Footnotes From “When It’s All Going Out and Nothing Coming In” by Bert Williams to “Nobody” by Bert Williams

Footnotes From “When It’s All Going Out and Nothing Coming In” by Bert Williams to “Nobody” by Bert Williams 

*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)