Vaudeville

Vaudeville (the variety show or music hall), was a later development of Minstrelsy, the heyday of Vaudeville was after the turn of the century and lasted until the depression.  

In 1880 Tony Pastor tried an alternative to Minstrelsy and black buffoonery, a clean family show format, a kaleidoscope of novelty acts, Vaudeville was born.

Many of the black-face performers from Minstrelsy, like Eddie Cantor, went into Vaudeville and continued their black-face characterizations. 

1895-1905 the 'coon songs' took over and the action was in Tin Pan Alley and Vaudeville theatres. 

1883 J S Putman, 'New Coon in Town' was the first. 'The Preacher and the Bear', 'My Gal is a High Born Lady', 'You're just a Little Nigger, still you're Mine, All Mine', 'Bake dat Chicken Pie', 'Every Race has a Flag but the Coon'. 

These songs were not really an extension of the Minstrelsy tradition, they were racist musical jokes, they had a city edge, in yer face toughness, almost belligerent, which was absent from the jovial Minstrels. The minstrel songs strutted, the coon songs swaggered.

The coon songs abandoned the water melon, the chicken and the possum and in came the traumas of love and money and the razor. 'Bring Your Money Home', 'If Money Talks It Ain't on Speaking Terms with Me', 'Never Use a Razor 'less You Want to Raise a Row', 'R-A-Z-O-R'. There were few memorable melodies, the verse was the set up and the chorus was the punch line. Easy 4/4 with dotted eighth syncopations. 'If the Man in the Moon were a Coon', 'I've got a White Man Working for Me'. The appeal seemed to come from the white women who sang them in the Vaudeville theatres - Stella Mayhew, Marie Cahill, May Erwin, Clarice Vance and Sophie Tucker. Hefty coon shouters all, leather lunged belters sending every word of the lyric to the back row.

In 1893 white May Irwin became identified with a series of coon songs, the most violent was 'The Bully Song' of 1896. May Erwin graduated from Vaudeville to Broadway.

By 1890 New York was fast becoming the centre of music publishing and Vaudeville. But there were no black performers breaking through into the first class white theatres nor into regular Tin Pan Alley publishing. By 1900 blacks were involved.

Ernest Hogan (1865-1909) was the first black performer to establish himself in white theatres. He started in minstrelsy with the 'La Pas Ma La' dance, but he would soon be eclipsed by Bert Williams who wrote a song with him, 'Ninth Battalion on Parade'. His innocent 1896 song, 'All Coons Look Alike to Me' was a smash for Witmark and also widely misunderstood. It competed with white Ben Harney's, 'Mr Johnson Turn Me Loose' and 'Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight'.

It was Will Marion Cook's 'Clorindy: the origin of the cakewalk' which put Hogan in the top white theatres. Successful tours of Australia and Honolulu made Hogan enough money to be the first black resident of Harlem. 

He appeared in a series of shows, 'Enchantment' and 'Rufus Rastus' established him as a star.

With 'Oh Say, Wouldn't it be a Dream' Hogan touched the heart as well as the funny bone, he was now hot property. The show 'The Oyster Man' followed in 1907.

His benefit show included all the best coloured stars of the time - Williams & Walker, Cole and Johnson, Will Marion Cook, James Reese Europe, Joe Jordan, Will Tyers, James Vaughn ...

Bert Williams (1874-1922) was the black superstar, a sun, he moved from the black universe to the white, every black writer of note produced material for him. He performed in black face all his life but people laughed with him not at him. He started in minstrelsy and medicine shows with George Walker (1873-1911), billed as 'The Two Real Coons'. New York went wild, the first Cakewalkers in town, the first crossover dance, what a craze. The orchestras had difficulty with the syncopation but what fun! The pair wrote songs, 'Dora Dean', 'Oh I didn't Know, You're not So Warm', 'I've Been Living a Moderate all My Life', 'Who dat Say Chicken in dis Crowd', 'My Castle on the Nile', 'Snap Shot Sal', 'The Phrenologist Coon', 'She's getting More Like White Folks Everyday', 'Bon Bob Buddy', 'Late Hours'. Not only a vaudeville act they did shows, 'Senegambian Carnival', 'A Lucky Coon', 'The Policy Players', 'Sons of Ham' and a big one, 'In Dahomey', a black Broadway bonanza, and less successful 'Abyssinia', 'Bandana Land', 'Mr Lode of Koal'. Will Marion Cook, J Rosamond Johnson, Bob Cole, Cecil Mack, Tim Brymn, Harry vol Tilzer contributed songs and Williams started recording in 1901. 'I'm a Jonah Man', 'I maybe Crazy but I ain't No Fool', 'Nobody', 'Believe Me', 'Let it Alone', 'My Old Man' from Alex Rogers sum up Bert, a wry observer of his own luck, a man who expects the worst and gets it, weary and matter of fact for laughs not sympathy.

The only black in the Florenz Ziegfeld Follies 1910. Song, dance and comedy and the elegant chorus girl. 'Constantly', 'Believe Me', 'Play that Barbershop Chord'.

Ziegfeld was the most famous exponent of glamorous naughtiness, slapstick musical comedies became sophisticated. Eddie Cantor, W C Fields.

Follies 1911, 'Dat's Dahomey', 'Woodman Spare that Tree'.

Follies 1912, 'Borrow from Me', 'My Landlady'.

Follies 1914, 'The Darktown Poker Club'.

Follies 1919, with Irving Berlin, 'A Pretty Girl is Like a Melody', 'You'd be Surprised', 'You cannot Make Your Shimmy Shake on Tea'. Bert's last Follies.

Recordings - 'Eve Cost Adam just One Bone', 'I want to Know Where Totsie Went', 'I'm gonna Quit Saturday', 'Everybody Wants the Key to My Cellar', 'The Moon Shines on Moonshine', 'Ten Little Bottles', 'Save a Little Dram for Me'.

1921 a new musical 'Under the Bamboo Tree' failed ... 

Billy Kersands (1842-1915) wide mouthed black comedian immortalised the coon songs, 'Mary’s Gone with a Coon', and another coon song by Ernest Hogan, 'All Coons Look Alike to Me'.and, of course, Al Jolson.

Some early songs which may have featured in some of the shows -

Aloha Oe 1878
Arkansas Traveller 1851
Aura Lee (Armay Blue and Love Me Tender) 1861
Barcarole 1864
Battle Hymn of the Republic 1862
Beautiful Dreamer 1864
Buffalo Girls 1844
Carry Me Back to Ol' Virginny 1878
Darling Nelly Gray 1856
Dixie (In Dixie's Land) 1860
Far Above Cayuga's Waters 1860
Flow Gently, Sweet Afton 1838
Funiculi, Funicula 1868
Good Night, Ladies 1867
I'll Take You Home Again, Kathleen 1876
In the Sweet Bye and Bye 1868
Jeannie with the Light Brown Hair 1854
Listen to the Mocking Bird 1855
Little Brown Church in the Vale 1865
Little Brown Jug 1869
Long, Long Ago 1843
Lullaby (Brahms) 1868
(The) Man on the Flying Trapeze 1868
Massa's in De Cold, Cold Ground 1852
My Old Kentucky Home 1852
Now the Day is Over 1869
Oh! Susanna 1848
Old Black Joe 1860
Old Folks at Home 1851
Reuben and Rachel 1871
Santa Lucia 1849
Seeing Nellie Home (Quilting Party) 1848
Ship That Never Returned 1860
Silver Threads Among the Gold 1873
Sweet Betsy from Pike 1854
Tenting on the Old Camp Ground 1864
There is a Tavern in the Town Before 1883
Tramp! Tramp! Tramp! the Boys are Marching 1864
Turkey in the Straw (Old Zip Coon) 1834
When Johnny Comes Marching Home 1863
When You and I were Young, Maggie 1866
Where, Oh, Where Has My Little Dog Gone? 1864