chapter 10

ol’ man river

—“Ol’ Man River”

Before setting out on his first concert tour, Robeson traveled to England for a production of The Emperor Jones. He and Essie arrived in London in August 1925. She rented a “nice cozy place” on two upper floors of a three-story-house. They loved staying in Chelsea, a neighborhood of painters, poets, and playwrights, with no racial barriers. The Robesons found England “warm and friendly and unprejudiced.”

Robeson “felt even more at home in London than he had in America,” wrote Essie. They ate in fine restaurants “without fear of the discrimination which all Negroes encounter in America.” At the theater, they could sit in any section. In New York, they were restricted to the balcony.

The Emperor Jones opened on September 10, 1925, at the Ambas-sadors Theatre in London’s West End, a dazzling area packed with theaters, restaurants, shops, art galleries, and museums. Critics praised Robeson, but they disliked the play, which closed after a short, five-week run.

However, Robeson’s fame spread. Critics hailed his “wonderful voice” and “astonishing emotional powers.” Reporters interviewed him repeatedly. The British Broadcasting Corporation invited him to sing over the radio. Robeson was elated: “I am thrilled at the prospect of talking and singing to—how many is it?—ten million British listeners…. The delight of it almost scares me.” In an interview, he revealed his plan to pursue a concert career. “You can easily exhaust the dramatic roles that a negro can choose from,” he said, but “there is no end to the songs one can sing if one has the voice.”

Reporters treated him with respect, calling him “Mr. Robeson,” a courtesy he rarely received back home. They posed questions about his life in the United States as a black man. He opened up and enjoyed talking about his past, his experiences growing up, the lessons he learned from his father. A journalist asked if the slavery stories his father told him had left him bitter. Robeson replied, “Why no!…Those bad times are over. What we have got to do is to go forward…I realize that art can bridge the gulf between the white and black races.” His concert in New York with Brown had proved this, for he had connected emotionally with the audience through the spirituals. Now his voice reached a wider audience through radio broadcasts and recordings.

Before returning to America, he and Essie vacationed in Paris. At the famed Shakespeare and Company bookstore, a gathering place for aspiring writers, they met Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce, and Gertrude Stein. The owner of the store invited the Robesons to a Sunday afternoon salon, and Paul charmed everyone by singing spirituals and Negro workmen’s songs. From Paris, Robeson and Essie traveled to the Riviera in the South of France. The warm sun soothed his chronic sinusitis, a problem for him ever since a football teammate at Rutgers had smashed his nose.

In December, they sailed home to prepare for a thirteen-city concert tour with Larry Brown. The first stops in Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and Detroit were successful. But in February 1926, when they arrived in Chicago for a performance, the auditorium was only half full. Something had gone wrong and the program had not been advertised. Still, Robeson “made up his mind to give these few people as fine a recital as he possibly could,” recalled Essie.

Robeson studies a score, as Brown accompanies him on the piano. They spent hours rehearsing new songs and arrangements for concerts.

At the end of the program, critics and audience members cried out for encores. The Chicago Herald-Examiner wrote, “I have just heard the finest of all Negro voices and one of the most beautiful in the world…Long before he had finished his first group of spirituals, Robeson had moved his listeners to tears, to laughter, and to shouted demands for repetition.”

In Boston, Robeson had caught one of his frequent bad colds and needed to rest. When they tried to check into a modest hotel, they were turned away because they were black. Housing laws in Boston discriminated against black people and forced them to live in segregated neighborhoods. Essie snubbed the laws and took Robeson and Brown to the Copley Plaza, one of the fanciest hotels in town, where they were received “with every courtesy.” Robeson stayed in bed on the day of the performance. His throat was sore and raw. That night, in the dressing room at Symphony Hall, he said to Brown, “I feel awful. Well, boy, here’s where I let you down. I haven’t any voice at all. My throat’s tied up in a knot, and I can’t possibly sing a note.” He offered to go out and apologize to the audience for disappointing them.

Brown stayed calm and said, “I think you ought to try one or two songs, anyway.” Essie agreed. “Paul was so frightened that he walked on the stage in a trance,” she recalled. “He never sang so badly in his life.” Somehow, Robeson got through the whole concert, and the audience sympathized. But he was “so shocked at his performance that he declared he would never sing again.”

Robeson, Essie, and Brown returned to New York “greatly discouraged.” Robeson lost confidence. Essie recommended that he work with a voice teacher. She said, “There must be some way to sing well, at least fairly well, over a cold” and “nervousness.” Essie found a coach and said to her, “I’ve married the most beautiful Voice I’ve ever heard, and I want you to help me with it.” Robeson studied with the coach and learned how to relax his throat so that he wouldn’t feel tired. He also consulted with a doctor who treated him for inflammation of his nose and throat. Within a month, his condition greatly improved, and in gratitude, he sang for the doctor’s family.

By spring 1926, he accepted the lead in a play titled Black Boy, the story of a black prizefighter. Rehearsals began in August. During out-of-town tryouts, police gathered in anticipation of violence when Robeson appeared onstage dressed in skimpy boxing shorts, and romanced a white woman as part of the story. In Wilmington, Delaware, half the audience walked out. Nevertheless, celebrities turned out for the opening night on October 6 at the Comedy Theatre in New York. Reviews were mixed. Several critics expressed gratitude that the script called for Robeson to sing twice, giving them relief from the author’s words. Alexander Woollcott wrote, “when Robeson sings…the play is just pushed to one side.”

Black Boy closed after thirty-seven performances. Robeson, disap-pointed, announced that he was through with theater. Few parts were open to a black actor. “I can make good with my singing,” he said.

Composer Jerome Kern saw the play in a tryout run and had a deep emotional response to Robeson. Kern and his collaborator, lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II, were developing a new musical based on Edna Ferber’s best seller Show Boat. The story told of a floating theater on the Mississippi in the nineteenth century. The show, like the novel, explored racial prejudice by introducing a subplot concerning a mixed-race character, and it would feature an interracial cast. As Kern sat in the audience watching Black Boy, the music of the main song came to him. “The melody of OL’ MAN RIVER was conceived immediately after my first hearing Paul Robeson’s speaking voice,” he later wrote in a letter. “Robeson’s organ-like tones are entitled to no small share of ‘that thing called inspiration.’ ”

After composing the song, Kern visited Robeson in his Harlem apartment and played it for him on the piano while Robeson sang from a rough draft. They went downtown to sing it for Oscar Hammerstein II, who wrote the lyrics. Kern and Hammerstein dedicated the song to Robeson. They intended to have him sing “Ol’ Man River” three times in the show, playing the lead of Joe, a good-natured but lazy stevedore on the riverboat. Kern even planned to feature a “Robeson recital” in the second act.

Kern and Hammerstein negotiated a contract with producer Florenz Ziegfeld, dubbed Broadway’s greatest showman, who produced lavish revues called Follies. No African Americans performed in the shows, and no black people were allowed in the audience. The one exception was the famous comedian Bert Williams, who Ziegfeld hired to star in the Follies from 1910 to 1919.

Putting a deal together with Ziegfeld took time, but the Robesons needed income right away. Essie hurriedly assembled a brochure to drum up billings for more concerts, so that her husband could earn a living. For a one-night performance in a large city, Robeson’s standard fee was $1,250 ($12,500 in today’s dollars). In January and February 1927, Robeson and Brown returned to the concert circuit and performed in Kansas City, Missouri. The group organizing the concert couldn’t afford his usual fee, so he agreed to sing for $750 ($10,230 in 2018 dollars).

Brown accompanying Robeson in a concert of spirituals around the time of their New York debut

In 1913, Kansas City had officially adopted Jim Crow laws. African Americans had separate neighborhoods and public schools. But when Robeson and Brown came to Kansas City, they broke down racial barriers. According to local custom, white people usually sat in a reserved separate section at a concert. Roy Wilkins, then a black reporter and later the head of the NAACP, purposely booked the concert in a large church attended by white people. Wilkins announced that seating would not be segregated. “White folks decided they couldn’t stay away,” he wrote, and the concert was a huge success.

When Robeson returned to New York, Essie told him that she was pregnant. She was ecstatic. He had “mixed feelings.” First of all, he worried about Essie. “You know you’re not strong enough,” he said. “I’ll never forgive you if you ruin what is left of your health for a baby.” But she was determined. “I’ll take a chance,” she noted. He was still struggling to build his career. With a baby coming, he needed work to support his family. So he and Brown arranged to do a series of concerts in Europe, starting in Paris.

Robeson had still not been hired to star in Show Boat, although the composers and producer envisioned him in the role of Joe. Essie encouraged him to take the part if it were offered, but he resisted. Robeson had never wanted to perform in a Broadway musical. The segregated seating in Broadway theaters disgusted him, and he saw the personality of Joe as a stereotype. He also objected to the opening lyrics, which included the hated “n-word.” The spirituals that he and Brown performed were his “art.” In an interview, he said, “I feel that the music of my race is the happiest medium of expression for what dramatic and vocal skill I possess…. Negro music is more and more taking its place with the music of the world.”

By the time Ziegfeld offered him the part of Joe, in October 1927, Robeson was on his way to France. Reluctantly, he left Essie behind in New York, since she was due to deliver the baby in a few weeks. From the ship, he wrote to her: “So hard to leave you, sweet…. But you’ll come to me soon, and I’ll work hard and do you proud.” On November 2, 1927, Essie gave birth to a son, Paul Robeson Junior. “He was an exact replica of his father,” she recalled joyously. “The likeness was so startling.” When Robeson heard the news, he wrote to Essie, “How can that boy have a crooked nose; he didn’t play football. Or was it the delivery. He sounds grand. Won’t I be glad to see him…. Take good care of him and tell him about papa.”

The delivery had been difficult, and Essie developed serious complications that kept her bedridden. As soon as Robeson found out about her illness, he left Brown in the middle of the concert tour and sailed home. Onboard the steamship, he wrote to Essie: “Just you wait and see how I shall treasure you and the boy who is part of us.” By coincidence, he reached New York the day before Show Boat opened on Broadway. A classically trained singer who had also performed spirituals in concerts was the composers’ second choice for the lead, and he starred as Joe. The musical was a smash hit, as Essie had predicted.

But weeks later, producer Florenz Ziegfeld invited Robeson to play the role of Joe in London. The production of Show Boat was scheduled to open on May 3, 1928, at the Royal Drury Lane Theatre. This time, Robeson accepted the part. In April, he sailed to England and celebrated his thirtieth birthday aboard ship. Essie planned to join him and leave the baby in New York with her mother, Grandma Goode. Robeson sent a letter to Larry Brown saying he hoped they could resume giving recitals after the play opened.

Robeson arrived at the Royal Drury Lane Theatre during a rehearsal. Kern, seated at the piano on the stage, rushed over and hugged him. “My God, Paul, it’s marvelous to see you!” he exclaimed. He led Robeson to the piano and had him sing “Ol’ Man River” right then. A member of the cast said, “Paul just walked up and put his arm on top of the piano, and this beautiful voice, this organ of a voice, came out as he sang ‘Ol’ Man River.’ And we were all in tears.”