Subject: RE: Origins: Sam Hall
From:
GUEST,John Adcock
Date: 31 Dec 09 - 06:10 PM
The following account of the song SAM HALL appeared in 'The Variety Stage, A History of the Music Halls from the Earliest Period to the Present Time,' by Charles Douglas Stuart and A. J. Park, London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1895 >
On the south side of Maiden Lane, at the western corner, or to be more precise at No. 20, stood that historic temple of Apollo -- the old CYDER CELLARS, which even in 1840 had been sacred to the muse of song for a century and a half at least. In his day it had been the favourite haunt of Professor Porson that learned pundit doubtless fully appreciating the devilled kidneys, immaculate oysters and Welsh rare-bits, not to mention the excellent cigars, old brandy, good brown stout, and cool cider for which the establishment enjoyed a wide-spread reputation. In other respects, the Cyder Cellars was a place of notoriously bad reputation, rivaling and excelling in their worst aspect the peculiar features of the Coal Hole and Judge-and-Jury Societies before alluded to. In the pages of Pendennis, Thackeray has immortalized it under the pseu¬donym of the 'Back Kitchen,' of which it bore unmistakable evidence of 'being the original.' The entertainment to be found here was similar to that given at the Coal Hole, with its worst features perhaps rather more pronounced. The artistes specially associated with the place were John Moody, with his admirable mimicry, who was also in great demand at Vauxhall and public dinners; Tom Penniket, great in his song of the raw recruit 'Soldier Bill'; Labern, and W. G. Ross. The latter, a comic vocalist whose admirable delineations of a certain type of character, combined with power of dramatic ex¬pression, have never been excelled. Ross started his career as a compositor on one of the Glasgow papers, singing occasionally at local harmonic assemblies. His success as a vocalist induced him to come to England and try his luck as a professional singer, and he made his first appear¬ance in this character at a place known as Sharpie's in Bolton. He then came on to London, and opened at the Cyder Cellars, where his many excellent qualities as a character vocalist at once brought him into prominence. His first success was made in such ditties as 'The Lively Flea,' a parody on the 'Ivy Green,' 'Jack Rag,' 'Pat's Leather Breeches,' 'Mrs. John¬son,' and 'Going Home with the Milk in the Morning.' But Ross's name will ever be associ¬ated with his most successful essay, a song entitled 'Sam Hall,' which at one time was the rage of London, and drew dense crowds to the Cyder Cellars nightly to hear him in this particu¬lar ditty. The sale of his portrait in character, which was sold for a shilling at the bars, had an enormous sale at the time, which may be taken as a further proof of the singer's popularity. The subject of this remarkable song was a chimney sweep, who is condemned to death for murder, and who is represented as philosophizing on the situation the night before his execution. The song was startlingly realistic in tone, and it's rendering by Ross as powerful, as it was artistic. The preliminary acting and 'business' adopted by the singer, such as the lighting up of his cutty pipe by the condemned criminal, his fitful sighs, and the air of swaggering despair with which he flings himself into his .chair before breaking forth into his horrible ditty was strik¬ingly sensational and effective. The opening lines of the song, which may be taken as a fair specimen of the rest, run as follows: -
'My name it is Sam Hall, chimney sweep.
My name it is Sam Hall,
I robs both great and small,
But they makes me pay for all,
D--n their eyes!'
The amount of brutal ferocity and pent-up fury which Ross managed to infuse into these lines was remarkable, and in this respect he was un¬equalled by any other singer. Ross made such a name over this performance that Buckstone, then the manager of the Haymarket Theatre, engaged him for that house, where he opened in a small Irish farce. He does not appear, however, to have made a hit on the legitimate stage, and speedily returned to his old love the concert platform, where in his own peculiar line he was, probably without a rival. Ross appears to have belonged to a school of which Mr. Charles Godfrey, Mr. Charles Coborn and Mr. Gus Elen are among the best modern exponents. Ross, unfortunately, was unable to maintain his early reputation, and though long after the days of the Cyder Cellars had become numbered he continued to appear with varying success at the different Metropolitan halls, he gradually fell behind in the race for popularity, and died some few years back in the obscure capacity of a humble chorus singer.
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