Music Halls pre blackface

Subject: RE: Music Halls pre blackface
From: Fay
Date: 09 Feb 05 - 04:46 PM

Essay all finished now,
Thanks for the ideas and input. much appreicated.

If anyoneis interested in a copy, pm me.

Subject: RE: Music Halls pre blackface
From:
Date: 27 Jan 05 - 03:32 PM

If you get hold of a copy of The Early Doors by Harold Scott it will give you a very good idea. It is avery old book so you may need to order from library or go to british museum. Black face really took post 1850 when the "nigger minstrels" and "coon" performers arrived from USA and were imitiated by british artists even to the extent that black uk artists copied the imitators i.e you had black performers dressing up pretending to be white performers imitating black performers.
Music hall began in the 1850s and before that there were song and supper rooms like the Coal Hole, Cyder Cellars, Evans etc that laid on entertainment ofetn provided by the members. This was often risque to say the least and also a forum for often vicious attacks on public figures ( usually justified) and wer sometimes called Comus Courts or Judge and Jury show - the most famous of the later was run by the self styles Baron Renton Nicholson at the Coal Hole

Subject: RE: Music Halls pre blackface
From: Joybell
Date: 09 Jan 05 - 06:19 PM

But is it "political signifying" you are after, Fay?
"Signifying" in the modern American sense is more a trading of insults - in highly colourful and creative language. It involves competition without any real malice. Seems to me that's more like the French/English insult-swapping seen in Monty Python's "Quest for the Holy Grail". (Except that there may be malice implied in this case)
Cheers, Joy

Subject: RE: Music Halls pre blackface
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 09 Jan 05 - 02:13 PM

Plenty of English songs with bawdy double meanings but not so many with political "signifying" that I'm aware of, which I think Fay is primarily seeking. (Unlike the situation with Irish songs). I'm sure there must be some.

(I can't see the parody elements in Cushie Butterfield myself, but that's a matter to discuss elsewhere, if it needed discussing.)

Subject: RE: Music Halls pre blackface
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 09 Jan 05 - 01:30 AM

G'day Fay,

I have a copy of Bawdy Songs of the Early Music Hall, Selected and Introduced by George Speaight, David & Charles (Holdings) Limited, Newton Abbot, Devon, 1975.

This is a (selected ... ?) facsimile from what Speaight describes as:

" ...A fortunate discovery .. made at the British Museum during my research into the English toy theatre, ... a cache of slim booklets published by the the theatrical printseller, William West, at 57 Wych Street, Strand ... titles such as The Randy Songster or b>The Cuckold's Nest of Choice, Flash, Smutty and Delicious Songs and record the songs sung at the Coal Hole,, the Cider Cellars, Offley's and, no doubt, similar establishments. As far as I am aware, they have never been reprinted, and, indeed their existence was practically unknown and unrecorded, apart from an entry in Ashbee's bibliography of pornagraphic books and an innacurate reference in Ivan Bloch's Sexual Life in England of 1901. (Excerpt from Speaigh's 9-page Introduction)

I have found the book to be illuminating background to my principal area of interest in early Australian song history ... but it clearly relates closely to your quest. The songs are all definitely in the sub rosa category ... by selection ... but they may help you. I presume you can track down a copy in some library ... if only the required deposit copies in the major British libraries.

If you need any more preliminary information, I can OCR scan in the Contents, Introduction and Notes ... and send a text file to a personal e-mail address, if you wish to PM such to me.

The book appears to comprise direct facsimiles of words & music of some 35 songs ... and Speaight says: "... from internal evidence it would appear that he embarked upon the publication of these booklets in the mid-1830s, probably after he ceased issuing new toy theatre plays. I afraid he may have found them more profitable!" (also from Introduction).

Regards,

Bob Bolton

Subject: RE: Music Halls pre blackface
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 08 Jan 05 - 08:42 PM

George Ridley (1835-1864; it was the last song he wrote) set his "Cushey Butterfield" specifically to the tune of Polly Perkins, which was well-known at the time from Harry Clifton's performances.

Clifton is generally credited as writer of Polly Perkins (though the tune shows signs of being based on another!) and the matter was gone into adequately in thread Cushie Butterfield: author?

There is no question but that Polly Perkins is the older song and that Ridley's was based on it. As you say, thread drift; except insofar as it disposes of a red herring.

Subject: RE: Music Halls pre blackface
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 08 Jan 05 - 07:42 PM

Thread drift - but is there actually any more reason to think that Cushie Butterfield was based on Polly Perkins than the other way round? Or maybe that they are completely independent songs which happened to be put to the same tune, put together at about the same time. Nothing metaphorical or "signifying" about either of them, in any case.

Subject: RE: Music Halls pre blackface
From: Joybell
Date: 08 Jan 05 - 06:37 PM

Fay, are you seeking songs from the stage only, anytime before the "Blackface" craze? Or any examples of "signifying" from before this time? Generally or from England only? Cheers, Joy

Subject: RE: Music Halls pre blackface
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 07 Jan 05 - 11:11 PM

Sometimes fun to troll the Bodleian by date, but I often twist off. I entered 1812 and among other things some Christmas carols came up. Forgot all about what I was looking for. But one with the first lines "A kid of a booze staggering mien on a long-eared donkey came" perhaps was a tavern performer's song. "Wednesbury Concert" is amusing (Firth b 26(522). Of course not sure if these were performed in public, but they could have been.
Doesn't answer to the topic, however.

Subject: RE: Music Halls pre blackface
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 07 Jan 05 - 10:01 PM

There are many songs of the kind you mention, but you'll need to be much more specific or people will be recommending things like Cushie Butterfield (much too late, and anyway just a straightforward parody of Polly Perkins with no word-play in it) or irrelevant "Child" ballads (those mentioned so far were unknown on the 19th century popular stage, though there were some parodies of others).

There was a huge corpus of "Cockney", "Irish" and "Jewish" songs, in particular (also many based on the "yokel in the big city" theme, frequently featuring Yorkshiremen), which might work for you; puns, malapropisms and references to other songs all over the place. Where to start? The book I mentioned earlier would provide plenty of ideas, and, no doubt, would most of the others. You might also trawl the Bodleian site ("browse for words in titles"). Check your university library for a set of The Universal Songster, which is of the right period.

Subject: RE: Music Halls pre blackface
From: Joybell
Date: 07 Jan 05 - 08:35 PM

How about these possible examples of "signifying" (cleverness contests, boasting contests):

1. The trading of insults among young men in the Inuit culture. It's quite old I believe. (Not songs of course)

2. Ballads in the Child collection like:
"The Twa Magicians" - Child 44 and "The Gardiner" Child 219 (courting one-upmanship)
or "The Devil's Nine Questions" (contests with Otherworld beings. The ballads in the Child collection from 1-4.

Does this help or are we moving further away? Cheers, Joy

Subject: RE: Music Halls pre blackface
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 07 Jan 05 - 06:41 PM

I don't think "blackface" was ever anywhere near as big in Britain as Music Hall, which was enormous. As has been pointed out, Music Hall as such didn't really develop until the 1840s on.

Planty of pre-Music Hall bawdy songs with double meanings - The Game of All Fours, for example.

Subject: RE: Music Halls pre blackface
From: Joybell
Date: 07 Jan 05 - 06:16 PM

It does seem rather a tall order, Fay, but many studies begin that way.
I believe that many , maybe most, of the street singers in London and also those on stage and in taverns did include inuendo and specific references to matters outside the text, as you say. References to previous performances by themselves and others were part of their act. There was also "class-based" comedy which has always been done so well by the Brits. That would include cryptic messages and insults.
Whether you can find actual documentation, from the period you are looking at,is the thing. The broadsides will give some versions of songs and may show adaptations and variants from particular performers. I would agree with McGrath that Blackface and Musichall didn't seem to show much overlap in those early days.
Maybe,(thinks I on the run), street performers are the key? There is a great variety of acts among them. They didn't all take up Blackface. Finding a niche was necessary for survival. They had to balance familiarity and novelty to survive. There could be remnants of the style you are seeking among them. "London Labour and the London Poor" by Henry Mayhew may help.
His interviews with street performers came just after Blackface became popular but their may be clues there. Cheers, Joy

Subject: RE: Music Halls pre blackface
From: Charley Noble
Date: 07 Jan 05 - 06:10 PM

Fay-

You might try "Cussie Butterfield" which is a music hall song which harkens back to an older Keelman song that, of course, everyone knew at the time but now only exists in fragments. Do a search through the threads here at Mudcat.

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Music Halls pre blackface
From: Fay
Date: 07 Jan 05 - 01:24 PM

Ideally I'm looking for a song which was sung in Britain before the surge in black face performances, which includes words or phrases with double meanings. I.e. Cockney slang or puns or parodies reflecting on a previous performance which every one will understand as a comment on something outside of the actual text.

This is to contrast in an essay about Signifyin(g) - a black linguistic term and whether it can be applied to non-black musics.

Tall order?

Subject: RE: Music Halls pre blackface
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 06 Jan 05 - 09:56 PM

While Minstrel Shows were quite popular in Victorian England (though in a country without a significant black population they had rather different social role from in the USA), my understanding is that they didn't overlap much with Music Hall.

Here's an account from the 1840s from this site:

In the 1840s a Music Hall singer W G Ross revised the song, changing the name to Sam Hall in the process. On 10 March 1848 Percival Leigh noted the following account of an evenings entertainment in an early Music Hall:

'After that, to supper at the Cider Cellars in Maiden Lane, wherein was much Company, great and small, and did call for Kidneys and Stout, then a small glass of Aqua-vitae and water, and thereto a Cigar. While we supped, the Singers did entertain us with Glees and comical Ditties; but oh, to hear with how little wit the young sparks about town were tickled!

But the thing that did most take me was to see and hear one Ross sing the song of Sam Hall the chimney-sweep, going to be hanged: for he had begrimed his muzzle to look unshaven, and in rusty black clothes, with a battered old Hat on his crown and a short Pipe in his mouth, did sit upon the platform, leaning over the back of a chair: so making believe that he was on his way to Tyburn.

And then he did sing to a dismal Psalm-tune, how that his name was Sam Hall and that he had been a great Thief, and was now about to pay for all with his life; and thereupon he swore an Oath, which did make me somewhat shiver, though divers laughed at it. Then, in so many verses, how his Master had badly taught him and now he must hang for it: how he should ride up Holborn Hill in a Cart, and the Sheriffs would come and preach to him, and after them would come the Hangman; and at the end of each verse he did repeat his Oath. Last of all, how that he should go up to the Gallows; and desired the Prayers of his Audience, and ended by cursing them all round.

Methinks it had been a Sermon to a Rogue to hear him, and I wish it may have done good to some of the Company. Yet was his cursing very horrible, albeit to not a few it seemed a high Joke; but I do doubt that they understood the song.'

Subject: RE: Music Halls pre blackface
From: Charley Noble
Date: 06 Jan 05 - 08:27 PM

Fay-

There seem to have been a great variety of taverns and small theatres that served a similar function as the later music halls. Charles Dibdin was one of the most prolific composers, mentioned above by Q. John Holland was another, composer of "The Mariner's Compass Is Grog" for a production called 'The Two Little Savoyards' put on at the Adelphi Theatre in 1808. Further information really depends on your focus and energy.

What are you really looking for?

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Music Halls pre blackface
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 06 Jan 05 - 08:05 PM

The antecedents of the blackface minstrels were English performers of the late 18th century. The composer and actor Charles Dibden performed the character Mungo in "The Padlock," presented at Drury Lane in 1768. Mungo was the slave of a West Indies planter. Dibden, in blackface, sang this song (part):

Dear heart, what a terrible life I am led!
A dog has a better, that's sheltered and fed.
Night and day, 'tis the same;
My pain is deir game:
Me wish th de Lord me was dead!
Poor black must run,
Mungo here, Mungo dere,
Mungo everywhere:
Above and below,
Sirrah, come; sirrah, go;
Do so, and do so.
Oh! Oh!
Me wish to de Lord me was dead.

Mungo gets drunk in the second act and is profane throughout.
The role was taken up in America by Lewis Hallam, the younger, who first played the part in 1769, in New York. Hallam had studied the talk and actions of black slaves, and his projection of the part was quite different from that of Dibdin. A pantomine, "Robinson Crusoe," pesented at Drury Lane and the Theatre Royal, 1781, with Friday in blackface along with its Savages, was next, and also was performed in New York.

"The Negro On the Stage," Laurence Hutton, Harper's New Monthly Magazine, June, 1889, vol. 79, issue 469, pp. 131-145.
Cornell's The Making of America: Harpers

Subject: RE: Music Halls pre blackface
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 06 Jan 05 - 06:44 PM

See also J S Bratton, The Victorian Popular Ballad (London: MacMillan Press, 1975) for a useful overview of the period. It probably concentrates more on the literary side than you will want, but also deals with the music hall and offers helpful comparisons, including at least limited references to the oral and broadside traditions.

Subject: RE: Music Halls pre blackface
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Jan 05 - 06:38 PM

"Tavern singing in early Victorian London" 9("before the music hall there was the concert room") The diaries of Charles Rice for 1840 and 1850. Published by the society for theatre research.c/o/ the theatre museum 1E tavistock St, Covent garden.Marvellous book showing that folk clubs are nothing new!

Subject: RE: Music Halls pre blackface
From: Joybell
Date: 06 Jan 05 - 06:11 PM

I have a long-time obsession with the character "Billy Barlow". My book about the "Billy Barlow Phemonenon" isn't available easily - can't afford to publish it myself, but I'd be glad to answer specific questions about any of him if anyone's interested. It's a very big subject as it turns out and tangled.

As for the question here. I began looking at early musichall by studying several of the performers. (George Coppin was mostly involved in theatre rather than musichall and he left for Australia quite early - he won't help much here) But there's:

Sam Cowell
W G Ross
Benjamin Oliver Conquest (also musichall owner)
Jack Reeves
William Evans Burton
Also look at actors playing at the London theatres during the early part of the 19th century. They often also played the halls.

Good luck Fay. Cheers, Joy

Subject: RE: Music Halls pre blackface
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 06 Jan 05 - 05:32 PM

No luck. Try this: www.peopleplayuk.org.uk/guided_tours/music_hall_tour/the_story_of_the_music_halls/default.php -34k - or- put www.peopleplayuk.org.uk and navigate through guided tours to Music Hall.

Subject: RE: Music Halls pre blackface
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 06 Jan 05 - 05:20 PM

Performances of "Billy Barlow" were being given in the 1830s. These lyrics also may be found in other website and in the Bodleian Broadsides. Barlow
George Coppin played Barlow in the early 1840s, Sam Cowell (1819-1864) was on the English stage in the 1840s.
Most performers worked in taverns, etc. or later in "Song and Supper Rooms."
The large music halls were not built until the 1850s. A brief history here: People Play

Subject: RE: Music Halls pre blackface
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Jan 05 - 01:50 PM

Try this search string at google:

18th century popular music + Britain

Subject: RE: Music Halls pre blackface
From: Fay
Date: 06 Jan 05 - 01:29 PM

Thanks Hoot

Subject: RE: Music Halls pre blackface
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 05 Jan 05 - 06:14 PM

Just remembered there is another very worthwhile book called British Music Hall by Raymond Mander & Joe Mitchenson published about 20-25 years back by Gentry Books which starts off with the Georgian coffee houses "Catch & Glee Clubs" & later called "Harmonic Meetings". One such being the Crown & Anchor Tavern at the Strand in London 1794.

H.

Subject: RE: Music Halls pre blackface
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 05 Jan 05 - 06:04 PM

I think that you will find that at that time it was not called music hall, but performers performed at "Smokers".
Much of my collection of music hall books has been sold off to other collectors but I still have several. One that might be of help to you is "Sweet Saturday Night" - pop song 1840-1920 by Colin Macinnes published in 1967 by Macgibbon & Kee. You might try looking for a copy. The Ballad of Sam Hall is one song that goes back to around this time and maybe even further.

Happy hunting.

Subject: Music Halls pre blackface
From: Fay
Date: 05 Jan 05 - 04:02 PM

Hello,

Anyone an expert, or better at finding links than me?

I want to know what went on in music halls, or in British populr music generally before the craze of blackface performers (i.e. pre or around 1830's ish). It all seems to get lumped together, but there must have been something going on at this time...

Any ideas?