I see what you mean that "shine" may have been a condescending term used by white foremen. I'm still positive that this and the bulk of Jimmie Rodger's blues material was lifted from black musicians -- and came out of him in a wonderfully unique adaptation -- he made the blues his own. I thought the lyrics to the jazz tune began:

Just because my hair is curly,
Just because my teeth are pearly,

Maybe something that seems very clear to me is not so to others: lyrics like these and Bert Williams "Black and Blue" talk about race -- an all-too heavy reality for the singer -- but they do not burlesque or denigrate african-americans, not to me anyway. I can listen to "Shine" (though I prefer it as an instrumental) or "Black and Blue" and sense it comes from a real place - and they're good songs. But "Rufus, Rastus", and the myriad other "Coon" songs that were so popular during the first 20 years of the 20th century are just crude and musically entirely forgettable.

I gather that the comment about "innocent" references to race were not directed to me. A white songwriter's reference to race can hardly be called innocent. When W.C. Handy writes "what's that you say? I can't talk to my brown? A storm last night blew the wires all down...", he's trying to capture the talk of contemporary Memphians. When Irving Berlin writes "it's the grandest band what am, my honey lamb", he's intentionally using the white burlesque fabrication of how black people were alleged to talk, and he's doing it to get laughs and sell sheet music. (Not that W.C. minded selling sheet music either.)

James.