V
About the year 1830 an American comedian, W. D. Rice (1808-1860), popularly known as 'Daddy' Rice, stood in a stable in Louisville, Ky., and watched an old, deformed and decrepit negro singing a lively tune to words something like these:
'Come, listen all you gals an' boys,
I'se jes' from Tuckyhoe;
I'm goin' to sing a little song,
My name's Jim Crow
Weel about and turn about and do jes' so;
Eb'ry time I weel about I jump, Jim Crow'—
and a number of other verses recounting the wondrous adventures of 'Jim Crow.' They are not very exciting, to be sure, and their humor hardly appeals to our jaded minds to-day. The tune, too, is mediocre enough. But 'Daddy' Rice saw a great opportunity. He learned the song and sang it, accompanied by all the funny turns and motions of the old negro and many more. Soon after he was appearing in a theatre in Pittsburgh, and, meeting a negro porter on the way, took him to the theatre, borrowed his clothes, donned them, blackened his face with cork and added a black wig of matted moss. When he appeared on the stage and sang 'Jim Crow' the audience roared with laughter; but when he added topical verses of his own and made his antics still funnier, the house went wild. To add to the mirth, Cuff, the negro, whose professional services were in demand, came on to the stage in négligé and frantically expostulated to reclaim his clothes. Of course, the audience mistook the interruption for part of the 'show' and the signal for a climax of hilarity.
That was the birth of 'Negro Minstrelsy'—a type of entertainment which for the greater part of the century was one of the chief delights of the American public. How much, or little, of it was 'negro' matters little—the original impulse, at any rate, came from that source, and the rich opportunities for humor—of an innocent sort—to be gotten out of lampooning the race, were eagerly exploited. The 'dandy darky,' the character created by Rice, soon became a stock article of the common show and he made his way to every stage. The 'cork fraternity,' as one of its members called the profession, enlarged rapidly and soon numbered many distinguished representatives. Joe Jefferson himself made his début in that capacity at the tender age of four, when he emerged from a bag on 'Daddy' Rice's shoulders. As for 'Daddy' himself, he added song after song to his répertoire, until there were enough for several evenings' entertainment. He toured not only America but England as well and acquired a considerable fortune.
He was, by the way, not the first to 'blacken his face professionally.' From Charley White's diary[77] we learn that already in 1799 'Mr. Graupner' did so, 'Pot Pie Herbert' in 1814, Andrew Jackson Allen in 1815, etc., etc. In that year, indeed, according to Mr. Krehbiel, a song description of the battle of Plattsburg was sung in a drama to words supposedly in negro dialect. But organized negro minstrelsy did not exist until 1843, when Frank Brown, Billy Whitlock, Dick Pelham, and Dan D. Emmett appeared in the Chatham Square Theatre, New York, as the Virginia Minstrels and were 'received with deafening applause.' They were soon followed by band after band and hence transferred their labors to England to escape competition. When they returned there were the 'Kentucky Minstrels,' 'Congo Minstrels,' 'Original Virginia Serenaders,' 'African Serenaders,' and many more, among them the famous Christy's Minstrels, organized in 1844 or 1845.
The droll humor of the negro, his native wit and ludicrous ways were a rich field for travesty to draw upon. Exaggerated, burlesqued in showman fashion, it was the joy of audiences still fond of slap-stick comedy. But the pathetic side of negro existence, told in sentimental ballad and stories of plantation life, appealed as well. No less a person than Thackeray was affected by it. According to the famous author's own testimony, it 'moistened his spectacles in a most unexpected manner.'
From a mere accessory to the performance the negro minstrel show, thanks to the ingenuity of Edwin T. Christy, spread itself to usurp the entire evening. Christy created the form, the stereotype, as it were, of the minstrel show. He provided for a first part during which the performers, from four to twenty in number, seated in a single row with the 'interlocutor' in the centre and 'bones' and 'tambo' at either end, engaged in repartee and song in negro dialect alternately. During the second part or 'olio' there were banjo playing, clog dancing, and other 'specialties.' It might be remarked here that the negro minstrel developed a style of instrumentalism all his own, consisting largely of violin and banjo playing, often in trick fashion, between the knees, over the head, behind the back, etc. The third part of the minstrel show degenerated into a musical variety entertainment as far removed from plantation life as possible.
Increased virtuosity notwithstanding, this breaking away from the negro traditions of the old minstrelsy brought about decay. Gorgeous show and glitter superseded negro characterization, just as the coon song took the place of the negro ditty, while only the blackened faces recalled the original intent of the entertainment. At present the minstrel show is dead except in amateur circles of the country town.
But it has served its purpose. It has created a stock of songs which, though not strictly folk-tunes, are so nearly so as to find a legitimate place in this chapter. Only indirectly were they influenced by the negro; their composers were the minstrels themselves—the minstrels of fifty years ago, who constitute as unique a type as has existed in America. Indeed, they wrote the greater part of the 'popular music' of their day. Their entertainment called for a distinct and peculiar type of songs and the supplying of this demand called into play much genuine talent, though the showman was sadly deficient in musical grammar. His first models were probably the negro folk-songs with their stanza and chorus, the former a simple melody, the latter in improvised harmony. 'The melodies which were more direct progenitors of the songs which Christy's minstrels and other minstrel companies carried all over the land were attributed to the Southern negroes; songs like "Coal Black Rose," "Zip Coon,"[78] and "Ole Virginny Nebber Tire" have always been accepted as the creation of the blacks,' says Mr. Krehbiel, 'though I do not know whether or not they really are.'
Most of the names of minstrel composers are now forgotten; B. R. Hanby, the author of 'Ole Shady'; Eastburn, who wrote 'The Little Brown Jug'; the writers of 'Gentle Annie' and 'Rosa Lee, or Don't be Foolish, Joe,' live on by their songs alone. But there are two names, perhaps three, that stand out above the rest and should be remembered as the names of composers. One of them only was a minstrel, Dan Emmett, and one of his inspirations has sufficed to make him immortal.[79] Many other popular and original tunes flowed from his facile pen—'Old Dan Tucker,' 'Early in the Morning,' etc.—but none has achieved the fame of 'Dixie.' The second famous writer of minstrel tunes, Stephen Foster, was a composer who wrote in the minstrel style simply because it was the prevailing style and because he found a ready market for that sort of product. But, regardless of the artistic value of that kind of music in general, Foster must always be counted among the really great American composers.
Stephen Collins Foster was born in Lawrenceburg, now a part of Pittsburgh, Pa., on July 4, 1826. By instinct and by inheritance he was a Southerner, for his father had come from Virginia and his mother from Maryland. Foster was not a professional musician; he acted as bookkeeper for his brother, a prosperous merchant of Pittsburgh, and got his inspiration at camp meetings. He taught himself the flageolet, studied Mozart and Weber assiduously, and acquired a knowledge of French and German by his own efforts. He dabbled in composition, turned out a 'Tioga Waltz' for four flutes (!), and in 1842 wrote a song, 'Open thy Lattice, Love,' to words by someone else. He and five friends constituted themselves a little singing club and for this he wrote many songs, including 'Oh, Susanna,' 'Old Uncle Ned,' etc., in the style of the negro folk-song. Though a German musician of Pittsburgh criticized his work for him, he certainly had no real musical training. By the advice of friends he devoted several years to the voice and pianoforte, 'but he was afraid that too much study would impair his originality! Hence, if his harmonies are bald, his accompaniments empirical, and his part writing unskilled, we need not wonder, but only regret that so graceful a flower was not planted in richer soil.'[80]
After submitting 'Oh, Susannah' to a minstrel troupe Foster adopted that style for most of his songs. There are about one hundred and sixty in all, a small number of them true gems, perhaps unsurpassed in their way; many, especially the later ones, mere pot-boilers. 'The Old Folks at Home,' 'My Old Kentucky Home,' 'Massa's in de Cold, Cold Ground,' 'Old Black Joe,' are practically immortal. They are to America what Silcher's and Weber's songs are to Germany—they are as simple and beautiful in their expression as they are sincere in their sentiment. They were born of the impulse of creation and it is to be remarked that this applies to the text as well, for Foster wrote nearly all of his own lyrics.
There are besides a number of sentimental ballads—'Nellie Bly,' 'Nancy Tile,' 'Come where My Love Lies Dreaming,' etc.—perhaps somewhat more artificial, rather trivial in sentiment and certainly more German than negro in their substance—and some comic pieces, such as 'The Camptown Races.' His last work was 'The Beautiful Dream,' written in 1864.
Foster had a gentle, sweet nature, but lacking in self-discipline and easily led. He was childlike in his sentiments, possessed of a pathetic affection for his parents and an almost maniacal love for his mother throughout his life. He married at the age of twenty-eight, but soon separated from his wife, became shiftless and addicted to drink. Want drove him to rapid production—he could write a song in the morning, sell it at noon and spend the proceeds at night. Finally, he found himself in New York, penniless, without employment and in 1864 came to a tragic end in a cheap East Side hotel at the age of thirty-three.
His life, with its grim romance, reminds one of the career of that other American genius, Edgar Allan Poe. Both were aristocrats of Southern antecedents and made of the very essence of the American stock. Both spoke in an idiom remarkably attuned to the best of the American genius. Foster's melodies partake essentially of the folk manner—they are volkstümlich—they might have been folk-songs, except that they are individually conceived, that their birth is legitimate, so to speak. In the hearts of the people they rank as folk-songs, and, their appeal being permanent, interesting conclusions might be drawn from them as to the qualities of the American national character.
The other non-minstrel composer whom we desire to mention as a writer of popular tunes of the minstrel type is Henry Clay Work (b. Middletown, Conn., 1832, d. Hartford, Conn., 1882). Work also was not a trained musician in the modern sense, but a musician of earnest endeavor and sincere expression. Louis C. Elson says 'he sounded the most characteristic note of all the American composers of the time, and his songs give almost every note in the gamut of expression, from sarcasm to triumph, from gaiety to military glory.'
The emancipation movement inspired Work in the direction of pseudo-negro songs—'Kingdom Comin’' and 'Babylon is Fallen' being the first of a series of contributions to the music of the Civil War. Work's most lasting success is, of course, 'Marching Through Georgia,' which properly comes under the head of patriotic songs.