I guess my question is sort of related so rather than start a new topic I'll slide it in here, if ye don't mind...

While out and about this morning (Thurs. Sept. 25, 2008) I popped into a nearby little "Mom & Pop" country store and gas station where a friend had told me they served a pretty decent breakfast.

While posting a couple of fliers for upcoming events at our Fish & Game club, I noticed a small lithograph on the wall of a group of Black people apparently back in the days of slavery having a dance. In one corner one musician was whanging away on a banjo while another played an accordion.

Since I study and collect 19th Century music, including that of the Minstrel era, my curiosity was piqued. It was even more aroused when I spotted an old framed broadside advertising a Minstrel Troupe - I forget the name now, but it was quite a bit like "Ethiopian Serenaders", and the illustration showed what appeared to be a pretty big group of performers on stage.    At the top in big font it read "KEMP's".

Somehow I associate the name "Kemp" with Minstrel music - but can't recall exactly what that connection is. I know there is a "Kemp's Jig", but that is associated with Will Kempe, who was Comedian and Morris Dancer with Shakespeare for a while back in the 1600s.

Then while I was munching my fried bacon & egg sandwich, I looked back up at the little lithograph of the happy plantation scene, and noticed what I'd sort of overlooked the first time; a bit over it hung a black and white portrait of an elderly Black gentleman with a serene, gentle smile.

Now this was getting to me; I went up front and woke up the Cashier to ask him who that old fellow in the picture was.

All he knows is that his family bought the store from a KEMP Family, and those pictures were on the walls when they took it over.
Since they seemed sort of quaint, they put some of them back up after refurbishing the interior.   He had no idea of who the Black gent was, or what, if any, connection he might have had with minstrel shows.
He did remember, though, that there was a very old lady who as far as he knows still lives in a trailer not far away in Leeds, Maine.
She might be the last surviving member of the Kemp Family, so far as he knew.

Now I've run all sorts of searches on the internet, and can't come up with any "Kemp" associated with any particular Minstrel Troupe.
Do any of you know of any?

By the cut of his coat lapels in the photo, I would guess that it was taken in the late 19th Century - 1875-90 perhaps.

The next time I venture down to that store, I'll try to remember to bring my digital camera and get closeups of those pictures and the broadside and put them up on photoshop.   And I might try to look that old lady up, too.