Voices of Black AmericaHistorical Recordings of Speeches,Poetry, Humor & DramaNotes on the Speakers and the RecordingsBOOKER T. [ALIAFERRO] WASHINGTON(Franklin County, Virginia, circa April 5, 1856 - Tuskegee, Alabama, November 14,1915)Washington was a prominent nineteenth-century social leader and educator,the founder of the Tuskegee Institute in Tuskegee, Alabama (1881). His influentialautobiography, Up from Slavery, was published in 1901.The famous ten-minute address excerpted on this private record ¡V the onlyknown recording of his voice ¡V was originally delivered at the opening of theCotton States and International Exposition in Atlanta, Georgia, on September18, 1895. Long known as "The Atlanta Compromise", it would have a substantialimpact on race relations in America and, accordingly, has undergone considerablere-appraisal by successive generations of social historians. In the recording,Washington reads the first through the third paragraphs complete, skips thefourth, and closes in the middle of the fifth, with only minor alterations to theoriginal published text (generally, added and deleted conjunctions and adaptedpronouns).This Columbia Personal Record was reissued in 1919 or 1920 on BroomeRecords, one of the earliest African-American-owned record labels, first advertisedby owner George W. Broome in The Crisis in May 1918. Numbered BroomeNo. A, it was simply a Columbia pressing with a Broome label pasted over.J.[AMES] A.[NDREW] MYERS (c. 1878-1928)Myers spent his later years as professor of religion at Fisk University inNashville, Tennessee, and was the second tenor of the famous Fisk JubileeSingers. He often gave readings of Dunbar’s poems in the male quartet’spublic appearances. Four of the Fisk [University] Jubilee Singers’ Victorrecordings, sung by Messrs. Work, Ryder, Myers, and O’Hara, were coupledwith Myers’ readings. The original labels read "Rev. J. A. Myers | of FiskUniversity", the selections labeled "Dialect Recitations". Take ¡V2 of WhenMalindy Sings, recorded on December 21, 1909, was assigned for issue asVictor 35097, according to company ledgers, but all copies inspected usedthe rejected Take ¡V1 from December 9th.EDWARD STERLING WRIGHT (? - ?)Though he may have been a prominent actor, little is known about EdwardSterling Wright. Even the original slips accompanying his Edison cylindersgive no career details. He made only three four-minute Blue Amberol cylinders,all in 1914. Five of the six titles he recorded were Dunbar poems.The earliest publication of the poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar (Dayton,Ohio, June 27, 1872 - February 2, 1906) recorded by Rev. Myers andEdward Sterling Wright were as follows: "A Banjo Song" in Oak and Ivy, thefirst published collection of Dunbar’s poems (Dayton, Ohio: Press of theUnited Brethren Publishing House, 1893); "When Malindy Sings" in Majorsand Minors (Toledo, Ohio: Hadley and Hadley, 1895), Harper’s Weekly (June27, 1896), and Current Literature (September 1896); "The Ol’ Tunes" inIndianapolis Journal (Summer 1892) and Oak and Ivy (ibid.); "In theMorning" in Lyrics of Love and Laughter (New York: Dodd, Meade and Co.,1903); "A Little Christmas Basket" in Lyrics of Love and Laughter (ibid.); and"’Howdy, Honey, Howdy!’" in the Burlington [Iowa] Hawk-Eye (June 8,1902) and Chattanooga Times (June 15, 1902).JAMES WELDON JOHNSON(Jacksonville, Florida, June 17, 1871 - Wiscasset, Maine, June 26, 1938)Johnson was an author, lyricist, critic, editor, diplomat (serving in the federalConsular Service, 1906-1913), and educator. He was the NAACP’s first fieldsecretary (1916-1920) and its first, influential executive secretary throughoutthe 1920s. His most prominent publications included Fifty Years & OtherPoems (1917), The Book of American Negro Poetry (1922), two collections ofAmerican Negro spirituals, in collaboration with his brother, J. RosamondJohnson (1925 and 1926), Black Manhattan (1930), Negro Americans, WhatNow? (1934), and two autobiographies: The Autobiography of an Ex-ColoredMan (1912; 1927) and Along This Way: The Autobiography of James WeldonJohnson (1933).God’s Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse was published in April1927 by Viking Press, New York. Inspired by his frequent travels throughoutthe country as an NAACP speaker (1916-1931), The Creation dates from1920; the other six sermons from late 1926. In this rare Musicraft set, hisonly commercial recordings, Johnson reads the opening prayer and the firstthree sermons. The records were issued posthumously ¡V first listed in theGramophone Shop (New York) Record Supplement for August 1938, less thantwo months after Johnson’s death in an automobile accident ¡V as dubbed frominstantaneous discs made circa 1937 or early 1938.[JAMES] LANGSTON HUGHES(Joplin, Missouri, February 1, 1902 - New York, May 22, 1967)Poet and author Langston Hughes was one of the vivid, defining figures ofwhat has become known as the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. The originalAsch set, Hughes’ first commercial recordings, was titled variously:Langston Hughes on Asch Records, Langston Hughes Poems, and Poemsby Langston Hughes. It was first listed in the Gramophone Shop RecordSupplement for May 1945, but may have been recorded as early as August,1944: the preceding matrix numbers, 710-712 and 714-715, belong to theMary Lou Williams Trio session recorded in New York on August 10, 1944(though in fact the numbers etched in the waxes of Asch pressings may notbe the actual master numbers). The matrix number missing from the Hughessequence (723) was not used in the set.Many of the Hughes poems underwent significant changes in both textand title by the time they were published. Composite titles, using brackets,are given in the listing, reconciling the Asch labels, Hughes’ own announcementswithin the recordings, and the actual published titles. The liner notes to thealbum describe the material as "a group of poems from Poetry, Esquire andother magazines, not yet published in book form, plus several new oneshitherto unpublished anywhere". The 1942 Shakespeare in Harlem collectionis also mentioned, but none of these citations helps to date the actualrecordings ¡V indeed, Hughes was published frequently in both Poetryand Esquire years before the set could possibly have been recorded.While a majority of the poems appeared subsequently in well-knowncollections and anthologies, their original publication was as follows: "FloridaRoad Workers" in the New York Herald Tribune (November 23, 1930); "GoodMorning, Stalingrad" in Jim Crow’s Last Stand (Atlanta: Negro PublicationSociety of America, 1943); "To Captain Mulzac" in Jim Crow’s Last Stand (ibid.);"[The] Negro Speaks of Rivers" in The Crisis (June 1921); "Mother to Son"in The Crisis (December 1922); "Ma Lord" in The Crisis (June 1927); "I, Too[Sing America]", aka "Epilogue", in Survey Graphic (March 1, 1925);"Harlem Sweeties" in Shakespeare in Harlem (New York: Knopf, 1942);"Sylvester’s Dying Bed [The Death of a Mighty Lover]" in Poetry (October1931); "Wake" in Shakespeare in Harlem (ibid.); "[A] Little Lyric [Of GreatImportance]" in the Carmel Pine Cone (March 21, 1941); "Porter" in FineClothes to the Jew (New York: Knopf, 1927); "Brass Spittoons" in New Masses(December 1926); "Ku Klux [Klan]" in Shakespeare in Harlem (ibid.);"Merry-Go-Round" in Common Ground (Spring 1942); "The Weary Blues" inOpportunity (May 1925); "Too Blue" in Contemporary Poet (Autumn 1943);"Could Be [Blues]" in One-Way Ticket (New York: Knopf, 1949); "Late LastNight [Blues]" in One-Way Ticket (ibid.); "Still Here" in Jim Crow’s Last Stand(ibid.); "Ballad of the Landlord" in Opportunity (December 1940); "Big Buddy"in Negro Quarterly (Spring 1942); "Note on Commercial Theatre" in The Crisis(March 1940); "Silence" in the Carmel Pine Cone (July 18, 1941); "Burden" inthe Carmel Pine Cone (November 14, 1941); "Havana Dreams" in Opportunity(June 1933); "[The] Breath of a Rose" in The Big Sea (New York: Knopf,1940); "Border Line" in Fields of Wonder (New York: Knopf, 1947); and "InTime of Silver Rain" in Opportunity (June 1938)."Little Songs" ["Gather out of loneliness | All the songs you know"] appearsto be unpublished, and is not to be confused with "Lonely people | In the lonelynight", from Fields of Wonder (ibid.) or "Carmencita Loves Patrick", fromthe "18 Poems for Children", first published in the Langston Hughes Reader(New York: Braziller, 1958). These published poems both appeared under thetitle "Little Song". Similarly "Prayer" may not have been published. It is notlisted in any Hughes bibliography, nor does it appear in the collected works.It is neither "I ask you this" (Buccaneer, 1925) or "Gather up | In the armsof your pity" (Contemporaneous, September-October 1931), aka "Big CityPrayer", both published under the title "Prayer".Hughes reads what is essentially the original 1930 published version of"Florida Road Workers", beginning at line three of the revisions (1931-1949),with the first and part of the last short stanzas as the conclusion, but with therevised lines ten and eleven, originally published as "For the rich old whitemen to sweep over in their big cars". As published, "Porter" ends "Yes, sir!"without "... boss. Yes, sir!" The reading of "Ku Klux [Klan]", published as "KuKlux", substitutes "A Klansman said, ’Listen..." for "A Klansman said, ’Nigger..."in the final stanza. In the published version of "Could Be [Blues]", the last twolines of the third stanza are "Might be that you’ll come back, | Like as not youwon’t;" in the final stanza, "Hastings Street" and "Lennox Avenue" replace"Central" and "Wiley" Avenues. Hughes’ reading of "Late Last Night [Blues]"contains an unpublished repeat of the first two lines. Line two of the original1940 published version of "Note on Commercial Theatre" was "You sing ’em inParis" instead of "Broadway" and this early version ended without the last line,which was added in 1943 and revised again in 1959. The insertion of "I reckon..."is unique to the recording. "Havana Dreams" was omitted from the labelof Asch 4544.All of the other differences between the recordings and the published textsare simple, single-word substitutions or omissions.CHARLEY CASE(Lockport, New York, c.1858 - New York City, November 27, 1916)This most unusual comedian, remembered now for the deadpan humor ofhis three Victor recordings, was evidently of part Irish, part African-Americandecent. He abandoned a law practice in the early years of the last century,first to become a peddler, then a very successful blackface entertainer,billing himself initially as ’The Man Who Talks About His Father’. His gentle,self-effacing vignettes, with their sly, unspoken punch lines, seem endearinglyout-of-step with the boisterous style of early vaudeville comedy.Case died of what was ruled an accidental, self-inflicted gunshot wound.BERT WILLIAMS(Born Egbert Austin Williams, Antigua or Nassau, British West Indies, November 12, 1874 - New York, March 4, 1922)Bert Williams was among the first African-American entertainers to forge atruly international reputation and with his partner, George W. Walker (1873-1911), was one of the authentic architects of black musical theater in America.Beginning modestly in Victor Herbert’s The Gold Bug (1896) and graduallyestablishing star credentials in a number of early shows (among them, ThePolicy Players, 1899, and The Sons of Ham, 1900), the team eventuallyproduced Paul Laurence Dunbar and Will Marion Cook’s In Dahomey (BostonMusic Hall, September 22, 1902; New York Theater, February 18, 1903; andShaftesbury Theatre, London, May 16, 1903), generally considered to be thefirst full-length musical written and performed by African-Americans to playa legitimate New York City house (E. E. Rice’s celebrated 1898 Clorindy, or TheOrigin of the Cakewalk, the work of Dunbar and Ernest Hogan, enjoyed only abrief run at New York’s Casino Roof Garden). Abyssinia (1906) and BandanaLand (1908) followed. After Walker’s premature retirement in 1909, Williamsentered the New York mainstream as a Keith Procter Circuit solo act and thereafter,as a Ziegfeld star (1910-1919). His last New York stage appearancein The Broadway Brevities of 1920 was followed by a final show, Under theBamboo Tree (aka The Pink Slip), which played Cincinnati, Chicago and Detroitin the winter of 1921 and 1922.Between October 1901 and February 1922, Williams recorded prolificallyfor Victor and Columbia. The four titles included here are Williams’ onlyrecorded monologues and as such, are a delightful supplement to the comiccharacter songs that dominate his recorded legacy and the graceful physicalhumor that survives in his few silent film appearances. If the situation comedyof the two Elder Eatmore sermons was perhaps closer to the material used inhis eight Ziegfeld Follies appearances, the wistful embellishment of the twosimpler gags, "How? Fried!" and "You Can’t Do Nothin’ Till Martin Gets Here",better illustrates Williams’ legendary ingenuity as a storyteller.Neither catalogs nor record labels cite the author of "Martin", while"How? Fried!" is credited on Columbia A6216 to Lucas and may be the workof Sam "Dad" Lucas (1840-1916), an eminent African-American minstrelperformer. It could not be determined if either of these monologues (oreven the better-known Eatmore sermons) were actually used by Williams onthe stage. Two takes of "Elder Eatmore’s Sermon on Generosity" (¡V2 and¡V3), both recorded on June 27, 1919, were issued as Columbia A6141.CHARLES (SIDNEY) GILPIN(Richmond, Virginia, November 20, 1878 - Eldridge Park, New Jersey, May 6, 1930)An actor, singer, author of several published plays, theatrical manager andproducer, Gilpin is best remembered for creating the role of Brutus Jones inEugene O’ Neill’s The Emperor Jones (Provincetown Playhouse, New York,November 1, 1920, and revival, 1926), for which he won both the SpingarnMedal and the Drama League Award. Heywood Broun, reviewing the originalproduction for the New York Tribune, called it "... the most thrillingperformance we have seen any place this season."The actor’s career began with the Perkus and Davis Great SouthernMinstrel Barn Storming Aggregation in 1896 and later included appearanceswith the Canadian Jubilee Singers, Hamilton, Ontario (1903), the Pekin StockCompany, Chicago (1907-1908), and the Pan American Octette (1911-1913).Vaudeville and frequent professional activity in Canada occupied him untilhis appointment as producer of the Lafayette Players in Harlem, a posthe held from 1916 to 1919. There were also early, minor appearances inGus Hill’s The Smart Set company (1905), Williams and Walker’s Abyssinia(1906), and Alex Rogers and Henry Creamers’ Old Man’s Boy (1913), the latterproduced by the Negro Player’s Stock Company. Gilpin’s critical success as thepreacher, William Custis, in John Drinkwater’s Abraham Lincoln (Cort Theater,December 15, 1919) undoubtedly prompted his casting as Brutus Jones.Problems of temperament and drink, as well as accusations that he tookunreasonable liberties with the printed script (specifically, with language hefelt might be offensive to blacks), eventually cost Gilpin a 1925 revival ofThe Emperor Jones at New York City’s 52nd Street Theater (a major successfor Paul Robeson) as well as a proposed part in the first production of Hechtand MacArthur’s The Front Page (1928). By this time, his career was over.The single side for Arto included here, labeled "A Humorous Address tothe Musicians by Charles Gilpin of Emperor Jones Fame", was also issuedas Cleartone C-120 and is Gilpin’s only known recording. He made twofilms for the Afro-American Film Company in 1914 and one for the ColoredPlayers Film Corporation of Philadelphia in 1926, but none of these is incirculation. Authorship of the Arto monologue and the identity of the voicethat introduces Gilpin are not labeled on either release. The performancewas subsequently reissued as GB Record 2001-B, "Charles S. Gilpin’s Addressto the Musicians", matrix 2001-B. Coupled with James Burris’ "’Tain’t No Placefor Me" (matrix 2001A), as were the Arto and Cleartone originals, this wasprobably a private issue, the name derived perhaps from the initials of Gilpinand Burris. It is not known if GB 2001 consisted of pressings or dubbings.J.[OHN] ROSAMOND JOHNSON(Jackson, Florida, August 11, 1873 - New York, November 11, 1954)A graduate of the New England Conservatory of Music, Johnson was anaccomplished singer, composer, conductor and arranger, as well as an authorand educator. He appeared in vaudeville early in his career, touring NorthAmerica and Europe, but it was in collaboration with lyricists Bob Cole (1868-1911) and James Weldon Johnson, his brother, that he began to contributesongs to many major Broadway shows, most notably in the period 1900-1914.The best known of these, Under the Bamboo Tree, interpolated into Sally inOur Alley (1902), was an enormous hit, as were many others, including L’ilGal (1902), immortalized by Paul Robeson, and Since You Went Away (1913).Lift Every Voice and Sing, lyrics by James Weldon Johnson, became the officialsong of the NAACP. In later years, Johnson appeared again as a performerin the original New York production of Cabin in the Sky (1940) and a majorrevival of Porgy and Bess at New York’s Majestic Theater on January 22,1942. He was a noted editor of song anthologies and published The Bookof American Negro Spirituals (1925), The Second Book of Negro Spirituals(1926), Mountainside Melodies (1934), Library of Negro Music (1935), RollingAlong in Song (1937) and Album of Negro Spirituals (1940), among others.The titles included here are Johnson’s only known recorded monologs.Ajax 17061 was also issued under lease as Apex 670, both labels havingbeen products of the Canadian Campo Co., Ltd.PAUL ROBESON(Princeton, New Jersey, April 9, 1898 - Philadelphia, January 23, 1976)Paul Robeson was in many respects the pre-eminent African-Americanperformer of his generation. His achievements as an actor, concert singerand social-humanitarian activist were among the most impressive of anytwentieth-century figure.Although his conception of the role always provoked controversy, Robesonwas one of the celebrated Othellos of his day. He undertook Shakespeare’sMoor no less than three times in his long career ¡V in London (Savoy Theatre,May 19, 1930); in the famous Theater Guild production produced byMargaret Webster (Schubert Theater, October 19, 1943), the longest runningShakespearian production in the history of American theater; and inStratford-on-Avon under Tony Richardson’s direction (Shakespeare MemorialTheatre, April 7, 1959). A nearly complete 78 rpm studio recording of the1943 production, with members of the original cast (set M 544, issued inthree volumes), was made for American Columbia in the summer of 1944and from this, the Act I/iii scene has been drawn. Robeson made only twoearlier spoken-word recordings, both for the Gramophone Company inLondon. One of these, the fourth poem of William Blake’s Songs of Innocence(1789), is included here. His recording of Langston Hughes’ Freedom Train,issued privately on a single-sided shellac 78 and labeled ’Produced by |The Southern Conference | For Human Welfare | 808 Perdido Street | NewOrleans, LA | Freedom Train | A Poem by Langston Hughes | Narrated by PaulRobeson | Recorded by Permission of | Our World Magazine’, is an especiallychoice item. The poem, first published in The New Republic (September 1947)and Our World (October 1947), is announced by Robeson as "Checking theFreedom Train". This alternate title, coupled with extensive deviations betweenthe texts as read and as later published, suggests that an early, workingversion of the poem is being recited.Notes by William ShamanProducers’ Note:The recordings presented on these cassettes were made between 1908and 1947 and, as might be expected, vary in quality. Rarity, condition, andthe quality of the original recordings themselves all became majorfactors in their presentation. The Booker T. Washington, Charles Gilpin andJ. Rosamond Johnson sides are extremely rare in their original form andcan be found only on poor-quality shellac. To make matters worse, thecopies available to us were not pristine. Robeson’s Freedom Train mayexist in only a few copies: the disc used was severely damaged, requiringcomputer technology to reduce excessive noise. Both of the sets included,James Weldon Johnson’s God’s Trombones and Poems by Langston Hughes,were transcribed from mint copies, though the former, as published, consistedof dubbings from instantaneous discs and the latter was pressed on inferiormaterial. Similarly, Charley Case’s Father as Scientist was released by Victoras a mechanical dubbing (designated S/8 in the wax) and could only bematched approximately to the sound of the other two sides recorded duringthe same session.Little was done initially to alter the sound of the original recordings but,ultimately, an effort to make them accessible to as large an audience aspossible was seen as the most logical compromise.William Shaman and Peter Adamson