The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #155033   Message #3642977
Posted By: Matthew Edwards
17-Jul-14 - 07:26 PM
Thread Name: New CD of Bessie Jones due out Oct 2014
Subject: Sweet Papa Stovepipe (McKinley Peebles 1897-1985)
I never cease to be amazed at what turns up on YouTube; the two 1926 recordings by Sweet Papa Stovepipe mentioned earlier by Fred are available there:-

All Birds Look Like Chicken To Me.

According to Songfacts the song was written by the black songwriter Irving Jones in 1899, in response to the hit song by Ernest Hogan "All Coons Look Alike To Me". So this song perhaps has some claim to being an early anti-racist song.

Mama's Angel Child

Google Books also turns up part of an article by Anton J Mikofsky in the Encyclopedia of the Blues, Gerard Herzhaft, 2nd edition, 1997 describing McKinley Peebles/ Sweet Papa Stovepipe as a well-known street performer in 1970's New York with a theatrical style, and also a colleague of the Rev. Gary Davis.

Matthew