America's Blue Yodel - Boston...

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Article MT193 - from Musical Traditions No 11, Late 1993

America's Blue Yodel

A coon named Billy Boardler Was an end man and a yod'ler, In a black faced minstrel troupe, he was a dream ...

Say can't he chirp some tenor, Yes, that rag-time op'ra tenor, Oh he sho' can sing, his breathing power's fine ...

His Yode'lin' is marvelous and grand ..., I love to hear you yod'lin' Mister Yod'lin' man.

(From Mister Yodelin' Man, words and musicby Chris Smith, 1911.)

In the black South African coming-of-age novelFamiliarity is the Kingdom of the Lost, authorDugmore Boetie drew from his late 1930schildhood to describe a young apprentice thief wholived with an adopted street-father in a tunnel orstorm sewer in old Sophiatown. Their subterraneanlair harboured an array of stolen goods, including agramophone and some 78s, one of which put theboy in a trance:

The voice in the record belonged to Jimmy Rodgers. He was singing a song called Waiting forthe Train with guitar accompaniment. The first time I heard that record, it took me like adrunkard takes to drink. I didn't want anything to go wrong. Not while I was listening to thatrecord.

Such was the magnetic power of Jimmie Rodgers' late 1920s commercial recordings. What made them soirresistible was Jimmie's 'blue yodel'. Within months of their release in the States, Jimmie's records wereavailable in South Africa, and by 1932 a black South African singer named William Mseleku had 'recordedsome songs directly modeled on Rodgers's 'Blue Yodel' series'. 1 During the 1940s, similar-sounding yodelsbegan to surface on recordings by traditional black South African mbube choirs. An example is preserved onLadysmith Black Mambazo's 1974 album Isitimela, which means 'a train'. The liner notes claim that whenleader Joseph Shabalala 'comes out on solo with a voice like that of the Western cowboys he reaches a very



high note of performance'.

This claim echoes the sentiment expressed in anewspaper review of an African-American vaudevillequartet that appeared in a Chicago theatre in 1918:'Alien's Cheyenne Minstrels, a western serenadequartette, one a female, who yodeled nicely, in acowboy, mountainside scene, with sunset, was a goodoffering'. 2 African-American entertainers did notexclude themselves from the popular Western motif. Musical dramas and comedy skits with Westernthemes were staples of early black vaudeville, and, assuch, were obvious precursors of the all-black castWestern movies of the 1940s, which featured smoothcrooners like Herb Jeffries and Dusty Brooks.

Joseph Shabalala traces his yodel to a rural SouthAfrican folk tradition: 'That thing began from whenthe old ladies do that thing we call 'ululation'. Andthen the young ladies, they used to call each other likethat'. 3 Shabalala was surprised to discover howclosely some of his work resembles that of RebertHarris, whose 'gospel yodel' distinguishes vintagerecordings by the famous Soul Stirrers. Harris traceshis yodeling style to the rural Texas environment ofhis childhood. 4 Aaron Neville, the contemporaryNew Orleans crooner, traces his yodeling style togospel music and to 'cowboy singers on the radio. Igrew up on the The Sons of the Pioneers, Gene Autry,and Roy Rogers, with yodeling and stuff. 5

Scholars generally maintain that Jimmie Rodgersinvented the blue yodel, that he 'was the first singerclearly to establish the yodel as an echo and commenton the blues'. 6 The search for roots of blue yodeling

has concentrated primarily on African-American folksinging traditions and on Jimmy Rodgers' earlyassociation with black 'gandy dancers' and railroad men. However, there is the possibility that Jimmie was atleast as much influenced by black vaudeville yodelers and by 78s. Carrie Rodgers, Jimmie's second wife andfirst biographer, said he was 'fascinated by shows and show people.' He 'haunted the show lots and stageentrances of theaters ... As long as he could possibly scare up a dollar that wasn't busy he would spend it forshows - any kind - (and) for phonograph records.' He 'bought phonograph records by the ton,' and 'toward thebetterment of his own brand of music-making, he would play those records over and over.' 7



According to the popular theory, Jimmie synthesized Swiss Alpineyodelling with 'black falsetto', a folkmusical inspiration with rootsin Africa. Late 1920s recordings by bluesman Tommy Johnson arecited as representative of 'black falsetto':

Johnson's refrain derives mainly from the Afro-Americanfield holler tradition, while Rodgers's refrain displays anobvious debt to Swiss yodeling style ... Rodgers probablyowes his refrain less to black music than he does theoccasional falsetto which he employs on words in his bluesstanzas. This is a common technique among blackfolksingers and one that is undoubtedly indigenous to theirmusic, since it can also be heard in some recordings ofAfrican tribal music. Rodgers probably picked up thetechnique from black musicians when learning the blues andsomehow associated it with Swiss yodeling, with which healso must have been familiar. Thus was born the 'blue yodel'in white folkmusic. 8

Earlier examples of 'black falsetto', equal in strength and vitality toTommy Johnson's, are preserved on blues songs recorded by blackvocal quartets. Consider the Gulf Coast Quartet's 1923 recordingof Happy Blues (Columbia 14012) and the Norfolk Jazz Quartet's1921 recordings of Wang Wang Blues (Okeh 8022) and SouthernJack (Okeh 4318), a popular railroad blues that shares imagery with later Jimmie Rodgers recordings.

In addition to 'black falsetto', African-Americanvocal quartets made distinctive use of the SwissAlpine yodel. This can be heard in the calliopeimitation, a humorous onomatopoeic device thatdates from the 1880s, at least. In 1889, whiletouring with the Georgia Minstrels, the ExcelsiorQuartette 'delighted' audiences with their 'imitationof Barnum's Steam Organ'. 9 The calliope effectwas achieved through a well-pronounced yodel. Two recorded examples, both from 1924, survive:Calliope Song by the Seven Musical Magpies(Victor 19544) and Barnum's Steam Calliope bythe Sunset Four (Paramount 12241). On both, theyodeled calliope imitation is preceded by a barber-shopped verse of J K 'Fritz' Emmett's popularyodeling vehicle from 1879, Cuckoo Song.

Abbe Niles, who had occasion to comment onJimmie Rodgers' 'Blue Yodel' 78s at the time of their initial release, saw nothing unique in the amalgam ofyodeling and blues singing that they offered. As much an expert on the blues as anyone was in 1928 - he hadwritten the introduction to W C Handy's 1926 Blues: An Anthology - Niles was impressed by howdistinctively black Jimmie's Blue Yodel recordings sounded, yodeling and all.



This came out in Niles' enlightening record-review column, 'Ballads, Songs and Snatches', which appeared in1928 and early 1929 issues of The Bookman, a mainstream literary journal. Niles advised his readers to fleshout their Paul Whiteman collections with hillbilly, ethnic and all manner of 'Race' 78s, including blues andblues-related songs by the likes of Alberta Hunter, Rabbit Brown, Peg Leg Howell, the 'magnificent' BessieSmith, Cannon's Jug Stompers and Washington Phillips:

'Listening to race records is nearly the only way for white people to share the Negroes' pleasureswithout bothering the Negroes'.

To Niles' ear, Jimnrie Rodgers was a 'White man gone black'. In his July 1928 column, Niles recommendedJimmie's first 'engaging, melodious and bloodthirsty 'Blue Yodel' '. In his September 1928 column, under theheading 'White man singing black songs', Niles endorsed Jimmie's Blue Yodel - No. II. He went on toacknowledge that Jimmie's first 'Blue Yodel' had 'started the whole epidemic of yodelling blues that nowrages - though Clarence Williams wrote a good one five years ago.'

Niles was referring to Yodeling Blues, copyrighted by the Clarence Williams Music Publishing Company on31 March 1923, and commercially recorded twice that same year. SaraMartin and EvaTaylor - Clarence'swife - recorded it on 4 May 1923 (Okeh 8067). The label credits 'Piano Accomp. by Clarence Williams' and'Yodel Cornet Obligate by Thomas Morris*. Between twelve-bar blues verses about losing a man, the singerswarble a distinct, if slightly inane, "yodel-odel-odel, de-yodel-odel-odel".0n 14 June 1923, Bessie Smithrecorded adarker version of Yodeling Blues (ColumbiaA3939). On both of these recordings the yodeling ismore implied than realized. Still, the 'blue yodel' syntax is in place; the yodel is expressed as 'an echo andcomment on the blues':

I'm gonna yodel my blues away, I said, my blues away, I'm gonna yodel, yodel my blues away, yeee-hoo, I'm gonna yodel 'til things come back my way.

Among the most forgotten, least-appreciated phenomena in America's musical history, African-Americanyodelers were essential to the acculturation of Swiss Alpine yodeling in American song. TheAmericanization of the Alpine yodel, including its African-American adaptation, gained initialmomentumciroz 1840 with the wave of indigenous' singing family' and minstrel troupe quartets that cued onthe success of the Tyrolese Rainer Family. Touring the Eastern states from 1839to 1843, the Rainersperformed simple, mixed-voice arrangements of Tyrolese folksongs, with yodeling. 10

America's most popular nineteenth-century singing family, the Hutchinsons, made regular use of yodeling. Quick to parody the singing-family idea, minstrel show quartets took up yodeling as 'tyrolesian business'. An1853 program for Christy's Minstrels announces their burlesque of the Hutchinson Family singing 'We Comefrom the Hills with Tyrolean Echo'. 11 Christy's Minstrels were still burlesquing the Hutchinsons when theyperformed in Cape Town, South Africa, in 1862. 12



The most enduring vehicle for American yodelers has been S AEmery's 1869 lullaby, Sleep, Baby, Sleep. Between the late 1890s,when the first cyclinder recordings of it were made, and 1927,when Jimmie Rodgers chose it for his debut recording, Sleep,Baby, Sleep was recorded a dozen times or more. In 1923 it wasrecorded by an African-American yodeler named CharlesAnderson. Students of Jimmie Rodgers are aware of this. TonyRussell mentioned it in his book, Blacks Whites and Blues (1970),and Robert Coltman referred to it in a footnote to his JEMFQarticle, 'Roots of the Country Yodel' (1972). Not mentioned,however, is the fact that Anderson's total record output - eight sidesfrom 1923 and 1924 - is a near even mixture of yodels and bluessongs. Apparently, since Anderson was not a folksinger, he wasdismissed as an oddity, an isolated example, not part of the racial-cultural interaction in which the blue yodel was formed.

Documentation in the Indianapolis Freeman, a nationallydistributed weekly newspaper that catered to black entertainers,reveals that Charles Anderson was one of several black yodelerswho performed extensively in front of black and white audiencesduring the first two decades of this century. Those decades weremarked by a proliferation of independant black vaudevilletheaters. In the fresh, uninhibited environment provided by thesetheatres, coon songs of the previous era gave way to more honestAfrican-American musical expressions, including the 'new phaseof ragtime' which came to be known as 'blues'.

Ragtime-cum-blues songs like Going Where the Weather Suits MyClothes, Elgin Movements, I Ain 't Got Nobody and He's In theJailhouse Now - one of Jimmie Rodgers' blue yodel classics - wereoriginal products of this environment. A report to the Freeman from Gibson's New Theater, Philadelphia, inOctober 1919 said, 'Marshall and Davis ... who also sing and dance to the African 'KAZOON', find favorwhen they sing 'He's In the Jail House Now', and play on the slide trombone.'

By 1920 a certain Kid Thomas - not the New Orleans trumpeter - had made 'the jailhouse song' his speciality. Thomas was an eccentric vocalist; when he sang In the Right Church, But the Wrong Pew at Chicago'sfamous Pekin Theater back in 1908, he and the cornet player 'got hooked up in such a complicated way that itwas hard to tell which was which'. In February 1920, at the Washington Theater, Indianapolis, Thomascreated a 'near riot' with 'his now famous song, 'He's in the Jail House Now'. Later that year he sang it 'withthe addition of a new verse'.

Charles Anderson and his yodeling contemporaries were among the first wave of singers to take on the 'new-style' songs. While preserving the great ballads and yodel songs of yore, they continually devised new yodelsand absorbed the latest ragtime-cum-blues songs. Selected Indianapolis Freeman references to Anderson andother black Southern vaudeville yodelers - particularly Monroe Tabor and Beulah Henderson - bring out thepreviously unexplored commercial side of 'black yodeling' and show precisely how, during the decade 1910to 1920, black professional yodelers brought blues and yodeling into intimate juxtaposition.



Monroe Tabor

If Jimmie Rodgers was the 'Singing Brakeman', Monroe Tabor was the 'Yodeling Bell Boy'. Born inBirmingham, Alabama, he turns up in the Freeman on 1 June 1907 as a new tenor soloist and qu artet singerwith the Dandy Dixie Minstrels, who considered him a 'rare find' with the tonal 'quality of a Troy'. FellowBirmingham native Henry Troy was internationally famous for his sweet rendition of Tom Lemonier'sbarbershop ballad, Just One Word of Consolation.

The Dandy Dixies comprised a major road show, a 'New Ebony Sunburst of Modern Minstrelsy', formed in1906 under the white proprietorship of Voelckel & Nolan, who also owned the Black Patti Troubadours. Intypical road-show fashion, they played grueling successions of one-nighters, six nights a week, on a year-round basis. During Tabor's first four months with them, the Dandy Dixies played from Duluth, Minnesota,to New Orleans, Louisiana. They were in Kansas in November 1907, when he was first identified as ayodeler:

'The Dixie Rangers Quartette receives three and four encores nightly. Our ballad singers (andquartet members) are Hayward Wooton, Monroe Tabor, The Alabama Yodeler, Jakie Smith, thesmall man with the big voice, and Tom Seldon, baritone.

When the Dandy Dixies played BimumghaminJanuary 1908, Tabor stayed behind to spend time with hisfamily at 4118 Second Avenue He took another Birmingham sabbatical in April, but was back with the troupein Kingston, New York, that summer, when a 'well-known critic' reported:

Monroe Tabor sang A Tear, a Kiss, a Smile. Mr Tabor is a new tenor with a good voice, whichsuffers only from a lack of training. The Dixie Ranger Quartette was another hit, and made goodin all its selections. While there was not quite enough comedy and ragtime, the Yoodle [sic]song, Sleep, Baby, Sleep, was greatly in atonement and showed Monroe Tabor to be unexcelledas a yoodler.

When Billy Kersands, 'the dean of genuine Negro minstrels', Joined the Dandy Dixies at Chattanooga inSeptember 1908, Tabor was 'singing Dear Dixie with great success'. When they played Dallas in November,the quartet sang Every Star Falls In Love With Its Mate and When the Swallows Build Their Nests, SweetMane. In the latter, 'the high tenor notes of one of the singers, mingling with a deep bass that seemed to rollup from somewhere beneath the stage, brought howls of approval from the galleries and a dignified encorefrom the pit'. Later that month. Tabor was'using a new yodle, which causes he and the Dixie RangerQuartette to be called in the floodlights repeatedly'.

In April 1909 Tabor closed with the Dandy Dixies and went to work at the Exchange Garden Theater inJacksonville, Florida, where he became 'the hit of the season singing No One Knows.' In addition, the team of'Trice and Tabor, soprano and eccentric tenor', sang 'the latest out of today, Al H Wilson's lullaby Just to BeWith You, and Down in New England.' Another song he made 'quite a hit' with was Girl of My Dreams.

In July 1909 Tabor left the Garden with Richards and Pnngle's Georgia Minstrels. When high-toned criticSylvester Russell reviewed their August appearance at Bell' s Opera House, Benton Harbor, Michigan, henoted:

The ballad When I Dream in the Gloaming of You, by Monroe Tabor, a young man with a tenorvoice infinitely sweet, in a measure whose lower notes are uncertain in tonal carriage. His soft



singing is entirely of falsetto, truly an indication of a great singing organ. But as Mr Tabor neverexpects to be an opera singer we can excuse his lack of technic [sic] and his falsetto, whichserves him well in yodle songs of the sweetest and best his race has produced since the days ofMr Price [Prof T H Price, referred to in African-American press reports of 1890s as 'the BlackEmmett'], and to which he bowed amidst the deafening applause which greeted him.

As their 'iconoclasstic tenor and yeodler', Tabor stayed three months with the famous Georgia Minstrels InOctober 1909, when they played the Prince Theater, Houston, the mainstream Post remarked, 'The 'yodle'rendered by Monroe Tabor was simply grand'. As they moved into the Texas Panhandle, Tabor closed outwith the troupe, returned to Jacksonville, took up residence at 409 West Orange Street, and resumed work atthe Exchange Garden Theater Correspondence from the Garden on 6 November said, 'Monroe Tabor, oursoloist, who is said to be the only black A L Wilson, is singing this week 'Intryrol Yodel'.'

A report from the Garden on 22 January 1910 said Tabor was also singing 'that beautiful ballad LoveThoughts'. After that, news from the Garden dried up, and Tabor disappeared from the Freeman for a year. When he surfaced again, it was under the scrutiny of Northern theatre critics. In February 1911 SylvesterRussell reported from the Grand Theater, Chicago 'Monroe Tabor, the tenor and yodler, formerly of Richardand Pringles' Georgia Minstrels, made his first appearance at this house, and won instant favor'. On 25February an article on 'Acts New To Indianapolis' noted:

This young man has an odd act. It is peculiarly adapted as an 'opener'. It is a straight singingact, yet Mr Tabor puts so much soul and expression in his work that it at once springs intopopular favor with his audiences. His songs are all of them of a specially selected nature,chosen, as it were, to suit a voice great in forcefulness, tone and sweetness. His neat costume,that of a bellboy, seems to lend an air of niftiness to all he does, both convincing and entertainingTabor, as I have said, is yet a young man, and has a very brilliant career before him. His singingis of a kind and style sure to win for him recognition among the managers. It was hard for theaudience to determine which of the songs he rendered was the best. Judging from the applause,however, I am inclined to think that his yodel of Wilson's Lullaby was best received. The othertwo songs in the act were I Love the Name of Mary and Tabor's Yodel, the latter being an originalcomposition. Unlike most colored singers, Tabor has a distinctiveness of articulation makinghimself heard in all parts of the house.

In the fall of 1911 Tabor turned up on the West Coast: 'Monroe Tabor, the Yodelin Bell Boy, at the Richmondtheater, San Francisco, Cal, week of October 2nd. He is one of the big hits of the coast'. Then, in February1912, he 'joined hands with Fred P Greene in an act entitled 'The Red Cap and the Bell Boy', a pianologue'. In earlier days, Fred Green was a house pianist at Chicago's legendary Monogram Theater. From there hehad branched out as a dialect comedian and become famous for his portrayal of 'the rag-picking Jew'.

Tabor and Green remained partners through 1920, at least. Often appearing on 'big-time' white theatrecircuits, they offered everything 'from grand opera to ragtime'. While later Freeman references are largelyconfined to route listings, their Chicago appearances brought occasional comments from Sylvester Russell. At the Grand Theater in January 1917, 'Fred Greene kept the house in convulsions of laughter and MonroeTabor yodeled as only J K Emmett Sr, of yore could do'. At the Avenue Theater in December 1917, 'WhenMy Ship Comes Sailing Home was a fine tenor solo by Tabor, who has no superiors as a yodeler'.

Beulah Henderson



Beulah Henderson, née Washington, was the first vaudevillian known to offer a combination of yodel songsand blues, or, at least, up-to-date ragtime songs incorporating the language and spirit of blues. Heradvertisements in the Freeman claimed she was 'America's Only Colored Lady Yodeler'. She was born andraised in New Orleans, where she appeared at the New Globe Museum in 1905 singing My Fairy Coon in astock company headed by Billy Henderson.

Billy Henderson was a 'popular comedian' from Atlanta who had moved to New Orleans in 1901 to open arestaurant. By 1906 he and Beulah had formed a song-and-dance team and struck out for theatres along theGulf Coast. In December 1906, correspondence from Jacksonville's Exchange Garden Theater revealed:

Mr William H Henderson, of the team of Henderson and Washington, will wed his partner, MissBeaulah Washington, on Sunday evening, December 9th, at the Lincoln Park, Jacksonville, Fla. It will be one of the grandest weddings that has ever taken place before a public audience.

Appearing in Southern theatres and parks over the next four years, Beulah Henderson crossed paths withblues pioneers like Ed Peate and Butler 'String Beans' May, as well as with yodeler Monroe Tabor. By 1910she had established herself as a premier 'coon shouter'. Correspondence fromLagman's Theater, Mobile,Alabama, in August 1910 said, 'Beulah Henderson as a 'coon shouter', has gained the distinction of being thegreatest that has ever set foot on the soil of Mobile County. She is at present singing such great successes asThe Grizzly Bear, Stop That Rag and other great hits'.

In October 1910, when Billy and Beulah made their Northern debut at the Grand Theater, Chicago, criticCarey B Lewis noted they 'dance and sing, the numbers being Stop that Scorching the Hand [sic] and SleepBaby Sleep. When they were held over the following week, Lewis found them 'bristling with fun in black-face, singing successfully, Lone in Dixie, Stop that Rag, Stop Scorching that Ham and Are You On.'

From the Grand, Billy and Beulah dropped down to the Belmont Theater, Pensacola, Florida, and 'knocked'em a 'twister'.' Also on the bill, as a team act were Ma Rainey and Laura Smith. On closing night theHendersons joined Laura Smith and others for a 'genuine Italian macaroni supper' prepared by a chef namedAleck Alaska, then played whist 'until the 'wee sma' hours in the morning'. Next day they left for Lagman'sTheater, where Billy organized a new stock company that included 'coon shouter' Alberta Smiley and futureblues recording artist Mattie Dorsey.



When Billy and Beulah played the Houston Theater, Louisville,Kentucky, in February 1911, they were billed as 'The JollyHendersons'. Credited as 'one of our foremost colored producers',Billy staged some original musical comedies, including TheCowboy of the West and A Texas Ranger, while Beulah sangLullaby.

At this point in her career, Beulah's coon shouting was preemptedby her yodeling. A May 1911 report from the Gaither Theater,Cincinnati, said, 'Miss Henderson ... sings Sleep, Baby, Sleep, avery old song'. At the New Crown Garden Theater, Indianapolis,in October 1911 manager Tim Owsley noted:

The Jolly Hendersons offered a clean, bright and snappy actof singing, talking and dancing. Each song rendered by thejolly pair won for them an encore. Mr Henderson is a realclever light comedian, while his partner, Miss Henderson , isjust as clever as a singing and talking soubrette. In fact sheis one of the first lady yodlers that we have had the pleasureof hearing.

Billy and Beulah Henderson posted this advertisement in the Freeman in May 1913:

The Classy Colored Comedy PairTHE JOLLY HENDERSONS

featuringBeulah Henderson

America's only Colored Lady "Yodler"

In June 1913, while Billy went on tour with the Billy King Stock Company, Beulah went home to NewOrleans. She stayed at her mother's house, 2417 Bradish Street, and made a few solo appearances at E DLee's Lee Theater. When she joined her husband with Billy King's Stock Company at the Lyric Theater,Kansas City, in July, she was billed as 'America's greatest yodeler', and she was 'repeatedly encored, singingher famous 'Yoodle' song'.

After Kansas City, news from the Billy King Stock Company fell off, and when Billy Henderson surfacedagain on 17 August 1915, he was managing the Hippodrome Theater in Richmond, Virginia. Meanwhile,Beulah hadreturned to New Orleans and was working the Storyville cabarets. A note on 25 July 1914 said'Bessie Edington, Beulah Henderson, Lena Leggett, Arthur Winn, and the peerless Walter (Nooky) Johnsonstill hold their own and some one else's at the Manhattan cabaret'. Another note in late July informed that'Miss Beulah Henderson and Lena Leggins are holding out at Pete Lalas, Customhouse and Marais. They aredoing good work and drawing large crowds'.

During the first week of September 1914 Beulah appeared at the Star Theater, Shreveport, Louisiana, with aNew Orleans-based stock company headed by irrepressible entrepreneur and all-round vaudevillian WilliamBenbow, who described her as 'America's foremost (Col.) yoddler'. As the manager of Storyville's infamousPoodle Dog Cabaret in January 1915, Benbow reported that Beulah was 'still entertaining for the first class



cabaret'. He said she was ' ... pleasing as usual'. On that note, news of 'America's Only Colored LadyYodeler' gives out.

Charles Anderson

Like Monroe Tabor, Charles Anderson was born in Birmingham, Alabama, in the Snow Hill community. Heand Tabor's shared nativity and continued presence in Birmingham, their mutual association with quartets andquartet singers, and their common affinity for Sleep, Baby, Sleep, certainly help to explain why the only threeblack traditional quartets who recorded versions of Sleep, Baby, Sleep during the late 1920s - the Golden LeafQuartet, the Birmingham Jubilee Singers and the Famous Blue Jay Singers - were all from Birmingham. Thepossibility of Jimmie Rodgers having precipitated this provincial phenomenon now seems remote.

It was Charles Anderson's destiny to become a 'Yodeler BluesSinger'. In January 1909 he turned up as a 'clever young risingcomedian' doing an 'old woman monologue' at the Lyric Theater inMemphis. One year later he surfaced as an 'illustrated songster' atthe Royal Theater, also in Memphis, 'singing In the Good OldUSA.' Still at the Royal a couple of weeks later, he was 'doingnicely', though 'suffering from his new $100 cork leg'. By the endof the month he was' much improved', and still 'cleaning up withthose illustrated songs'.

Over the next two years, Anderson plied the Southern vaudevillestages in company with some of the era's most important bluessingers. In March 1911 he appeared at the American Theater inJackson, Mississippi, on a bill with Bessie Smith. Wayne 'Buzzin'Burton, who became Bessie's partner, reported from Birminghamin December 1911:

Despite the cold weather we are on top. Leroy White isstaging the shows ... Bessie Smith gets the hands singingSouthern Gal. Lula Smith makes a decided hit with Ocean[sic] Roll. Mr Charles Anderson, our able straight man,scores heavily in It's All Gone Now. Rastus Buckner ... hasthem screaming singing Alexander's Band. Wayne Burton... is singing Plant a Watermelon on My Grave.

When Anderson made his Northern debut at the MonogramTheater in August 1912, Sylvester Russell mentioned only that he was 'a newcomer'. That fall, working hisway down the East Coast on S H Dudley's pioneer black theatre circuit, he was 'still making high C'. In thespring of 1913 Anderson played the thriving cluster of theatres around his hometown, taking in NorthBirmingham, Bessemer, Ensley and Peats Cliff. 'All these houses are street car jumps,' he reported 'Plenty ofwork here. This is the greatest show town in the South for its size'.

By the summer of 1913, Anderson had his trademark concoction of blues and yodels together. When heplayed the Booker T Washington Theater in St Louis that August, he got his first in-depth review in theFreeman:



The Male Mockingbird, Charles Anderson, the man with the golden voice, is some charactersinger, imitator, and impersonator. As an imitator, Anderson has the best on the market skinned,his violin imitation intermezzo went big, and was one of the best imitations of a musicalinstrument heard in this neck of the woods for many moons. Sleep Baby Sleep, a lullaby sung incostume of an old nurse went big. The yodeling in this song was excellent. Baby Seals Blues, asrendered by Anderson, was worth going to hear. After a quick change, Anderson reappeared asthe polished gentleman and sang When the Cuckoo Sings, instantly winning the hearts of theaudience with his perfect yodehng, causing said audience to cheer like mad for more.

Baby Seals Blues, the first blues title to appear in Anderson's repertoire, predates WC Handy's Memphis Bluesas the first published blues composition. 13 The song is not about young aquatic mammals. Subtitled 'Singem - they sound good to me', it was named for its composer, H Franklin 'Baby' Seals, the pioneer bluessinger-pianist from Mobile, Alabama:

Honey, baby, mamma do she double do love you,I love you baby, don't care what you do,Oh sing em, sing em, sing them blues,Cause they cert'ly sound good to me.

Anderson went from St Louis to the New Crown Garden Theater, Indianapolis, where he repeated his bluesand yodehng act. It was the act that would carry him through the decade and into the recording studio:

Charles Anderson does a splendid colored mammy. Everyone likes this creation of his. Thiskind of portrayal of character does not give offense. This mammy is just a mammy notparticularly old, not particularly ugly and lame, as some are. She does things that are amusingand witty, as many real mammies do.

She gets the blues. Then she puts on Baby Seals' well-known song, making a tremendous hit. The part including the song makes for the best character of the kind seen here. When respondingto encore, Anderson appears in full dress suit.

As a yodler, he is among the best in the country. Perhaps none will ever equal the great Fritz KEmmett, but he greatly reminds one of the eminent yodler of years ago. He sang one ofEmmett's songs. He won applause by holding a note sixty seconds, a difficult defeat [sic] andpleasing enough because accompanied by a pretty waltz movement by the orchestra.

Following the successful presentation of his yodehng, blues-singing 'mammy' character in St Louis andIndianapolis, Sylvester Russell pronounced Anderson a 'Great Singer':

Among the few picked singers in vaudeville who shine by national [sic] talent and instinct is oneCharles Anderson, whom I have styled 'The Human Violin'. His imitation of a violin playingMascagni's 'Intermezzo' from the opera, at once attracted critics who know, on his first visit toChicago. His voice is a natural organ of alto material, which ranges high and pure and loud inaltissimo, and he possesses both temperament and magnetism. As a lullaby gag-love singer, andespecially as a yodeler, he probably has no equal, and his protean character work is convincing. In fact he is a wonder in a new sphere of vocal discovery.



Anderson spent the remainder of 1913 in Canada and Northern Michigan. At the Unique Theater, Detroit, hewas '... well received in his song The Blues, and his old woman makeup is a riot'. The New Year found himworking his way down the East Coast again on S H Dudley's time. A report from Dudley's bijou Theater,Durham, North Carolina, on 21 February 1914 said, 'He stops the show with his crow Jane act'. 'Crow Jane',the ugly, old, half-mad, fright-wig caricature, female counterpart to 'Jim Crow', was carried into the modemera by Morris Mabley. Apparently Anderson's 'crow jane' was somewhat less pungent than most.

Back in Birmingham in March 1914, Anderson reportedly bought a house for his mother 'out of one year'swork on the stage'. He spent the entire spring and summer of 1914 in Birmingham, and correspondence on25 July said he was 'still mananging the big tented theatre at 22 Good Avenue'.

On a bill with Butler May at the Grand Theater, Chicago, in October 1914, Anderson '... introduced Handy'sSt Louis Blues', which had just come off the press in September. In her lively autobiography, His Eye Is OnThe Sparrow, Ethel Waters claimed to have been the 'first woman - and the second person - ever to sing' W CHandy's most famous song professionally. She said she was inspired to feature it after hearing it sung by'Charles Anderson, a very good female impersonator'. The song became a staple of Anderson's repertoire,and it is among the unissued titles from his last recording session, in 1928.

In Washington DC at the Howard Theater in February 1915, Anderson fetched a glowing review:

Charles Anderson, a double-voiced singer of unusual quality ... proved to be one of the strongest attractionsthe house has had in his line for a long tune. His imitation of a violin is true to life. His rendition of J KEmmett's famous "Cuckoo" song, in which he holds one note sixty seconds or more, was fine and broughtback more tender memories to the old-timers who had heard Emmett himself carol forth this tuneful melodytwenty five years ago, when the great singer was in his palmy days. The Lullaby was given by Anderson withtelling effect, and the yodeling was all that could be asked for. He impersonates both female and malecharacters.

In closing, the Howard Theater correspondent noted, 'It is a curious coincidence that Mr Anderson's teacherand inspiring genius was Haywood S Wooten, formerly of Indianapolis, who was a member of the old 'Silver-toned Quartette' of that city in the '80s'. The same Haywood S Wooten was with Monroe Tabor in the DixieRangers Quartette in 1907, singing Sleep, Baby, Sleep.

From the Howard Theater, Anderson went to Gibson's New Standard Theater, Philadelphia, where his 'cooingand yodling songs ... kept the audience at fever heat'. When he hit the Monogram in April 1915, SylvesterRussell said 'the mammy character actor and yodeler, who imitates a violin, also made a hit singing in doublevoice. His St Louis Blues was Southern perfection that others can't approach.'

In September 1915, after touring the Northeast with a white stock company, Anderson played the CrownGarden Theater, Indianapolis, on a bill with Perry Bradford. 'In responding to encores, he gave a very finerendition of the blues - St Louis Blues and The Weary Blues. The latter was probably Coleman L Minor'sWeary Way Blues. Correspondence from Minor himself confirmed that 'Chas. Anderson, the great singer, issinging Coleman L Minor's Weary Way Blues.' Like Anderson, Minor was 'known to Indianapolistheatergoers', and when he and an unnamed female partner had played the Crown Garden back in April 1915,the partner sang a 'pretty Yoddle song, done in good style, and with good voice'.

Any plans that Anderson and Minor may have had to establish a singer-songwriter relationship wereundoubtedly squashed by Minor's open letter to the Freeman on 18 November 1916:



Coleman L Minor, the author of If Luck Don't Change, There'll Be Some Stealing Done, I Ain'tGot Nobody and Minor's Blues which are sung by Charlie Anderson and he has taken the libertyto print and sell without permission. Would like to say to the world, white or black, don't besurprised if some one pulls you off the stage while singing any of my songs without a writtenpermit with my signature. You know who you are. Nuff Sed.

Meanwhile, in March 1916, Anderson signed on with the Six Musical Millers, and when they playedLouisville, Kentucky's Olio Theater in mid-April, he made 'a big hit with his 'Yodle' and the 'Blues'.' Nextweek at the Monogram he was 'repeatedly recalled with a whistling echo'. By June he had closed with theMusical Millers and returned to solo work. His July appearances in Indianapolis got good press:

Charles Anderson is a stand-out performer being blessed with a high range musical voice, whichseems to know no limitations. If he chooses to sing a pure soprano without a hint of male tonehe can do so. Not only does he register high and clear, he makes the little quips, turns, trills andruns that high class women soprano singers make. He still gives a reminder of the renownedFritz Emmett, yodeler, singing his great song, yodeling high and beautifully. Then his prolongednote, like a bird poised on its wing, flying without a flutter. Anderson calls the blues, a phase ofragtime, grand opera. If it were grand opera, then he were its Caruso. Perhaps he leads theprocession in that kind of singing. Last Saturday night he put the house in motion like a boat atsea, when he put over his own blues creation.

What may have originated as a joke - that ragtime was 'Colored Folk's Opera' - was legitimized by ScottJoplin and other ragtime composers. Joplin's comic ragtime opera Treemonisha was a logical extension, andpractical application, of Antonin Dvorak's famous pronouncement - that the musical inventions of slaverycomprised America's only original folk music, and that any attempt to create an honest American classicalmusic would have to build on those inventions. W C Handy reflected this sensibility in his' arty' bluescompositions.

Charles Anderson was neither first nor last to refer to 'Colored Folk's Opera' in the Freeman. In October1910, at Ford Dabney's theater in Washington D C, 'Princess Rajah, styled 'the German-African song bird' ',closed her act 'with a humorous rendition of 'colored people's grand opera' - 'ragtime'.' A report fromWhitney's Smart Set in April 1917claimed, ' 'The Weary Blues', sung by Moana and others, passed right on toopera - regular opera - having the touch of one of Wagner's compositions. It was the very height of bluessinging'. An October 1917 report from Wooden's Bon Tons said, 'Miss Ethalene Jordan in songs delineationdeserves much credit for her rendition of popular and classy numbers and remember, she sings the coloredfolks opera too (The Blues)'.



On 5 August 1916 a note in the Freeman announced, 'Charles Anderson,the well-known yodler and blues singer, thinks of organizing theIndianapolis Follies'. One week later Anderson and his new troupe 'madetheir getaway for Pittsburgh and other eastern points'. A review of theirshow at the Star Theater, Pittsburgh, said:

Miss Edna Pervine and Charles Anderson with the "Blues" arescreaming them each night ... Miss Alice Evans sings Circus Day inDixie ... Mr Otis Huntley, the blackface comedian, sings the song IfYou Got A Little Bit Hang On To It Because It's Hard to Find a LittleBit More. Then came ... Mr John Berry, the greatest Colored femaleimpersonator of today.

The Indianapolis Follies was supposed to stay out until Thanksgiving, butby early November Anderson was back down South, touring solo. At theQueen Theater, Chattanooga, in the first week of December, he was'singing one of his own conceptions, the Worry Blues. Nufsed'. Also onthe bill were Jimmie Cox, author of Nobody Knows You When You'reDown and Out, and a certain Miss Pettiford, who sang If You Don't WantMe, Please Don't Dog Me Around.

When Anderson appeared at the Washington Theater, Indianapolis, inFebruary 1917 a reporter commented summarily:

He opens with a fine character stunt, an old mammy. As a yodelerhe is very well known, being, perhaps, the best colored performer inthis line of work. His opera, the blues, wins as usual.

In August 1917 Anderson was 'going big' in Sirmia, Ontario Province,Canada, 'singing Baby Seal's Blues.' A month later he was down in Kentucky with Thomas B Littlejohn'sMinstrels, under canvas. In October he returned to Chicago as a member of the 'colored contingent' of theWhite Slave Company. When he appeared in a solo act at the Monogram in November, Sylvester Russellproclaimed him a 'Singing Star': His 'falsetto soprano invisible, before entering, was a novel deception. Hisviolin imitation and his 'Blues' songs which now excell the renditions of other singers made a hit'.

Closing out the year at the Washington Theater, Indianapolis, Anderson got a strong review from 'BillyLaurens' [sic. Billie McLaunn], composer of Blind Man Blues:

Charles Anderson is one of those players that are designated as standard. He comes backfrequently, repeating his work, never failing to be appreciated He has a marvelous voice, runningthe total gamut of human capacity - nearly. Not only is his range great - his voice is musical. Hewas heard behind the curtains in his offering, singing the well known If I Forget then followsWhy Should I Care. Both are well sung, the last one being a particularly good rendition - asplendid sentimental song well sung. Some Sweet Day is also well sung. His range of voicepermits him to do a good violin imitation. He won with his yodeling as he always does.

As 1918 dawned, Anderson was working a brief stint with the Whitman Sisters, singing 'Alberta Whitman'scomposition Little Daddy.' At the Crescent Theater, Pittsburgh, in the spring of 1918:



Charles Anderson, the 'Yodeler Blues' singer, was a scream from start to finish. His act is awinner and what you call a show stopper. His Jelly Roll Blues sung in his own way, just clockedthe show.

By June 1918 the' 'Yodeler Blues' singer' was down in Georgia. He spent the summer with Littlejohn' sMinstrels, as he had done the year before, and by October he was back up North in the theaters. While that'$100 cork leg' of his must have kept him out of World War I, a note on 5 July 1919 said he was 'working inand around different camps through Virginia'. In October 1919 he turned up at the Washington Theater,Indianapolis, singing / Am Sorry I Made You Cry, along with his ' 'Yoddle' song' and'his rendition of TheBlues for Home,' which received 'ringing applause'.

Anderson spent the remainder of 1919 and the early months of 1920 in Northern Theaters. At theMonogram, Sylvester Russell commented, 'Charles Anderson, whose voice is still sweet and wonderful infalsetto and yodle numbers, had a nice number, I Know What it Means to be Lonesome, and he made a hit'. That spring, Anderson made his annual tour down the East Coast on S H Dudley time, then joinedLittlejohn's Minstrels in 'the bluegrass state'. As the troupe's interlocutor and 'human mocking bird', he sang 'Sleep Baby, Sleep with the greatest success'. He also had a 'narrow escape' that summer:

Little John's Shows were caught in a flood at Carlyle, Ky, Friday night, August 27th, nothingbeing left of the midway but part of the Merry-go-round, Ferris Wheel and the Ariel Swing. Therest of the show being completely washed away ... Charles Anderson, the Yodeler, was rescuedfrom drowning by Elmer Wheeler.

He survived to record eight sides for the Okeh label in 1923 and 1924, which gave summary account of hisvaudeville repertoire during the previous decade. Five of the recorded songs are yodels - Sleep, Baby, Sleep,Comic Yodle Song (which talks about meeting a woman with big feet, and is, perhaps, his own originalcomposition). Yodel Song - Coo Coo (J K Emmett's Cuckoo Song, adapted for Anderson's famous 60-secondsustained soprano note), Laughing Yodel and Roll On Silver Moon, a sentimental ballad, also recorded bymainstream yodelers like George P Watson and Frank Kamplam, and reminiscent of Jimmie Rodgers' variousSouthern ballad recordings.

His other three sides are blues songs, among them Baby Seals Blues, released as Sing 'Em Blues. In the yearsbefore Race recordings were finally allowed to flourish, Baby Seals Blues was sung by a wide variety ofentertainers, and played by countless pit orchestras and circus-annex bands. Strangely, Anderson's 1923recording of it, with Eddie Heywood's piano accompaniment, is the only one known. While no pronouncedyodeling is heard on it, Anderson's moaned chorus makes fine art of the 'black falsetto'. Soaringimperceptibly from his natural tenor to dizzy heights of soprano, he leaves no doubt about what it means tobe 'double-voiced'. Sadly, Anderson's other two recorded blues titles, Walkin' Blues and Dirty MistreatingBlues, remain untraced.

While some of the blue yodels heard on late 1920s Race recordings - those by the Mississippi Sheiks, forexample - probably do owe something to Jimmie Rodgers' phenomenal success, others - like Billie Young'sWhen They Get Lovin' They's Gone (accompanied by Jelly Roll Morton on Victor 23339,1930), LottieKimbrough and Winston Holmes' Lost Lover Blues (Gennett 6607, 1928), and Clint Jones' MississippiWoman Blues and Blue Valley Blues (Okeh 8587, 1928) - seem more deeply connected to these precedentrecordings by Charles Anderson, and to the venerable line of African-American yodelers they represent. There is no reason to doubt that Jimmie Rodgers, who could not resist a show, was exposed to and influencedby the black yodeler-blues singer tradition. Its practitioners were thoroughly entrenched in minstrelsy and



vaudeville, and accessible to all races of people. Perhaps Jimmie even saw Charles Anderson himselfperform, or heard some of Anderson's crystalline blues and yodeling 78s, before rising to immortality on hisown great 'Blue Yodel' recordings. At any rate, the Freeman references strongly suggest that CharlesAnderson and his generation of black professional yodelers had introduced the blue yodel in African-American entertainment before Jimmie Rodgers recorded.

Acknowledgements

All contemporaneous references to Monroe Tabor, Beulah Henderson and Charles Anderson and theiractivities, 1907-1920, as well as contemporaneous references to In the Jail House Now and to 'Colored Folks'Opera', are drawn from the authors' review of the Indianapolis Freeman, 1907-1920. Thanks to NolanPorterfield for a critical reading of the manuscript.

Lynn Abbott & Doug Seroff - 1993

References

1. Veit Erimann, African Stars: Studies in Black South African Performance (Chicago, University ofChicago Press, 1991 ), p.94.

2. Sylvester Russell, 'Chicago Notes', Indianapolis Freeman, 2 March 1918.

3. Doug Seroff interview with Joseph Shabalala, 3 March 1990.

4. Tony Heilbut, The Gospel Sound - Good News and Bad Times (New York. Simon and Schuster,1971), p.111.

5. Macon Fry, 'Aaron Neville', Wavelength (May 1985), p.22.

6. Robert Coltman, 'Roots of the Country Yodel: Notes Toward a Life History', John EdwardsMemorial Foundation Quarterly (Summer 1972).

7. Mrs Jimmie (Carrie) Rodgers, My Husband Jimmie Rodgers (1935; Country Music Foundationreprint, Nashville, 1975), pp.31, 56-7.

8. David Evans, 'Black Musicians Remember Jimmie Rodgers', Old Time Music, VII (Winter, 1972/3),p.13.

9. 'The Stage', Indianapolis Freeman, 22 March 1890.

10. Hans Nathan, 'The Tyrolese Family Rainer and The Vogue of Singing Mountain-Troupes in Europeand America'. The Musical Quarterly, XXXII (1961).

11. New York Clipper, 4 May 1872.

12. New York Clipper, 18 October 1863.

13. Abbe Niles, in his introduction to W C Handy, ed , Blues: An Anthology (2nd edn. 1949), p 18.



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