(In Which We Meet Bert Williams, The First Black Superstar, And George Walker, His Dandy Sidekick!)
So far in our story we’ve mostly
dealt with the white vaudeville scene, the mainstream of American popular
culture in the 1890s. But as the decade ended, and a new century began, there
was also a smaller, but just as vibrant, Black vaudeville scene, bubbling up;
mostly in such neighbourhoods as The Bowery in New York, the very lowest of the
Lower East Side.
So vibrant was the Black
vaudeville scene, that a number of Black vaudeville acts had even been
recorded. Those records hadn’t sold a lot, but they existed.
There was The Unique Quartette,
who had originally come from somewhere in “The South” – nobody seems to know
exactly where – and who consequently recorded a cute little pseudo-field-holler
called “Mama’s Black Baby Boy”, all about a mischievous little rascal who not
only doesn’t go to school like his Mama thinks he does but uses the ten cents
she gave him to buy gum and gets drunk instead on rum. Given that it perpetuated negative stereotypes, “Mama’s Black Baby Boy” was effectively a “coon song”, at
least in spirit. (“Mama’s Black Baby Boy” is a 6).
The banjo player from The Unique
Quartette, Charles Asbury, may or may not have been Black. Once again nobody
seems to know for sure. Charles certainly believed that he was, having been
orphaned and brought up by a Black family in Florida. He made a bunch of hot
records like “Haul The Wood Pile Down” a song that had been a hit on Broadway
about five years earlier as part of a musical called “Pete.”
“Pete” was notable for having a
Black man as its hero, even if that Black man was played by a white man wearing
blackface, and even if the plot itself is otherwise un-notable, being virtually
the same as the plot of every other Broadway play of the era. That is, it centres
around the question of who is going to get some huge inheritance. Pete does not
get the inheritance. All his efforts, and they are plentiful, are in aid of
helping an already spectacularly wealthy white girl. But Pete himself didn’t
come across as a fawning Uncle Tom character and that felt like progress.
Much was made of the production’s
efforts at being “authentic”, such as the lead actor travelling down to “The
South” to buy clothes off old Black men for his costume, and “Haul The Wood
Pile Down” – presented as a “work song” for loading a steamboat travelling from
Florida to the girls in Georgia, and so, most likely, travelling up along the
Suwannee (“Swanee”) - sounds as though it was written in much the same spirit.
It’s the kind of almost authentic Black song from Florida that an almost
authentic Black singer from Florida might be drawn to. (“Haul The Wood Pile
Down” is a 5)
Although they made some of the earliest Black records, The Unique Quartette were far from the leaders of the Black vaudeville scene. By far the biggest stars on that scene – so popular that even white folk knew about them – were Bert Williams and his dandy sidekick George Walker.
More than just performers, Bert
and George were philosophers, social critics of the whole racist universe in
which they lived. They were also blackface performers. Being Black, Bert and
George knew how to do blackface right. They were “authentic” blackface. That
was their hook. It was right there in the name that they performed under: The Two
Real Coons.
There was George: cheery, snappy, light on his feet, cakewalking around like there was no tomorrow.
And there was Bert, permanently
forlorn, slow talking, heavy footed and shuffling slowly.
On the face of it, this may not
seem hugely different from the Zip Coon and Jim Crow characters of your
traditional minstrel show.* One subtle difference was that in traditional
minstrel shows, the Zip Coon would have had lighter skin and Jim Crow darker.
As the lighter-skinned member of the duo, Bert would have been expected to be
the fast-talking Zip Coon character, and George the slow-witted Jim Crow. And
in the beginning that is how they played it. Until they realized that it was
funnier the other way round.
But such a subtle switch doesn’t quite
explain why Bert and George were pretty much universally regarded as geniuses,
amongst both Black and white audiences.
“Authentic blackface” wasn’t even
an original premise. There had been Black – or Georgia – minstrels marketing
themselves as the real thing for decades. Charles Hick’s was promoting the
Georgia Minstrels back in the 1860s, not only as authentic “pure negroes”, but
authentic ex-slaves to boot.
Authenticity had also been the
primary selling point of Nate Salsbury’s “Black America” production, one of the
biggest cultural events in New York in 1895. It was virtually a living museum
of African American culture in “The South”, including authentic southern
African Americans sitting in not so authentic log cabins, and working in not so
authentic cotton fields, whilst singing possibly authentic – although I
wouldn’t bet on it - Negro spirituals. All of this, the denizens of New York
could see by travelling no further than Brooklyn.
But Bert was different. Bert did
it on Broadway. Bert did it with a Broadway budget. And although he played the
most down and out of all down and out characters, Bert wasn’t playing it for
laughs. Or at least, Bert wasn’t playing it just for laughs.
When Bert played his down-and-out
character - shrugging his shoulders, shuffling his feet, punctuating his
sentences with great big groaning sighs - he wasn’t making a joke. He was
making a statement. Even his wearing of blackface make-up was making a
statement.
Bert and George had spent years
together, touring around the minstrel shows and medicine shows circuit, and had
become convinced that they could do a better impression of Black folk than
white folk could. It was true, they could.
There was only one small problem
with this plan. Bert Williams was nothing like a Jim-Crow character. He was way
too smart and confident to be the symbol of eternal downtroddeness and he often
had trouble getting into character.
Bert was also way too educated.
He’d started in entertainment in order to raise enough money to go to Stanford.
He also had too respectable an upbringing. His grandfather had been the Dutch
Consul in Antigua. Many of his ancestors had been white. Having been born and
spent most of his childhood in the Bahamas, Bert knew next to nothing about
being a Black man in America, other than the fact that white men in America
made his life hell. Bert had to learn how to play a Black man in
America.
Whilst Bert was trying to figure
it out, he and George heard about a gig in Chicago and decided to join a
medicine show and make their way over. This is the point when Bert got a crash
course in being a Black man in America. They were travelling through Texas,
when they were accosted by a lynch mob. The mob was apparently offended that
Bert and George were wearing flashy clothes, as vaudeville players often tended
to do. So the mob took their clothes off of Bert and George and they gave them
sacks to wear. Did their friends in the medicine show help-out our heroes? They
did not. They just left them there in their sacks.
Finally, Bert and George arrived
in Chicago, where one night, Bert decided to put the “burnt cork” on “for a
lark”, for old time’s sake. He’d performed in blackface before, most notably at
a huge World Fair sized event in San Francisco where he and George had
pretended to be members of the Dahomey nation - a country famous at the time
for their mass human sacrifices - when the actual Dahomians had failed to turn
up. This time, in Chicago, when he applied the “burnt cork”, Bert suddenly
connected with the Jim Crow character. He was able to inside the character,
understand his motivations – or distinct lack of - the shuffling shoes and all.
As The Two Real Coons, Bert and
George faced a conundrum. When Black performers corked up in blackface and
played the same characters that the white performers had invented, it told
white audiences that the stereotypes were true. If the big selling point of
Blacks in blackface was their authenticity, then these must be authentic
stereotypes.
Most performers didn’t think too
deeply about all this. It was just part of the job, and besides, it was
depressing. But Bert was a bit of a philosopher, so navigating this paradox
would be his life’s-work. Bert and George’s initial solution was to give these
stereotypes, these characters, depth. To improve the representation of the
Black race. Their characters often still conformed to stereotypes, but they
were also more than just a stereotype. They were still doing a minstrel show,
but it was a minstrel show with heart, with empathy, and with a better plot.
Not to mention better song titles such as “I Don’t Like No Cheap Man (Dat
Spends His Money on De’stallment Plan)”, a vaudeville and sheet music hit in
1898.
Cakewalking was something that
Bert and George were particularly famous for. Upon hearing that the Vanderbilts
were holding their own cakewalk, William Vanderbilt having become somewhat
obsessed with the dance, Bert and George showed up at the front gate of the
Vanderbilt Mansion and challenged him to a cakewalking contest. William didn’t
show, but it got in all the papers. That is how you become the two most popular
Black performers in America.
It also helps if you record some
phonographs. Few actually famous performers were making phonographic records
yet, either because they were not yet convinced that phonographs were popular
enough to be worth their while, or because it was still the crackle-hiss era
and most phonographs still sounded extraordinarily bad. Bert seemed to agree.
He hated making records. He hated the way they sounded once he’d made them.
Given that Bert’s act largely consisted of him mumbling and bumbling his way
through his woes,** it’s amazing they sound any good at all. Bert’s vocal
technique was uniquely unsuited to the phonograph recording process. But they
were good publicity, and – being a Black man in America at the dawn of the 20th
century – Bert and George needed all the help they could get.
Since about the only popular
songs dealing with the condition of black folk in urban society were “coonsongs” it is these that he recorded. When these tunes had been recorded by
Arthur Collins they were appalling and meanspirited, filled with the sense of
kicking a man whilst he’s down, but when recorded by Bert they become opinion
pieces on the obstacles that Black folk in America faced every day.
Bert and George were not the only
famous Black people fighting prejudice by subverting the “coon song.” That was
also the hope of the composers of “Under The Bamboo Tree”, one of the biggest
hits of 1902.
You can understand why people
would remember a tune like “Under The Bamboo Tree.” It’s a very catchy tune,
with the singer going “like-a” a lot in an accent whose origin is even more
vague than the presumed location of the fictional land of Bally-Ho.
“If you like-a me, like I
like-a you and we like-a both the same
I like-a say this very day, I
like-a change your name.
'Cause I love-a you and lov-a
you true and if you-a love-a me
One live as two, two live as
one
Under the bamboo tree”
That is because the action takes
place in the also fictional land of Matabooloo. A land, which, despite being
imaginary, appears to be populated, not by Matabooloos, or Matabooli, or
whoever, but by the very real race of Zulus.
“Under The Bamboo Tree” was
written by Black tunesmith Bob Cole, who was quite a major player in the Black
vaudeville scene, having co-written the musical “A Trip To Coontown”, the first
musical completely written and produced by Black artists. It was also a parody
of “A Trip To Chinatown”, the same musical that had turned “After The Ball”
into such a big hit. He also performed a skit called “At Jolly Coon-ey Island.”
Bob Cole didn’t write “Under The
Bamboo Tree” by himself. He got a lot of help by J Rosamond Johnson, who had
recently arrived in New York with his brother, James Weldon Johnson, a name
that I’m pretty sure you did not expect to come across at this point!
James Weldon Johnson was already well
known and well respected within the Black community, mostly for writing a poem
called “Lift Every Voice And Sing”, in which he encourages Black folk from
coast to coast to lift ev’ry voice and sing, til earth and heaven ring, ring
with the harmonies of liberty. To let their rejoicing rise, high as the
list’ning skies, and let is resound loud as the rolling sea.
This was extremely inspirational stuff.
James’ brother – J. Rosamond Johnson-
composed music to go along with it and it was sung by 500 students on Abraham
Lincoln’s birthday at the school - Florida Baptist Academy, Jacksonville,
Florida - where he taught and would later become Principal.
By 1902, James and his brother
were in New York, trying to make it in the world of musical theatre. This
required James and J to work within the confines of the “coon song”, taking it
upon themselves to rid the “coon song” of ridicule. Or, as J. Rosamond put it:
“we want to clean up the caricature.”
J was the driving force in this
crusade – James having far more important things to do with his time, such as
being sent by the Teddy Roosevelt administration to Venezuela as part of a
diplomatic corp – and he got together with the similarly inclined Bob Cole,
starting up their own vaudeville act, both of them dressed up in the finest
fashion. Before this, and also long after this, a Black vaudeville duo would
have required at least one of them to be dressed in rags. Bob and J were trying
to show the Black community what a Black man looked like when a Black man was
in a tuxedo and tails. They also made a big deal out of their policy of not
including such cliches as chickens, watermelons or razors in their tunes.
And in “Under The Bamboo Tree”
they shifted the setting of the song as far away from America as possible, substituting
Tin Pan Alley’s traditional trees of choice – apple trees being particularly
popular – with the more exotic sounding “bamboo tree.”
The lyrics of “Under The Bamboo
Tree” are in every way the polar opposite of “Lift Every Voice And Sing.” They
are delightful nonsense. And so, when the record companies decided they needed
to record a version, there was no question who they’d choose. They choose
Arthur Collins. Who sings the thing in what I am sure he considers to be a
convincing Mataboolian accent, and honestly, since the country is fictional,
who are we to say it is not. They also chose Byron Harlan to play the female
part, chirping that she truly does like-a Arthur. “Under The Bamboo Tree” was
one of the catchier tunes of 1902 and – like “Hello! My Baby” before it - it
deserved much better than this (Arthur & Bryon’s version of “Under The
Bamboo Tree” is a 3)
“Under The Bamboo Tree” was a huge success and naturally inspired copycat songs, often in the worst possible way. Theodore F Morse, for example, did more than just transfer the action to the African jungle, he also – in “Up In A Cocoanut Tree” - transferred the action to monkeys. This was almost certainly NOT what James and J had in mind when they declared they wanted to clean up the caricature.
“Up In A Cocoanut Tree” deals
with a lonely King Baboon who falls in love with a sweet 16 year old
chimpanzee. Young though she is, the chimpanzee is wise in the ways of the
world and decides to make him wait. So the King Baboon kidnaps her, coo-ing
sweetly as he does. This was followed a few years later by “Down In Jungle Town
– A Monkey Ditty” which again involved a king monkey - or as the song puts it
so well, “monkey doodle, wagged his noodle, he was the Jungle King” - falling
in love with a pretty monkey maid. The main difference is that instead of a
kidnapping the monkey maid the King Monkey pounds a competing beau over the
head with a coconut. Such monkey business would become a popular Tin Pan Alley
trope over the next couple of decades. We’ll be seeing a lot more of it.
“Under The Bamboo Tree” may have led
to unintended consequences but it was one way out of the “coon song” cul de
sac. And by the first few years of the 20th century, there were few
members of the Black vaudeville circuit who weren’t fumbling around in their
own attempts to clean-up the caricature.
Ernest Hogan, for example, was
back, trying to make amends to the Black community for the plague that “All
Coons Look A Like To Me” had wrought up them, and starring in “Clorindy: Or The
Origin Of The Cakewalk,” a musical mostly written by two members of the Black
community almost as well known and well respected as James Weldon Johnson. The
creative forces behind “Clorindy: Or The Origin Of The Cakewalk” were the poet
Paul Laurence Dunbar and the composer Will Marion Cook.
Paul and Will were deeply
concerned about the reputation of, as they put it, “the race”. Will was
something of a philosopher composer who believed that Black folk should not
emulate white people, but create their own Black culture and music etc. Paul
had attended a cakewalk and “negro exhibition” – including a watermelon eating
competition in which the winner ate three-quarters of a melon in a very small
number of seconds - at Madison Square Garden, and came out appalled and
concerned that it made Black folk look like fools.
Together they produced “Clorindy:
Or The Origin Of The Cakewalk”, for which Ernest Hogan sang very on-brand
Ernest Hogan style songs: “Darktown Is Out Tonight”, “Hottest Coon In Dixie”
and “Who Dat Say Chicken In Dis Crowd?”, songs all written in a single night of
drinking whiskey and eating steak.
“Clorindy” played in the Roof
Garden of the Casino Theatre, which meant that it was officially on Broadway!
This was a big deal for Black performers!! The first all-black Broadway
performance.
“Sons of Ham” was even bigger!
Will Marion Cook wrote the music for it, but Paul Laurence Dunbar so hated the
experience of writing “Clorindy” – was it the hangover from drinking all that
whiskey? the fact that the songs still seemed an awful lot like “coon songs”? –
that he wasn’t involved.
The title of “Sons Of Ham” was based
on the Biblical belief that the sons of Noah’s son, Ham, were the ancestors of
all African people. Ham also happens to be the name of a rich white character
in the play whose sons are learning to be acrobats whilst at boarding school. A
couple of tramps pretend to be said sons in order to inherit the fortune of
Ham, despite the disadvantage of being very obviously not them. Amazingly they
seem to be getting away with it, at least until the sons themselves show up. It
was through such absurdist plots that Will Marion Cook hoped to dismantle
racism.
One of the reasons for the
success of “Sons Of Ham” was that it featured the two most popular Black
performers in America, probably the only Black performers in America to be able
to boast of being household names. For “Sons Of Ham” starred Bert Williams and
George Walker.
Bert even wrote a song for the musical:
“The Phrenologist Coon”, thereby demonstrating that whatever the reason for Bert
and George being the two most popular Black performers in America was, it
certainly wasn’t due to dumbing their songs down. “The Phrenologist Coon” is
quite scientific. Or at least pseudo-scientific. “The Phrenologist Coon”
features Bert presenting the latest in phrenologist thought***: “Now by us
scientists it is often said, if a coon has an egg shaped head, means chickens
he will steal.” It goes in ‘If his head’s shaped like a melon, it’s no sign
that’s he’s insane, but if his head looks like a bucket, he’s got water on the
brain.” And indeed, the cover art for the sheet music, does include a Black man
with a head that looks like a bucket!
Bert had a bit of help writing
“The Phrenologist Coon” from – guess who? – Ernest Hogan, who had spent his
time since “Clorindy” touring Australia and Hawaii as “The Unbleached
American”, before coming back to work on “The Smart Set”, a touring vaudeville
troupe who attempted to shine a light on racism through comedy and acrobatic
routines. It was all becoming a little bit cerebral, perhaps a little bit too
cerebral for the average record buyer as “The Phrenologist Coon” does not
appear to have been a big hit, no matter how charming Bert sounds singing the
thing. (“The Phrenologist Coon” is a 3)
Bert and George also recorded
another Ernest Hogan hit, “I Don’t Like That Face You Wear”, which largely
covers the same themes as “Coon, Coon, Coon”, but without the hero having to
resort to enamelling, nor forced to tolerate the taunts of racist birds. But
his girlfriend does tell him that she doesn’t like “your big broad nose and
your kinky hair”, preferring instead “the man with the curly hair, a real old
poser with a skin so fair.” The hero of “That Face” attempts to completely
change his image, changing his clothes “most every day” to try and win the
girl, but in the end being rejected because of the one thing he couldn’t change
(“I Don’t Like That Face You Wear” is a 4)
“Sons Of Ham” also featured a hit
that was arguably the first Bert Williams masterpiece - or at least it would be,
if it were better recorded - “All Going Out and Nothing Coming In.”
“All Going Out and Nothing Coming
In” was pure Bert Williams fare, philosophizing about the fickleness of luck in
this world, and equally importantly, the fickleness of friends, a theme to
which he would return a great many times. There’s a good reason for “All Going
Out And Nothing Coming In” being so philosophical, as it was written by James
Weldon Johnson, in what was probably his most successful effort at uplifting
the “coon song” and to turn it into a force for good.
“All Going Out And Nothing Coming
In” begins by reminding listeners that money is the root of all evil, before
concluding that, ultimately, it’s your friends who are the worst. Case in
point: your friends will row your boat, and the piano will tinkle away happily,
when you have money and life is good.
But, when your money’s running low, the piano will turn on you and start
playing foreboding minor chords that will cause your friends to abandon you, whilst
telling you “I told you so” for good measure. The contrasting moods between the
verses, where Bert has money, and the choruses, where he does not, is far more
thematically ambitious than anything Tin Pan Alley was coming up with at the
time. It was almost as though they were
trying to make art, and not just money! A motivation that makes perfect sense when
you believe that money is the root of all evil (“All Going Out And Nothing
Coming In” is a 6)
“All Going Out And Nothing Coming
In” was big, but “Good Morning, Carrie” was even bigger. “Good Morning, Carrie”
was a song everyone could appreciate, being about a romantic dreamer serenading
his love, playing a banjo outside her window every morning. At least on the surface
that’s what “Good Morning, Carrie” is about. On the surface there appears to be
hardly any social commentary at all. But in “coon songs” there was always
something else going on, and “Good Morning, Carrie” is actually about Black-on-Black
competition between two “dusky suitors.”
Both the banjo-serenading and the
fear of competition from fellow Black men, was a popular theme for Bert
Williams. Although he doesn’t appear to have ever recorded it, Bert had
previously written a hit “Oh I Don’t Know, You’re Not So Warm” aka “I Thought I
Was A Winner” in which a banjo-playing Black man serenades his love – clearly a
popular woo-ing technique - until he faces competition from another Black man,
who slices him with a razor. This – particularly the use of a razor - is pure
“coon song.” The sheet music promotes it as a “Comic Song and Refrain with Coon
Parody” with the “Coon Parody” printed in extra bold. In the world of “coon
songs” a song about a Black man slashing another Black man to death counts as
comedy.
“Good Morning, Carrie” wasn’t
written by Bert, but by Chris Smith and Cecil Mack, both of whom were key
figures in the growing Black vaudeville scene. Chris and Cecil would work with
Bert regularly, setting up the first Black-owned music publishing company, Gotham-Attucks
Music Publishing Company, also known as “The House of Melody"
“Good Morning, Carrie” is one of
only a handful of recordings on which it was George who took the lead. George
didn’t make many records. He didn’t like the way his voice sounded on them. He
was not wrong. George over-enunciates and sounds like a dandy in pain, even
when he is trying to woo a winsome, cute, and dainty maid by playing a banjo
outside her window every morning. It makes perfect sense however that George
would sing this one. He was, after all, the dandy in the duo, and thus the one
most likely to be a-courtin’ a pretty maiden, singing tender songs of woo-in’
like a turtle dove a-coo-in.’ He was a very charming and good-looking guy –
particularly when wearing a top hat, in which he was rarely seen without – and
in real-life woo’d many a woman. Bert’s primary role in “Good Morning, Carrie”
is – in a very Byron Harlan move - to play Carrie herself. Of all of Bert’s
impressive list of undeniable talents, female impersonation does not appear to
be one of them.
Other than the mention of
competing “dusky suitors”, “Good Morning, Carrie” largely avoids racial
politics and focuses instead on the romance. Mercifully, no one is sliced with
a razor. Sensible decision. It widens the appeal.
Despite singing about a banjo,
“Good Morning, Carrie” was recorded with a piano instead. This makes no sense,
both logically, and technically. We already know that banjos recorded better
than pianos. (“Good Morning Carrie” is a 3; it would be much improved by a
banjo… and when something can be improved by a banjo that means it must be
pretty bad)
As huge hits as these records may
have been, Bert didn’t hurry back to yell into a funnel. His next batch of
records would not be until four years later. He was just too busy. He was
starring in “In Dahomey”, a musical about (a) the same African kingdom that
Bert had once impersonated at the fair in San Francisco and (b) in keeping with
Bert’s philosophical musings about the African American experience, probably
the only Broadway musical ever to be written about the American Colonisation
Society’s Back to Africa movement, a political movement where white Americans,
worried that there were too many free African Americans in the early 19th
century, decided that the perfect solution to this perceived problem was to pay
them to go back to Africa, specifically Liberia. Once again, this does not, on
the face of it, sound like a promising premise for a Broadway musical, but it
would turn out to be an even bigger hit than “Sons Of Ham”, playing at the New
York Theatre, about as big a theatre as you could play. “Florodora” had played
there!****
Maybe it was the extensive
cake-walk scene. Promotional posters included a picture of Bert dancing on top
of a giant cake! Or maybe it was the return of poet Paul Laurence Dunbar, who
had been lured back into the team.
Whatever the reason for “In Dahomey”s success, it wasn’t due to possessing a great big pop-crossover show-stopper, since other than a reprise of “All Going Out And Nothing Coming In”, it did not possess one.*****
Continuing the African theme, Bert and company, followed “In Dahomey” up with
“Abyssinia”, a musical named after the only African country not to be colonized
by Europeans, and revisiting many of the same themes of American Black folk
going back home to Africa, with hilarious results, hijinks and misunderstandings.
More specifically, “Abyssinia”
involves George – or his character, Rastus Johnson – winning the lottery - a
slight variation on the usual coming-into-an-inheritance plot device - and
deciding to spend his winnings on a visit the land of his ancestors. It’s
highly unlikely that Rastus’ ancestors would have come from Abyssinia – today’s
Ethiopia – since it’s on the opposite side of Africa from the Atlantic slave
trade, but as the only African nation not to be colonised, it offered a strong
and symbolic selling point. Upon arrival in Abyssinia, Bert and Geroge find
themselves hopeless outclassed by the king and his subjects, who are always
talking in a decidedly distinguished and prim and proper manner.
Possibly due to this sense that
they were beginning to repeat themselves, “Abyssinia” was not a huge hit. This
is despite being an elaborate production, featuring not only a waterfall on the
stage but a bazaar complete with camels and donkeys… and a lion! Also, despite featuring the best thing that
Bert – and quite possibly anyone of the decade – had ever done: “Nobody,” the
definitive depiction of a Black man eternally down of his luck.
“Nobody” would be the record that
would define Bert William’s public persona for the remainder of his career;
that of a man full of nothing but pain. With nobody to soothe his thumping,
bumping brain. With nobody to give him 25c so he can go and get something to
eat. All of these woes Bert mumbles over the top of a plodding, stumbling,
hungover wheeze, backed by a slovenly trombone moan so tired and sad that it
serves as a punchline punching down. There are moments when the trombone seems
to be ridiculing Bert, and moments when Bert seems to be ridiculing it back.
“Nobody” became one of the
biggest hits of 1906. An instant hit, from the moment that Bert stepped out on
stage. “Nobody” was such an instant hit that before Bert managed to get to a
recording studio himself, Arthur Collins had already recorded multiple
versions. I am too terrified to listen to them. I presume they are terrible. I
presume that’s why Bert finally decided it was time to return to the studio, to
record his own version; he couldn’t let Arthur Collins get away with it.
"Nobody" isn’t entirely
perfect. Or at least the original 1906 version isn’t entirely perfect. Vaudeville
being what it was, the band couldn’t help itself but insert both a jaunty intro
and a jaunty outro to proceedings, which ruins the entire effect (the 1906
version of “Nobody” is an 8) Fortunately Bert would record a better – and also
less crackly – version in 1913, by which time Bert had sung it so often that
he’d perfected every dejected Bert-ism. He’d also had time to include a couple
more verses, about nobody inviting him over for beer and another about a
railroad wreck, where nobody – “not a sooouuulllll” - takes the engine
off his neck. There’s also another verse where nobody warns him that he's
whittling a stick of dynamite. That 1913 version is perfect (it’s a 10! It’s
the first 10 in the book! Although, since we talking about the 1913 version, it’s
not the first in a chronological sense… if that makes any sense)
Black Broadway had come a long
way. In terms of popularity, particularly amongst white folk. In terms of plots,
in that Bert and George productions actually possessed them, at a time when
most Broadway productions tended to be not so much riddled with plot holes, as
the entire production being one big gaping plot vacuum.
And in terms of black
representation. Ernest Hogan, for example, was by now refusing to perform in
blackface – preferring instead to perform in what he described as “natural
blackface” – although, like Bert’s character in “Nobody”, his character –
‘Rufus Rastus” in the musical of the same name, not to be confused with
George’s similarly named character in “Abyssinia”– was a Black man who was
constantly in trouble, his luck swinging from bad to worse, as he tries to pay
off a $20 debt. At least until the end of the play when he finds $50,000 in a
cereal box. This was something that would almost certainly never happen to a
Bert Williams character.
Bert was never able to top
“Nobody”, as the perfect distillation of his dejected shuffle in a 3-minute pop
song format, no matter how hard he tried. And he tried hard! At a time when
most of his white contemporaries were singing jaunty tunes about automobiles,
Bert’s records were full of nothing but “Nobody” quantities of bad luck.******
“Constantly”, for example, was
quite possibly the most blatant attempt at re-creating the magic of a previous
hit in an industry that sometimes seemed to involve little else but blatant
attempts at re-creating the magic of previous hits. Whereas “Nobody” was
referring to the number of friends Bert had whenever Bert had a dose of bad
luck, “Constantly” was referring to the frequency with which Bert had said
doses of bad luck. Bert starts it off in the most Bert way imaginable: “there
is a word called misery”, he mumbles. He mumbles through the verses – just like
in “Nobody” – he half-heartedly sings the chorus – just like in “Nobody” – he
seems to make fun of the trombone, the only thing in this world that sounds
more dejected than himself – just like in “Nobody.” But it’s only about half as
good. (“Constantly” is a 5)
“Constantly” was a moderate hit,
but it didn’t replace “Nobody” as the song everyone wanted to hear Bert sing. How
often did everyone want to hear Bert sing “Nobody”? Constantly.
Bert really ended up hating that
damn song. To quote Big Bert himself, he wished that the songwriters – one of
which was himself – were “strangled or drowned or talked to death.” Legend has
it he started pretending to forget how it went and had this whole bit when he’d
pretend to look for the lyrics in a note pad.
Even when everything was
beginning to look up for Bert, he could always be relied on to look on the
downside. The next Bert Williams’ vehicle would be “Bandanna Land” about a
Black man who inherits a fortune and buys a park – the titular “Bandanna Land”
- for Black folk’s exclusive use. Inheriting a fortune isn’t the end of Bert’s
problems though. Now he has successful people problems. Now he’s "Tired of
Eating in the Restaurants”, where all the food tastes the same.
“Bandanna Land” also featured a
hit by Chris Smith and Cecil Mack, “You’re In The Right Church, But The Wrong
Pew,” but unfortunately it wasn’t Bert that recorded it. It was Arthur Collins
and Byron Harlan, playing the role of a couple of Black ladies, and as badly as
you might expect (it’s a 2).
There’s likely a good reason for
Bert not recording “Right Church/Wrong Pew”. “Bandanna Land” was the moment
that things began to really go wrong for the Bert and George team. But mostly,
for George.
For George was dying of syphilis.
Or more specifically paresis, caused by syphilis. He was constantly stuttering.
He was forgetting things. It would be a few years before he finally passed on
to the great “Bandana Land” in the sky, but he couldn’t continue as part of the
act. He had to retire. And Bert had to shuffle along without him.
Many doubted that he could. The
whole point of the Williams and Walker show was that George had all the vim and
vigor, whilst Bert shuffled around and groaned. The contrast was the point.
Would audiences pay to just see Bert moan and groan?
Turns out they would. Bert wasn’t
over yet. If anything, he was about to become even more popular.
*Bert wasn’t a fan of the term Jim
Crow to describe the character he was portraying. He preferred “Jonah Man”, the
man for whom nothing ever went right, the kind of man who would not be
surprised at all if he found himself ending up inside a whale! He sang a song
about it.
**Bert’s vocal technique may have
been all mumbling and grumbling but he clearly mumbled and grumbled in a loud
booming voice, otherwise he would not have been heard in the backseats of a big
Broadway theatre.
***Quite possibly not actually an
accurate representation of phrenologist thought.
**** We’ll be discussing
“Florodora” in the next chapter.
******“In Dahomey” did lead, however indirectly, to one of the craziest ragtime records of the 1900s: 1903’s “The Ragtime Drummer”, a ragtime record with plenty of drums, even if said drums were of the marching band variety a rattling drum solo over the top of a superfast marching band! “The Ragtime Drummer” was composed by one background member of the Bert Williams-verse – J. Luebrie Hill – and recorded by another, James I. Lent - two spectacularly un-ragtime names if ever there were one – the drummer, and only white member, of Bert and George’s touring band when “In Dahomey’ toured the UK in 1903. Sadly this would not lead to an explosion of drum-heavy ragtime records, and James would end up working as a trap drummer in a pit orchestra, although this was sometimes at the Hippodrome and thus quite a big deal (enough of a big deal that it was mentioned on the record label)Although drums were now a critical part of the orchestra of any self-respecting vaudeville venue, they remained rarely heard on record (“The Ragtime Drummer” is a 7)
******* “Abyssinia” itself
featured “Here It Comes Again,” basically “Nobody” as a comic skit. Compared to
the down-and-out-hopelessness of “Nobody”, the stakes on “Here It Comes Again”
are slight: Bert is walking down the street with Ben Brown. Two girls call them
over, but one of them has a face like a string of sausage meet. Bert comments
on this, only to find out that it’s Ben Brown’s sister. Boom-tish! (“Here It Comes Again” is a 4)
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