Correct me if I'm wrong, but were not nearly all the so-called "Coon" songs written by white Tin Pan Alley types? Except for some of their ragtime progressions, there is nothing very african-american about them at all. They are riddled with degrading stereotypical lyrics and plotlines that no self-respecting african-american would have written. Even W.C. Handy's commercial blues ("I wanna talk to that high brown of mine...") managed to retain the earthiness the white audience sought without being self-deprecating.

"Coon" songs were not composed out of any great admiration for black culture. They were composed because they sold sheet music and entertained a racist, white American public by feeding their cruel prejudices back to them as jokes at which they could laugh while simultaneously feeling like they were "getting down" with that "darky" music. OK, there are one or two where the music is so good, you can almost get past the lyrics: "Alexander's Ragtime Band" comes to mind. But by and large, you can take all of them and sink them in the ocean and the world wouldn't be a bit worse. This ain't political correctitude -- it's musical fact.

Where white musicians finally "got it", was in the rural South, where people like Doc Boggs and Jimmie Rodgers just tried their best to capture black music, not parody it. It makes me smile to hear Jimmie sing "Good mornin', Shine!" in "Muleskinner Blues" -- Shine being a Southern black folk hero.

There you have it, James.