Minstrel Shows

Subject: RE: Minstrel Shows
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Jun 02 - 02:01 PM

I disagree that anything and everything can or should be redeemed. Aparthaid can't and shouldn't be redeemed. Jim Crow can't and shouldn't be redeemed. Slavery of any sort can't and shouldn't be redeemed. Minstrel shows were a white backlash against African Americans gaining freedom from slavery. That is what they were all about, whether the performers were white or black. The audiences were all white.

BTW, just who is it, M Ted, who you claim is "reviving" minstrel shows? African Americans from Howard University?

Subject: RE: Minstrel Shows
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Jun 02 - 02:06 PM

You know, I don't think the world will be worse off without Oh Susanna, whether in it's originally offensive form, or sanitized so people can get away with singing the offensive song, and by extension, throwing it back in the faces of African Americans.

Again, I ask--why is it so important to those of you in this thread, who are insisting upon continuing to perform these songs in ANY form, for ANY audience--what are your motives for being so stubborn about this? Why won't you give up singing a song you KNOW deeply offends the majority of African Americans?

Subject: RE: Minstrel Shows
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 11 Jun 02 - 02:32 PM

I sang Oh Susannah in elementary school, and never even heard of the "coon" words until I was in college. The same goes for My Old Kentucky Home and several others. They are still in popular culture because they were well-wrought tunes, not because they denigrated a race, and that's the reason I will continue to play and sing them. Any other hidden agenda that is suggested as to why I want to piss off black people has likely been created in mind the mind of the suggestor.

Subject: RE: Minstrel Shows
From: wysiwyg
Date: 11 Jun 02 - 03:43 PM

Of course slavery can be redeemed-- all the things that happened were being redeemed, in a fashion, by the Black is Beautuful movement, by all involved in the civil rights movment, by whites who work on their own internalized racism.... redeeming those hurts is all you CAN do, since you can't forget them, can't ignore them, and so forth. You take the bad things and you make good things out of what went into them, you transform things... you shift the energy in a positive direction and reinforce the positive results. Anytime someone thinks differently about a thing, it's in the process of being redeemed.

Sheesh, Guest (and would you PLEASE take a name), I dunno what YOU think redemption means, but all bad things can be redeemed, and it is part of human nature to do so as much as it is to turn good things to a negative direction.

Sorry if this is a mystery to anyone else, and I am sure I am not articulating it effectively, but it isn't a mystery to me, it's part of how I live my life. I could give lots of examples of it in my life and those around me.

How about I give you one. It's an image I have in my mind of a recent experience. A black woman sitting among a sea of white faces, there because a friend she trusts brought her to one of our services. She happened to be there when I had a certain item planned. I thought for about a nanosecond about doing another number instead. (We swap stuff around all the time, for instance if dear old Mrs. Smith comes in we might swap in one of her special favorites.) I decided, just as fast, HELL, NO, or this IS a big fat lie we are doing here.

So picture this lady, hearing my introduction of an item such as I desribed. Beaming from ear to ear with tears in her eyes, to hear a white person tell the truth without her having to educate me about it, and loving the music for what it held for her, and loving being with us because we dared to bring up the topic and KNEW HOW TO DO IT.

It CAN be done. You wanna whine that it can't, instead of learn how. OK, you can stick with that, and you will be left behind with the PC brigade while I and others move forward into a higher way of dealing with this ugly stuff. What you been doing is good. There is MORE that can be done. You just are not seeing it. Lay back a little and watch the discussion for a bit and I bet you might see it. Or troll away, if that's your goal, but the rest of us mean serious business in our discussion, and it's already done a world of good that we had even this tiny amount of it.

~Susan

Subject: RE: Minstrel Shows
From: Butch
Date: 11 Jun 02 - 04:48 PM

Guest, you are just plain wrong in two facts in you last set of posts (if in fact you are only one person since none of you quests have the courage or manners to take a name despite being asked )

1) The audience for the shows were not ALL white. There were blacks in the audience as well. You (singular or plural) need to stay away for absolutes.

2) Minstrelsy could not have been a bvacklash against freedom from slavery since it pre dated slavery by at least 20 years.

I know learned African Americans and not so learned African Americans who have been in my audience and have enjoyed my music, and NOT been offended. They have been entertained, enlightened and encouraged to study, but none have shown offense. I must ask, do you speak for all of black America if so, I think that CNN and the other networks want to talk to you. I thought that African Americans were allowed to have individual opinions... just who is preaching Jim Crow here?

Subject: RE: Minstrel Shows
From: GUEST,Bill Kennedy
Date: 11 Jun 02 - 04:59 PM

not taking sides, and not completely digested all the material above, BUT

History is not always pretty, far better from my point of view to really study it and present it to people from all sides of an issue, than pretend it never happened. This is what NOT performing these songs accomplishes: Ignorance of the past, no contradiction to blind prejudice and bias. The songs should be sung, but never with a wink and a nudge, or a shy grin, or without explaining the history and the hurt.

Subject: RE: Minstrel Shows
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 11 Jun 02 - 06:02 PM

Guest would have us believe that the educators and students at Howard (or other black school) have closed minds against the past.
To raise another controversial subject, I consider these schools to be a relic of the past. The students and staff are imposing segregation upon themselves. A number of these schools are now open to both blacks and whites, and I expect the trend to continue.
Howard University, in its admission information, states "To protect its character .... the University reserves the right and the applicant concedes to the University the right, to deny admission to any student at any time for any reason the University deems sufficient." I believe that the intent of this statement is to ensure black predominance.

Subject: RE: Minstrel Shows
From: GUEST,SeanN
Date: 11 Jun 02 - 06:36 PM

I think people here are being purposely naive when they say they think that minstrel songs can be revived with no negative effects, and that they will only be performed with lofty intentions.

I think in the US there is a long way to go on race issues, despite the forward movement that desegregation has brought. I think resurrecting/reviving/redeeming minstrel songs is a backward movement, not a forward looking one.

Subject: RE: Minstrel Shows
From: wysiwyg
Date: 11 Jun 02 - 07:20 PM

...when they say they think that minstrel songs can be revived with no negative effects, and that they will only be performed with lofty intentions....

YMMV, but I haven't seen anyone saying that. I haven't seen anyone underestimating the difficulties our society faces, and we face as individuals and as musicians, about racism, either.

~Susan

Subject: RE: Minstrel Shows
From: Butch
Date: 11 Jun 02 - 08:30 PM

I do not want to sound like a snot, but have any of you sat in front of a mixed audience and played these tunes in their original configuration? Have you sat in a class room full of young men and women of all races and brought this subject up? Have you ever had to defend your position in front of the Detroit chapter of the NAACP and had them find your program acceptable?

I can honestly say that I have and so have others that I know. I will never content that this material is easy for all to digest, or that it should be pushed down anyone's throat. I do not ever wish to see minstrel shows return as a form of entertainment. But I do want to present this music for what it is so that intellegent people can make up their own mind. This must be based on the educated knowledge of the tunes and their FULL meansing to both black and white America. This can only be accomplished by education and performance. I feel that to sweep these tunes under the carpet and not talk about them is a stap back towards slavery. We are saying " You might be offended so I wil protect you". So far all who have heard this understand why the music was presented and glad for that presentation, even if they found the music uncomfortable.

Subject: RE: Minstrel Shows
From: wysiwyg
Date: 11 Jun 02 - 08:51 PM

Butch, that seems quite clear.

Perhaps now we can get back to the things we had been talking about... maybe I can simplify.

1. WHAT are the connections between this music and other "folk music" we know now?

2. HOW do you discuss it and present it, effectively?

(And what happens when you do?)

~Susan

Subject: RE: Minstrel Shows
From: wysiwyg
Date: 11 Jun 02 - 08:56 PM

Please continue in
PART TWO.

~S~

Subject: RE: Welsh music in Poultney
From: GUEST,peter patten
Date: 24 Jun 07 - 10:26 PM

Sian, Thanks for that. Im a local from the Vermont slate districts and interested in trad music but did not know of Benjamin Thomas.
The 19th century slate belt was very Welsh and Irish and in places like North Poultney many Irish quarrymen were trilingual speaking English, Irish and Welsh! This may seem a stretch from our perspective but my own Irish American aunt who grew up in the teens and twenties had a smattering of Welsh and she was far more a flapper than folkie.

Subject: RE: Minstrel Shows
From: Stringsinger
Date: 25 Jun 07 - 12:21 PM

Uncle Jacques

"Wouldn't the "Minstrel Story" make one heckkuvva controversial motion picture, eh? I'd love to see one if it was competently done.. and anyone dares to do it!"

There was a marvelous sleeper on TV called Minstrel Man with Fred Carlin doing the music.
It was about a black theatrical troupe that were forced to "black up" to do the circuit. They would compete with other performers and apparently traveled by rail. The final concert they do is in Chicago where they refuse to "black up" and are accepted enthusiastically for their actual talent rather than sterotyped image.

There is a poignant scene whereby a Scott Joplin-type young man in the troupe "whites up" to lampoon the idea of the minstrel show and is executed by local white townspeople.

Mudcatters:

Uncle Tom's Cabin was a big hit throughout the South and many Minstrel Show performers were associated with it. It may have been a catalyst for the crossover of the Minstrel Show to the white Appalachian banjo players and string bands. Uncle Dave, Stringbean, Brother Oswald and Granpa' Jones are exponents of this style of Minstrelsy on the Grand Ol' Opry.

The banjo is one of those instruments that for me has a magical quality which I associate with being distinctly American (aside from its roots as the Akonting in Africa).

Unfortunately, some of the most racist songs have the best tunes in the earlier part of the century. The "Georgia Camp Meeting" can't be sung today without offense but the tune is spectacular in my view...a variation of the Civil War song "Our Boys Will Shine Tonight".
The unfortunate "coon song" had great melodies too going into American popular music as "Puttin' On the Ritz" which was cleaned up for the marketplace.

Eddie Cantor, Al Jolson, Bing Crosby and others of the Twenties all "blacked up" at one time or another and they owe their early performance styles to the great black entertainers on the TOBA. Without the contribution of highly talented and brave African-American musicians, this Minstrel genre would not have taken place and the same can be said for jazz and the blues as well. African-American music is the wellspring for what has become the national musical heritage of the United States.

The Irish and British Isles has its place as well but the strength of American music is due to the interracial and intercultural connection between Africa and the British Isles.

Frank Hamilton

Subject: RE: Minstrel Shows
From: Stringsinger
Date: 25 Jun 07 - 12:33 PM

I have an additional comment. Joe Sweeney's original banjo can be found at the Los Angeles County Museum which has probably moved its quarters. Pete Seeger took me there to see it.

I have an additional question. Who makes Minstrel-style five-string banjos today and where are they located? I understand that they are tuned lower than the usual gCGDB or gGDBD.
Maybe something like fBbFAC?

The plectrum banjo (sans fifth string) crosses over from the five-string using the same tuning in early 20's jazz bands.



Frank

Subject: RE: Minstrel Shows
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 03 Mar 09 - 10:07 PM

Excellent article, Wys! Thanks!

Subject: RE: Minstrel Shows
From: wysiwyg
Date: 03 Mar 09 - 11:37 PM

Thanks, Leej.

The article referenced has been moved at my request to

PART TWO.

~S~