 209, 295 Floyd, Chink, 12, 19–20, 30, 32, 157 Floyd, Elmore, 189 Floyd, Estelle, 189 Flynn, Johnny, 165 Folks, Freddie, 68 Ford, Ed, 9 Foster, E. C., 247 Foster, Garley, 117 Foster, S. B., 23, 314n97 Foster, William “Juli Jones, Jr.,” 58–60, 59, 62, 63–64, 73, 171, 224, 324n55 Foster Music Company (Chicago), 59, 64 Foster Photo Play Company (Chicago), 64, 224 “Four Hundred Ball, The,” 105 “4-11-44,” 51 Fowler, William, 13, 14, 16, 18 Foxy Quiller, 51, 216 Frank H. Young’s Minstrels, 190 Frazier, Jake, 257, 368n52, 369n61, 370n62 Frederick, Emma, 100 Freeman, George, 165, 360n464 Freeman-Harper Muse Stock Company, 215 From a Southern Porch (Scarborough), 116 Fuller, Blind Boy, 122 G. W. Allen’s Troubadours, 43–44 Gaines, Ella, 169 Gales and Johnson, 45 Galveston, Texas, 8–10 “Gambling King, The,” 86 Gardner, Sam, 267 Garnes, Antoinette, 260, 261 Gaston, Gallie D., 100 Gaston & Gaston, 177 Gayoso Street, Memphis, 49, 52, 54, 322n348 gender impersonations, 7, 8, 15, 17–18, 17, 22–24, 29, 31, 94, 136, 145–47, 151, 153, 156, 185, 202, 218–19, 267, 267, 341n102, 372n140 General Phonograph Corporation, 282 George Lewis Stock Company, 54 George Stamper’s “Dixie Revue,” 143 Georgia Campers, 204 Georgia Sunbeams Company, 30, 163 Gertrude, John, 224 Ghost in the Pawn Shop, 14 Gibson, Cleo, 117, 119–20

General Index Gibson, John T., 77, 95, 245–46 Gibson, Ray “Pork Chops,” 177 Gilhams, G., 24 Gillam, Bessie (Gilliam), 23–24, 45, 47–48, 219 Gilliam, Tenia, 24, 25 Gilliard, Amos, 30, 314n97, 316n159 Gillick, William E., 11 Gilpin, Charles, 54, 179, 218 “Gimme My Money,” 43 Girl from Dixie, The, 165, 218 Glenn, Buddie, 8, 9–10, 12, 20, 159, 180, 312n8 Glenn, Willie, 31, 71 Glinn, Lillian, 282 Glover, John, 299 Glover, Willie, 177 Go Get It, 194 Goats, The, 61–64, 128 Godfrey, “Cry Baby,” 267 Going to War, 51, 216 Golden, Tom, 25, 26 Golden Gate Quartet, 80, 318n239 Goldman, Lawrence, 247 Goldman & Wolf Music Company, 280–81 Golpin, Joe, 169 Gonzell White Revue, 256–58 Good Morning Blues (Basie), 120, 369n65 Goodloe, Ella Hoke (Hope), 38, 53, 88–90, 89, 99, 132, 167, 179 Goodloe, John, 38, 52, 53, 89, 132, 158, 167, 179, 318n224 Gordon, Charles, 247 Grady, Alfred A., 166 Graham, Madam L., 156 Graham, Mose “Two Story Mose,” 44, 166, 182, 232, 320n289 Graham, Pearl, 198 Granger, Leon, 9 Grant, Leola “Coot,” 173, 275 Granville, Charles, 214 Gray, Gilda, 249 Gray, Sam H., 31, 92, 188, 191–95, 192, 193, 198–201, 199, 275, 354n267 Great Depression, 301–2, 304 Greathouse, Earl A., 31 Green, Eddie, 85, 175, 176, 188 Green, J. Ed, 36, 45, 45, 47, 48, 50, 51–52, 51, 54, 57, 58, 60–65, 61, 85, 203, 216, 217, 219 Green, Jeanette Murphy, 65 Green, John “Johnny,” 9, 45, 47, 50, 312n8 Green, Raymond, 262

Greenfield, Elizabeth Taylor, 260 Greenwood, Mississippi, 129–30 Gresham, Leroy “Kike,” 202 Griffin, Emma (The Griffin Sisters), 239–40, 240 Griffin, Mabel (The Griffin Sisters), 239–40, 240 Griffin, Tommy, 122 Grizzly Bear. See dances Gross, Etta, 226, 227 guitar, 5, 121–22, 121, 136, 199–200, 222, 226, 273, 274, 304–9, 305, 306, 308, 338n17, 379–80n345, 380n347–50, 380n352, 381n369–70, 381n384 Guy, Buddy, 120 Hall, Carrie, 10, 11–12, 20, 23–24, 30, 31–32, 44, 53 Hall, Lew, 45, 47, 47, 48, 50–51, 50, 57 Hall, Ollie, 50 Hall, Willie, 281 Hall’s Ragtime Opera Company, 47, 48, 50–51, 57 “Ham and Eggs in Africa,” 169 Hambone Jones Company, 178, 191–93, 193 Hamilton, James, 55 Handy, W. C. (Handy’s Orchestra), 67, 85, 89, 115, 116, 144–45, 153–54, 154, 172, 191, 213, 217, 218, 223, 254, 264, 272, 271, 272, 274, 279, 318n220, 328n85, 343n178, 368n35 Hanen, R. T., 120 Happy Days, 93–94 Hardin, Ed, 57 Harding, Charles O., 76, 324n46 “Harlem Frolics” Company, 172, 285–86 Harlem Renaissance, 254, 260 harmonica (mouth organ), 121, 196, 305, 307, 381n369 Harney, Ben, 33 Harney, Maylon, 123 Harney, Richard, 123 Harper, Hamp, 220 Harper, Leonard, 215, 236, 360n464 Harrington, John “Hamtree,” 90, 91 Harris, Ada, 12 Harris, Estelle (Stella, Estella), 35, 51–52, 54, 55, 71, 165, 166, 179, 216–29, 217, 222, 226, 227, 232, 360n480; with Billy King Stock Company, 221–25, 229; death, 229; health, 228–29; Jass/Jaz/Jazz Band, 225–27, 229; male impersonations, 218; marriage/working with Billy B. Johnson, 217; movies, 225; piano playing, 219; recordings, 229; reviews, 217–18, 223–28; stage manager, 218; tenure at Savoy Theater, 218–19; with William Benton Overstreet, 225–28, 229 Harris, Florence, 10

395

396

General Index Harris, Helen, 45 Harris, Hattie, 9, 9, 21 Harris, Matt, 225, 226, 227 Harris, O. J., 247 Harris, William, 122 Harrison, Daphne Duval, 254 “Harvest Days in Musicville,” 40 Hawk, C. E., 10–11 Hawkins, Buddy Boy, 122 Hawkins, Charles, 43 Hayes, Bob, 197, 229 Hayes, Thayman, 281 Haywood, John C., 11, 12 Head, Johnny, 183 Hegamin, Lucille, 213, 215, 254 Hegamin, William, 215 Hello 1919, 215, 261 Helm, George, 9 Henderson, Beulah Washington, 12, 42, 68, 236 Henderson, Edmonia, 117, 176–77, 176 Henderson, Fletcher, 260, 262, 306 Henderson, Slim, 165, 194 Henderson, William H. “Billy,” 12, 42, 68, 127, 131, 219, 236, 339n39 Henderson Smith’s Fourteen Black Hussars, 215 Henderson’s Tennessee Troubadours, 165 Hendon, Frank, 135, 136, 137 Henry, Lew, 244 Henry, Waymon “Sloppy,” 202 Herndon, Coy, 304–5 Heywood, Eddie, Sr., 139, 172, 260, 370n81 Hi Henry Barnes Trio, 53 Higgins, Billy, 96, 210, 220, 221, 221, 236, 275 Hightower, Charles, 190 Hightower, Lottie, 177 Hightower, Willie, 177, 348n106 Hill, Bertha Chippie, 279 Hill, Charles A., 191 Hill, Ed, 45, 47, 50, 56, 57 Hill, J. Leubrie, 92 Hill, Josephine, 100 Hill Sisters, 92 Hines, Florence, 18, 19, 185 His Eye Is on the Sparrow (Waters), 73, 100, 295, 341n102, 370n95, 370n98, 370n105 His Honor the Barber, 251 Hoffman, Robert, 75, 311n7

Hogan, Ernest, 35, 52, 58, 101, 105, 152, 204, 206, 223, 251, 330n186 Holden, F. C., 247 Holland, Lurline, 282 Holmes, Ernest, 16 Holmes, Winston, 274, 281, 282–83, 282 Holt, Anna, 222, 223, 224, 225, 226, 226, 227 Hope, Boots, 198 Horn, Jessie May, 81–83 Hot Feet, 256 Hottest Coon in Dixie No. 2 Company, 128 Hound Head Henry, 139 Houston, Alfred “Tick,” 38–39, 44, 52–53, 52, 131, 318n228 Houston, Texas, 8–10 “How Records Are Made,” 274 “How to Get a Job,” 129 Howard, Nettie, 54 Howard, R. “Kegg”/“Caggie,” 68, 236, 303, 342n106 Howe, Arthur “Happy,” 13, 14, 15, 15, 16, 16, 30, 31, 68, 71, 157, 162, 219 Howe, Beatrice, 68, 325n12 Howell, Jimmie, 189 Howell, Peg Leg, 117, 139, 338n17, 340n71 Howell, Violette, 189 Hoyt, Grace, 27 Hudson, Ethel, 104, 332n254 Hughes, Alma, 44 hula. See dances Hunn, Ben, 18–19, 27, 47 Hunt, Hi Henry, 101, 102 Hunter, Alberta, 196, 254, 261 Huntley, Otis, 146 Hury, H. J., 247 Ideal Players, 190 “In Cripple Creek,” 42 In Dahomey, 251 “In the Hands of the Law,” 91 “In the Hills,” 185 Indiana Vaudeville Company, 24 Indianapolis Freeman, 3, 4, 5, 8, 9, 9, 12, 15, 17, 18, 19, 21, 23, 24, 25–27, 27, 29, 29, 30, 31, 33, 34, 36, 36, 38, 39, 40, 42, 43, 43, 44, 45, 45, 47, 47, 48, 48, 50, 51, 51, 52, 54, 56, 57, 58, 58, 59, 60, 61, 61, 64, 65, 68, 69–70, 72, 74, 76, 78, 79, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85–86, 86, 87–89, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 94, 95, 96, 96, 97, 98, 98, 99–100, 101, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107–8, 107, 110, 113, 113, 114, 115, 118, 126, 127–28, 128, 130, 130, 131, 132–33, 132, 134, 134, 135, 136, 137, 142, 143, 143, 144, 144, 147, 149,

General Index 150, 151, 151, 153, 154, 155, 156, 156, 158, 159, 161, 162, 164–65, 166–68, 168, 169–70, 169, 171, 172, 173, 173, 178, 181, 181, 182, 186, 188, 191, 191, 192, 192, 205, 207, 209, 212, 216, 218, 220, 221, 221, 222, 224, 226, 227, 227, 231, 232, 233, 233, 234, 235, 236, 237–38, 237, 238, 238, 240, 241, 242, 243, 245–46, 250, 255, 256, 266, 266, 268, 288, 311n2, 312n1, 316n166, 317n195, 318n224, 319n256, 345n4, 371n124, 376n249 Ingalls, Willie, 73 Irvis, Charlie, 195 Irwin, May, 269 Irwin & Irwin, 166 Isham’s Octoroons, 27 “It Takes a Good Man to Do That,” 194 Itson, Frank, 9 J. Kapp Company, 271 Jack, Sam T., 18, 32, 363n584 Jackson, Adell, 80 Jackson, Hardtrack, 200 Jackson, James Albert “Billboard,” 194, 249, 250–51, 257, 265, 272–73, 288, 289, 292–93, 299, 368n35, 372n148 Jackson, Jim, 121, 316n178 Jackson, Munroe Moe, 123, 373n378 Jackson, “Papa” Charlie, 139, 307, 381n376 Jackson, Pearl, 200 Jackson, Remwell, 166 Jackson, Tony, 34, 38, 39, 44 Jackson, Willie, 44, 321n308 Jacksonville, Florida, 10–13 Jacoby, Mitchell, 68, 233, 234, 234 James, I. W. “Dad,” 44, 213 James, Seymour (Seymour and Jeanette), 267–68, 267, 372n140 James, Skip, 202 James, Willis Laurence, 85, 115–16 “Jasper’s Dream in the Pits of Hell,” 70 Jaxon, Frankie “Half Pint” (Little Frankie Jackson), 97, 100, 201 Jazz Dance (Stearns), 167–68 “Jealous Woman, The,” 44 Jefferson, Blind Lemon, 117, 120–22, 139, 282, 308–9, 308, 336–37nn361–63 Jefferson, Harry, 53, 130, 158 Jefferson, Zenobia, 53, 136 Jenkins, Daddy, 138 Jenkins, Dorothy, 194, 275, 306, 307, 381n367, 381n370 Jenkins, Hezekiah, 194, 213, 275, 306, 307 Jennie Cooler. See dances Jimmie Cooper’s Beauty Review, 256–57, 256, 260

Jimmy O’Bryant’s Washboard Band, 307 Jines, Henry “Gang,” 289 Joe Anderson’s Klondyke String Band, 34 Joe Jordan’s Orchestra, 259 Joel, L. D., 13, 233–38, 234, 235, 236 John Eason’s Annex Band, 138 Johns, Irvin, 279 Johnson, Billy, 35, 47, 51–52, 216–18, 217, 229, 361n506 Johnson, Elnora, 228 Johnson, Eloise, 109, 114 Johnson, Elvira, 52, 217 Johnson, Estelle. See Harris, Estelle Johnson, Guy B., 97 Johnson, Ike, 25 Johnson, J. C., 117 Johnson, James P., 213, 215–16 Johnson, Joe, 143 Johnson, Lew, 45, 47, 50, 57 Johnson, Lonnie, 278, 307–8 Johnson, Mamie, 55 Johnson, Mattie, 48 Johnson, Robert, 117, 308 Johnson, Rosamond, 225 Johnson, Susie. See Too Sweet, Lula (Lulu) Johnson, Theodore, 21 Johnson, Tillie, 43, 44, 213 Johnson, Zudora, 174 Johnson and Bluford, 21 Johnson and Reid, 48, 52, 217 Johnson Operatic Cake Walkers and Museum, 216 Johnson-Fisher Stock Company, 143 Jolly Hendersons, The, 12 Jones, Archie, 100, 227 Jones, Baby Annie, 12 Jones, Bill, 55 Jones, Billy E., 212, 261 Jones, C. A., 18 Jones, Clayborne, 74, 171 Jones, Coley, 121 Jones, David, 348n106 Jones, Estelle, 23 Jones, “Hambone,” 178, 180–84, 181, 185, 191–93, 191, 194, 351n170 Jones, Henry “Teenan,” 52, 224, 225 Jones, Joseph “Jonesy,” 200 Jones, Little Hat, 122 Jones, Minnie, 68

397

398

General Index Jones, Piccolo, 30 Jones, Richard M., 39, 330n156 Jones, Slim, 189–91 Jones, Walter, 227 Jordan, Charley, 117 Jordan, Ethalene, 145 Jordan, Howard, 167 Jordan, Joe, 4, 162, 166, 260 “Josephine Spiller’s Wedding,” 98 Journal of American Folklore, 4 Joyner, B. B. “Bee,” 171, 176 Kansas City Call, 5, 210, 211, 256, 270, 272, 281, 282, 286, 287 Keane, Lew, 252 Keith Vaudeville Theater Circuit, 19, 257, 370n98 Keith-Albee Office, 263 Kelley, H. Alf, 118, 120, 121 Kelley, Howard, 225 Kelly, Dude, 348n103 Kelly, Georgia, 223, 224 Kelly, Kid, 68 Kennedy, Will Goff, 12, 19–20, 30, 217, 219 Kenner, Lew (Kenner and Lewis), 42–43, 43, 44, 141, 177 Kenner and Lewis Amusement Company, 42–43, 44, 68, 70, 178–79 Kernion, Mildred, 43, 163 Kersands, Billy, 27, 75, 185, 294 Kersands, Louise, 75, 185 Kewley, Fred, 348n106 Kidnapping Case, The, 223 Kimball, Henry, 40, 319n249 Kimbrough, Lena, 283 Kimbrough, Sylvester, 283 Kincade, Ernest, 36 King, B. B., 122 King, Billy, 220, 220, 221–25, 236, 237 King, Hattie McIntosh, 222, 223 King, Maggie, 51–52 King and Bush’s Minstrels, 8, 48 King and Simms’s Minstrels, 179, 350n149 Kinnane, Catherine, 46 Kinnane, James, 44, 46–47, 48, 53, 321n308 Kinnane, Thomas (brother of James Kinnane), 11, 53 Kinnane, Thomas (father of James Kinnane), 46 Kirk, Frank, 168 “Kit Carson, the Female Detective,” 11

Klein, Martin, 73, 75, 83, 86, 90, 135, 213, 239–41, 243–46, 243, 247 Knox, Elwood, 79, 87, 132, 136, 144, 155 L. D. Joel’s Atlanta Players, 236, 237 Labormen’s Social Club, 42, 319n260 “Lady Barber Shop, The,” 210 “Lady Liz,” 197 Lagman, Charles, 234, 234 LaGuardia, Fiorello, 213, 359n455 Landrus, Eugene, 236 Lane, Tom, 34 Langston, Tony, 112, 213, 226, 299 Lankford, Edward, 187, 256, 256, 258, 368n42 Larkins, Harry, 380n347 Larkins, Ida, 21–22 LaRose, Adam, 29 Lattimore, J. A. C., 302 Leach, Eva, 27 Leading Lady Cook, A, 205 Ledbetter, Huddie (Leadbelly), 182, 195, 351n179, 351n182 Lee, E. D. “Ed,” 155, 232 Lee, Ford, 38 Lee, John, 123 Lee, Johnnie, 53, 179 Lee, Lark, 236 Lee, Locke, 31 Lee & Moore, 247 Leggett, Lena, 44 Leggins, Gene. See Liggins, Eugene Leggs, Tressie, 174, 236 Leonard, W. H., 247 Leslie, Lew, 252 Levi, E. Deb, 165–66 Levy, Joe, 16–17 Lew Hall’s Ragtime Opera Company, 47, 48, 50, 57 Lewis, Billy E., 90, 99, 104–5, 161, 174–75, 227, 329n131 Lewis, Cary B., 79, 80–81, 224, 326n48 Lewis, Furry, 122 Lewis, John E. (Kenner and Lewis), 39, 42–43, 43, 44, 320n269 Lewis, Lockwood, 37, 318n220 Lewis, Meade Lux, 117 Lewis, Nettie (Compton), 36, 45, 47, 50, 51–52, 99, 216 Lewis, Viola, 39 Lewis, Will, 142, 149, 255 Life of Bridge Street, 210 Liggins, Eugene, 47, 71 Lightfoot, Peg, 173–74

General Index Lightman, N. A., 247 Lightning Express Excursion, 14 Lillison, Edgar, 225 Lipscomb, Mance, 308 Liston, Dave, 179–80, 350n153 Liston, Virginia Crawford, 43, 44, 54, 159, 172, 178–85, 181, 182, 190–95, 193, 198–201, 199, 254, 255, 275, 309, 350n146; early life/career, 178–79; Eliza Scandals, 199–200; New Star Casino contest, 200; partnership with “Hambone” Jones, 180–84, 191–92; recordings, 182, 194–95, 200; reviews/critiques, 180–81, 183–84, 191, 193–94, 198–200, 201; with Sam Gray, 194–96, 198–200 Little Creole Pet, 138 Little Henry. See Woods, W. F. “Johnnie” Lockhardt, Ada, 171 Lockhart, Lena, 28 Lockhart, Tom, 28 Logan, Laura, 31 Logan, Tom, 19, 24, 27, 35–36, 45, 50, 217, 219 Long, Leon, 200 Lorraine, Margie, 148 Lousiana Weekly, 5 Louisville, Kentucky, 32–39 Louisville Courier-Journal, 33 Louisville Herald, 83 Louisville Leader, 83 Love, Gussie (Love and Love), 54, 126–29, 128 Love, Harry, 217 Love, Kid (H. Kidd Love, Love and Love, Henry Warren), 54, 126–29, 128, 145, 179 Lowe, Carrie, 166 Lowery, P. G., 11, 27, 51, 53, 73, 80, 127 Lowery, Vance, 184 Lucas, Smithy, 95 Lyles, Aubrey (Miller and Lyles), 58, 251, 252, 271 Lyric Theater Stock Company, 187, 220–21 Mack, Alura, 139–40 Macon, Georgia, 27–32, 299–300 Macon News, 299 Macon Telegraph, 299 “Macon’s Orgy,” 299 Made in Harlem Company, 267, 268, 371–72n33 Mahara’s Minstrels, 11, 216, 217 Mahoney, Jim, 48 Mahoney’s Mobile Minstrels, 159 Mamie Smith’s Jazz Hounds, 271

Mamma’s Baby Boy, 209 Man from Bam, The, 58 Managers and Performers’ Co-Operative Circuit (“M&P”), 296 Manetta, Manuel, 39 Manhattan Quartet, 194, 359n468 Mann, Mossa, 27 Manuel, C. E., 64–65 “Mariah,” 292 Markham, Dewey “Pigmeat,” 120 Markham’s Orchestra (Shreveport), 41 “Married Life,” 47 Married Man’s Troubles, A, 14 Marshall, Jimmie, 206–7 Marshall, Robert, 21 Marshall, Sonny, 9 Martell, Harry, 33, 45 Martin, Carl, 202 Martin, Daisy, 173, 213, 215, 254 Martin, Joseph, 21 Martin, Sarah (Sara), 35, 139, 193, 270, 271, 272–74, 272, 273, 278, 279, 285, 292, 306, 317n204, 373n172 Mason, John H., 194 Massey, Verner, 149 Master Jimmie, 34 Matrimonial Agency, The, 224 Matthews, Artie, 136, 137, 138–39 Matthews, Richard J. 71 Matthews, Richard R., Jr., 53, 71 Matthews, William, 312n8 May, Blanche, 112, 113 May, Butler, Sr., 67 May, Butler “String Beans” (May and May), 6, 43, 65, 67–123, 69, 71, 82, 84, 93, 98, 103, 105, 107, 112, 113, 115, 125, 128, 129, 130, 132, 136, 144, 145, 151, 156, 157, 163, 170, 172, 184, 187, 201, 203, 207, 211, 219, 226, 232, 250, 267, 275, 276, 278, 285, 292, 308–9, 326n27, 332n252,, 334n316, 336n350, 336–37n362; attacking Frank Montgomery, 94–95; Beans and Benbow’s Big Vaudeville Review, 100–102, 104, 107, 226; death, 112–14, 112; early life, 67–68; “Elgin Movements,” 69–70, 106, 115, 116–20; legacy, 113–22, 278; pianologue, 85, 90, 97, 105, 106, 108–9, 120, 336n350; reviews, 71, 72, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78–79, 80–83, 85, 87–88, 89–90, 91–93, 94, 99, 101–2, 104–5, 107–10; songwriting, 96, 97, 100, 116–20 May, Laura Robinson, 67, 112, 113 May, Sweetie Matthews (May and May), 6, 43, 69, 70–81, 71, 86, 90–98, 93, 99, 100, 109, 110, 114, 115, 130, 132, 136, 151, 156, 184, 187, 210, 232, 250, 275, 276

399

400

General Index Mayor of Dixie, The, 204 McClain, Billy, 130, 131, 283 McClain, Cordelia, 210 McClain, Florence, 77, 94–95, 94 McCoy, Ethel, 200 McCoy, Joe, 122 McCoy, Kid, 129 McCoy, Viola, 89, 96, 97, 127, 129, 136, 275 McDonald, Gertrude, 163 McDonald and Leggett, 295 McGarr, Jules, 164 McGee, Juanita, 198 McGill, H. P. “Buddy,” 54, 218, 219, 232, 361n514 McGinty, Artie Belle, 174 McIntosh, Tom, 216 McKenzie, Frank, 126 McLaurin, Billie, 85, 97 McMillan, Allan, 172 McMurray, Joseph A., 17, 17, 39 McNeil, John (McNeil and McNeil), 30, 40, 41 McNeil, Rhoda (McNeil and McNeil), 30, 40, 41 McPheeters, James, 192 McQuillen, Alice, 53 McTell, Blind Willie, 202–3, 223, 330n178, 352n186, 374n196, 380n349 Means, Effie, 42, 156 medicine shows, 147–48, 150, 318n224 Melville, Rose, 203, 203 Memphis, Tennessee, 44–55 Memphis Commercial Appeal, 280 Memphis Jug Band, 183, 320n289 Memphis Slim, 140 Meritt Records, 282, 283 Merry Howards, 55 Meyers, Anna, 254 Michaels, Dan, 177 Midnight Bells Quartette, 42, 43 midnight frolics, 198, 262–63, 273, 275–76, 279–80, 287, 297, 299, 371n108, 373n188 Mikell, E. Francis, 77, 78, 86, 170 Miller, Flournoy (Miller and Lyles), 58, 251, 252, 271 Miller, Irvin C., 63, 107, 170, 244, 254, 303 Miller, J. J., 247 Miller, J. M. “Doc,” 306 Miller, James, 126 Miller, Sodarisa, 117 Millican’s Plantation Minstrels, 294

Mills, Billy, 165–66, 219, 342–43n168 Mills, Florence, 250, 252–53, 253 Mines, Augusta , 17, 18 Minor, Coleman L., 86, 92, 146, 193, 341n121 “Miss Hannah from Savannah,” 22–23 “Miss Mandy’s Moonlight Festival,” 54–55, 179 Mississippi Moaners, 140 Mitchell, Abbie, 128 Mitchell, Dennis, 10 Mitchell, George, 37 Mitchell, Joseph, 21 Mitchell, Lelia, 236 Mitchell, Lucy, 198 Mitchell, Walter (cornet), 9 Mitchell, Walter (tuba and doublebass), 314n97 Mizell, Tenia, 24 Moncrief, A. A., 42 Montana Jack and Arizona Dick, 221 Montgomery, Alabama, 67–68, 112–13 Montgomery, Frank (Montgomery and McClain), 77, 94–96, 94, 96, 98, 215, 261, 295 Montgomery, Little Brother, 254 Montgomery Times, 112 Moody, Julia, 254 Mooney, Etta, 254 “Moonlight Frolic in Louisiana, A,” 43 Moore, Allen “Chintz,” 20, 162, 192–93, 192, 244, 245, 247, 294, 295 Moore, Ella B., 200, 292, 295 Moore, Ferdinand T., 50 Moore, Fred R., 213, 359n455 Moore, Hester, 177 Moore, James “Frosty,” 136 Moore, Kid Prince, 122 Moore, Minnie C., 209 Moore, Poney, 52 Mores, J. Francis, 54, 158 Moret, George, 39–40, 40 Morris, Tom, 195 Morton, Edgar, 167 Morton, Eleanor Wilson, 114 Morton, Ferd “Jelly Roll,” 44, 71, 105, 106, 115, 118, 119, 120, 121, 136, 138, 218, 219, 221, 231, 326n27, 332n252, 334n316 Morton, Rosa, 105, 106 Moss, Buddy, 122 Moten, Bennie, 259, 281, 282 Moten, Buster, 257, 369n59

General Index Moten, Robert (Moton, Morton), 225, 226, 227 Mother-in-Law’s Disposition, The, 223 Motts, Robert T., 36, 57–58, 58, 60–61, 62, 63, 64 movies, 10–11, 13, 30, 42, 54, 58, 64, 71, 71, 174, 197, 216, 224, 225, 251, 297, 301–4, 323n356, 324n55, 365n32, 367n17, 377n299, 378n318, 379n328 Movietone, 303 Mr. Lode of Koal, 62–63 “Mr. Sardines From Sardines, Fla.,” 166 Mullican, Aubrey “Moon,” 121 Murphy, Bert (Murphy and Francis), 72, 72, 326n35–36 Muse, Camanche, 212, 359n445 Muse, Clarence, 215, 360n464 Muse, Elizabeth, 212 Musicians Union, Local 208, 278 Mutual Amusement Company (Chicago), 241–44, 242 “My Chocolate Girl,” 197 “My Friend,” 92 Myers, William J., 274 Naimoa, Sam, 222 Nashville Globe, 5, 41 Nashville Students, 216, 305 National Association of Negro Musicians, 260 Negro Business League, 29, 241, 260 Negro Workaday Songs (Odum and Johnson), 97 “Neighbors,” 222 Nelson, Aaron, 8 Nesbitt, Joseph, 67–68 New Orleans, Louisiana, 39–44 New Orleans Item, 262, 263 New York Age, 91–93, 93, 214 New York, New York, 249–55 New York Clipper, 33, 33 New York Times, 248 Newbern, Hambone Willie, 80 Newsome, Fred (Jimmy Dick), 29, 31 Nicholby, John A., 236 Niles, Abbe, 115, 116 Nix, Molissi, 165 Norfolk Jazz Quartet, 223, 380n355 Norfolk Journal and Guide, 193–94, 193, 215 Nunn, William G., 297 Oakwood Cemetery (Montgomery), 112, 113 “O’Brien in Coon Town,” 20 O’Brien’s Famous Georgia Minstrels, 138

O’Connor, George, 80 Odum, Howard, 4, 97, 155, 169, 255, 304, 305–6, 311n5 OKeh Record Company, 96, 144, 189, 190, 194, 195–96, 196, 197–98, 199, 199, 200, 201, 213, 252, 253, 253, 259, 264–65, 268, 269–70, 270, 271, 272, 272, 273, 274, 275, 275, 278–79, 281, 282, 283, 306, 306, 307, 317n204 “Old Nolan Gold Mine, The,” 180, 218 Oliver, Bessie, 156 Oliver, Edith, 189 Oliver, King, 278 Oliver Scott’s Refined Minstrels, 45 Olney, Clyde, 80 O’Neal, Charles, 289 Opportunity, 157 Original Jazz Hounds (Johnny Dunn), 121 Original Jazz Hounds (Perry Bradford), 260, 370n82 Orpheum Vaudeville Circuit, 19, 226, 259, 372n140 Ory, Kid, 282 Osborne, James, 30 Other Fellow, The, 223 O’Toole, Martin J., 11 “Out of the Jungles, or What Happened to Him? Did He Get Out Alive?,” 141 Overstreet, William Benton, 104, 200–201, 220, 221–23, 221, 222, 225–28, 226, 229, 309, 362n538 Owens, Billy, 31 Owens, Henry, 80 Owens, Will, 163, 169 Owsley, Tim, 72, 72, 144, 148, 170, 183, 188, 206, 235, 238–41, 243–45, 295, 297, 303 Pace, Harry H., 260–61, 263–64, 371n115 Pace & Handy Music Publishing Company, 175, 191, 264 Page, John, 38 Palao, Joseph, 39 Pantages Circuit, 225, 257 Paramount and Lasky corporation, 197 Paramount Record Company, 194, 215, 216, 263, 264, 268, 271, 277, 282, 282, 288, 307, 308 Paris, Amy, 21 Park, C. W., 177 Parker, Mattie, 163 Parker, Shorty Bob, 123 Parker, Tommy, 31, 141 Park-Tolliver Musical Comedy Company (C. W. Park), 161 Park’s Colored Aristocrats/Smart Set. See Smart Set companies

401

402

General Index Pas Ma La. See dances Pat Chappelle’s Imperial Colored Minstrels, 23 Pathe Record Company, 229 Paul Banks Kansas City Trio, 283 Paul Carter’s Stock Company, 127 Payne, Arthur “Strut,” 252 Payne, Mamie, 31, 167 Payne, Rosa, 217 Payton, Lew (Peyton), 9, 9, 21, 27 Payton, William, 42 Peat, Ed F., 70, 97, 104, 127 Peer, Ralph, 274, 282 Pekin Trio, 225, 226 Pellebon, Abbie, 43 Pellebon, Andy, 101, 166 Pellebon, Carrie, 101, 102 Pellebon, Dinky, 166 Pellebon, Sadie, 166 Peoples, Robbie Lee Cox “Baby Benbow,” 100, 101–2, 101, 104, 107, 172 “Percilla Johnson’s Wedding,” 94 Perdue, David, 165 Perrin, Sidney, 60, 62, 213 Perry, Sadie, 44 Perry, Willie. See Too Sweet, Willie Perry Bradford Music Publishing Company, 141, 253 Perry Bradford’s Mean Four, 196 Perryman, Rufus “Speckled Red,” 121 Pervine, Edna, 146 “Peter Gray,” 26 Pettis, Arthur, 122 Pewee, Charles, 167 Pewee, Sadie, 167 Peyton, Dave, 37, 74, 81, 260, 303 Philippine dance. See dances Phoenix Athletic Club, 45, 46 pianologue, 85, 90, 97, 104–6, 105, 108, 120, 145, 204 Pierre, Anatole, 39 pigeon wing. See dances Pinkard, Maceo, 303 Pittsburgh Courier, 5, 176, 201, 257, 258, 267, 271, 278, 285–86, 286, 288, 293, 297, 302–3 Plant Juice Medicine Company, 147–48 Plantation Club (New York), 252 Plantation Five Harmonizers, 200 Plantation Revue, 250, 252–53 Popirro, George, 12

Porter, Buster, 77 Porter, Chicita, 38 Porter, John, 177, 348n106 Porter, Pete, 176–77 Porter, Willie, 77 Porter and Porter, 30, 132, 163, 219 Powell, Albert, 97 Powell, Clarence, 225 Powers, Ollie, 36 “Pressing Club, The,” 169 Price, Edward C. (The Jolly Prices), 29, 30 Price, Kate, 159 Price, Ludell (The Jolly Prices), 29, 30 Price, Madame, 29 Price, Sarah, 20 “Prince Bumpaka,” 43 Princess Rajah, 158 Pugh and Pugh, 202 “Punch and Judy,” 147, 148 Put and Take, 254 Queen, John, 182–83 Rabbit’s Foot Minstrels (A Rabbit’s Foot), 12, 13, 17, 19, 20, 23, 27, 35, 68, 80, 127, 130, 162, 216, 294 Race records, 5, 117, 171, 201, 248, 250, 253, 255, 263, 266, 269, 271, 274, 278–79, 280, 281, 283, 285, 288, 316n178, 321n308, 329n134, 343n191, 350n149, 376n249 radio broadcasting, 197, 198, 262, 263, 279, 280, 283, 370n105, 379n328 “Railroad Jack,” 127 Rainey, Gertrude “Ma” (Rainey and Rainey), 30, 68, 71, 132, 145, 150, 158, 161–65, 169–70, 173, 174–75, 176–78, 182, 183, 192, 194, 204, 250, 254, 286–87, 290, 291, 292, 304, 345n8, 375n247; collaboration with Bessie Smith, 162, 164–65; early career, 162–63; Madam Rainey’s Southern Beauty Company, 177–78, 192, 349n132, 349n139, 349–50n142; recordings, 178, 286–87; reviews/critiques, 169–70, 173, 177–78 Rainey, William “Pa” (Rainey and Rainey), 30, 68, 71, 132, 150, 158, 162–65, 169–70, 173, 177, 204 Rainey Trio, 77, 165, 170 Ransom, James, 55 Ransom, May, 54–55 “Rapid Transit,” 17 Rarin’ to Go, 260 record stores, 281–82 Red Moon, The, 251

General Index Redmond, Rebecca, 185–87, 186, 236 Reed, Frank S., 113 Reed, Jerry, 332n254 Reeves, Billy, 10, 11, 12, 19–20, 25–26, 32 Reeves, George, 73, 326n45 Reevin, Sam E., 241–47, 242, 290, 294, 297, 300–301, 302–4, 378n321 “Rehearsing His Part,” 132 Reid, J. P., 236 Reid, Walter James, 53 Reid, Will, 216–17 Reyno Comedians, 190 Rhone, George B., 9, 312n8, 312n15, 314n97 Rialto Music House (Chicago), 277, 278 “Rich and Poor Girls, The,” 18 Richard M. Jones’s Jazz Wizards, 279 Richards and Pringle’s Georgia Minstrels, 45 Richardson, Inez, 254 Richmond Planet, 203 Riggins, Son, 163 Ringgold, Muriel, 77, 88 Roberts, C. B., 21 Roberts, Dan, 11 Roberts, Lizzie, 15 Roberts, Lucky, 266 Robertson, Alvin “Zoo,” 40, 41, 319n256, 348n106 Robichaux, John, 39–40, 41, 43, 319n249 Robichaux’s Orchestra (New Orleans), 41 Robinson, C. R., 236 Robinson, Eddie “Rabbit,” 348n106 Robinson, J. M., 11, 312–13n34 Robinson, Mabel, 354n289 Robinson, Mollie Clark, 33 Robinson, Rennell, 97 Robinson, Rob, 117 Robinson, Sam, 10, 11, 12, 213, 312n26, 330n156 Robinson, William, 71 Rogers, Alex, 93, 266 Rogers, Clarence, 37 Rogers, Terry C., 9 Ross, A. W., 16 Rossiter, Will, 223 Roth, C. C., 37, 38 Roth, Rastus, 38 Ruby Theater Stock Company, 180, 187 Rufus Rastus, 35, 52, 58, 251 Rufus Rastus In Dixie Company, 294

Rush, Roy, 352n254 Rush, Willie, 332n254 Rusco and Holland’s Big Minstrel Festival, 8, 9, 11 Russell, Bob, 10, 25, 31, 148 Russell, Raymond, 165 Russell, Sylvester, 63, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78–79, 81, 83, 85, 86, 88, 89–90, 92, 93, 99, 102, 107–8, 112, 114, 132–35, 145, 146, 149, 151–52, 155, 168, 175, 177, 179, 185, 187, 188, 191, 204, 206, 207, 210, 211, 212, 213, 217–18, 223, 224, 225–27, 239, 246, 252, 255, 258, 267, 285, 323n12, 323n22, 324n29, 324n32, 324n46, 349n117, 361n506 Russell-Owens Stock Company, 31 Rye, Howard, 254 S. H. Dudley Circuit, 129, 238–41, 238, 245 Sailor’s Hornpipe. See dances Sam T. Jack’s Creole Company, 18, 32 Sandifer, Joe, 204 Sane, Dan, 122 Santos & Artigas, 257 Saunders, Gertrude, 223, 224, 251–52, 252, 367n17 Savage, J. L., 177, 242 Savannah, Georgia, 25–28 Savannah Electric Company, 25, 26 Savannah Tribune, 5, 25, 26, 27, 28, 71, 71 Savoy Stock Company, 158, 179–80, 185, 219 “Saw Dust Bill,” 11 Scales, N.C., 247 Scarborough, Dorothy, 116 Schaffer, Dave, 219 Schriner, Charles C., 242 Scott, Arthur, 40 Scott, Dinah, 171–72, 198, 199–200, 285 Scott, Gertrude, 198, 200 Scott, Jim, 54 Scott, Maud, 27 Scott, Tom, 71 Scott, Will, 217 Seals, Baby (H. Franklin Seals, Seals and Fisher), 80, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129–44, 130, 131, 132, 134, 137, 138–39, 142, 143, 145, 146, 150, 172, 210, 232, 250, 309, 339n39; Baby F. Seals Bunch of Fun Promoters, 129; “Baby Seals Blues,” 135, 137, 138–40, 138–39, 142, 143–44; cartoons, 134, 135, 136; commentary, 131, 132, 133; death, 143–44; reviews/critiques, 132–36 Seminole Syncopators, 198 7-11 Burlesque Company, 260 Seymour, W. A., 216, 360n483 Seymour and Jeanette, 267–68, 267, 372n140

403

404

General Index Sharpe, Olander, 187 Shepherd, Lucy, 76 Shimmee. See dances “Shine and the Titanic,” 117 Shook, Ben, 37 Shuffle Along, 214, 250–52, 252 “Shuffle Along Review,” 194, 250, 354n276, 359n460 “Shufflin’ Sam” company, 201 Silas Green from New Orleans (Silas Green Minstrels), 20, 172, 201, 202, 305, 316n165 “Silver Shower,” 78, 138, 157, 188, 211–12 Simmons, Dick, 24 Simmons, Paul, 21 Simons, Lum, 33 Simpson, Ed, 166 Simpson, “Happy-Go-Lucky,” 55 Simpson, Royal, 166 Sims, Sank, 29, 30 “Sis Hopkins” (“Black Sis Hopkins”), 202, 203, 203, 211, 212 Sissle, Noble, 213, 214, 251, 252, 369n78 Skidmore, Will E., 79–80, 328n98 Slade, Walter, 156 Smart Set companies: Dudley’s Smart Set (S. H. Dudley), 9, 35, 36, 52, 158, 215, 216, 218, 228; Park’s Colored Aristocrats/ Smart Set (C. W. Park), 107, 111, 177; Tolliver’s Smart Set/ Big Show (Alexander Tolliver), 68, 111, 172, 173–74, 175, 176, 211, 215, 275; Whitney’s Smart Set (Salem Tutt Whitney and J. Homer Tutt), 94, 99, 109, 145, 191, 215 Smarter Set Company (Salem Tutt Whitney and J. Homer Tutt), 192, 215 Smiley, Alberta, 156 Smiley, Robert, 21 Smith, Albert, 167 Smith, Bessie, 55, 86, 97, 99, 128, 140–41, 141, 145, 150, 159, 161, 162–78, 168, 169, 196, 209, 219, 232, 236, 250, 254, 269, 276, 279–81, 283, 284, 285–86, 286, 288, 292, 295, 299, 301, 304, 311n2, 348n97, 374n203; Bessie Smith Review, 279, 280, 285, 292; collaboration with Raineys, 164–65; early career, 163–64; Harlem Frolics Revue, 172, 285–86; inspirations, 172; partnership with Wayne Burton, 166–69, 168, 169; recordings, 178, 280, 284; reviews, 168, 174–75 Smith, Carrie, 27, 34 Smith, Chris, 4, 74, 76, 148, 158, 162, 169, 217, 218, 229, 327n63, 361n512 Smith, Clara, 117, 148, 157, 161, 172, 173, 175–76, 195, 250, 254, 279, 280, 281, 286, 286, 287, 289, 292, 304, 306, 374n203 Smith, Clarence, 163, 172

Smith, Hannibal, 37 Smith, Henderson, 215, 216 Smith, Ivy, 229 Smith, J. W. , 24 Smith, James, 11 Smith, Joe, 262 Smith, John, 21 Smith, Laura, 53, 54–55, 97, 139, 150, 159, 164–65, 178–80, 184–90, 186, 189, 195–97, 196, 201, 218, 219, 232, 254, 322n348, 350n148; Brown Skin Jazzers, 188; death, 197–98; early life/ career, 179–80; health, 189–90; Laura Smith and her Ginger Pep Workers, 188–90; with Mattie Dorsey, 184–85; movie, 197; recordings, 178, 190, 195–96; reviews/critiques, 179, 185–89, 197; Sarah Butler’s Old Time Southern Singers, 197 Smith, Lehman, 147, 150 Smith, Lula, 166–67 Smith, Mamie, 250, 254, 257, 262, 264–65, 265, 267, 268–70, 270, 271, 272, 274, 285, 289, 371–72n133 Smith, Speedy, 31, 210, 210, 212 Smith, Trixie (Adella J. Smith), 117, 158, 166, 173, 187, 201, 203, 209–16, 211, 214, 215, 232, 250, 254, 260, 261, 282, 358n409, 359n445, 359n459; Black Sis Hopkins, 211, 212; blackface, 210–12, 216; daughter’s death, 212; death, 216; early career, 209; Manhattan Casino contest, 213–15, 260; recording, 215–16; reviews/critiques, 210–12; “Trixie’s Blues,” 214 Smith, W. H., 240–41 Smith, Walter, 236 Smith, Will, 267 Smith, William B., 111 Snow, Jay Gould, 191 Snow, John V., 191 song parodies, 105–6, 115, 135, 149, 151–56, 153, 157, 206, 343n184, 344n201, 363n566 South Before the War Company, 33, 45 Southern Consolidated Vaudeville Circuit, 244–46 Southern Folklore Quarterly, 115–16 Southern Vaudeville Circuit, 233–38, 234, 235 Spain, Ruth, 27 Spand, Charlie, 121 Spaulding, Mada, 217 Spikes Brothers (Johnny and Reb), 282 Spriggins, E. Belfield, 39 Springer, Hazel, 198 Spruell, Freddie, 123 Stafford, Mary, 254, 265 Stamps, Eddie, 31 Starr, Alfred, 242, 246, 297

General Index Starr, Milton, 200, 246–47, 263, 294, 296–97, 377n298 State Street, Chicago (“The Dehomian Stroll,” “The Stroll”), 54, 57–65, 73–79, 89–90, 99, 103, 106–7, 119, 179, 238, 261, 323n12, 324n32 Stearns, Jean, 85, 115–16, 167–68 Stearns, Marshall, 85, 115–16, 167–68 Stein, Ben, 301 Stein, Louis, 301 Stevens, Louise, 12 Stewart & Watkins, 166 Stewart-Baxter, Derrick, 254 Stiles, Josephine, 26–28 Still, William Grant, 260, 318n220 Stinnette, Juanita (Moana), 145, 253 Stokes, Moses, 163, 348n96 “Stolen Child, The,” 180 Stone, E. S., 247 Straine, Doc, 187 Straine, Mary, 254 Stranded Minstrel Show, A, 219 Styles, W. J., 247 Sudler, Joe, 220, 362n535 Suey. See dances Sulis, Fred, 19, 21, 23–24 Sullivan, Ollie, 130 Sunny South Minstrels, 42 Sunshine Orchestra, 282 Sunshine Records, 282 Swanagan, Harry, 259 Sweatman, Wilbur, 73–74, 77, 98, 268, 326n45 Synco-Jazzers, 267–68, 372n140 tabloid (tab) show, 289, 292–94, 376n269 Tall, George, 281 Tampa, Florida, 13–20 Tampa Morning Tribune, 13, 14, 15, 15, 16, 19 tango. See dances Tanguay, Eva, 225, 228 Tartt, M. Magdalene (Lawrence) “The Black Swan,” 40, 41, 319n254 Taylor, Cornelius, 53 Taylor, Edward “Uncle Ned,” 36 Taylor, Eva, 117, 253, 253, 271 Taylor, Jasper, 83 Taylor, Jeanette (Bradford and Jeanette, Bradford and Bradford, Seymour and Jeanette), 86, 88, 88, 266, 267–68, 267, 372n135, 372n140

Taylor, Lovie, 38 Taylor, Nettie, 38 Taylor, Ruby, 171 Taylor, Stella, 68, 71, 326n27 Taylor and Taylor, 167 Teasley, Wiley, 163 Temple, George W., 34 Tenenbaum, Harry, 159 Terry, Frank, 138 Terry, Sonny, 202 Theard, Sam, 228 Theater Owners Booking Association (T.O.B.A.), 5, 25, 31, 39, 150, 157, 159, 178, 190, 194, 199, 200, 201, 229, 231, 241, 246–48, 258, 262, 263, 275, 278, 279, 280, 281, 283, 285, 287, 288, 289–304, 290, 291, 294, 301, 355n321, 376n257, 376n269, 378nn318–19 theater pit bands, 31, 37, 52–53, 73, 126–27, 130, 158, 218, 220, 226, 261, 274, 322n345 They All Played Ragtime (Blesh and Janis), 57 Thomas, Bonnie Belle, 71, 136, 166, 232 Thomas, D. Ireland, 17, 17, 18 Thomas, George W., 39 Thomas, Henry, 21 Thomas, Jessie (blues recording artist), 140, 140 Thomas, Jessie (male impersonator), 15, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 21, 22, 23, 31 Thomas, John P., 38 Thomas, William, 48 Thomas, William Cole (Will Cole), 226 Thompson, Blanche, 31 Thompson, Edward, 122 Thompson, Kelly, 306 Thompson, R. W. , 52 Thompson, Raleigh W., 128 Thompson, U. S. “Slow Kid,” 252 Thornton, Emma, 39, 42, 44, 69, 70, 319n241 Thorpe, Funny, 166 Tiffany, O. F., 80 Tin Pan Alley, 39, 155, 249, 279 Tio, Lorenzo, 40, 319n249 Titus, Bert, 215 Tivoli Music Hall stock company, 216 “Tiz,” 207 Tolbutt, H. W., 247 Tolliver, Alexander. See Smart Set companies: Tolliver’s Smart Set/Big Show Tolliver, Jessie, 342–43n168

405

406

General Index Tolliver, John, 34 Tolliver, Mabel, 174, 348–49n113 Tolliver’s Big Show/Smart Set. See Smart Set companies Too Sweet, Lula (Lulu) (Too Sweets, Two Sweets), 53, 54, 81, 132, 141, 150–55, 151, 153, 154, 218, 232 Too Sweet, Willie (Too Sweets, Two Sweets), 53, 80, 81, 132, 141, 150–56, 151, 153, 154, 218, 232, 343n184 Tramps Social Club, 42 Tribble, Andrew, 202 Trip to Savannah, A, 225 Tri-State Circuit, 71, 158, 165, 180, 204, 209, 219, 231–33, 233, 234, 326n27 “Trixie, the Pride of the Ranch,” 70 Troy, Henry, 51–52 Tucker, J. B., 35 Tucker, Sophie, 228 Tunnah, Renton, 79 turkey trot. See dances Turpin, Charlie, 114, 241, 247, 292, 294, 295, 302, 377n282 Turpin, Tom, 15, 295 Tutt, J. Homer, 95, 267 “Two African Princes,” 47, 64, 71 Two Weavers, The, 78 Tyers, Will H., 213 Tyus, Charles, 275 Tyus, Effie, 275 Uncle Jasper’s Home, 14 “Under the Harvest Moon,” 70 underpayment of musicians/actors, 289, 293–94, 296, 300–301 Undertaker’s Daughter, The, 223 “Unhappy Pair, An,” 129 United Vaudeville Circuit, 245–46 “up-to-date coon songs,” 162–63, 209–10, 239, 345n5 Variety, 257, 265, 269, 287 Vendome Music Shop (Chicago), 278 ventriloquists, 125, 147–50, 150 Victor Recording Company, 268 Vincson, Walter, 122 Vitaphone, 303 vocal quartets, 7, 11, 26, 42–43, 45, 64–65, 80, 104, 107, 192–93, 194, 198, 200, 223, 252, 260, 320n269, 320n278, 327n59, 332n254, 348n87, 354n267, 357n385, 359n460, 380n355 Vocalion Records, 182, 182 Vodery, Will, 213 W. A. Seymour’s Black 400 Minstrels, 216

W. C. Handy’s Memphis Blues Band, 213, 272, 318n220 Walder, Woodie, 281 Walker, Aida Overton, 22, 208 Walker, Billy, 102, 224 Walker, Ed, 9, 52 Walker, Frank B., 280 “Walking Brought Me Here,” 222 walking the dog. See dances Wallace, Sippie, 117 Waller, Fats, 259 Walsh, Dock, 117 Walter Rector’s Darktown Strutters, 201 Walton, Lester, 91, 93, 262, 263 Walton-Pace Producing Company, 262 Warbington, Garnett, 296 Ward, Fredrika, 8–9 Warley, William, 247 “Wash Day in Coon Town,” 40 Washboard Sam, 120 Washington, Dorothy, 189 Washington, Telfair, 174 Wastell, L. W., 136 Waters, Ethel, 55, 73, 92, 100, 254, 261–63, 261, 292, 295, 297, 334n319, 341n102, 370n98, 370n105 Watson, George, 38 Watts, Jim, 34 Watts, Joseph (Watts Brothers), 40, 42 Watts, Lew (Watts Brothers), 40, 42 Watts and Willis’s Darktown Strutters, 176–77 Weaver, Eula Mae (The Two Weavers), 78, 78 Weaver, Julius J. (The Two Weavers), 78, 78 Weaver, Sylvester, 273, 274, 306, 380n350 Weaver Brothers’ Mandolin Sextet, 226 Webb, Richard, 204 Wells, Al, 173 Wendling, Pete, 266 West, William, 25–26 western dramas, 53, 70, 165, 180, 185, 218–19, 221 Whallen, John H., 32, 33, 33 Wheeler, Lillian, 23 “Where the Trail Ends in Mexico,” 193 Whidby, Lula, 107, 254 Whipper, Leigh, 170 White, Alf, 48 White, Evelyn, 31, 156, 164, 169, 173, 174, 177, 346n24 White, Gonzell, 120, 191, 255–58, 256, 368n45, 368n52 White, Joe, 150

General Index White, Josh, 122 White, Leroy, 71, 90, 127, 129–30, 130, 136, 166, 326n27 White, Lizzie, 68 White, Millard, 189 White, Stella, 171 White, Zackaria, 192 Whitehead, Sadie, 71 Whitman, Alberta, 261 Whitman, Essie, 148, 254, 261 Whitman, Mabel, 229, 261 Whitman, Mattie Dorsey. See Dorsey, Mattie Whitman Sisters, 23, 38, 148, 158, 229, 261 Whitney, Salem Tutt, 93, 94, 95, 99, 109–10, 113, 116, 145, 149, 150, 191, 206, 215, 245, 258, 263, 267, 285, 295, 297, 302, 304 Whitney’s Smart Set (Salem Tut Whitney and J. Homer Tutt). See Smart Set companies Wig Wam Quartette, 11 Wiggins, Jack “Ginger,” 31, 164, 171, 346n25 Wiggins, Lena, 164 Wiley, Arnold, 275 Wiley, Irene, 275, 381n375 Wilkson, George, 219 Will Dorsey’s “Song Shop,” 73–74, 326–27n48 Williams, Alberta, 156 Williams, Bert, 62–63, 64, 67, 82, 114, 158, 184, 206, 266, 360n486, 371n119 Williams, Bobby, 37 Williams, Charles, 8 Williams, Clarence, 39, 44, 194–97, 266, 270, 270, 271, 279 Williams, George (drummer), 126 Williams, George (George Williams and Bessie Brown), 275, 289, 375n247 Williams, George “Rubberlegs,” 354n273 Williams, Gertrude, 69 Williams, Hank, 113, 122 Williams, Harold, 332n254 Williams, Henry, 32 Williams, John H. “Blue Steel,” 20, 30, 72, 90, 156, 157–59, 159, 188, 190, 232 Williams, Johnnie, 372n140 Williams, Leona (Leonce Lazzo), 254 Williams, Lewis, 47, 48 Williams, Mary Lou, 372n140 Williams, Minnie, 177, 312n7 Williams, Mose, 177 Williams, Percy, 30 Williams, Philip, 202

Williams, Ray, 305 Williams, Spencer, 226, 227, 265, 266 Williams, Walter, 53, 180 Williams, Webster, 12, 34 Williams and Walker (Bert Williams and George Walker), 251, 323n12, 327n51, 327n59, 360n486 Wilson, Charles, 35 Wilson, Dora, 35 Wilson, Edith, 33–34, 252, 253–54, 253, 270, 336n358, 348n83, 374n202 Wilson, Kid Wesley “Sox,” 275 Wilson, Lena, 188, 208, 254 Wilson, Orlandus, 80 Winston Holmes Music Company, 211, 281, 282, 282 Wise, Fanny, 92 Wood, Carl, 16 Wood, Charles, 69 Woodard, H., 96 Woodard, Jennie, 21 Wooden’s Bon Tons (Henry and Loretta Wooden), 101, 145 Woods, Clarence, 80 Woods, John W. F. “Johnnie”/“Johnny” (Johnnie Woods and Little Henry), 97, 147–50, 150, 157, 187, 201, 213 Woods, Pearl, 12, 24, 31 Woods, Tommy, 150 Woods, William H., 285 Work, John, III, 162 World Beaters Company, 127 Worthy, Peter, 295 Wright, Charles (Charles W. Bebee, “Bee Bee”), 8, 9 Wright, George, 190 Wright, Lamar, 281 Wright, Vivian, 138, 173 Wyer, J. Paul, 118, 120–21, 179 Yankee Robinson’s Circus, 138 yodeling, 81, 101, 125, 144–47, 236, 313n46, 341n118, 341n128, 342n130 Young, Billie, 109, 114, 118, 120, 333n277, 368–69n52 Young, Lillie, 157 Young, Tom, 71, 78, 118, 148, 156–57, 156, 236 Zeek, Billy, 86, 163, 171 Ziegfeld Follies, 184, 249, 371n108

407

SONG INDEX “A to Z Blues,” 278, 374n196 “Abraham Lincoln Jones,” 156 “Adam and Eve,” 154 “Admiration,” 213 “After All,” 10 “After While,” 184 “Aggravatin’ Papa,” 279, 368n28 “Alabama Blues,” 75, 76 “Alabama Boogie,” 123 “Alabama Bound,” 31, 75–76, 158, 196, 311n7 “Alabama Jazzbo Band, The,” 228 “Alabama Levee Glide, The,” 228 “Alabama Tango Band,” 225 “Alabama Toledo, The,” 222–23 “Alabama’s Great Tango Dance,” 227 “Alexander’s Ragtime Band,” 157, 167 “All Birds Look Like Chickens to Me,” 34 “All In Down and Out” (“Down and Out”), 162, 172 “All Night Long,” 78, 80, 101, 106, 149, 206, 311n2 “All ’Round the Mountain Darling Betsy.” See “Comin’ ’Round the Mountain Charming Betsy” “Amo,” 180 “Any Woman’s Blues,” 97, 331n210 “Arkansas Blues,” 213, 265 “Atlanta Rag,” 119, 121

“Barbecue, The,” 218, 361n507 “Barber Shop Chord,” 170, 178, 218 “Because I Love That Man,” 14 “Beautiful Dreams,” 205 “Bell Street Lightnin’,” 203 “Big Sensation,” 218 “Bill Bailey Won’t You Please Come Home,” 31 “Bill Draw,” 195 “Billy,” 39, 319n243 “Bird with a Broken Wing,” 47 “Black Gypsy Blues,” 122 “Black Snake Moan,” 121 “Black Snake Moan No. 2,” 122 “Blind Man Blues,” 85, 116 “Blue and the Grey, The,” 10, 31, 216 “Blue Steel Blues,” 159 “Blues in Indian Style, The,” 219, 229 “Bred in Ole Kaintuck,” 8 “Breeze From Alabama, A,” 11 “Bring It With You When You Come,” 175–76, 349n122 “Bring You Back,” 8 “Broadway Daddy Blues,” 117 “Brown Skin Gal,” 276, 278 “Brownskin Man,” 117 “Bugle Blues,” 307 “Bunch of Blues, A,” 118, 120 “By Myself, Nobody But Me Alone,” 149, 168 “Bye Bye Blues, The,” 128, 284

“Baby, I have Brought You That Hambone Dat I found Last Year,” 30 “Baby mamma did not care what [you] did, but it’s the way you did it,” 187 “Baby Seals Blues” (“Sing ’Em Blues”), 3, 135, 136, 137, 138–40, 138–39, 142, 143–44, 143, 146, 187, 188, 196, 319n249, 339n61, 340n72 “Baby Want More Milk,” 18 “Bachelor Days,” 306 “Baldy Jack Rag,” 88 “Band Played Annie Laurie,” 14

“Cabbage Head Blues,” 282, 283 “Call Me Mamma,” 143 “Call of Dixie Land, The,” 306 “Carrie from Carolina,” 54 “Casey Jones,” 71, 76, 156, 167, 181, 183, 184, 185, 202, 327n61 “Cat Man Blues,” 122 “Certainly Looks Good to Me,” 81 “Change My Luck Blues,” 117 409

410

Song Index “Chicken Pie,” 14 “Chicken Reel,” 167 “Chickens in Heaven,” 149 “Chief Bungaboo,” 205 “Chocolate Baby,” 141 “Church Bell Blues,” 122 “Close dem Windows,” 8 “Cloudy Sky Blues,” 122 “Come After Breakfast, Bring Along Your Lunch and Leave Before Supper Time,” 30 “Come Back, The,” 140, 340n71 “Come Out of the Kitchen and Stop Burning That Ham,” 96–97, 104 “Come Out That Kitchen Gal, And Bring Me That Pan,” 97 “Comin’ ’Round the Mountain Charming Betsy,” 32, 316–17n178 “Congregation Will Please Keep Their Seats Kase Dis Bird Am Mine, The,” 32 “Cool Can Blues,” 196 “Coon with the Raglan Craze, A,” 34 “Corinna Blues,” 121 “Cow Cow Blues,” 119 “Crazy Blues,” 254, 268, 269, 270, 274 “Criswell Blues, The,” 206, 208 “Crow Jane Alley,” 202 “Crow Jane Blues,” 202 “Crow Jane Woman,” 202 “D Double Due Love You,” 140, 140 “Daddie,” 104 “Daddy, Won’t You Please Come Home,” 251–52 “Dago and the Monkey,” 154 “Dallas Blues,” 196, 338n17 “Dat Ain’t Nothing but Talk,” 42 “Dat Lovin’ Rag,” 44 “Decatur Street Blues,” 213 “Deed I Haven’t Dirtied Any Plate Today,” 44 “Dixie,” 76, 174 “Dixie Land,” 101 “Do It The Right Way,” 136 “Do Lord, Remember Me,” 32 “Dog Song, The.” See “Stop Kicking My Dog Around” “Don’t Get It in Your Head That You Aint Aunt Dinah’s Child,” 149 “Don’t Leave Me, Daddy,” 226 “Don’t Never Do Nothing For Nobody Dat Does Nothing For You,” 39 “Don’t You Leave Me Here,” 196. See also “Alabama Bound” “Don’t You Quit Me Daddy,” 139

“Double Crossin’ Papa,” 172 “Down and Out.” See “All In Down and Out” “Down Home Blues,” 173, 261, 261, 262 “Down the Big Road Blues,” 122 “Dreamy Rag,” 170, 178 “Dusky Maidens,” 27, 40 “Dying Rag,” 169, 170, 178, 185 “Dynamite Blues,” 122 “Easton Blues,” 127, 128 “Easy Rider.” See “I Wonder Where My Easy Rider’s Gone” “Elgin Movements.” See “I’ve Got Elgin Movements in My Hip and Twenty Years Guaranteed” “Emaline,” 214 “Every Coon Took a Window But Me,” 32 “Every Race Has a Flag But the Coon,” 32 “Everybody Have a Good Old Time,” 24 “Everybody Loves My Baby,” 117 “Everybody’s Doing It,” 154 “Everybody’s Picking on Me,” 149 “Fairy Blues,” 117 “Fan It,” 97 “Fare Thee, Honey, Fare Thee Well,” 182–83 “Fare Thee Blues,” 183 “Fare Thee Well Blues,” 183 “Fat Gal Am the Best Gal, After All, A,” 152, 342–43n168 “Father, Dear Father,” 14 “Fishing” (“Fishing Blues”), 76, 77 “Florida Blues” (Hezekiah Jenkins), 307 “Florida Blues” (William “King” Phillips), 159 “Fly, Fly, Fly,” 14 “Fo’ Day Blues,” 139 “Frankie and Johnny,” 195 “Friend of Mine,” 147 “Frisco Bear, The,” 223 “Furniture Man,” 31 “Furry’s Blues,” 122 “Gaby Glide,” 186 “Gambling Coon, The,” 17 “Gambling Man, The,” 32 “Georgia Rag,” 223 “Get On Your Sneak Shoes Children,” 14 “Get You a Kitchen Mechanic,” 75, 327n59 “Get Yourself a Monkey Man, Make Him Strut His Stuff,” 96, 275, 278

Song Index “Ghost of a Coon, The,” 10, 32 “Go and Find My Man,” 83 “Goin’ Up the Country,” 122 “Going Home,” 199 “Going Some.” See “That’s Going Some” “Gonna Put You Right In Jail,” 195 “Gonna Raise a Rukus Tonight,” 97 “Good Evening, Miss Caroline,” 218 “Good Looking Girl Blues,” 122 “Good Man is Hard to Find, A,” 175–76, 175, 177, 187, 256 “Good Morning Judge,” 149 “Goodbye, I’ll See You Some More,” 180, 217, 218 “Goodbye, I’m Gone,” 141 “Got the Blues,” 308, 308, 336n361 “Got to Do Something You’ve Never Done,” 154 “Got Your Water On,” 117 “Grandpa Stole My Baby,” 121 “Grave Yard Blues,” 191 “Grizzly Bear, The,” 36, 70, 129, 156, 157, 218, 239, 311n2. See also “Hug up Close to Jack Johnson” “Grocery Man, The,” 223 “Gulf Coast Blues,” 279 “Hangman’s Blues,” 121 “Hannah from Savannah,” 22–23, 217 “Happy Coons,” 18 “Happy Shout,” 195, 223, 226 “Has Anybody Seen My Corine,” 256 “Has Anybody Seen My Man,” 189, 196 “Hastings St.,” 121 “Hear Me Talking To You.” See “Bring It with You When You Come” “Hellish Rag,” 276, 373–74n191 “Hen-Pecked Man,” 307 “He’s a Mean, Mean Man,” 172 “He’s in the Jail House Now,” 72, 88, 177 “Hesitation Blues,” 101, 159, 172 “Hey Hey Blues,” 122 “High Brown Skin Girl,” 76 “High Yellow Blues,” 159 “Highway No. 61 Blues,” 122 “Hobo Blues,” 202 “Hold Me, Parson, Hold Me (I Feel Religion Comin’ On),” 167 “Home, Sweet Home,” 54 “Home Sweet Home Sounds Good to Me,” 158 “Honey, O,” 14 “Honey Dear,” 36

“Honey Dripping Papa,” 122 “Honk a Tonk Rag,” 209–10 “Honolulu Blues,” 306 “Hoodoodle Man,” 24 “Hooking Cow Blues,” 191 “Hop Scop Blues,” 191 “Hospital Blues,” 99, 116 “Hot Corn,” 218 “Hound Head Blues,” 139 “House Rent Stomp,” 195 “How De Do Man,” 34 “How Do You Figure I Miss You?,” 88 “How Well Do I Remember,” 211 “How You Get That Way,” 117 “How You Going to Keep Them on the Farm,” 188 “Howdy Do, Miss Mandy,” 55 “Hug up Close to Jack Johnson,” 156, 157 “Hula Dula Man,” 174 “Humming Blues,” 196 “I Ain’t Going to Work for Nobody,” 129 “I Ain’t Got No Friends or Family Now,” 34 “I Ain’t Nobody’s Fool,” 85 “I Am Certainly Living a Rag-Time Life,” 34 “I Am Happy When I’m By My Baby’s Side,” 10, 32 “I Am Lending Money to the Government Now,” 34 “I Beg Your Pardon Mr. Johnson,” 127 “I Believe I’m On My Last Go Round,” 150 “I Don’t Care if I Never Wake Up,” 11 “I Don’t Know Where I’m Going But I Am on My Way,” 30 “I Don’t Want Nobody That Don’t Want Me,” 82, 97, 116 “I Got Some of That,” 117 “I Got the Blues,” 76 “I Got the Blues, But I’m Too Mean to Cry,” 4, 84, 169, 311n2 “I Hate to Lose You,” 187 “I Love It,” 218, 219 “I Love My Honey Like I Use To,” 14 “I Love My Husband, But O You Henry,” 54 “I Love My Man Better Than I Love Myself,” 97–98, 99, 116, 331n210 “I May Be Crazy but I Ain’t No Fool,” 40 “I Only Had a Dollar to My Name,” 11 “I Want a Real Coon,” 14 “I Want My Lulu,” 14 “I Want Someone to Cure My Love Disease,” 98 “I Want to be Somebody’s Baby Doll,” 174 “I Wants a Man Like Romeo,” 32, 53

411

412

Song Index “I Wish I Were in Heaven with My Brother Bill,” 70 “I Wish We’d a Had This Trouble When the Weather Was Warm,” 52 “I Wonder If Your Loving Heart Still Pines for Me,” 223, 226, 226 “I Wonder Where My Easy Rider’s Gone” (“Easy Rider”), 87, 96, 106, 159, 170, 311n2 “I Wonder Why,” 184 “I Won’t Be Mean No More,” 31 “I’d Like to Take You Home with Me,” 24 “If Dem Chickens Don’t Roost Too High,” 158 “If I Said I Would Marry You, I Must Have Been Out of My Head,” 223 “If My Baby Could See Me Now,” 158 “If The World Don’t Treat You Right, Why Don’t You Come Home?,” 68 “If There Ain’t No Chickens in Heaven I Don’t Want to Go There,” 44 “If You Don’t Change Your Living,” 55 “If You Don’t Like My Peaches, Don’t Shake My Tree,” 219 “If You Got A Little Bit Hang On to It Because it’s Hard to Find a Little Bit More,” 146 “I’ll Be Back in a Minute, and I’ll Do the Same for You,” 162 “I’ll Be Back in a Minute, but I Got To Go Now,” 24, 30 “I’ll Be Gone,” 173 “I’ll See You In The Spring, When The Birds Begin To Sing,” 183 “I’ll Stay Right Here,” 147 “I’ll Take The U.S.A. For Mine,” 135 “I’m a Little Jungle Queen,” 39 “I’m Craving for That Kind of Love,” 251–52 “I’m Glad I’m Married,” 68 “I’m Goin’ to Pizen You,” 307 “I’m Going Home,” 180 “I’m Going to Build a Whitewashed Station Just Two Miles from Glory, So the Black Man Can Have a Chance,” 44, 320n289 “I’m Gonna Get Me A Man That’s All,” 178, 179, 180 “I’m Gonna Get Myself A Real Man,” 196 “I’m just barely living dat’s all,” 39 “I’m Just Pinin’ for You,” 218 “I’m Not That Kind Of A Girl,” 218 “I’m So Glad I’m Brown Skin,” 157 “I’m So Glad My Mamma Don’t Know Where I’m At,” 154, 154 “I’m Tired of Being Good,” 117 “I’m Tired of Dodging dat Installment Man,” 10 “In A Country Town,” 191 “In Dear Old Tennessee,” 218 “In the Jungles I’m a Queen,” 32

“In The Town Where I Was Born,” 212 “Irresistable Blues,” 215 “It Makes No Difference,” 53 “It’s All Gone Now,” 167 “It’s Cold in China Blues,” 140 “It’s Getting Dark On Old Broadway,” 249–50, 367n2 “It’s Hard to Find a King Like Me,” 74, 327n51 “It’s Up to You to Move,” 24 “I’ve Got Elgin Movements in My Hip and Twenty Years Guaranteed,” 69, 106, 116, 117, 129 “I’ve Got Ford Movements In My Hips (Ten Thousand Miles Guaranteed),” 117, 119–20 “I’ve Got Mine,” 42 “I’ve Got the Blues for Home Sweet Home,” 113 “I’ve Got the Blues So Bad,” 141 “I’ve Said My Last Farewell,” 162 “Jack Johnson,” 152 “Jackass Blues,” 196 “Jail House Blues,” 196, 228, 355n297 “Jazz Dance, The,” 222, 222, 223, 225, 226, 227, 228, 362–63n556 “Jealous Hearted Blues,” 193, 194, 354n283 “Jelly Roll Blues,” 146, 155 “Jogo Blues,” 154, 155, 159 “Josephine My Joe,” 22 “Just Because She Made Them Goo Goo Eyes,” 11 “Just Take One Long Last Lingering Look,” 195 “Kansas City Toledo,” 221, 222 “Keep It Up All the Time,” 155 “Keep Your Man Out of Birmingham,’ 122, 337n372 “La Pas Ma La,” 223 “La Suviana,” 14 “Labor for Nobody,” 127 “Lady Africa,” 14 “Laughin’ Cryin Blues,” 272, 273 “Left Alone Blues,” 122 “Lemon Coon,” 158 “Let Him Without Sin Cast the First Stone,” 162 “Let Me Know the Day Before,” 77 “Let the scabs go home,” 26 “Liberty Bell,” 175 “Little Black Me,” 216 “Little Rock Blues,” 122 “Lock Step Blues,” 121–22 “Lonesome Melody,” 173

Song Index “Long Lonesome Blues,” 139 “Long Lost Blues,” 120 “Lorumba,” 193 “Love Me or Leave Me Alone,” 96 “Love Thy Neighbor as Thyself, but Leave His Wife Alone,” 156 “Love Will Find a Way,” 213 “Lovie Joe,” 4, 152, 165, 166, 209, 218, 311n2 “Low Down Blues,” 251 “Low Down Jail House Blues,” 96, 116 “Lucy Long,” 196 “Lump of Sugar Down in Dixie,” 176 “Make a Fuss Over Me,” 39, 319n243 “Mama and Papa Blues,” 256 “Mama Doo Shee Blues,” 139, 140. See also “Baby Seals Blues” “Mamma Don’t Allow No Easy Talking Here,” 152, 153–54, 154 “Mamma Don’t Know Where I Am At,” 153–54, 154 “Man in the Moon, The,” 162 “Mary Jane,” 69, 167, 325n12 “May We Meet Again (Florence Mills),” 253 “Mazy My Dusky Daisy,” 21 “Mean Jumper Blues,” 121 “Meat Man Pete,” 122 “Melody, The,” 208, 358n429 “Memphis Blues, The,” 3, 154, 154, 159, 343n178 “Mexican Blues,” 194 “Mid the Green Fields of Virginia,” 14 “Midnight Choo Choo.” See “When the Midnight Choo Choo Leaves for Alabam” “Million Dollar Bill,” 205 “Miss Jane,” 162 “Miss Lucinda’s Rag Time Ball,” 184 “Mississippi Blues,” 121 “Mississippi Man,” 219 “Mister Man—Pt. 2,” 139 “Moanin’ the Blues,” 121 “Monday Morning Blues,” 223 “Monkey Rag,” 154, 185 “Moon, Moon, Moon, Moon,” 54–55 “Morning, Noon and Night,” 173 “Moth and the Flame, The,” 10 “Mouth Organ Blues,” 307 “Move It On Over,” 122 “Mr. Johnson Turn Me Loose,” 14 “Mumsy Mumsy Blues,” 139 “Music Makes Me Sentimental,” 68 “My Clo,” 21

“My Dream Man,” 152 “My Heart Has Learned To Love You,” 180 “My Hero,” 101 “My Lady Lou,” 10, 216 “My Money Never Gives Out,” 17 “My Own Rag,” 307 “My Place of Business,” 221 “Nearer My God To Thee,” 54, 96, 181, 182 “Neck Bones,” 152 “Nervous Blues,” 253, 254 “Never Heard of Anybody Dying from a Kiss, Did You?,” 184 “Never Let the Same Man Kiss You Twice,” 224 “Never Put Your Mind on No One Man,” 194 “New Dance, The.” See “Jazz Dance, The” “New Salty Dog,” 121, 122 “Next Week,” 157 “Nigger, You Won’t Do,” 14 “Night Time in Dixie Land,” 101 “No Coon Can Come Too Black for Me,” 14 “No One Knows What The Thing Called Love Will Do.” See “That Thing Called Love” “Nobody Knows (What The Good Deacon Does),” 80. See also “Pray for the Lights to Go Out” “Norfolk Blues,” 306 “Not with My Money,” 34 “Nothing New Under the Sun,” 152 “O That Todelo,” 223 “Ocean Roll,” 167 “Off and On Blues,” 117 “Oh, You Devil Rag,” 70 “Oh Daddy Blues,” 279 “Oh You Kid,” 24 “Old Fashioned Blues,” 139–40 “Old Man Shouts What A Time,” 193 “Old Si Riddle Playing His Fiddle,” 221 “On Mobile Bay,” 167 “On Patrol in No Man’s Land,” 213 “On the Rock Pile,” 20, 158 “One Beautiful Morning,” 173 “One More Rounder Gone,” 306, 380n357 “Our Goodman,” 283, 375n224 “Our Heroes and Our Flag,” 24 “Papa Loving Joe,” 193 “Papa Stobb Blues,” 117

413

414

Song Index “Papa String Beans Rag,” 71, 72 “Pas Arnold’s Rag,” 35 “Pass Down the Center,” 14 “Phoebe Green,” 223 “Phrenologist Coon, The,” 22 “Piano Man,” 156, 204 “Plant a Watermelon On My Grave,” 167 “Play That Mikell Rag,” 170, 178 “Play the Luna Park Rag,” 70 “Please Don’t Shake Me Papa, While I’m Gone,” 138 “Please Don’t Trifle with My Heart,” 215 “Poor Me,” 307 “Poor Mourner,” 14 “Practice What You Preach,” 218 “Pray for the Lights to Go Out,” 79–80, 116 “Preacher and the Bear, The,” 39, 318–19n239 “Preacher Lay His Bible Down,” 178 “Preachin’ the Blues,” 140 “Princess Prance, The,” 219, 223 “Prosperity,” 157 “Puppy’s Gone,” 213 “Pussy Cat Rag,” 81, 141 “Put Your Arms Around Me, Honey,” 185 “Ragged but Right,” 10 “Ragtime Boy,” 158 “Ragtime Millionaire,” 34, 52 “Rambler Blues,” 122 “Righteous Blues,” 202 “River Hip Mama,” 120 “River Shannon Flows, The,” 186 “Roamin’ Blues,” 273, 274 “Robert E. Lee, The,” 253 “Rock Island Blues,” 122 “Rooster Said,” 154 “Royal Garden Blues, The,” 191 “Rubber-Necking Moon,” 71 “Sallie, Don’t Forget to Come Back Home,” 96–97 “Sally In Our Alley,” 97 “Sanctified Blues, The,” 159 “Scissors to Grind,” 39, 319n243 “Seven Sisters Blues,” 122 “Shake, Rattle and Roll.” See “You’ve Got to Shake, Rattle and Roll, or My Money Ain’t a-Gwine” “Shake That Shimmy and Shake It from Your Shoulders Down,” 228 “She Moves It Just Right,” 117

“She Wants a Man Like Romeo.” See “I Wants a Man Like Romeo” “She’s Got Jordan River in Her Hips,” 120 “Shim-Me-Sha-Wobble,” 226, 363n578 “Shine and the Titanic,” 117 “Shine On, Harvest Moon,” 54, 180 “Ship Wreck Blues,” 120, 335–36n345 “Shuffle Along Chorus,” 214 “Silver Slippers,” 8 “Silvery Moon,” 36 “Since You’s Got Money,” 10 “Sing ’Em Blues.” See “Baby Seals Blues” “Sing Them Blues.” See “Baby Seals Blues” “Sinking of the Titanic, The.” See “Titanic Blues” “Sister, It’s Too Bad,” 117 “Skinney,” 156 “Sleep Baby Sleep,” 146 “Smile On Me,” 185 “So Long Brother,” 81 “Some of These Days,” 4, 106, 209, 210, 218, 239, 311n2 “Southern Gal,” 166 “Southern Rose,” 218 “St. Louis Blues,” 89, 92, 144–45, 146, 159, 172, 341n102 “Stagger Lee,” 195 “Steamboat Bill,” 167 “Steppin’ on the Puppy’s Tail,” 227 “Stingaree Blues,” 194, 213 “Stop, Stop, Stop,” 185 “Stop Kicking My Dog Around” (“The Dog Song”), 88, 135 “Stop That Rag,” 81, 185, 210 “Street Piano,” 278 “String Beans Blues,” 118, 119, 120–21, 122, 308–9, 336nn351–61, 337n364 “Sugar Babe,” 13, 14, 313n57 “Sugar Blues,” 274 “Summer Time in Dixieland,” 26 “Sweet Daddy,” 256 “Sweet Mama Blues,” 121 “Sweetest Man in Town, The,” 75 “Taint a Doggone Thing But The Blues,” 198 “Taint Nobody’s Business If I Do,” 279 “Take It Easy Greasy,” 117–18 “Take Your Hands Away,” 44 “Teasing Rag,” 179 “Temptation Rag,” 30, 163, 178 “Tennessee,” 208 “Texas Moaner Blues,” 196

Song Index “That Ain’t Got ’Em,” 105 “That Alamo Rag,” 167 “That Crawlin’ Baby Blues,” 121 “That Fascinating Ragtime Glide,” 30, 163, 178 “That Fussy Rag,” 180 “That Plantation Rag,” 86 “That Railroad Rag,” 210 “That Thing Called Love,” 264, 267, 268 “That’s a Plenty,” 148 “That’s Going Some,” 77, 81 “That’s My Man,” 219 “That’s Why They Call Me Shine,” 210 “There Ain’t Nothing Doing in the Loving Line,” 179 “There’ll Be No Jonah Preachers Hangin’ Around,” 34 “There’s Goin’ to be Some Stealing Done,” 92, 330n178 “These Coons are Dead in Line,” 217 “Tie Your Little Bull Outside,” 158 “Time Ain’t Gonna Make Me Stay,” 306 “Time and Tide Waits for No One,” 17 “Tishomingo Man Blues,” 175 “Titanic Blues, The,” 81, 85, 116, 117, 173, 181–84, 182, 199, 351nn176–79, 351n182 “Tom Cat Blues,” 122 “Tosti Good-bye,” 188 “Totaloe Tune,” 152, 185 “Trans-mag-ni-fi-can-bam-dam-u-ality,” 148 “Traveling Mama Blues,” 140 “Traveling Man” (“The Traveling Coon”), 117, 335n324 “Trixie’s Blues,” 214 “Tuck Me Into Sleep,” 199 “Turkey in the Straw,” 184 “Turtle Dove,” 82 “Tuxedo Blues,” 121 “Tweed King,” 20 “Two-Faced Woman Blues,” 196 “Until the Sand of the Desert Grows Cold,” 174 “Vampin’ Liza Jane,” 253, 254 “Walk Like My Man,” 96 “Walking Blues,” 117, 309 “Walking the Dog,” 101, 104, 106, 222–23, 222, 225, 256, 306 “Warmest Baby in the Bunch,” 14 “Weary Blues,” 109, 120, 145, 146 “Wedding of a Chinese and a Coon,” 32 “Weeping Willow Blues,” 128, 284 “Well If I Do, Don’t You Let It Get Out,” 136, 141

“West Virginia Dance,” 81 “What A Time,” 158 “What Deacon White Did When the Lights Went Out,” 113 “What Did Deacon Jones Do, My Lord, When the Lights Went Out,” 106. See also “Pray for the Lights to Go Out” “What Do You Care (What I Do),” 336n358 “What It Takes to Keep My Wife from Running Around I’ve Got It All,” 88 “What Makes You Hold It So Long,” 227 “What You Going to Do When Your Bon Bon Buddy’s Dead?,” 129 “What’s What,” 81 “When a Coon Sits in the Presidential Chair,” 8 “When the Chu Chu Leaves for Alabam.” See “When the Midnight Choo Choo Leaves for Alabam” “When the Cuckoo Sings,” 146 “When the Midnight Choo Choo Leaves for Alabam,” 205, 206, 357n385 “When the Moon Is Down on You and I, Love,” 180 “When the Snow Is on the Ground,” 14 “When They Get Lovin’ They’s Gone,” 118, 120 “Whiskey Blues, The,” 88, 116 “Whistle and I’ll Wait for You,” 70 “White Man Working for Me, A,” 47 “Who’s There,” 218 “Wild Cherry Rag,” 127, 179, 204 “Wild Women Blues,” 117 “Woman Gets Tired of One Man All the Time, A,” 128 “Woman Pay Me Now,” 129, 170, 339n42 “Write a Letter Home,” 8 “Yankee Doodle Blues,” 194 “Yankee Prince,” 152 “Yellow Dog Blues,” 159, 172, 223 “Yongo Head,” 147 “You Are in the Right Church But the Wrong Pew,” 158 “You Are My Baby,” 141 “You Can Have It (I Don’t Want It),” 195 “You Can’t Come In,” 197 “You Can’t Keep a Good Man Down,” 264 “You Dono, Sho Dono.” See “You Don’t Know My Mind” “You Don’t Know My Mind,” 194–95, 198, 354nn288–89 “You Got to Cut That Out,” 10 “You Look Like Something the Buzzard Had,” 96, 278 “You’ll Get Something You Don’t Expect,” 157 “You’ve Got to Shake, Rattle and Roll, or My Money Ain’t a-Gwine,” 127, 158

415

THEATER INDEX Actualidades Theater (Havana, Cuba), 257 Airdome Theater (Jacksonville), 13, 64, 148, 158, 204, 233, 294 Airdome Theater (Tampa), 209 Alcazar Theater (Galveston), 187 Aldridge Theater (Oklahoma City), 247 Alpha Theater (Cleveland), 183 American Theater (Houston), 247 American Theater (Jackson, Mississippi), 158, 166, 180, 204, 232, 233 American Theater Roof Garden (New York City), 204 Amuse U No. 2 (Memphis). See Savoy Theater Amuse U Theater (Memphis), 53, 179, 361n514 Amuse U Theater (Vicksburg), 71, 165, 180, 202, 232, 233 Apex Club (Los Angeles), 197 Apollo Theater (New York City), 73, 373n187 Arcade Theater (a.k.a. 81 Theater) (Atlanta), 55, 69, 86–88, 100, 111, 127, 164, 171–72, 176, 233, 234–35, 234, 237–38, 242, 244, 248, 260, 266, 275–76, 279–80, 295, 300, 304, 307, 366n61, 368n42, 369n69, 373n188, 375n247, 377n285, 380n349 Argonne Theater (Baltimore), 381n369 Attraction Park (a.k.a. Traction Park) (Birmingham), 47, 48, 217 Attucks Theater (Norfolk), 193 Auditorium Theater (Philadelphia), 77, 148, 167–68 Avenue Theater (Chicago), 268, 288

Blue Mouse Theater (Washington, D.C.), 168 Blue Ribbon Theater (Louisville), 37–38, 158 Booker T. Washington Theater (St. Louis), 83, 90, 97, 106, 136, 144–45, 149, 164, 168–69, 184, 187, 205–6, 213, 241, 247, 292, 295 Brooklyn Theater (Charlotte), 182 Brooklyn Theater (Wilmington), 199, 247 Buckingham Theater (Louisville), 32–33 Buckingham Theater Saloon (Tampa), 15–20, 15, 16, 17, 35, 217, 345n5 Budweiser Theater (Tampa), 20, 158, 314n97 Capital Theater (Little Rock), 216 Capitola Theater (Havana, Cuba), 257 Casino Theater (Jacksonville), 365n32 Central City Park (Macon), 31 Central Concert Hall (Tampa), 13, 14, 16 Central Theater (Atlanta), 55, 72, 129, 235, 235, 237 Champion Theater (Birmingham), 87–89 Chicago Café (Havana, Cuba), 24 Chicago Coliseum (Chicago), 278 Church’s Auditorium (Memphis), 44, 48, 49, 50–51, 50 Church’s Park (Memphis), 48, 49, 50 Circle Theater (Philadelphia), 180, 202, 238 Coliseum Theater (Dallas), 269 Collie Theater (Fernandina), 21 Cort Theater (Chicago), 363n584 Crescent Theater (Pittsburgh), 108, 146 Crown Garden Theater (Indianapolis), 72, 74–76, 78–79, 82, 84, 85, 87, 97–98, 131–34, 131, 136, 138, 145–46, 148–49, 152–53, 164, 168, 170, 181–87, 204–7, 210–11, 219, 238, 332n248. See also Washington Theater (Indianapolis)

Bamboo Inn (New York City), 143 Belmont Street Theater (Pensacola), 68, 70, 81, 163, 165, 173, 179–80, 192, 233, 234, 234, 244, 296 Bienville Hotel Roof Garden (Mobile), 42 Bijou Theater (Bessemer), 166 Bijou Theater (Greenwood), 129–30, 130, 232, 339n56 Bijou Theater (Jacksonville), 13 Bijou Theater (Nashville), 200, 213, 241, 242, 246–47, 262, 280, 294, 296–97, 304, 345n3, 366n61, 369n69, 377n299 Bleecker Hall (Albany), 217 Blue Goose Saloon (Memphis), 46

Dixie Park (New Orleans), 43, 70, 179 Dixie Theater (Atlanta), 88, 171, 237 Dixie Theater (Bessemer), 82, 241, 242, 366n61 Dixie Theater (Charlotte), 117, 156 417

418

Theater Index Dixie Theater (Durham), 170 Dixie Theater (Richmond), 92, 96, 238 Dixieland Theater (Charleston), 159, 190 Dolphin Café (New York City), 215 Domino Theater (Fernandina), 18, 21–24, 22, 23 Douglass Club (New York City), 19, 314n85 Douglass Theater (Macon), 31, 92, 96, 111, 155, 174, 176–77, 242, 247, 290, 291, 292, 294–95, 297, 298, 299–301, 304, 315n152, 316n159, 355n321, 366n61, 378n318, 379n322, 379nn324–26, 379n328 Dreamland Theater (Muskogee), 247 Dreamland Theater (Opelika), 351n170 Dreamland Theater (San Antonio), 143 Dudley’s U Street Theater (Washington, D.C.), 238, 239 Dunbar Theater (Columbus), 83, 295, 377n276 Dunbar Theater (Philadelphia), 253, 376n271 Duval Theater (Atlanta), 55, 130, 235 Edmond’s Cellar (New York City), 261 Eighteenth Street Theater (Kansas City), 369n69 81 Theater. See Arcade Theater (Atlanta) El Dorado Theater (Pensacola), 179 Elite Theater (Selma), 138 Elmore Theater (Pittsburgh), 198, 257, 269, 286 Elysium Theater (New Orleans), 58 Empire Theater (Toronto), 259 Empress Theater (Chicago), 149 Excelsior Concert Hall (Jacksonville), 10 Exchange Garden Theater (Jacksonville), 10–12, 22, 31–32, 70, 97, 312n25, 313n39 Fairyland Theater (Washington, D.C.), 240 Famous Theater (Atlanta), 55, 209 Follies Theater (Los Angeles), 198 Foraker Theater (Washington, D.C.), 175, 190 Forty-Eighth Street Theater (a.k.a. The Plantation Club) (New York City), 250–51 Frolic Theater (Bessemer), 369n69 Frolic Theater (Birmingham), 194, 279 Gaither Theater (Cincinnati), 61, 62, 151, 184–85 Garden Theater (Louisville), 129, 185, 346–47n47 Gay Theater (Birmingham), 247 Gayety Theater (Kansas City), 256 Gayety Theater (Mobile), 141 Gayety Theater (Waco), 247 Gayoso Amusement Company (Atlanta), 322n351

Gem Theater (Fernandina), 21, 24–25 Gem Theater (Jacksonville), 200 Gem Theater (Lexington), 76 Gem Theater (Memphis), 53–54 Gibson’s New Standard Theater (Philadelphia), 91–92, 94, 98, 106, 191, 211–12, 228, 245, 364n595, 370n98, 376n271 Globe Theater (Atlanta), 171 Globe Theater (Cleveland), 292–93 Globe Theater (Jacksonville), 13, 69, 77–78, 85, 90, 129, 141, 156–58, 169–70, 180, 209–10, 215, 220, 233, 237 Globe Theater (Norfolk), 238 Grand Central Theater (Cleveland), 247 Grand Palace Theater (Savannah), 27, 32, 35 Grand Theater (Birmingham), 141 Grand Theater (Chicago), 60, 62–63, 73, 90, 93, 99, 105, 155, 175, 190, 197, 222–26, 222, 258, 262, 293, 307, 324n46, 370n94 Grand Theater (Kansas City), 272 Grand Theater (West Palm Beach), 199 Griffin Airdome (Washington, D.C.), 240 Havilin Theater (Chicago), 57 Hawaiian Gardens (Louisville), 37 Haymarket Theater (Chicago), 227 Hippodrome Theater (Galveston), 143 Hippodrome Theater (Richmond), 303 Hot Springs Opera House (Hot Springs), 216 Houston Theater (a.k.a. Ruby Theater) (Louisville), 38–39, 52, 83, 90, 100, 129, 131, 187, 219, 318n228, 377n276 Howard Theater (Washington, D.C.), 92, 204, 222 Imperial Theater (Jacksonville), 295 Indiana Vaudeville Theater (Havana, Cuba), 24 Iroquois Theater (New Orleans), 81, 142 Ivy Theater (Chattanooga), 156–57 Ivy Theater (Newport News), 228 Jacob Park (Louisville), 34 Joel Theater (Chattanooga), 237 Kenwood Park (Louisville), 34 Koppin Theater (Detroit), 172, 201, 293, 295 La Mere Hotel (Atlantic City), 214, 359n460 Lafayette Theater (New York City), 91–93, 98, 150, 215, 222, 261, 269, 273, 306, 368n28, 368n45 Lafayette Theater (Winston-Salem), 247, 376n271 Lagman’s Theater (Mobile), 165–66, 180, 233, 234, 234

Theater Index Laurel Garden (New York City), 306 Lee Theater (New Orleans), 81 Liberty Theater (Alexandria), 192, 247 Liberty Theater (Chattanooga), 175, 241, 242, 247, 288, 297, 376n253, 378n304 Liberty Theater (Greenville), 294 Lida Theater (Chicago), 227 Lincoln Park (Jacksonville), 12 Lincoln Park (New Orleans), 23, 39–40, 41, 42–44, 318n233, 319n247, 319–20n262 Lincoln Park (Savannah), 25–26, 28, 315n126, 315n138 Lincoln Theater (Atlanta), 172 Lincoln Theater (Baltimore), 307 Lincoln Theater (Beaumont), 247 Lincoln Theater (Charleston), 177 Lincoln Theater (Chicago), 58 Lincoln Theater (Cincinnati), 86, 89, 92, 106, 108 Lincoln Theater (Galveston), 187, 247 Lincoln Theater (Kansas City), 247, 274, 282, 286, 287, 354n288, 369n78 Lincoln Theater (Knoxville), 267 Lincoln Theater (Los Angeles), 198 Lincoln Theater (Louisville), 39 Lincoln Theater (New York City), 108, 142, 170, 194, 197, 205, 228, 267 Lincoln Theater (Pensacola), 366n61 Little Chester Theater (Chicago), 61–62, 61, 64, 324n29 Little Savoy Theater (Jacksonville), 11–12, 20, 313n40 Little Solo Saloon (Houston), 8–9, 312n8 Luna Park Theater (Atlanta), 55, 68–70, 69, 115, 128–29, 163–64 Lyceum Theater (Cincinnati), 242, 247 Lyre Theater (Louisville), 75–77, 129, 152, 167, 210, 346–47n47 Lyric Theater (Kansas City), 187, 210, 220–21, 368n35 Lyric Theater (Memphis), 145 Lyric Theater (Miami), 210 Lyric Theater (New Orleans), 247, 262–63, 273, 280, 296, 307, 381n376 Lyric Theater (Newport News), 170 Lyric Theater (Shreveport), 127 Maceo Theater (Columbia), 128 Majestic Theater (Hot Springs), 72, 127, 136, 179, 218–19, 232, 240 Majestic Theater (Montgomery), 247 Majestic Theater (New York City), 251 Manhattan Casino (New York City), 213–15, 214, 254, 260, 360n474 Marion Theater (Chicago), 61, 62

Mascotte Theater Saloon (Tampa), 16–19, 16, 21, 23, 35, 313n64, 345n5, 352n184 Mason’s Park (Jacksonville), 12, 312–13n34 Masonic Theater (Louisville), 36 Mckenzie Theater (Augusta), 210 Merrit Theater (Chicago), 61 Metropolitan Club (Louisville), 34, 38 Metropolitan Opera House (New York City), 368n35 Metropolitan Theater (Memphis), 90, 187, 219, 241, 242, 361n528, 366n61 Mid-City Theater (Washington, D.C.), 302 Moll Theater (Charleston), 247 Monogram Theater (Chicago), 58, 63, 73–83, 85–87, 89–90, 99, 103, 105–8, 112, 114–15, 134–35, 144–46, 148–49, 152, 155, 164, 168, 170, 175, 177, 185, 187–88, 191, 194, 204, 206–7, 210–11, 213, 219, 221, 228–29, 274, 326n42, 342–43n168, 353n223 Music Box Theater (Denver), 197 New Circle Theater (Philadelphia), 148 New Lincoln Theater (Baltimore), 110, 189, 191, 213 New Lincoln Theater (Galveston), 139, 142–43 New Lincoln Theater (Pittsburgh), 198, 281 New Monogram Theater (Chicago), 89, 92, 99, 103, 149, 184, 187, 227 New Pekin Theater (Dayton), 83 New Queen Theater (Birmingham), 143, 172, 174, 177, 184, 242, 366n61 New Royal Theater (Columbia), 247 New Star Casino (New York City), 200 Ninaweb Park (Louisville), 34–37, 217, 317n195 Ocmulgee Park (Macon), 22, 28–31, 28, 163, 294–95, 315n149, 345n19 Ogden Theater (Cleveland), 142 Olio Theater (Louisville), 83, 106, 129, 135, 141, 173 Olivette Theater (Louisville), 96 Olympia Theater (Anderson), 209 Olympic Saloon (Galveston), 9–10, 312n15 Orpheum Theater (Champaign), 259 Orpheum Theater (Newark), 216 Owl Theater (Chicago), 212 Palace Theater (Augusta), 97–98 Palace Theater (Chattanooga), 295 Palace Theater (Ensley), 369n69 Palace Theater (Houston), 126–28, 126, 180, 339n39 Palace Theater (Memphis), 247, 280, 304, 369n69

419

420

Theater Index Panama Café (Chicago), 207 Paradise Theater (Atlanta), 55 Paramount Theater (Memphis), 198 Park Theater (a.k.a. Ella B. Moore Theater) (Dallas), 187, 192, 244, 247, 292, 295 Pastime Theater (Athens), 156 Pastime Theater (Birmingham), 241 Pekin Café (Chicago), 36 Pekin Theater (Chicago), 52, 57–60, 62–64, 73, 128, 204, 204, 226, 240, 324n53, 338n22 Pekin Theater (Cincinnati), 61, 73–77, 82–83, 87, 90, 135, 142, 154, 168, 183–85, 210–12 Pekin Theater (Memphis), 52–53, 164–65, 179, 204, 321–22n332, 346n29 Pekin Theater (Montgomery), 88 Pekin Theater (Savannah), 27, 28, 71, 71, 75, 127, 156, 166, 211, 242, 247, 366n61, 376n271 People’s Theater (Houston), 126–27, 126, 179–80, 339n39 Peters Street Theater (Atlanta), 171 Pike Theater (Mobile), 141, 192, 220, 242, 247, 366n61 Plaza Theater (Little Rock), 247 Poodle Dog Cabaret (New Orleans), 142–43 Princess Theater (Sirmia, Ontario), 146 Queen Theater (Chattanooga), 97, 172, 176, 241 Queen Theater (Montgomery), 70, 234, 234 Queen Theater (Wilmington), 183 Red Fox Music Hall (Tampa), 20, 314n90 Regent Theater (Baltimore), 194 Reisenweber’s Restaurant (New York City), 214, 250–51 Rex Theater (Durham), 148, 157 Rialto Theater (Memphis), 44, 45–48, 45, 46, 50, 52, 203, 219, 231 Riverview Park (a.k.a. White City, Riverside Park) (Louisville), 33–34, 33 Rivoli Theater (Toledo), 257 Robinson Theater (Cincinnati), 58 Roosevelt Park (Jacksonville), 12, 313n44 Rose Theater (Augusta), 211 Royal Palm Theater (Greenville), 129, 232, 233 Royal Pavilion (Chicago), 56, 321n303 Royal Theater (a.k.a. 91 Theater) (Atlanta), 100, 176, 349n123 Royal Theater (Chicago), 61 Royal Theater (Memphis), 53, 145 Ruby Theater (Galveston), 127, 180 Ruby Theater (Louisville). See Houston Theater (Louisville) Ryman Auditorium (Nashville), 41, 272

S. H. Dudley Theater (Washington, D.C.), 238 Savoy Theater (Chattanooga), 237 Savoy Theater (Memphis), 52–55, 71, 140–41, 158, 165, 179–80, 185, 204, 218–19, 229, 232–33, 233, 322n348, 350n161 Seelbach Hotel (Louisville), 167 Senate Avenue Theater (Indianapolis), 212 Simpkins’ Airdome (Georgetown), 146 Sixty-Third Street Theater (New York City), 250–51 South Street Theater (Nashville), 136 Spanish Casino (Ybor City), 16 Star and Garter Theater (Chicago), 259, 259 Star Theater (Kansas City), 80, 136 Star Theater (Montgomery), 163 Star Theater (Pittsburgh), 92, 108, 110, 159, 188 Star Theater (Shreveport), 188, 247 States Theater (Chicago), 227 States-Congress Theater (Chicago), 307 Steinway Hall (New York City), 188 Strand Theater (Jacksonville), 96, 111, 177, 200, 242, 247, 366n61, 375n247 Temple Theater (New Orleans), 71, 232 Tick’s Tivoli. See Tivoli Music Hall (Memphis) Tivoli Music Hall (a.k.a. Tick’s Big Vaudeville) (Memphis), 41, 51–52, 51, 54, 158, 216 Tivoli Theater (Los Angeles), 198 Traction Park. See Attraction Park (Birmingham) Twelfth Avenue Theater (Nashville), 135–36, 210 Two Brothers Saloon (Monroe), 8 Unique Theater (Detroit), 85, 146 Vaudette Theater (Detroit), 103, 208, 241, 247, 295 Victoria Theater (Chicago), 227 Victory Theater (Louisville), 213 Virginia Theater (Chicago), 135 Warwick Theater (Newport News), 177 Washington Theater (a.k.a. Crown Garden Theater) (Indianapolis), 100–101, 103, 107, 114, 146, 150, 174, 177–78, 188, 191, 193, 201, 207–8, 212, 227, 247, 255–56, 269, 307, 332n248, 363–64n588, 380n347 West End Theater (Washington, D.C.), 238 Western Theater (Chicago), 229