Since I play the bones, and they were used extensively in the minstrel shows, I’ve done a bit of research. Many minstrel songs were adapted to “old-time” songs, and eventually to Bluegrass and country. Also, many minstrel songs that were written down are the only remaining vestiges of the slaves’ musical heritage. Even if they were adapted and often exaggerated and stereotyped by the minstrel performers, many of the performers had a true appreciation for the music and the culture of the slaves. The “humor” portions of a minstrel show were by far the most mocking, and maybe should only be remembered as an embarrassment. But the music was far more interesting and influential.
I think it would be a shame if we couldn’t learn a lesson from the racial stereotyping that was accepted at that time – to ignore it would be to erase that lesson. And at the same time, we can appreciate the music, which often stands on its own. It’s not a simple issue – even some minstrel groups were made up of black people, and later turned to making fun of white’s fears of black people. Some black people today are for the recognition of minstrel music, arguing that it actually helped the races to come together by giving many white people their first taste of black culture.
I can remember seeing an old Hollywood ‘Biopic’ of Forster on T.V. when I was a youngster.
Can’t remember much about it,but I’ll bet it featured the ‘Darky’ stereotypes of the films of the 1930’s
The article Rise and Fall of American contains some controverial points and some factual errors- realtively minor to most people. One of the controversial matters is the claim that most of the music of the minstrel show was black music. Doubtless some minstrel musicians did visit plantations, at least enough to get some ideas about music and dancing of the slaves. However, minstrel music, at least as reflected in the banjo tutors of the times drew a lot on European music. Check out this link for a different view from Clarke’s. http://jochen.scheytt.bei.t-online.de/minstrelshow/minmusic.html
This link discusses how much Scottish and Irish music was used for the tunes in minstrel shows. Zip Coon is an example. It is an variant of The Rose Tree which as far as I know is an English tune. Hans Nathan had demonstrated in some detail how Irish reels were altered to make minstrel tunes.
The banjo player sometimes credited with inventing the 5-string banjo is Joel Walker Sweeney, not Jim Sweeney. He may have added a fourth long string to the banjo but he most certainly did not add the thumb string. It was already there in pre-Sweeney pictures of gourd banjos.
Sounds a lot like Mick Jagger to me. He never got around to singing blackface, of course, but he’s darker than Michael Jackson these days and I suppose his songs are more often misogynist than sentimental. (Sentimentally misogynist?)
Jagger’s stage act was a copy of James Brown’s less acrobatic moves and his style close enough to the Americans he imitated to justify the charge of pretense. The difference seems to lie in the fact that any parody involved was wholly unintentional, although Jagger to me sounds as though he always seemed to be distancing himself a little from full involvement (unlike Eric Burdon for example) as though he were looking for a back door out if faced with an adverse reaction. The essential difference, however, is that he and his ilk openly admired the people they copied.
It will take a long while before we can listen to ‘comic’ minstrel music without cringing I think. Miles Davis’ reaction to English R&B copies illustrates how easy it is for mutual incomprehension to fuel needless prejudice. He actully acknowledged he like Jagger’s singing. But he was furious about the Animals being so-called. ‘That is what they think we are’ was his dismissive comment. Actually, the Animals were so-called not because of insulting associations of the musicians they liked with the primitive but because they wanted a tough local image and the toughest gang in Newcastle at the time was called the Animals. But how was the rest of the world supposed to know that?
Because I perform both Stephen Foster songs and other minstrel music, I disagree with Jim Mc on questioning its value, on the basis that I think its historically and culturally important. Much of what I am reading above focuses on blackface and pantomiming stereotypes (like Al Jolson) but in the late 1840s and 50s, this was the most widespread form of folk/popular music in America. Because we were already a multi-national and multi-ethnic country, there was a real gap in American cultural music in those days as people spread across the continent. Minstrel music filled that gap.
Minstrel players came to California with the Gold Rush, bringing the tunes, and new lyrics were added that had nothing to do with “darkies” or whatever. Some worked as gold miners and their lyrics directly reflect their experiences and observations, including adding mining terms into our lexicon. They don’t necessarily have great technical musical value, but either do the 12-bar blues, but that would be outrageous to so state nowadays.
And as mentioned, I have found variants of old Scots-Irish tunes, like Cumberland reel, referred to as “ethiopian” melodies. But if you are going to question their value because they aren’t African enough, you are rejecting their Celtic origins instead of celebrating the power of the music to be so transformed. You can draw your own conclusions about this tendency.
Minstrels were working musicians, often multi-talented and some composed new tunes, like John Stone (“Old Put”) who added a lot to our American culture. I can’t turn my back on them, especially since I take their work into California schools for teaching history and earn some bread as well! And yes, I do have to dump a few of the nouns here and there for the kids.
To discount them reminds me of the frequent censoring of Mark Twain, though his work is more esteemed and arguably more important than folk music. Just because something makes you socially uncomfortable does not build a case to reject it, especially when its much bigger than just one person’s activity.
Part of the problem is that the country was quite
thoroughly racist, and there was this sentimentality
about slavery and ‘darkies’ that was simply
part of American life. I remember that when I
went to school about 1947-8, the teachers explained
that the slave owners treated the slaves well.
Slavery wasn’t so bad..
So a lot of talented people latched on to art forms
that were implicitly racist, part of the water in which
they were fish. I once saw a Bing Crosby movie
in which it was shown how white people
invented the blues; there was a loyal black
man, not a member or the band, of course, referred to as
a ‘darky.’ Viewed with much affection, in fact,
in the movie. Well, at least they were there,
not completely invisible…though I much
prefer Muhammed Ali.
I would suppose that a fair number of the
performers who did this didn’t like racism very
well, and believed that black folks deserved better
than they were getting in America. Remember
Rochester, Jack Benny’s gravelly voiced
negro manservant on his radio show?
Had a lot of good lines. Concerning the
question of the condition of the brakes on
Benny’s antique Maxwell automobile, Rochester responded:
‘Brakes? Mr. Benny ain’t got no brakes.
When he needs to stop he shoves a broomstick
through the hole in the floorboards and prays
for an open manhole!’
Jews, more than any other white folks in
the USA, thought black people were oppressed,
and I would hardly be surprised if Benny and
Jolson were opposed to segregation. They
were perfomers, not activists, of course.
Lots of ironies. One day when we’re more secure,
maybe we’ll revisit en masse the music of that time, and
the theater–but it won’t be in my lifetime. Best
My grandfather was quite fond of Stephen Foster tunes, which he played on the fiddle, alongside traditional fiddle tunes. I heard Stephen Foster talked about quite a bit, when I was growing up.
I find it amusing that some of the church songs are set to his tunes, yet the hymnal editors would either omit a composer credit altogether, or use his initials, or, at the very most, S. C. Foster.
I don’t think that Stephen Foster is played down by musical historians, but has been written of extensively in most books on American musical history.
It is more common that his songs be rendered P.C., than omitted. I was reading a book of American traditional song that had a P.C. reworking of Old Uncle Ned.
There was a time when Stephen Foster’s songs were considered by learned men to be the legitimate folk music of America, even though it was of known authorship, as it so functioned that way.
Gone are the days when my heart was young and gay.,
Gone are my friends from the cotton fields away,
Gone from the earth to a better land I know,
I hear their gentle voices calling “Old Black Joe.”
Chorus
I’m coming, I coming, for my head is bending low:
I hear those gentle voices calling, “Old Black Joe.”
Why do I weep when my heart should feel no pain
Why do I sigh that my friends come not again,
Grieving for forms Now departed long ago?
I hear their gentle voices calling “Old Black Joe.”
Where are the hearts once so happy and so free?
The children so dear that I held upon my knee,
Gone to the shore where my soul has longed to go.
I hear their gentle voices calling “Old Black Joe.”
Yes, it’s lovely and endearing,
but it’s also lucky Old Black Joe couldn’t get
his hands on an AK-47.
He’s very much
with us today–the sweet, dear,
docile negro longing for the next
world, but now the lid is
off the kettle and the
rage that lived deep
in OBJ is boiling over.
Here’s another song…
If you miss me in the Mississippi River,
You can’t find me nowhere,
Come on over to the public pool,
I’ll be swimmin right there.
And if you miss me in the cotton fields,
You can’t find me nowhere
Come on over to the Savings Bank,
I’ll be telling right there.
And if you miss me at the back of the bus,
You can’t find me nowehre,
Come on over to the front of the bus,
I’ll be riding right there.’
It’s no accident that African-Americans tend to identify with and glorify Staggerlee rather than Old Black Joe.
But Foster certainly had a way with words. When Stephen Foster wrote about topics that are enduring and expressed attitudes that are universal, he wrote songs that future generations will surely return to again and again. Hard Times is stunningly evocative.
Take a look at http://levysheetmusic.mse.jhu.edu/ follow the link to browse the database, and then look for the pages on Stephen Foster music. Original publications of lots of his songs are there to be found. It’s really very interesting to look at the style of the songs, and the lyrics.
Thanks for all of you to provide me valuable information. I learned a lot about US music history of “minstrel shows” and the background about Foster’s songs. Stephen Foster’s songs are full of passion but unfortunately some of his songs became sensitive due to the painful and unjustified historical event.
I’m amazed that no one’s brought up Blazing Saddles yet - the early scene where the railroad tough tries to get the black workers to sing “The Camptown Races”.
Heh. Right up there with Sheriff Bart’s taking himself hostage.
