The Original Blues: The Emergence of the Blues in African American Vaudeville

There was an “underground” aspect to this phenomenon, attached as it was to saloon culture. That any sense of its early history survives must be credited to the black weekly Indianapolis Freeman.1 Beginning in 1899 the Freeman published reports from cities scattered throughout the South, where aspiring black vaudeville performers and musicians were employed at saloon-theaters and park pavilions. Some locales left nothing more than one-shot announcements, like this 1902 report from Monroe, Louisiana: “Our town has been greatly enlivened by the opening of a new colored vaudeville show in the rear of the two Brothers saloon under the management of the late ‘Billy’ Nichols of King and Bush’s big colored minstrels.”² Sporadic reports from Houston and Galveston, Texas, furnish an abbreviated sketch of early saloon-theater activity there. More substantial documentation accrued from saloon-theaters and park pavilions in Jacksonville, Tampa, and Fernandina, Florida; Savannah and Macon, Georgia; Louisville, Kentucky; New Orleans, Louisiana; and Memphis, Tennessee. These reports amount to a keyhole view of the original black southern vaudeville environment and its inhabitants.

During the last week of September 1899, Rusco and Holland’s Big Minstrel Festival played a one-night stand in Houston and found an after-hours oasis at the Little Solo saloon-theater:

Mr. Wilson is proprietor of the “Solo,” one of the finest equipped saloons and theater annex in the South … the show was put on after hours for our special benefit. The company contains some of the best in the profession. An original first part is set, showing Jas. Campbell in the middle, Buddy Glenn and Emmet Davis on bones and Chas. Williams and Aaron Nelson on tambos … Miss Willie Campbell’s “Bred in Ole Kaintuck” was fine. Chas. Williams’ “Bring You Back” was an encore producer. Sallie Cottrell sang “Write a Letter Home” pleasingly; our “Buddie” of course made us all laugh at “Close dem Windows.” Emmit Davis made a decided hit telling us in song of “Silver Slippers.” B. B., a former member of the Patti company [Black Patti Troubadours] closed the first part with, “When a Coon Sits in the Presidential Chair,” and was compelled to take a curtain call. The olio was strong, including Frederica Ward, male impersonator; Davis and Hayes, sketch artists and Chas. Williams, monologue artist. We were then invited to a spacious dance hall and fantastic toe movements were next on hand and a good old time was had by all the gang until early hours.³

It should come as no surprise that conventions of minstrelsy figured prominently in the offering. The earliest southern vaudeville platforms were largely populated by fugitives from itinerant minstrel companies. There was no prior history of black vaudeville to guide them. The rise of aspirational vaudeville shows corresponded with the desperate need for black popular performance venues in southern cities. While there was no sense of permanency in facilities such as the Little Solo Theater, vaudeville remained full of promise, a new avenue of opportunity.

Among the performers at the Little Solo, comedian Buddie Glenn—“our ‘Buddie’”—appears to have been a native Texan.⁴ In Florida in 1905 he was heralded as the “Southern favorite” and “father of Negro comedy.”⁵ The performer identified as “B. B.” was Charles Wright, familiarly known as “Bee Bee, the ‘Coon’ shouter.”⁶ Willie Campbell, Fredricka Ward, and Sallie Cottrell were but three of the Little Solo’s abundant complement of female performers.7 The theater also maintained an impressive band and orchestra, led respectively by R. J. “Dickie” Anderson and George B. Rhone, both of whom became stalwarts of tented minstrelsy.⁸

A pool table at the Little Solo harbored several resident hustlers: “Frank Itson, the champion pool player, would like to hear from some of the pool sharks of the east. Shorty George is still stepping into the money.”⁹ “Ed Ford and George Coleman are the coming pool sharks at the Little Solo theatre.”¹⁰ The Little Solo’s “theater annex” survived into the autumn of 1900.¹¹ In October news came that “The employees at the Little Solo Theatre regret the death of the proprietor’s wife.”¹² There were no further dispatches from Houston’s Little Solo saloon-theater.

The Little Solo’s counterpart in Galveston was the Olympic saloon-theater. In February 1899 the Olympic flashed this news: “The Island City is still on the boom. Sherman Dudley, comedian, late of the team of Dudley & Harris, is with us and is doing his best to bring the Olympic theatre up to its old standard. We have a very good small orchestra of six pieces George Rhone, 1st violin; Ed Walker, 2nd violin; Geo. Davis, trombone; Walter Mitchell, cornet, and Leon Granger, pianist.”¹³ Sherman H. Dudley eventually moved into the national limelight, starring in 1904–12 editions of the legendary “Smart Set” Company.¹⁴

On September 8, 1900, a cataclysmic hurricane ravaged Galveston, leveling the Island City and killing thousands of its citizens. Surprisingly, the Olympic Theater appears to have reopened just six weeks later, and in December it resumed communication with the Freeman: “From the Olympic Theatre, Galveston, Tex.; R. L. Andrews, proprietor; P. C. Clark, manager; Buddie Glenn, stage manager. Johnny Green has closed after two successful weeks. Mr. Almo, the human alligator, and Mack Allen, the slack wire walker, are making hits nightly. Terry C. Rogers, the mixologist, is alright. G. R. [sic] Rhone, the orchestra leader, says he was not lost in the storm.”¹⁵

Indianapolis Freeman, December 22, 1900.

On December 10, 1900, Lew Payton and Hattie Harris, “late of Harrison Bros. minstrels,” opened at the Olympic, and on January 4, 1901, they got married there.¹⁶ That week’s stage presentation featured a minstrel first part with six end men: Payton, Buddie Glenn, Sonny Marshall, Charles W. Bebee, George Helm, and E. B. Brown.¹⁷ Every evening before the show, Prof. R. J. Anderson’s brass band was “drawing large crowds” in front of the theater.¹⁸

Reports of saloon-theater activity in Jacksonville started cropping up in the spring of 1899. Over the next few years, a tentative circuit of vaudeville platforms took shape in the region, connecting Jacksonville to Tampa in one direction and to Fernandina, Florida, and Savannah, Georgia, in the other.

Jacksonville’s earliest saloon-theaters were located in the LaVilla community, a thriving black business and cultural center, birthplace of James Weldon Johnson and his brother J. Rosamond Johnson, and childhood home of A. Philip Randolph. LaVilla was also known for its saloons and houses of prostitution. One of the first black vaudeville venues in Jacksonville, the Excelsior Concert Hall and Saloon, was located at 125–127 Bridge (now Broad) Street, near the corner of Ward (now Houston), in LaVilla’s notorious old red-light district.²¹

The Excelsior Concert Hall’s proprietor, Pat Chappelle, was a Jacksonville native.²² Just prior to opening the Excelsior Concert Hall, he was managing August Blum’s saloon, on another corner of the same LaVilla intersection.²³ Chappelle leased the 125–127 Bridge Street location, opening for business no later than March 1899. His concert hall reportedly seated 500 people, employed “only professional talent,” and “enjoyed a liberal patronage from both races.”²⁴

In the fall of 1899 Chappelle suddenly abandoned the Excelsior Concert Hall and moved to Tampa. In the wake of his departure, white entrepreneurs Thomas Baxter and James E. Cashin took over the Bridge Street location and renamed it the Exchange Garden Theater.²⁵ Under their watch, the Exchange Garden remained a beacon of black vaudeville activity in Jacksonville for the next ten years. In the spring of 1900 they were featuring an all-star bill, rich in ragtime coon songs and comedy:

Mr. Sam Robinson, one of our comedians is making a big hit nightly in his different specialties and doing his baton manipulations. He is par excellence. Billy Reeves, a natural born comedian is making a big hit singing “The Ghost of a Coon,” and his latest parody, “I am Happy When I’m By My Baby’s Side.” Miss Pauline [Crampton] is singing with great applause, “After All,” and “The Moth and the Flame.” Miss Carrie Hall the Queen of coon song singers, is making good with “Since You’s Got Money,” and “I’m Tired of Dodging dat Installment Man.” Mr. Jersey, our buck dancer never fails to please. Last but not least Mr. Clifford D. Brooks, who has been here some time is still a favorite is singing, with great effect this week, “The Blue and the Gray” and “My Lady Lou.” … This is the best colored vaudeville show in the South, as every member is a star in his or her line.²⁶

Back at the Exchange Garden in 1902, Sam Robinson scored as “Ticklish Dan,” the drum major king: “He can imitate all the leading drum majors of the profession.”²⁷ In November 1903 the Exchange Garden’s vaudeville show “concluded with a cake walk in which Dennis Mitchell and Florence Harris carried off the honors.”²⁸ Dennis Mitchell was also a popular singer; in the spring of 1905 he was “making good singing Bob Russell’s latest songs, ‘Ragged, but Right’ and ‘You Got to Cut That Out.’”²⁹ Mitchell’s cake walking partner, Florence “Flozo” Harris was better known as a contortionist, one of several performing on southern vaudeville platforms.

In May 1905 Prof. C. E. Hawk, proprietor of Hawk’s Moving Picture Show, took the Exchange Garden Theater stage and “made a grand display with his moving pictures.”30 An earlier report described: “Prof. C. E. Hawk of Atlanta, Ga.… the only young colored man that travels South with a clean up-to-date scenery of life moving pictures that will please any audience … Biblical, historical, sentimental, instructive from beginning to end … with a record from Frisco to Cuba.”³¹

Vocal quartets were a mainstay of turn-of-the-century black entertainment, and they were very popular at the Exchange Garden Theater, as this November 24, 1900, report attests: “The Wig Wam quartette of Louisville, Ky, late of the Rusco & Holland Big Minstrel Festival opened here on the 12th inst., and is quite a card. The boys are in fine shape now and are compelled to respond to three and four encores.… James Smith the leader of the Wig Wam quartette, has made quite a reputation for himself singing ‘Just Because She Made Them Goo Goo Eyes,’ and ‘I Don’t Care if I Never Wake Up.’”

The Exchange Garden even had its own “house” quartet: “The Exchange Quartette, one of the best in the business, can be heard rendering fresh harmonies once a week.”³² “This band of singers have been trained by our distinguished professor, J. M. Robinson Jr., and he needs to be praised for his thorough training.”³³

Jacksonville city directories of 1902–05 identify Robinson as a “music teacher.”³⁴ He was also a ragtime piano professor: “Prof. J. M. Robinson, Jr. has his audience with him when he plays his original ‘Rags.’ In this particular line he is a phenomenon.”³⁵“Prof. J. M. Robinson, Jr., director of the Exchange Theatre, has just received a bunch of the latest of Scott Joplin’s rags. He held his audience spellbound when he introduced the latest, ‘A Breeze From Alabama,’ dedicated to P. G. Lowery. All pianists that can interpret a different idea in characteristic piano playing will do well to write and order a few from John Stark & Son, Publisher, St. Louis, Mo.”³⁶

A 1905 Exchange Garden Theater report claimed, “The late orchestra of Prof. J. M. Robinson and J. Haywood with their latest music selections, are bringing down the house nightly.”³⁷ John C. Haywood, the theater’s violinist and assistant stage manager, was a native of Raleigh, North Carolina. He had previously served with the People’s Orchestra of Ohio and directed the “challenge orchestra of twelve pieces” with F. L. Mahara’s Operatic Minstrels.³⁸

The Exchange Garden Theater almost always concluded its vaudeville entertainment with a short musical-dramatic skit. One popular skit for 1900 was Sam Robinson’s “Colored Sporting Life.” That fall they presented “Saw Dust Bill” with “telling effect. In this act Dan Roberts, who is playing the part of Saw Dust Bill, makes a daring leap from the balcony to the stage, which is quite a feat.”³⁹

For about a year the Exchange Garden Theater drew competition from the Little Savoy Theater, which opened its doors on October 3, 1904, at 26 Bridge Street, catering exclusively to black clientele. The Little Savoy was originally operated by Martin J. O’Toole, a white man who also ran a grocery store at 22 Bridge Street.⁴⁰ Another white man, William E. Gillick, whose background included theatrical experience in New York City, became the Little Savoy’s general manager, and in September 1905 he produced an “original melodrama” with the unlikely title, “Kit Carson, the Female Detective.”⁴¹

In addition to the Exchange Garden and Little Savoy theaters, there were early vaudeville platforms at three black parks in Jacksonville: Mason’s, Lincoln, and Roosevelt. The opening of Mason’s Colored Park at Jamison Avenue near Durkee for a season of vaudeville was announced in the Freeman of September 26, 1903. The following month news came that Walter Crampton had “taken the management of Mason’s Park” and was “booking people from all parts of the United States. He is a number one hustler and has some clever ideas in store for the future.”⁴³ A November 14, 1903, report informed that, “Miss Carrie Hall, the ‘coon shouter,’ sets them wild with her coon songs.… Prof. W. H. Dorsey is musical director, and that is sufficient.”

In July 1905 players at the Little Savoy Theater revealed that they were “moonlighting” on the open-air stage at Roosevelt Park during the hot Florida summer: “[W]e play two performances every Sunday. We draw from 15,000 to 16,000 people.… Our comedians, Billy Reeves and Webster Williams are turning them away screaming. Nettie Borden, the little soubrette, is still holding her own. Will Goff Kennedy, our stage manager, says he has a good company and he will try hard to keep them together.”⁴⁴

Lincoln Park was situated at the head of Highway Avenue, just west of McCoy’s Creek.⁴⁵ On December 9, 1906, barnstorming southern vaudeville pioneers William H. Henderson and Beulah Washington got married at Lincoln Park, “before a public audience.” They continued touring as the Jolly Hendersons.⁴⁶

During the summer of 1908 Lincoln Park was touted as “a second Coney Island.” The twenty-piece Enterprise Cornet Band under the direction of solo cornetist George Popirro was a “great drawing card.”⁴⁷ The star comedians were Richmond (or Richard) “Poor Boy” Cross and Buddie Glenn.⁴⁸ The female stars included Ada Harris and Virgie Deo. Of the other noteworthy participants, “Prof. Jno. C. Haywood is well and making the violin speak like a human.… L. D. Bradford is not well. He has a beautiful eye. It’s a perfect star-spangled banner. He got it through an accident in the play.… Still, he is holding up well.”⁴⁹ At the time of his accident, Bradford was enacting the role of “One Long, Chinaman” in a musical comedy skit called “The Chinese Jungles,” with a chorus of ten singing girls. Sam Robinson played an Irish policeman: “They all like his work in the ‘cop biz.’”⁵⁰

In 1909 a white man, L. D. Joel, opened the better-equipped and better-financed Air Dome Theater directly adjacent to the Bijou, and began booking name vaudeville acts. The Bijou soon folded. Gamely, Frank Crowd recruited wealthy backers and remodeled the old Bijou, reopening on January 19, 1910, as the Globe Theater. In a published statement, he declared his intention to “give [the] race what is sadly needed before the footlights here, ‘native ideals’ and all modern appointments for the patrons’ comfort.”⁵²

Crowd’s Globe Theater represented “one of the biggest remodeling jobs ever attempted in Jacksonville”:

The first and second floors … were torn out and a balcony arranged in true theater style, with inclined floors, two private boxes seating six persons each, a stage large enough to group the largest traveling minstrel (first part).… The third floor over the stage was taken out, forming a tower. The curtains all drop.… Tungsten lighting system being used exclusively.… Six hundred comfortable theater chairs occupy the orchestra and dress circle space, while four hundred fill the balcony.⁵³

Through the spring and summer of 1910, Joel and Crowd competed head-to-head for patronage. The Globe held its ground, and Joel eventually quit the city and relocated to Atlanta, where he established an important booking chain and theater circuit.

In Tampa, early black vaudeville activity emanated from William Fowler’s Central Saloon and Concert Hall at 302–304 Central Avenue. The Central was up and running by the summer of 1899, when Fowler announced in the mainstream Tampa Morning Tribune that he was offering the “Greatest Vaudeville Show on Earth.” He also let it be known that his Concert Hall was “WIDE OPEN” to “all law abiding citizens of South Florida.”⁵⁴

Throughout that summer the Central Concert Hall’s vaudeville offerings were couched in the old three-part format of “Ethiopian minstrelsy,” but with up-to-date ragtime coon songs and vernacular dances finding expression throughout. Among the dances performed were a “Champion Buck Dance,” “Lightning Buck and Wing Dance,” “Georgia Brake Down Dance,” “Ragtime Dance,” and “Jennie Cooler Dance, double turn.”⁵⁵

The “house” comedian was Arthur “Happy” Howe, who quickly earned a reputation as “a wild terror for all Southern comedians.”⁵⁶ Over the course of his long run as leading comedian with the Rabbit’s Foot Company (1900–13), and his intermittent stints in southern saloon-theaters, colored parks, and vaudeville houses, Happy Howe set a tone in comedy coon songs that carried directly into the blues age. A string of ads in the Tampa Morning Tribune enumerated his offerings at the Central Concert Hall during the summer of 1899: “Original Laughing Song—One Morning in May”; “Old Age Specialty—Stick Dance”; “Chinese Act, Original, Introducing the Latest Chinese Ballads”; “Lightning Express Excursion, original,” and “his original specialty—Sugar Babe.”⁵⁷

The fall of 1899 witnessed something of a “boom” in the city of Tampa. The “leading manufacturers of clear Havana cigars in the United States and Cuba” formed “a trust, with Tampa as the base of operations,” and the Morning Tribune of September 17, 1899, editorialized: “There is no longer any reason for doubting the future of Tampa. When it becomes the center of such an enterprise as a cigar trust, it becomes a city ‘built upon the rock.’ … You can take your faith and your money to Tampa. It has passed the experimental stage.”

Tampa Morning Tribune, August 15, 1899.

Tampa Morning Tribune, October 6, 1899.

Chappelle and Donaldson placed their first ad for the Buckingham Theater Saloon in the Tampa Morning Tribune of October 6, 1899, announcing an “Admission Free to All” policy that indicated their confidence in vaudeville as an inducement to patronage of their saloon. Like the Central Concert Hall, the Buckingham stood “wide open” to Tampa’s ethnically diverse citizenry, but with a caveat: “Special attention will be shown to white visitors.”⁵⁹

At the head of the Buckingham’s roster of performers was Happy Howe, “the people’s favorite.” Also on board was Billy Cheatham, late of Cheatham Brothers’ Black Diamond Minstrels, which included ragtime pianist Tom Turpin and his protégé Louis Chauvin.⁶⁰ Newcomers to the Buckingham during the final weeks of 1899 included Kittie Brown, “the renowned coon song and dance artist”; Jessie Thomas, “in her great boy impersonation”; and the comedy team of Ernest Holmes and Clarence Bush, “just arrived from Mobile.”61

In January 1900 Central Concert Hall owner William Fowler announced a special appearance of his players at the Spanish Casino in Ybor City, in “the greatest Minstrel Festival ever produced in Tampa by Vaudeville Artists.” On the day of the show, Fowler sponsored a “Grand Parade at 12 Noon.”⁶² Not to be outdone, Chappelle and Donaldson advised the public to “Watch out for the Buckingham parade at 2 o’clock. Men dress[ed] in yellow coats, ladies riding in carriages, led by Master Arthur Howe, on horseback, with the Buckingham brass band.” After the parade, “if any one wants to see a first class vaudeville show by trained artists and people with reputations, they will see it at the Buckingham theater.… Our orchestra you all have heard, which is wintering here with the Cooper circus. They are Professor Carl Wood, violinist; Professor Parkhurst, cornet; Professor Shamber, flute and drums; Professor A. W. Ross, pianist. And this is no fake. See?”⁶³

In December 1899 Chappelle and Donaldson opened a second vaudeville platform, the Mascotte Theater Saloon, at the corner of Polk and Pierce streets in Tampa “proper.”⁶⁴ The Mascotte’s original bill included coon song singers and vernacular comedians backed by “a fine Orchestra, from Topeka, Kansas.” Advertising assured: “The best of order is always preserved, and there is no charge for admission. The very best of wines, liquors and cigars are served. Special attention to white patrons. No extra prices for refreshments in the hall.”⁶⁵

From March through July 1900 the management shuttled players between the Buckingham and the Mascotte. In April A. W. Ross was leading the Mascotte orchestra, and the leader of the Buckingham orchestra was Joe Levy.⁶⁶ One week later, Levy was at the Mascotte and Ross at the Buckingham.⁶⁷ At the end of June, “Joe Levey, the famous rag time piano player” was back at the Buckingham.⁶⁸ Meanwhile, it was reported that Levy would “soon publish some of his latest rag-time compositions.”⁶⁹

Tampa Morning Tribune, December 5, 1899.

Clarence Cissel, “blackface comedian,” and Augusta Mines, “soprano,” also appeared at the Mascotte and Buckingham theaters. Billed as “Colored Magnets,” they were an early model of the increasingly popular black vaudeville husband-and-wife stage team. An article of June 23, 1900, said they had toured “with such shows as the Black Patti Troubadours, and last season were headliners of the ‘Darktown Swells.’ … Mr. Cissel is a clever comedian, and has his own peculiar way of working, and his make up is entirely original. Miss Mines is the possessor of a very sweet voice, and can easily reach high C. They are at present filling a twelve weeks engagement at the Buckingham Theatre, Tampa, Fla.”

On August 20, 1900, Chappelle and Donaldson premiered their new road show, A Rabbit’s Foot, in Paterson, New Jersey, only to close in Brooklyn, New York, four weeks later, “on account of poor business.”⁷³ It was an inauspicious beginning for what proved to be one of the longest-running tented minstrel shows of the twentieth century.⁷⁴ Chappelle and Donaldson’s partnership was an apparent casualty of that short-lived opening season. Back in Tampa, Pat and his brother James Chappelle took over the Buckingham Theater. A November 7, 1900, ad for their “Grand Opening” promised “excellent performers direct from New York City,” including Florence Hines, “the queen of all ‘male’ impersonators.” Hines was a veteran of Sam T. Jack’s landmark Creole Burlesque Company and a living legend among black performers.

Indianapolis Freeman, May 12, 1900. An accompanying paragraph explained: “The picture … shows D. Ireland Thomas and Jos. A. McMurray in their new act, entitled ‘Rapid Transit.’ They are at present playing dates in Florida. This being their 10th successful week at Chappelle and Donaldson’s Buckingham Theatre, Tampa, Fla. Mr. Thomas was with Melroy and Chandler’s Minstrels as stage manager last season, he will also be remembered with Mobile Minstrels, Great Southern Minstrels, Nashville Jubilee Singers and many other shows. These gentlemen are the composers of many songs, among their latest success is the beautiful proverbal [sic] ballad, ‘Time and Tide Waits for No One,’ which promises to become quite popular. Mr. McMurray is beyond a doubt one of the best musical comedians on the stage. He is the inventor of quite a number of novelty musical instruments.”

Clarence Cissel and Augusta Mines, Indianapolis Freeman, December 29, 1900.

In November 1900 Pat Chappelle took possession of Will Fowler’s Central Concert Hall and reopened it as the Bijou Theater, offering “A big array of colored professional talent” and “special boxes for white patrons.”⁷⁸ He hired D. Ireland Thomas as manager and installed an orchestra under Prof. C. A. Jones.⁷⁹ In February 1902 Chappelle advised that he had “closed contracts to furnish attractions to all the Street Railway parks in the South,” and in March he announced the advent of the “Chappelle Bros. Circuit, which includes Tampa, Fla., Jacksonville, Fla., and Savannah, Ga.”⁸⁰

Veteran minstrel performer Ben Hunn praised the “energy and pluck of Mr. Pat Chappelle” and his circuit initiative:

While attempting to expand his vaudeville holdings, Pat Chappelle continued to make improvements on A Rabbit’s Foot. The Buckingham doubled as a winter headquarters and rehearsal hall for this increasingly important touring company. A minstrel show atmosphere prevailed at the Buckingham during the spring of 1902 when Chappelle announced, “Our uniform brass band gives a street parade every Monday.”⁸²

Meanwhile, R. S. Donaldson took control of the Mascotte Theater, operating it, for a while at least, as a simple saloon. He got some unwelcome press on January 16, 1901, when the Tampa Morning Tribune reported a “stabbing affray” over a crap game at “Bob Donaldson’s saloon.” That fall, when Chappelle left town with the second edition of A Rabbit’s Foot, Donaldson restored vaudeville to the Mascotte, with Fred Sulis at the piano and a roster of performers that included Kittie Brown and Jessie Thomas.⁸³

Early in 1902 Tom Logan served as general manager of the Mascotte.⁸⁴ Logan staged a skit said to be “head and shoulders above the average road attraction that visits our city. The first act depicts the ‘ups and downs’ of the average ‘Jig-walk’ [i.e., black] performer—his ‘flush times’ when the ‘Ghost’ walks, his ‘medium’ times between pay days, his ‘tough’ times when the manager has ‘ducked with the coin,’ and the ingenious plan they adopt to get back to ‘Good Old New York Town.’ All ends well, however, and the curtain falls on the Buffalo spread at the Douglass Club.”⁸⁵ Later in 1902 Logan moved on to Savannah, and vaudeville at the Mascotte was temporarily discontinued.

Stage managers and musical directors were the blood and brains of the new southern vaudeville platforms. When Will Goff Kennedy and William H. Dorsey joined forces in 1904, they formed the greatest stage manager–music director team in southern vaudeville to date. Born in Nashville in 1879, Kennedy reportedly set out with a minstrel show at the age of sixteen. He rose to prominence as a baritone singer and then as a producer. Kennedy was managing the Buckingham Theater at the start of 1901 and was still there in the summer of 1902, when the Freeman noted, “W. Goff Kennedy has won considerable reputation as a music teacher.”⁸⁶ Shortly thereafter, he was appointed stage manager of the third edition of the Rabbit’s Foot Company.

Will Dorsey was born in Louisville, Kentucky, in 1878. In 1900 he was living with his mother in Louisville and working as a musician.⁸⁷ In the spring of 1901 he directed “the Enterprise orchestra of 9 pieces” in conjunction with a stock company that included Will Able and Florence Hines.⁸⁸ Dorsey left Louisville in the spring of 1902, surfacing in Tampa at Bob Donaldson’s Mascotte Theater in company with comedians Billy (also known as Will) Reeves and Chink Floyd. In May, Donaldson leveled charges against the three new arrivals:

The crowning point of baseness and treachery, ingratitude and low cunning was reached last Monday when a lovely trio composed of one W. H. Dorsey, a pianist of Louisville, Ky., and a team of alleged “comedians” known as Reeves and Floyd, served me a trick that ought to go down on the tablets.… [T]hese three innocents abroad came to my office, received and signed for their salaries; attended rehearsal.… After receiving their money they (Reeves & Floyd) slipped away from town to go to Savannah to accept a date.…

Despite his bad beginning, Dorsey became an important creative influence in Florida’s fledgling black vaudeville theaters. He and Will Goff Kennedy may have first paired up at the Red Fox Music Hall in Tampa, which opened May 2, 1904, with a roster that included Carrie Hall, Billy Reeves, and “a chorus of six creole show girls.”⁹⁰ Kennedy drew particular praise for his operatic duets with Sarah Price and his musical comedy skit, “O’Brien in Coon Town.”⁹¹

That fall Dorsey and Kennedy took up at the Little Savoy Theater in Jacksonville, where they stayed for a solid year: “Prof. Dorsey is doing his best on the white ivory and is playing everybody’s rags and a few of his own.”⁹² “Will Goff Kennedy, our good natured stage manager is trying by the application of intelligence, originality, energy, tact, common sense and the Golden Rule, to make the show a success.”⁹³

In 1906, three years after Pat Chappelle closed the Buckingham Theater, Bob Donaldson reopened it as the Budweiser: “It has been rebuilt with a large stage 20 × 24 and a new gallery.”⁹⁴ Donaldson brought in many familiar faces: “phenomenal female baritone” Pauline Crampton, “charming burlesque queen” Kittie Brown, Buddie Glenn, and Sarah Price; plus comedy team “Chintz” Moore and John H. Williams, “scoring a hit with ‘On the Rock Pile.’”⁹⁵ To lead his orchestra and manage his stage, Donaldson tapped Will Dorsey and Will Goff Kennedy. That summer, Dorsey composed a new march, “Tweed King,” which he dedicated to Kennedy.⁹⁶ During the fall of 1906, Dorsey directed a twelve-piece orchestra at the Budweiser.⁹⁷

At the end of the year, Donaldson reached into his deep reservoir of vaudeville performers and musicians to field the Florida Blossom Minstrel Company, packing them off to Georgia with Dorsey and Kennedy in charge of the band and stage.⁹⁸ After one successful season, he sold the Florida Blossoms to fellow race businessman C. H. Douglass of Macon. Will Goff Kennedy continued in the tent show game, while Will Dorsey went on to join the promising black vaudeville theater scene in Chicago.

These developments illustrate the ephemeral nature of the early saloon and park vaudeville platforms. The initial wave of southern vaudeville in Tampa, and elsewhere in Georgia and Florida, was closely associated with the major tented black minstrel organizations. A Rabbit’s Foot, Silas Green from New Orleans, and the Florida Blossom Minstrels were all piloted by entrepreneurs who had previously managed concert-saloons and park pavilions.

At the turn of the century, Fernandina was a bustling Florida seaport town, situated about twenty miles north of Jacksonville, on Amelia Island. As described by a local historian:

Fernandina was a major seaport and railroad terminus for shipping lumber, phosphate and naval stores throughout this country and all over the world. Foreign as well as American schooners clogged the waterfront, and it usually took 10 days to load the big ships with their cargo. The foreign ships paid off their crews here, knowing the money would be squandered on wine, women and song, so that sailors returning home broke would have to sign on for another hitch.

North Second Street was the focal point of Fernandina’s storied saloon culture. Freeman reportage preserves the names of three saloon-theaters that staged black vaudeville shows in Fernandina: the Collie, the Domino, and the Gem. The Collie Theater, 123 North Second Street, issued a solitary report in January 1901 that indicated: “John M. Collie, sole owner; Joseph Martin, general manager, while Robert Marshall looks after the stage, head liners as follows: Henry Thomas, Thomas Breze, Miss Jennie Woodard, Amy Paris, Joseph Mitchell, C. B. Roberts, Theodore Johnson, Robert Smiley, Madame Ellis of New York City, pianist.… We also have our friend Richard H. Barnett, the little favorite singing comedian.”¹⁰⁰

On May 3, 1902, a report from Tampa’s Mascotte Theater informed: “The Crosby’s, Oma and Harry; Jess Thomas, Paul Simmons, Payton and Harris and Fred Sulis left last week to open John Smith’s new theatre, Fernandina, Fla.”¹⁰¹ Two weeks later, the Freeman carried its initial report from Fernandina’s Domino Theater:

One of the finest little vaudeville theatres in the south has just opened to a large business in Fernandino [sic], Fla. under the management of John Smith. It is … situated near the harbor and the audiences are all ofays, principally foreigners. The roster consists of Lew Peyton of the well known team of Peyton & Harris, stage manager; Harry Crosby of the team of the Crosbys is at present presiding at the piano.… They are using the whole company in the first part.… Miss Oma Crosby holds the audience spellbound with her sweet rendition of “Mazy My Dusky Daisy.” The ghost walks promptly at Monday morning.¹⁰²

At this point in its history, Fernandina had a majority black population. The performers at the Domino Theater were all African American, yet the Domino’s audience was “all ofays.”¹⁰³

Before Florida gained statehood in 1845, Fernandina was a center of the African slave trade. Local slave traders became very wealthy, and a large African population existed on Amelia Island. “During the war the island became a sanctuary for blacks, finding safety there with the protection of Union troops.… Much of the white population had evacuated within the first year of the war, and so the population tilted heavily on the side of the black.”¹⁰⁴ Confederate sentiment continued strong among whites in this region, long after the end of the war.¹⁰⁵

The Domino Theater may have taken over the 123–125 North Second Street location previously tenanted by the Collie. On June 14, 1902, a Domino Theater reporter noted:

The show opened this week with a minstrel first-part, closing with the finale, Uncle Tom’s Cabin for five minutes. Messrs. Lew Peyton and John W. Dennis, working extreme ends in the first part went in a roar from start to finish. Lew Peyton opened the olio with a popular coon song. Together with Miss Harris they keep them screaming with their big act. Johnson and Bluford have won admiration with a clever sketch, introducing Mr. Johnson’s acrobatic work and Miss Bluford’s coon shouting. Miss Oma Crosby is rendering descriptive songs this week and the audience shows its appreciation of her sweet voice and refined rendition of James T. Brymn’s “My Clo,” by repeated applause. The charming soubrette, Miss Ida Larkins is the life of the company with clever dancing and elegant rendition of “Josephine My Joe.” Miss Jessie Thomas, the clever male impersonator is keeping them screaming with “Every Darkey Had a Raglan On.” Miss Thomas is undoubtedly one of the most clever colored male impersonators on the stage. The clever comedian John W. Dennis gets his singing “The Phrenologist Coon.” The show closes with a farce, “Miss Hannah From Savannah,” by the whole company.… Harry Crosby is still presiding at the piano and has won great praise for his excellent rendition of classic overtures.

This portion of a 1903 Sanborn Insurance Map shows the saloon-theater location at 123–125 North Second Street, between Broome and Alachua streets, in Fernandina (Courtesy Marston Library, University of Florida, Gainesville).

Indianapolis Freeman, November 28, 1903.

Albert Carroll of New Orleans replaced Dorsey as music director at the Domino in May 1903.¹¹¹ Over the next few weeks Carroll proved to be an “efficient pianist” and a “splendid acquisition.” Also at the Domino was “Miss Minnie Carroll … making a hit with her male impersonations.”¹¹² By May 1904 Albert Carroll had returned to hometown New Orleans to appear at that city’s Lincoln Park Auditorium.¹¹³ A few months later he was on the road again, with the Whitman Sisters New Orleans Troubadours.¹¹⁴

By the autumn of 1903, Fred Sulis had become musical director at the Domino Theater. Frederick Douglass Sulis was born “of musical parents” in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada.¹¹⁵ He received brief music training in New Bedford, Massachusetts, and in Boston, and then began traveling with concert companies in the East and Southeast, which brought him to Florida. In January 1899 Sulis was featured among the performers with Pat Chappelle’s Imperial Colored Minstrels, an itinerant show that preceded the famous Rabbit’s Foot Company.¹¹⁶

Sulis worked at the Mascotte Theater in Tampa from the fall of 1901 until April 1902, and then went directly to the Domino Theater in Fernandina. As musical director at the Domino, Sulis was at the piano when Carrie Hall, Pauline Crampton, Kittie Brown, and Bessie Gillam joined forces to sing “Hoodoodle Man.”117 Sulis remained at the Domino until December 1903, when the saloon-theater reported: “J. W. Smith, manager, closes December 19th, the house being sold to Mr. Martecia, a wealthy colored business man of Fernandina.”¹¹⁸ There was no further correspondence from the Domino Theater for a long while.

Sulis dropped out of sight for a time, resurfacing in Cuba. The Freeman of August 4, 1906, made it known:

The Indiana Vaudeville Theatre of Havana, Cuba is undergoing extensive alterations for the coming fall and winter season. The management will be ready to book first-class artists after September 1, in every capacity. Miss Tenia Mizell, recently of Key West, who is scoring nightly singing, “I’m Jealous of You” and “I’ll Be Back In a Minute But I Got to Go Now” and Fred Douglass Sulis, the efficient pianist are among the present attractions.¹¹⁹

Later that fall word came from Havana that, “F. D. Sulis is now at the Chicago Café, as are Miss G. Gilhams and Miss Anita Borden. They are much pleased with Cuba.… Kid Lawrence is ‘killing it’ with his new buck and wing dancing.”¹²⁰ Another letter from the Indiana Vaudeville Company informed:

The company entertains every night the best classes of all the nationalities and enjoys the distinction of playing some of the brightest, catchiest and legitimate acts and sketches ever played on any stage in Havana. Miss Tenia Gilliam and Miss Anita Borden are now featuring with great success “Our Heroes and Our Flag,” published by Messrs. Selig & Hirsekorn, of Brooklyn, N.Y. It goes big, especially with our American soldiers and audiences.… Miss Borden is also singing with big success, “Everybody Have a Good Old Time,” and “It’s Up to You to Move.” Miss Gilliam is also working good, singing, “I’ll Be Back in a Minute, but I Got To Go Now,” and “I’d Like to Take You Home with Me.” … [Tenia Gilliam] says “Tom Logan, why don’t you drop a line or two? Myself and Sulis aren’t dead yet.” Sulis says, “Howdy” … Everybody is in good cheer, as business is somewhat improving, and we all look forward for a big season’s business, probably the best Havana has ever experienced.… [T]he Ghost certainly walks every week. We are expecting to have new faces shortly, but some of our old members will be returned.¹²¹

Sulis apparently did not return to the States for some time. On November 6, 1909, the Freeman relayed word from Cuba that “Prof. F. D. Sulis continues to entertain at Café Indiana. His favorite rag is ‘Oh You Kid,’ and say it is the best yet.” According to another 1909 report, “A great number of colored vaudevillians” had “found favor with Cuban audiences during the past two seasons,” including Florida saloon-theater veteran Pearl Woods; trading as “the Cuban Queen,” she was said to have “her own private carriage and two maids.”¹²²

Another Fernandina vaudeville house, the Gem Theater, started sending reports to the Freeman early in 1903. Reports from the Gem continued into the spring of 1905. Richmond “Poor Boy” Cross was the original stage manager, and the lively show included “a very laughable act, ‘Aunt Dinah’s Picnic,’ which kept the audience in a roar of laughter from start to finish. Richmond Cross as Aunt Dinah cannot be excelled. Dick Simmons as the Bad Coon is phenomenal. Bob Batis plays ‘Ginger’ and keeps them laughing.”¹²³

Approximately one hundred miles up the coast from Fernandina, in Savannah, Georgia, black vaudevillians forged an early stage at Lincoln Park, a park for blacks only, located outside of the city limits, on the streetcar line.¹²⁶ The park property was owned by the Savannah Electric Company, which ran the streetcars. On April 19, 1902, the black weekly Savannah Tribune announced the appointment of Tom Golden, an African American who owned a saloon and restaurant at 625 Bay Street, as manager of Lincoln Park. According to the Tribune, “All who know Mr. Golden is aware of the fact that he will maintain best order at the park.”¹²⁷

The following week the Tribune said, “Mr. Thomas Golden has already gone to work to place Lincoln Park in first class condition. The grounds are neatly cleaned up, the fence white washed, the platform beautified and everything look attractive [sic]. The saloon is well stocked and everything that a person wants can be had.”¹²⁸ The fact that liquor was available for purchase at Lincoln Park caused some local people concern. Advertising always assured that “the best of order will be maintained.”

In May 1902 the Freeman announced that Tom Golden had opened “the Workingmen’s Palace and Lincoln Park … with vaudeville attractions.”¹²⁹ A vaudeville stage was in operation all through the summer and early autumn of 1902. William West was the original stage manager, and Prof. Ike Johnson was music director.¹³⁰ In November the Freeman reported: “Tom Golden’s Minstrel and vaudeville company, under the management of Kirk Bane, have closed a successful season … having showed to over 200,000 people.… They will re-open on Easter Sunday.”¹³¹

The Savannah Tribune, whose editorials encouraged black commercial enterprise, initially expressed admiration for the business skills of saloon owner “Capt.” Tom Golden, and endorsed his management of Lincoln Park.¹³² Other Tribune editorials deplored the Jim Crow accommodations imposed at the mainstream Savannah Theater. The Tribune even refused to accept paid advertisements from the Savannah Theater, “unless the theatre managers would guarantee our people accommodation other than that of the peanut gallery.”¹³³

Lincoln Park reopened in April 1903, with William Dorsey as musical director of the vaudeville stage.

A highlight of the 1903 vaudeville season was the dramatic sketch “entitled ‘Peter Gray,’ revised by Billy Reeves.… Mrs. Gray, the part played by Miss Kittie Brown, was portrayed in an excellent and able manner. The four old friends of Peter Gray, Brothers Moonshine, Sunshine, Gibie Dam and Skibie, were played by Messrs. Reeves, Floyd, Brown and West.”¹³⁵

Lincoln Park reopened for the 1904 season on Easter Sunday, April 3. The Freeman’s Savannah reporter disclosed:

Our show is improving in every way; we play to S. R. O. houses every Sunday and Wednesdays. People enjoy the show sitting out side of the big pavilion. Mr. Golden has put three new attractions on the out side for his guests.… Brown and Brown starred the show. Jimmy Alton has arranged his new quartet singing, “Summer time in Dixieland.” Wm. West held the stage 40 minutes Sunday singing “Let the scabs go home,” taking six encores. I had to make an excuse for him to get off the stage.¹³⁶

The Savannah Tribune of September 1, 1906, notified that the Savannah City Council was debating a new ordinance that would segregate seating on the city’s streetcars. Despite protests, the Jim Crow ordinance was passed into law. On September 15 the Tribune called for a boycott: “Let us walk! Walk! And save our nickels.” Savannah’s black citizens heeded the call: “This is the tenth day since the Savannah Electric Company has enforced the ‘Jim Crow’ law on its cars … ‘Lily White’ street cars are among the popular sights these days, caused by the proud colored citizens who are determined not to be ‘Jim Crowed.’”

Not only was Lincoln Park owned by the streetcar company; there was no convenient way to get to it other than by streetcar. Despite its shortcomings, the park was a much-needed refuge in a city that severely limited the personal liberties and leisure opportunities of its African American populace. Its amusement grounds had been a popular site for picnics, outings, and dances scheduled by social clubs, lodges, and labor unions, but the Tribune announced no such events at Lincoln Park for the remainder of 1906. Early in the spring of the following year, the Tribune published a lengthy editorial headed, “Under the Present Jim Crow Law, ‘Cut Out’ Lincoln Park”: “If this place is patronized, we would in a way sanction the present enforcement of the jim crow law and prove to the opposite race that we are void of the least pride, and we will be giving the street car company more power to further enforce this unnecessary law.”¹³⁷

Lincoln Park vaudeville apparently survived the civil rights boycott. In 1919 the Tribune announced, “Lincoln Park will open this season under new management.… The park is being renovated throughout and will have a number of added attractions. The new management will maintain the best of order. A full orchestra has been organized for the entertainment of the patrons of the park, and vaudeville service will be put into effect.”¹³⁸

Vaudeville shows at saloon-theaters in Savannah were inaugurated by Mrs. Josephine E. Stiles, “a colored lady with much business tact.”¹³⁹ Stiles was born in 1871. By 1900 she was a divorcée, living with her one surviving child.¹⁴⁰ According to the 1902 Savannah city directory, Stiles operated a restaurant and bar at 601 Bay Street. In June of that year the Freeman called attention to “Mrs. Josephine Stiles’ theatre” at that same Bay Street address, “doing a great business under the management of Ben Hunn.”141 On the Fourth of July 1902, 800 people came out to witness the grand opening of “Stiles’ New Palace Theatre” at 10-12-14-16 West Broad Street, under the management of Lew Payton.¹⁴² Subsequent ads and news reports referred to this venue as the Grand Palace Theater.

In 1902 Tom Logan came to Savannah to manage the Grand Palace Theater stage. Performer Billy Bradley wrote:

The show is running nicely and is drawing crowded houses nightly. The Scotts are doing a red hot boxing act. Kid Alston, the favorite comedian is working with Carrie Smith and they are making a big hit with their “Dusky Maidens” duet. Grace Hoyt, the coon shouter has got the boys still with her. Tom Logan in his Chinese act assisted by Eva Leach and Maud Scott hold the audience spell bound. Ruth Spain comes in for her share of the applause. The whole company, including our manager and Mrs. Stiles, visited P. G. Lowery’s famous company and were in turn visited by Mr. Lowery.… Pat Chappelle and his “A Rabbit’s Foot” company were with us two days.¹⁴³

“Departing from custom,” the Grand Palace Theater company proposed to present Bradbury’s Cantata of Queen Esther for their Christmas bill, “and anticipate larger crowds of the better element than have heretofore favored us.”¹⁴⁴ In the meantime, the vaudeville program featured an array of coon shouters, ballad singers, and comedians, along with bone soloist Mossa Mann and “head balancer” Henry Black “in a real novelty act.”¹⁴⁵

On May 23, 1903, the Freeman advertised: “For Sale—Grand Palace Theatre, 10, 12, 14 and 16 West Broad St., Savannah, Ga. Owing to the proprietress’ ill health, Miss J. E. Stiles will sell her beautiful theatre of 14 beautiful boxes, bar and café—building one block long. She has consented to go North for medical treatment. She regrets very much to dispose of her beautiful and prosperous business but desires for some colored person to have it.”

Indianapolis Freeman, December 22, 1900.

Josephine Stiles was heard from again when she opened the Pekin Theater in Savannah on Thanksgiving Day 1909.¹⁴⁶ The opening bill was headed by the legendary Billy Kersands. A Tribune editorial published on January 1, 1910, allowed that “The Pekin was a success from its opening, and is giving those of our people who refuse to accept the accommodation of the peanut gallery, an opportunity of enjoying many of the best talent of the race.”¹⁴⁷ Stiles’s Pekin Theater survived for two more decades.¹⁴⁸

Savannah Tribune, October 22, 1910.

Charles H. Douglass (Courtesy C. H. Douglass Business Records Collection, Middle Georgia Regional Library).

Like other southern vaudeville venues, the program at Ocmulgee Park tested the limits of variety entertainment. In 1905 the park played host to the “aerial acrobatic feats” of C. Johnson, the coon shouting of female impersonator Adam LaRose, the high-class vocal solos of Madame Price, the southern comedy of Sank Sims and Jimmy Dick (a.k.a. Fred Newsome), and the confrontational humor of husband-and-wife teams McNeil and McNeil, Porter and Porter, and others. One Sunday evening in June 1905, stage manager Edward C. Price (of the Boston, Massachusetts–based Two Jolly Prices) presented a “sacred concert consisting of moving pictures and illustrated songs that please them all.”¹⁵⁵

Indianapolis Freeman, May 7, 1904.

Ocmulgee Park submitted no correspondence to the Freeman in 1907, but significant documentation accrued during the season of 1908, which began on Easter Sunday under the management of Charles Collier, who purchased the lease to the pavilion from C. H. Douglass.¹⁵⁷ Collier was an African American native of Macon who had previously operated a successful grocery business.¹⁵⁸ He assembled a formidable vaudeville show at Ocmulgee Park, under the management of Will Goff Kennedy:

Theresa Burroughs “The Doll,” singing and dancing soubrette is a recent and valuable acquisition to our players. Amos Gilliard, trombone soloist, certainly made a decided hit this week with his solo, and is a valued member of our band, and orchestra. Chink Floyd, one of Macon’s favorite comedians, is once more back. His breakneck song and dance is a scream, and the people never seem to tire of his comedy gyrations.… Carrie Hall is still in line, handing out fresh ones and getting a lion’s share of the applause.… The orchestra, under Piccolo Jones, far surpasses the regular road show orchestra.… The band of fourteen, under E. B. Dudley, is hard to beat. Charles Collier is certainly to be congratulated on securing such high-class entertainers.¹⁵⁹

Collier was still in charge of Ocmulgee Park’s vaudeville pavilion on April 25, 1910, when those harbingers of the approaching blues age, William and Gertrude Rainey invaded Macon with their Georgia Sunbeams Company. The Raineys were just one hundred miles away from their Columbus, Georgia, home. Two weeks into their Macon engagement, they were “still drawing crowded houses at Ocmulgee Park”:

Everything is fine and dandy … the company is setting them wild with our opening, “In the Hills of Arizona,” followed with our comedy men, Happy Howe and Chink Floyd.… Mrs. Gertrude Rainey follows with her new song, “That Fascinating Ragtime Glide.” She is holding her own as a sweet singer. The “Temptation Rag” is taking three to four encores nightly. Percy Williams, “The baby-face comedian,” is making good singing “Come After Breakfast, Bring Along Your Lunch and Leave Before Supper Time,” taking the house by storm. Rainey and Rainey that clever comedy team, are pleasing them all singing their own composition, “Baby, I have Brought You That Hambone Dat I found Last Year.” Finally the bill closes with a one-act comedy that pleases.… Our band is getting into great shape.¹⁶⁰

The Raineys were not yet known as “Ma” and “Pa.” Having spent several seasons in itinerant minstrelsy, they were testing the waters of the new black southern vaudeville environment.

Ocmulgee Park featured vaudeville performances every night and every Sunday afternoon through the summer of 1910.161 The pit band consisted of Locke Lee, pianist and leader; Earl A. Greathouse, violinist; and Eddie Stamps, trap drummer. Among the star attractions, “coon shouter Miss Evaline [sic, Evelyn] White, who is the best in the business, brings the house down when she sings ‘Those Shaky Eyes.’”¹⁶² Southern comedian “Hambone” Jones was also on the bill at Ocmulgee Park that summer.

In August, Happy Howe served as stage manager and shared the comedy roles with Fred Newsome (Jimmy Dick). The Ocmulgee Park stock company produced “A Filipino Misfit,” “introducing a musical mélange of wit and music. Miss Mamie Payne is doing the leading soubrette role and is making a decided hit with her superb acting and dancing.… Jimmie Dick is making good as the Governor and singing his new song entitled ‘Alabama Bound.’”¹⁶³

When Ocmulgee Park closed for the season on September 26, 1910, the entire company, still under Charles Collier’s management, moved to Central City Park in Macon and conducted a tent show at the Colored Fair: “The opening day was quite a success, there being nearly 3,000 people on the grounds.… Miss Carrie Hall joined the company and made quite an addition to our show.… We close here and go to the Florida Colored State Fair at Jacksonville, Fla., on the 21st.”¹⁶⁴

In April 1911, prior to the season’s opening, Douglass and Worthy’s Florida Blossoms Company used the Ocmulgee Park pavilion for rehearsals, fine-tuning their show under the scrutiny of stage manager Lonnie Fisher. When the park’s vaudeville season started, Collier turned the stage over to the highly capable Russell-Owens Stock Company, which consisted of eighteen accomplished vaudeville performers, including Bob Russell, Billy Owens, Marion Brooks, Sam Gray, Pauline Crampton, Willie and Cora Glenn, Blanche Thompson, Theresa Burroughs, Speedy Smith, Jack “Ginger” Wiggins, and Tommy Parker. The company promised to present a different show each week, “up to and after Labor Day,” prompting a Freeman correspondent to observe: “Things will be lively in dear old Macon this summer.”¹⁶⁵

Macon’s storied vaudeville theater history converges around the landmark Douglass Theater, established in 1911 or 1912 by C. H. Douglass; an anchor of the T.O.B.A. circuit during the 1920s, it remained in operation until 1973.

Coon songs were the coin of the realm on Florida and Georgia’s turn-of-the-century black vaudeville stages, the dues required for progress in this rapidly expanding professional entertainment marketplace. Virtually no one escaped this exaction. The demand extended to performers whose stage specialties were decidedly in other lines. Celebrated contortionist Pearl Woods was said to have “developed into a coon song shouter and is taking three encores nightly singing ‘Furniture Man’ and ‘Bill Bailey Won’t You Please Come Home.’”¹⁶⁶ Laura Logan, dubbed the “Creole Nightingale,” was typically characterized as an “operatic soprano,” but at Ocmulgee Park in June 1905, the theater reporter called her a “coon shouter and sweet soprano soubrette.”¹⁶⁷ Male impersonator Jessie Thomas sang up-to-date coon songs in her male attire.¹⁶⁸ Stage manager and tenor soloist Clifford D. Brooks was noted for his renditions of ballads such as “The Blue and the Gray.” However, an August 18, 1900, report from the Exchange Garden Theater revealed, “Cliff Brooks, our ballad songster, has grown somewhat ‘coonish’ and is ‘killing it’ with the coon song, ‘I Won’t Be Mean No More.’”¹⁶⁹

Carrie Hall was the most famous of all coon shouters in the Florida-Georgia vaudeville matrix. The Exchange Garden Theater’s Freeman correspondent called her “the Queen of coon song singers,” and a letter from the Grand Palace Theater in Savannah judged her “second to none as a coon shouter.”170 Hall apparently exercised a special power over southern audiences: “Miss Carrie Hall, ‘the only one,’ is the same big hit, no matter when she appears. Others may come, others may go, but Carrie makes good forever.”¹⁷¹

Kittie Brown was another early southern vaudevillian who specialized in coon shouting. Before coming to vaudeville she had toured with Sam T. Jack’s Creole Company, the Black Patti Troubadours, and other big African American road shows.¹⁷² Between 1900 and 1906, on platforms from Tampa to Savannah, Brown “set the audience wild with her coon songs,” including “The Gambling Man,” “I Wants a Man Like Romeo,” “Wedding of a Chinee and a Coon,” and “In the Jungles I’m a Queen.”¹⁷³

Comedian Billy Reeves, dubbed “the Southern favorite,” was a fixture in Florida and Georgia vaudeville.¹⁷⁴ It was said that he “never fails to leave them with their mouths and eyes wide open.”¹⁷⁵ Reeves maintained a large repertoire of coon songs. Various reports mention his parody titled “I Am Happy When I’m By My Baby’s Side,” as well as “The Ghost of a Coon,” “Every Race Has a Flag But the Coon,” and “The Congregation Will Please Keep Their Seats Kase Dis Bird Am Mine.”¹⁷⁶

Pioneer southern comedian Chink Floyd also appeared on many vaudeville platforms during the early years. In 1901 at the Exchange Garden Theater in Jacksonville, he was “compelled to respond to two and three encores, singing ‘Every Coon Took a Window But Me.’”¹⁷⁷ In 1905 Floyd was “cleaning up nightly singing his favorite, All ’Round the Mountain, Darling Betsy’”—an early variant of “(Comin’ ’Round the Mountain) Charming Betsy,” which was recorded extensively by country musicians, and is closely associated with Grand Ole Opry legend Roy Acuff.¹⁷⁸ The song is related to the African American spiritual hymn “Do Lord, Remember Me,” and seems to have originated as a parody of that hymn.

Chink Floyd’s “Darling Betsy” points to the transitional role of turn-of-the-century vaudeville platforms in the evolution of black popular music. The interbreeding of autochthonous and adapted matter was a fundamental aspect of early blues song construction and development. But there is no indication that any blues songs were performed on the saloon-theater or park pavilion stages of Georgia and Florida from 1899 to 1909. These platforms differed in many ways from the black vaudeville theaters they indirectly spawned. It was during the decade that followed, in theaters resolutely dedicated to providing a new style of black entertainment for black audiences, that coon shouters transformed themselves into blues singers.

Louisville, Kentucky, was an early incubator of black stage arts. A rich, continuous history of professional entertainers extends back to free black musician Henry Williams, who ran a dancing school and quadrille band in Louisville around 1834.¹⁷⁹ Some of the performers and musicians who appeared on Louisville’s early vaudeville platforms had ties to the city’s distinguished nineteenth-century legacy of string and brass bands.¹⁸⁰

At the turn of the century, every southern city had its own peculiar racial protocols, reflecting its history, politics, and traditions. In Louisville it was a time-honored practice for African American performers, bands, and orchestras to entertain at area springs, spas, and parks for white audiences.

John H. Whallen was a dominant figure in Louisville’s entertainment world. Whallen owned the mainstream Buckingham Theater, and also headed the local Democratic Party machine. Historian Pen Bogert has described him as “sort of a cross between P. T. Barnum and Boss Tweed.”¹⁸¹ A biographical sketch of Whallen on the front page of an 1892 edition of the New York Clipper confided that the “Buckingham Theatre—one of the largest, best and most complete of its kind … was not put where it is without many ups and downs and strange experiences. Running a show is not running with saints.”¹⁸²

New York Clipper, March 5, 1892.

The well-known Clark family of black Louisville entertainers had a long relationship with Riverview Park. A 1904 Freeman note said, “Joe Clark, Jr. will have charge of Lum Simons’ Park this season.”¹⁸⁵ A nearly identical report appeared ten years later: “Mr. Joe Clark will soon take charge of Mr. Lum Simons’ Amusement Park.”¹⁸⁶ Joe Clark’s father Joseph Clark Sr., brother James Clark, sister Mollie Clark Robinson, uncle Eugene Clark, and cousin Robert Clark constituted Louisville’s first family of African American minstrelsy.¹⁸⁷ Edith Wilson, a 1920s blues recording star who grew up in Louisville, recalled that in 1910, when she was thirteen years old, the Clark brothers introduced her to the professional stage:

The summer of 1900 brought news of black vaudeville activity at Kenwood and Jacob parks. Kenwood Park, at the end of the Third Street streetcar line, was featuring “The Bunch of Blackberries,” headed by Joe Anderson’s Klondyke String Band.¹⁸⁹ The band consisted of Tom Lane and Dan Dickerson on first and second violin, with unknown others, probably including Joe Anderson: “Tom Lane and his violin solos are pleasing the audience immensely. Dan Dickerson is taking them off their feet singing ‘I Ain’t Got No Friends or Family Now.’”¹⁹⁰ Additionally, Jim Watts “the rag-time singer” sang “I Am Certainly Living a Rag-Time Life.”¹⁹¹

Jacob Park, a segregated white park on Fourth Street, south of the city, presented black vaudeville bills headed by George W. Temple and Webster Williams, “the Two Smoky Mokes,” whose repertoire included two Irving Jones titles: “I Am Lending Money to the Government Now” and “All Birds Look Like Chickens to Me.” Other performers at Jacob Park during the summer of 1900 included tambourine juggler James Anderson, comedian and buck dancer Perry Black, “rag-time singer” Dave English, and designated “coon song singer” Will Able.¹⁹²

“Coon song singer” was hardly an adequate description of Louisville’s up-and-coming baritone balladeer Will Able. In 1902 he made a tour with the Breckenridge Jubilee Singers, headed by fellow Louisville native Steve Breckenridge. In October he “closed with the Breckenridge Jubilee Singers and is now in Chicago, Ill., visiting friends.”¹⁹³ Back in Louisville in 1903, he spent the summer in vaudeville at Ninaweb Park: “Will Able, our descriptive vocalist, is up to date and presents all the latest ballads as fast as they are published.”¹⁹⁴ In 1904 he sang at Louisville’s Metropolitan Club with Tony Jackson, and in 1906 he took over the management of Ninaweb Park.

Ninaweb Park was located south of the Louisville city limits on Bluegrass Avenue, near Fourth Street, just north of present-day Iroquois Park.¹⁹⁵ It was probably restricted to white patrons. A June 1, 1901, report disclosed: “The managers this season have been working white performers, but the people demanded the return of last year’s favorite, hence the change.” George W. Temple, “agent” of the park’s white owners, was “securing talent for summer work.”¹⁹⁶ A few weeks later the Freeman reported: “Ninaweb Park goes big.”¹⁹⁷

Ragtime features at Ninaweb Park during the summer of 1901 included George Temple singing “A Coon with the Raglan Craze” and “There’ll Be No Jonah Preachers Hangin’ Around”; John Tolliver, the “Hoosier whirlwind,” singing Irving Jones’s “Ragtime Millionaire”; “ragtime songstress” Carrie Smith; Master Jimmie, “the little coon songster”; and “ragtime comedians” Steve Breckenridge and Webster Williams singing “How De Do Man” and “Not with My Money.”¹⁹⁸

At Ninaweb Park in the waning days of the 1903 season, Logan took encores in the role of “Brother Jasper, deacon of Mt. Hepstirdam Baptist Church.”²⁰¹ The park closed its season of 1903 on September 20, sending word that “Summers bros. proprietors, and Manager Tom Logan … have piloted a prosperous and pleasant season.”²⁰² There was news that they would reopen the Ninaweb Park Theater on May 12, 1904. In the meantime, “Tom Logan and Miss Sarah Dunn were engaged as special features to strengthen an ‘Ofay’ show … at Jeffersonville, Ind.”²⁰³ Dunn was the maiden name of blues legend Sarah Martin; she was nineteen years old at the time of this engagement.²⁰⁴

Ninaweb Park opened its season of 1904 with crooner Will Able, sketch artists Charles and Dora Wilson, old man impersonator Billy Palm Carroll, vernacular dancer Rastus Brown, and the music and comedy team of Billy and Stella Harris Johnson, among others. On July 16 Logan noted: “So popular has this resort become that the management found it necessary to employ two orchestras. Prof. J. B. Tucker’s orchestra plays the show, while Prof. Tobe Brown’s orchestra renders selections between specialties.… Prof. Tucker has composed a catchy rag which he has named ‘Pas Arnold’s Rag.’” Kentucky-bred veteran comedian Charles “Pas” Arnold was a cousin of Ernest Hogan; following his sudden death in Chicago in 1906, Arnold’s “remains were taken to his home at Bowling Green, Ky., for burial.”²⁰⁵

Tom Logan … is stage manager at this beautiful South Louisville summer resort and it is “up to him” to secure the talent he needs and to put on an entirely new program on Monday of each week during the season, and it goes without the saying that he “makes good.” He is rigid and exacting, and his personality is conspicuously in evidence throughout.… Logan’s methods are entirely legitimate, his wit clean and wholesome.… The company’s program is adroitly balanced to please both those who fancy the Negro in plantation garb and those who like to see him do the “swell” or “straight” work. Tom Logan in the varied roles of legitimate actor, grotesque comedian, dramatist, song-writer, manager and producer is equally painstaking and loyal to the demands of art. The stage is elevated by the scholars who devote themselves to its betterment, and by the women who bring it to the sterling virtues of home and society. When you go to Louisville, look Tom up. He has flattering offers from “Black Patti’s Troubadours,” the “Smart Set” and other reputable contributions to travel but the Kentucky metropolis is loth [sic] to part with him. Louisville would not seem quite like Louisville with Tom Logan away.²⁰⁶

Will Able, Indianapolis Freeman, February 3, 1912.

Back in Kentucky, a 1906 report noted: “Will Able, since the departure of Tom Logan, is the dean of Louisville’s theatrical colony … blossoming out as a full-fledged manager. Last week he organized a well-rounded group of performers to fill a special engagement at French Lick Springs.”²⁰⁸ Able was last spotted in Louisville during the summer of 1908, in the cast of a musical comedy under rehearsal at the Masonic Theater. Ollie Powers was also in the cast, and Robert Motts and J. Ed Green were expected to drop down from Chicago for the opening night’s performance.²⁰⁹ Able and Powers were among several Louisvillians who invaded Chicago’s black cabarets. At the Pekin Cafe in 1910, Able teamed with Nettie Lewis to sing “The Grizzly Bear,” “Honey Dear,” and “Silvery Moon.”²¹⁰

Some of Louisville’s top black musicians also entertained at Ninaweb Park. During the summer of 1903, music for the vaudeville show was supplied by Ben “Footsie” Ball’s Peerless Orchestra, comprising Ben Ball, leader; Tobe Brown, cornet; John Embry, trombone; Ernest Kincade, trombone; and Edward “Uncle Ned” Taylor, bass fiddle.²¹¹ “Ernest Kincade’s trombone solos are well received, while Prof. Brown and his cornet selections are ever a source of satisfaction to lovers of good music. Uncle Ned Taylor and his cello are a valuable acquisition.”²¹² At the end of the 1903 season, Ball, Embry, and Taylor “accepted musician engagements for the winter at Chicago. Prof. T. B. Brown will continue as local band and orchestra leader. Ennis [sic] Kincade will join a traveling show.”²¹³

Bandleader and cornet soloist T. B. Brown, also known as “Tobe,” was born Robert L. Brown in Kentucky, probably in 1859.²¹⁴ A retrospective account traced his musical career back to Louisville’s celebrated Falls City Brass Band.²¹⁵ In 1890 Brown relocated to Kansas City, where he and his wife established a popular dancing school and Brown led an orchestra and trained young musicians. Brown returned to Louisville in about 1895.²¹⁶

A front-page feature in the Freeman of August 24, 1907, boasted of “Mr. Tobe Brown’s genius … A few weeks ago he played for the Owensboro [Kentucky] Chautauqua, the first Negro Chautauqua in this country. It was a grand success, and this was due largely through the music furnished by Brown’s orchestra and band concert music. He played some of the most high class music ever heard in that section and the applause given him and the orchestra showed the appreciation the citizens had for such a brilliant set of music makers.”

In 1909, following a heated dispute with the white officials of the Louisville and Lexington fairs, Brown relocated to Chicago, where he became a member of Dave Peyton’s pit band at the New Grand Theater on State Street.²¹⁷ In May 1918 Brown arrived in Chicago from Detroit, “looking the picture of health. He is engaged for the [Ben] Shook’s orchestra.”²¹⁸ Like Ben Shook, Tobe Brown was musically active before the dawn of ragtime and survived to play a part in the birth of jazz.²¹⁹

Detail of a 1905 Sanborn Insurance Map showing the corner of Ninth and Grayson streets, with C. C. Roth’s saloon divided in half, one half designated a saloon, and the other a restaurant.

Up-and-coming Louisville soubrette Ella Hoke broke into vaudeville at Roth’s Blue Ribbon saloon-theater.²²² In January 1904 she celebrated her nineteenth birthday there: “Punch and egg nog were served by Jennings, the mixologist, while Abraham Cohen, the caterer, prepared the dinner. Specialties were volunteered by Hi Jerry Barnes, Benzonine Davis, John Goodloe, Rastus Roth, Robert Clark, Will Able and Baby Josh. An old fashioned ‘to-de-lo’ dance, led by Mr. Goodloe wound up the festivities.”²²³ Less festive news was released in April: “John Goodloe a local comedian has been indicted for an alleged attempt to shoot a fellow performer.”²²⁴ There was no follow-up.

In November 1906 the Freeman announced: “Miss Ella Hoke and Mr. John Goodloe, late members of the stock company of the Blue Ribbon Theater, Louisville, were married a short time ago and for the present are resting in the Falls City [Louisville]. They expect to go on the road again after the holidays.”²²⁵ A few years later, when theaters offering black vaudeville entertainment for exclusively black audiences began sprouting like mushrooms across the Southeast, John and Ella Hoke Goodloe were among the first headliners.

Among those attracted to Louisville’s heightened theatrical atmosphere was legendary New Orleans singer-pianist Tony Jackson, who was on the road in 1905 when he hit town and decided to “sojourn a while”:

The favorite headquarters of the theatrical folks when they come to Louisville is the Metropolitan Club, handsomely and comfortably established in an entire two-story brick house at 1116 W. Walnut street. All professionals of colored talent will meet with a hearty welcome, and find pleasure constantly on “tap.” Music, singing and dancing are provided every night with such entertainers as Prof. Tony Jackson, the famous lyric tenor, Will Able and John Page on the program. The club has been greatly improved under the management of John P. Thomas and George Watson. The complimentary testimonial to Prof. Tony Jackson at the Metropolitan, Saturday evening, March 11th, was a grand success. He came here with the Whitman Sisters, and attracting so much attention by his wonderful voice (ranging from prima donna soprano to deep baritone), he was persuaded to sojourn with us a while. He goes to New Orleans for a season.²²⁶

In 1910 former Memphis theater pioneer Alfred “Tick” Houston established the Houston Theater, later renamed the Ruby Theater, at 914 West Walnut Street, in what had previously been the black-owned Frontenac Hall and Club.²²⁷ A “statement of purpose” was published in the Freeman shortly after the theater opened for business:

Negroes are segregated at white theaters, getting back seats at the best ones and at the leading vaudeville house the “brother” must sit in the gallery. Most of the Negroes of [Louisville] feel like resenting the stigma and patronizing theaters of their own, but the only trouble has been for some enterprising man to invest under the sole direction of colored people, using colored talent, the citizens of Louisville, we believe, will give it their support.

We believe that a moral wave will soon spread over the country, urging Negroes to patronize their own playhouses.²²⁸

The first recognizable black vaudeville stage in New Orleans was at Lincoln Park, which opened in 1902 under the auspices of the Standard Brewing Company as “a colored summer resort for the purpose of furnishing amusement for colored people.”²³⁰ Accessible by streetcar from most sections of the city, the one square block park was bounded by Carrollton Avenue, Oleander, Short, and Forshey streets, in the upper reaches of the Gert Town community. A famous anecdote about jazz pioneer Buddy Bolden pointing his horn towards Lincoln Park and “calling his children home” has enshrined this otherwise obscure “resort” in the mythology of jazz creation.²³¹ In 1905, however, Lincoln Park was more popularly known for its “flying jennies, balloon ascensions and numerous other attractions,” including vaudeville.²³²

The vaudeville shows were held in the Lincoln Park Auditorium. Remembered as a barnlike structure with kegs of beer lining the entranceway, it could accommodate over a thousand people, and standing-room-only was a “common thing.”²³³ When news from the Lincoln Park Auditorium first reached the Freeman in the spring of 1904, Clarence Bush’s Ragtime Opera Company was holding the boards.²³⁴ Writing in 1933, African American music historian E. Belfield Spriggins included Bush in an honor roll of piano professors—Tony Jackson, Albert Carroll, Arthur Campbell, Manuel Manetta, George W. Thomas, Clarence Williams, Richard M. Jones, and others—who lit up the “night life as known in New Orleans a generation ago.”²³⁵ At the Lincoln Park Auditorium in 1904, Bush took “three or four encores nightly singing ‘Don’t Never Do Nothing For Nobody Dat Does Nothing For You.’”²³⁶

The 1904 edition of Bush’s Ragtime Opera Company was largely composed of New Orleans talent. The musical director was Albert Carroll; the orchestra leader was Joseph Palao, and the stage manager was John E. Lewis.²³⁷ Among the company’s “popular comedians and buck and wing dancers” was Anatole Pierre, “hitting them hard with ‘I’m just barely living dat’s all.’”²³⁸ When he returned to the park in 1905, Pierre made good singing “The Preacher and the Bear.”²³⁹

The female contingent of Bush’s Ragtime Opera Company included Emma Thornton, “the great Southern coon shouter”; Lelia Chapman, “the Louisiana nightingale”; and Viola Lewis, “the Crescent City soprano.”²⁴⁰ Emma Thornton and Lelia Chapman have been associated with the Buddy Bolden story as “part of Bolden’s ‘harem.’”²⁴¹ Thornton was a seasonal favorite at Lincoln Park. With Bush’s company in 1904 she got “two and three encores nightly” singing “I’m a Little Jungle Queen.”²⁴² Correspondence on May 27, 1905, informed that, “Emma Thornton, the queen o’ coon shouters is ‘mopping up’ singing ‘Scissors to Grind,’ ‘Make a Fuss Over Me’ and ‘Billy’”—three Tin Pan Alley publications from the previous year.²⁴³ By 1913 she was running the vaudeville routes as far as Indianapolis.²⁴⁴

The Lincoln Park Auditorium opened its season of 1905 under the management of a capable group of local race men: H. G. Cailloux, general business manager; Prof. John Robichaux, leader of orchestra; Joseph A. McMurray, stage manager; John E. Lewis, assistant manager; and Prof. George Moret, band master.²⁴⁵ Moret’s continued presence at the park is reflected in a 1907 report: “There is a free open-air concert in the evenings from 5 to 7:30, on the lawn, by the Excelsior Brass Band, under the leadership of Prof. Moret, with fifteen pieces.”²⁴⁶

Prof. George Moret (courtesy Hogan Jazz Archive, Tulane University).

Robichaux still had charge of the orchestra at Lincoln Park in 1909, “doing justice to the public and themselves in executing the musical numbers of the program.” The Freeman of July 24, 1909, gave this roster and commentary: “Prof. J. P. Robichan [sic] … James Williams [sic], J. B. Delisle, Arthur Scott, Henry Kimball, Louis Contrell [sic], [and] Lorenzo Tio. They … don’t sing um, ‘but they play um,’ so get wise.”²⁴⁹

Stage manager Joseph A. McMurray was a veteran of Florida’s early vaudeville platforms. In addition to managing the Lincoln Park stage, he appeared in a farce comedy skit titled “Harvest Days in Musicville” singing “I May Be Crazy but I Ain’t No Fool.”²⁵⁰ He also served a turn as Lincoln Park’s Freeman correspondent, and in May 1905 sent news that Madame Magdalene Tartt, “better known as the ‘Black Swan,’” had been “added to the rest of the stars to shine with us.”²⁵¹ Two weeks later McMurray assured that “the original black swan, in operatic selections sets the house crazy.”²⁵² This notable black church-house prima donna was said to have hailed from Mobile, Alabama.²⁵³

The husband-and-wife comedy team of John and Rhoda McNeil spent much of the summer of 1905 at Lincoln Park, and made a hit singing “Dusky Maiden.” Rhoda McNeil was a native New Orleanian and a sister of road-show trombonist Alvin “Zoo” Robertson.²⁵⁴ On the road with the Coney Island Minstrels in 1907, the McNeils were “cleaning up nightly with their new act, ‘Wash Day in Coon Town.’”²⁵⁵ In 1919 they retired from the stage and settled in Los Angeles, where Rhoda’s mother was living.²⁵⁶ A 1925 correspondence assured that Rhoda was taking “an active part in church and social work,” while “Mack himself is holding down a good job in a department store.”²⁵⁷

Novelty acts at Lincoln Park between 1905 and 1909 included “Cyclops & Cyclo,” contortionists; William Cheri, a comic singer and acrobatic contortionist; and Lew and Joseph Watts, comedy acrobats and slack wire walkers.²⁵⁸ Moving pictures were also in the novelty category, and as early as 1905 a Lincoln Park reporter assured: “Prof. A. A. Moncrief and his moving pictures, introducing the train robbers, is a decided hit.”²⁵⁹

(Courtesy Hogan Jazz Archive, Tulane University)

Lew and Joseph Watts, Indianapolis Freeman, December 23, 1916.

In 1907 the local Labormen’s Social Club took a five-year lease on Lincoln Park.260 A note on September 7, 1907, said they would keep the park open all winter, with the “world’s greatest and most daring colored aeronaut, Jos. Haywood” making “his ‘death defying’ ascension in his balloon each week.”²⁶¹ Haywood was also known as Buddy Bartley, a name that resonates in the literature of early New Orleans jazz.²⁶² In addition to his balloon ascensions, Haywood doubled as a comedian on the vaudeville stage and helped manage the park’s business affairs.

In 1908 the Laborman’s Social Club united with the Tramps Social Club, “an organization composed of performers … who give balls and shows to replenish the treasury in order to assist in caring for the sick and burying the dead.”²⁶³ The season of 1909 opened under new general manager William Payton, a local saloon keeper, “well known in the amusement world.” Joseph Haywood ascended to superintendent, and Albert Carroll remained musical director.²⁶⁴

One of the most important acts to play Lincoln Park was the comedy team of Lew Kenner and John E. Lewis, the “Williams and Walker of the South.”²⁶⁵ Both men were native New Orleanians, friends from childhood days. Kenner was touted in 1901 as the “popular Garden district comedian and cakewalker.”²⁶⁶ In 1902 he made a tour from New Orleans to Baton Rouge and back with the Sunny South Minstrels, “getting three and four encores every night singing ‘I’ve Got Mine.’”²⁶⁷ John E. Lewis, who also made that tour, had gotten his start as a quartet singer. When he appeared with a male sextet at the Bienville Hotel Roof Garden in Mobile, Alabama, in the summer of 1901, the “ofays went wild over their peculiar way of singing coon songs.”²⁶⁸

At Lincoln Park in 1904, Lewis was billed as “the great southern tenor … going big singing ‘Nobody ever brings presents to me’ assisted by the famous Olympia quartette.”²⁶⁹ In 1905 Kenner came to Lincoln Park singing “Dat Ain’t Nothing but Talk.”²⁷⁰ In 1907 they formed the Kenner and Lewis Amusement Company, opening at Lincoln Park with sixteen performers, including William and Beulah Henderson, Effie Means, Emma Thornton, Homer Broadnax, and the Midnight Bells Quartette.²⁷¹

In September 1908 the Kenner and Lewis Amusement Company returned to the Lincoln Park Auditorium for a four-week run, presenting dramas such as “In Cripple Creek” and others.²⁷² Afterward, Kenner and Lewis called rehearsals for a new show titled “Prince Bumpaka.”²⁷³ With Albert Carroll and Robichaux’s Orchestra in tow, they set off on a barnstorming tour of country towns between New Orleans and Jackson, Mississippi.²⁷⁴

Lew Kenner and John Lewis, Indianapolis Freeman, November 19, 1910.

Returning to New Orleans, Kenner and Lewis inaugurated the vaudeville stage at Dixie Park on Easter Sunday 1909.275 This new facility, situated in the 4500 block of Bienville Street, was designed to compete head-on with Lincoln Park. The music was furnished by Prof. Babb Frank’s Peerless Band.²⁷⁶ In mid-July, a New Orleans–based reporter told the Freeman: “Summer time is on and the two places for amusement of colored people, Lincoln Park and Dixie Park, seem to be well patronized. The class of people who go to Lincoln Park and the class who goes to Dixie Park are said to be different in character, each side claiming to have the best class of people as patrons, and each claiming to be better prepared to give amusements.”²⁷⁷

The Kenner and Lewis Amusement Company stormed Dixie Park with one-act comedy skits such as “A Moonlight Frolic in Louisiana” and “Bad Riley.” The company was “composed of the best local talent in the city,” including the Midnight Bells Quartet; Abbie Pellebon, “queen of soubrettes”; Mildred Kernion, “the girl with the ziz”; Virginia Crawford, who would come to the blues forefront as Virginia Liston; Sweetie Matthews, “the people’s favorite soubrette,” who would soon join hands with vaudeville blues star Butler “String Beans” May; and “dainty little soubrette” Tillie Johnson, who was still appearing in black vaudeville in 1928 when she recorded blues titles for Gennett.²⁷⁸

To compete with the Kenner and Lewis Amusement Company at Dixie Park, Lincoln Park secured G. W. Allen’s Troubadours, a cutting-edge black-owned-and-operated itinerant vaudeville stock company with musical director Charles H. Hawkins and fourteen performers.²⁷⁹ Owner G. W. Allen was the self-styled “greatest ragtime singer of his race” and king of “low comedy actors and producers.”²⁸⁰

Like the Kenner and Lewis Amusement Company, Allen’s Troubadours specialized in farcical comedy skits. A May 15, 1909, report from Lincoln Park described “Buncoed in Louisiana,” in which “Hollow Head Zeke, on his arrival from Horseshoe Bend, Tenn., gets buncoed, but gets even at the lawn party.” Three weeks later they presented “Gimme My Money,” set in a saloon on Franklin Street, in the black nightlife section of New Orleans, and featuring such characters as “Gin Stick Mose,” “Tom Bad Eye,” “Bad Liquor Sam,” and “Mrs. Sukie Coal Chute.” Among the specialty acts was a “Hobo Quartet.”²⁸¹

Allen’s Troubadours were succeeded at Lincoln Park by the latest edition of Clarence Bush’s Ragtime Opera Company, featuring a one-act comedy, “The Jealous Woman.”²⁸⁴ It included such songs as “If There Ain’t No Chickens in Heaven I Don’t Want to Go There” sung by Sadie Perry and “Dat Lovin’ Rag” sung by the entire company.²⁸⁵ Also popular was “Davis, Hughes and Rozier, echo trio in ‘Take Your Hands Away’ and ‘Deed I Haven’t Dirtied Any Plate Today.’”²⁸⁶

As the summer of 1909 began to wane, the Big Five Minstrel Company took the stage at Lincoln Park, with a program that included “Ballads by Calvin Jackson, John Gale, Tony Jackson, Oscar Curry, Moses Graham.”²⁸⁷ Contemporaneous documents suggest that, in his time, legendary pianist Tony Jackson was more famous for his singing than his piano playing.²⁸⁸ Another one of the Big Five balladeers, Mose Graham, became known in the burgeoning black vaudeville world as the “two-story comedian.” In 1911, two years after showing at Lincoln Park, “Two-Story Mose Graham made quite a hit at the Star theater” in Washington, D.C., “singing his own composition entitled ‘I’m Going to Build a Whitewashed [sic] Station Just Two Miles from Glory, So the Black Man Can Have a Chance.’”²⁸⁹

After the summer of 1909, Freeman correspondence from Lincoln Park dried up, but the park remained open. In 1915 a New Orleans–based reporter for the Chicago Defender reminded readers of “Lincoln Park, the only summer resort and one of long standing.… Mr. Joseph Haywood (Budy Bodly) [sic], the manager, makes it pleasant for all comers; the park appears to be more successful this season than it has been for many summers,” with I. W. “Dad” James in charge of a vaudeville stock company that included Grace Arnte, Baby Floyd Fisher, Alma Hughes, Tillie Johnson, Lena Leggett, Willie Jackson, and Clarence Williams.²⁹⁰

In September 1909 the Kenner and Lewis Stock Company left New Orleans on a tour of the brand new black vaudeville theaters that were taking hold along the Mississippi-Alabama-Florida Gulf Coast, and from there to theaters in Georgia and the Carolinas.²⁹¹ Among the coon shouters and soubrettes touring with Kenner and Lewis during the course of that year-and-a-half-long trek were Emma Thornton, Carrie Hall, Rosetta Brannon, Trixie Colquitt, who later made blues recordings as Trixie Butler, and Virginia Crawford, “the Louisiana Coon Shouter.” Though he was not mentioned in the Freeman reports, Jelly Roll Morton recalled having played piano with Kenner and Lewis’s cutting-edge vaudeville stock company in Pensacola, Florida.²⁹²

Kenner and Lewis severed ties in 1911.²⁹³ On January 9, 1915, John E. Lewis was found dead in his New Orleans home; he was remembered as “a No. 1 straight man.”²⁹⁴ Lew Kenner remained active into the 1930s. When he died in New Orleans in 1940 at the age of sixty-seven, he was eulogized as a “famous cakewalker” and “the first Negro to perform the act of sawing a woman in half.”²⁹⁵

Early black vaudeville struggles in Memphis contributed to the city’s rich cultural heritage. Memphis ultimately became a major center of southern vaudeville. As early as 1901, at least three local theaters—Jim Kinnane’s Rialto, Robert Church’s Auditorium, and Tick Houston’s Tivoli—were presenting black vaudeville entertainment to exclusively black audiences.

Indianapolis Freeman, May 25, 1901.

Upon his arrival in Memphis in May 1901, Green advised the Freeman, “I’m in ‘Sunny Tennessee’ with Lew Hall at the Rialto, one of the finest theatres in the South, strictly adapted for vaudeville. I will direct all performances.”²⁹⁷ Green resided at the Alhambra Hotel, corner of Beale and Hernando streets, while directing the Rialto stage. The Rialto was located at 96 North Front Street, corner of Winchester, some twelve blocks north of Beale. It was a saloon with a theater attached. The theater seated from 1,200 to 2,000 people and had “a nicely arranged stage with four dressing rooms, a green room, complete with electric switch board and entirely new scenery.”²⁹⁸

Detail of a Sanborn Insurance Map showing the 10 Winchester Street address of the Rialto Theater and Phoenix Athletic Club (Courtesy Richard Raichelson).

Indianapolis Freeman, June 29, 1901.

Hall’s Ragtime Opera Company opened at the Rialto on May 20, 1901. Ben Hunn expressed himself “highly pleased with the place and says that he will place it on his regular vaudeville list.… Lew Hall, the lessee and manager, has the right idea, and ere long a circuit will be formed, embracing Chattanooga, Birmingham and Knoxville, connecting with Florida.”³⁰⁴

The notion of a regional vaudeville theater circuit was premature; nevertheless, Lew Hall’s vaudeville experiment at the Rialto made steady progress:

The Rialto is now in its 4th week of unlimited success. The stock company … has proved themselves equal to the task of playing one show and rehearsing another.… Week of [June] 3 saw the “[Two] African Princes,” a really funny farce that proved quite a laugh producer; week of [June] 10 Lew Hall’s famous Georgia minstrels, with Johnnie Green and Billy Johnson on extreme ends. Nettie Lewis, Bessie Gilliam and Ora Crisswell made a fine set of Parisian girls. Master Blaine Bly found a great song in the “Bird with a Broken Wing.” Eddie Foy Elliot, as the “baby,” had people taking on over him. Johnson and Reid are big favorites with their singing and dancing. Mr. and Mrs. Lewis Williams are Memphis favorites as classic soloists.… Ben Hunn has something new every week, and they continue to ask for his peculiar rendition of “A White Man Working for Me” song. Mr. Hall is proud of the deportment of each and every member of the company, and is satisfied of success.³⁰⁵

The following week J. Ed Green informed that, in spite of unusually hot weather, “patronage to the Rialto continues good.… Gene Leggins and Bessie Gilliam sang and danced their way into the hearts of the large audiences. Eddie Foy Elliott and Ora Criswell, in an act called ‘Married Life,’ was a success. Johnson and Reid are still favorites.… Bessie Gilliam, as ‘tough Lize,’ was a revelation; the part was created by her and she will place it on her list as a special act.”306 “Tough Lize” became a stock female character in African American vaudeville.

“Amateur night” at the Rialto that summer was said to be “a scene of much fun as well as pleasure to audience and performers, there being 12 applicants; the honors were carried off by a Miss Mattie Johnson, mezzo soprano; James Kinanes [sic], famous comedian, made quite a hit. 44 was the winning number during the week.”³⁰⁷ Evidence of Jim Kinnane participating in amateur night at the Rialto is a testament to his colorful life, and to the freewheeling atmosphere at his saloon-theater.³⁰⁸

J. Ed Green made it known that he would take the Rialto Theater company to Birmingham that summer “for a couple weeks, leaving a new stock company here until we return, then sending them over to take our place.”³⁰⁹ On July 8, 1901, Green and company opened a two-week date at Attraction Park (also known as Traction Park), a race enterprise in Birmingham, under the banner of Lew Hall’s Ragtime Opera Company. Several weeks later, Green was “conducting rehearsals and staging King & Bush’s minstrels” in Birmingham.³¹⁰ Back in Memphis, the Rialto “closed a very successful season,” and performers Blaine Bly, Johnson and Reid, William Thomas, and Lewis Williams left for Birmingham to join King and Bush’s Minstrels: “Manager Kinan [sic] looks upon his vaudeville experiment with a satisfactory glance.”³¹¹

Meanwhile, a new edition of Lew Hall’s Ragtime Opera Company opened at Church’s Auditorium.³¹² This historic venue was owned and controlled by black Memphis saloon operator turned real estate magnate Robert R. Church. Born in 1839, Church had established himself in Memphis right after the Civil War. His early involvement with race entertainment was noted in a 1905 Freeman retrospective: “In 1872 Alf White and Jim Mahoney took a show out of Memphis.… This company was organized at Col. R. R. Church’s new hall—Col. Church, by the way, proving then, as well as up to the present day, that he is a race man at all times and under all circumstances.”³¹³

Indianapolis Freeman, August 18, 1906.

Church’s Auditorium was a brand new, fully appointed theater and meeting hall on the grounds of Church’s Park, a six-acre “sylvan retreat” for the African American citizens of Memphis, situated in the 300 block of Beale Street. “This building cost $50,000, and will easily seat two thousand people.”³¹⁴ “Mr. Church deserves the patronage of all those who appreciate theatergoing, as he has spared no pains to make this the greatest place of amusement in the city. He intends to book such companies as Williams & Walker if the colored people will only lend their support, and will stop going to white theatres to be placed in the buzzard roost.”³¹⁵

Detail of a Sanborn Insurance Map showing Church’s Park (Courtesy Richard Raichelson).

Tom Logan, the versatile character artist, meets with an abundance of deserved applause. The work of Miss Nettie Lewis is … a valuable addition. Eddie Foy [Elliott] is in his glee when acting master of ceremonies on amateur nights.… Miss Ollie L. Hall, the sweet voiced soprano, is winning laurels nightly by her talented rendition and brilliant conception of classic and sentimental ballads. Miss [Ora] Criswell proves her claim as an applause winner and earns it. Will Jones, the baritone, is heard to good advantage in the choruses. Lew Hall (you all know Lew) created considerable favorable comment by his rich brogue, splendid make-up and earnest efforts as an “Irish gintleman sir.” Johnny Green, as an old time Southern darkey, gives an acceptable version of character. Prof. Ed. H. Hill, the “Sandow pianist,” still holds his own. Miss Ella Carr makes a strong bid for public favor as a vocalist and dancer. The amusement loving public feel duly grateful to Tom Logan, who has staged some of the most generally satisfactory first parts and after pieces ever seen here.³¹⁷

Indianapolis Freeman, September 7, 1901. The 124 Beale Street address in this ad may have been a mail-drop. The address of the park itself was 391 Beale.

Logan left Memphis by mid-September.³¹⁸ That same month, Lew Hall’s Ragtime Opera Company closed its summer season, having completed “six weeks at the Rialto, two weeks at Birmingham, and eight weeks at R. R. Church’s beautiful Park and Auditorium. The company played strictly to colored people and to the very best in the South.”³¹⁹

Over the next few weeks, “Mr. Church put 20 colored carpenters to work to put in a balcony, seating 700 people, and six boxes.” On October 21, 1901, Lew Hall’s Ragtime Opera Company returned to Church’s Auditorium and opened to a capacity house. A local reporter noted:

Hall was not wrong in his prediction. Weekly advertisements in the Freeman continued through May 10, 1903, stating: “R. R. Church’s Auditorium, Memphis, Tenn. Vaudeville Show Every Night. Now booking shows for this and next season. Lew Hall, Manager.”

In Memphis one month later, Alfred “Tick” Houston opened the Tivoli Music Hall, a saloon-theater at 121 DeSoto Street, and summoned J. Ed Green to Memphis to manage his stage.³²¹ Notable participants in Green’s historic 1901–02 Memphis black vaudeville combination included soubrette Nettie Lewis, who had spent the previous year with P. G. Lowery’s Company, and later became the wife and partner of pianist Glover Compton; Henry Troy, the great Birmingham tenor; coming young comedian Billy B. (sometimes known as “Blue”) Johnson; and vaudeville queen Estelle Harris, who became a pioneer blues and jazz singer.

Since the opening Dec. 20, business has tested the capacity of the Tivoli Music Hall and all the show loving public are talking about the presentation of the popular sketches. We opened with a farce burlesque on Foxy Quiller.… Mr. Troy took the roll [sic] of Jack Cotton; Billy Johnson, the part of Rabbit; Miss Estelle Harris as Queenie; and “Foxy Quiller” fell to my lot. The olio was graced by Messrs. Troy, Johnson and Reid and Misses Estelle Harris, Nettie Lewis and Maggie King. The week of Jan. 7, found the popular sketches, “Mr. Johnson Turn Me Loose” and “Mrs. Johnson’s Rent Rag Ball.” B. P. Kennett, the young magician was in the olio as an addition. We present the all minstrel performance for week of Jan. 12, with special costumes and acts.³²²

Indianapolis Freeman, December 28, 1901.

Green also produced sketches such as “4–11–44” and “Going to War,” a military act in which Estelle Harris “donned male attire” and “made a hit with ‘Zulu Babe.’”³²³ In February 1902 he announced:

The Tivoli Music Hall is well established in the city.… Continuous vaudeville is the attraction.… This week sees a new departure, i.e., “Tell Me, Pretty Maiden” from “Florodora” opera was presented by Messrs. Troy, Johnson, Bly, Reid and the Misses Harris, Johnson, Lewis and King. The act was a masterpiece of drill and moving stage pictures.… My latest coon song entitled, “I Wish We’d a Had This Trouble When the Weather Was Warm,” caught on at once, and every one about the corners are now whistling it as a theme of truthfulness.³²⁴

Indianapolis Freeman, October 22, 1910.

Late in February the Tivoli stock company welcomed popular coon shouter Rosa Payne, singing “The Ragtime Millionaire.”325 In March Green reported: “The old favorites—Johnson and Reid, Estelle Harris, Maggie King, Elvira Johnson and the musical director, R. W. Thompson are still with us. We have a space for as many as ten more good girls, singers and dancers. Tene Ann [sic] Jones and Poney Moore left for Chicago Monday after a delightful stay. Am writing a new farce entitled, ‘The Isle of Cuba,’ and will present it the first week in April.”³²⁶

Chicago cabaret barons Poney Moore and Henry “Teenan” Jones were frequent visitors at the Tivoli.³²⁷ Presumably, they came not only to be entertained, but to size up the show, the players, and the prospects for similar theatrical ventures back home in Chicago. Tick’s and the Rialto represented adventurous experiments in black theater vaudeville, among the earliest in Memphis or the Mid-South. But Memphis’s promising vaudeville initiative lasted only one year. Green joined the Black Patti Troubadours when they came to Memphis for an April 1902 engagement at Church’s Auditorium.³²⁸ He went on to serve as stage manager with the 1904–05 edition of the Smart Set Company and then with Ernest Hogan’s 1905–06 production, Rufus Rastus, before landing as stage manager of the fabled Pekin Theater in Chicago.³²⁹

After Green left Memphis, vaudeville at Tick’s Tivoli was temporarily suspended. Tick’s Saloon remained in operation, and reports of vaudeville activity picked up again in 1905. In 1909 Alfred “Tick” Houston relinquished his prime location at the corner of South Fourth and Gayoso to Fred A. Barrasso, who made it the site of his Savoy Theater. Tick Houston went to Louisville, Kentucky, and opened a saloon-theater there.

On October 26, 1909, the Hi Henry Barnes Trio with Laura Smith opened at the Pekin Theater. This was Laura Smith’s introduction to Memphis.³³¹ She was still at the Pekin in January 1910, singing and dancing in a “sister” act with Ella Hoke Goodloe, and a “big four act” with Mr. Johnnie Lee and John and Ella Goodloe.³³²

The second geographic focal point of Memphis’s early African American vaudeville scene was the intersection of Main and Market streets in North Memphis. In 1909 there were three theaters operating within a half block of that corner: the Royal Theater occupied 269 North Main (the corner of Main and Market), the Amuse U was at 253 North Main, and the Gem Theater at 258 North Main.³³³

The Royal Theater opened in March or April 1908, and remained in business for about three years.³³⁴ The Royal’s house pianist was Miss Alice McQuillen. Accompanying her was trap drummer Walter James Reid, a veteran of P. G. Lowery’s Band. Chicago native Richard R. Matthews, Jr. was stage manager at the Royal from October 28, 1908, until April 4, 1909. Under his direction the theater stock company presented a different farce comedy, western drama, or the like every week. Some of these playlets were written by Matthews, others by comedian Tom Briggs, known as “Bon Bon Buddy,” or by coon shouter Carrie Hall.³³⁵ When “Bon Bon Buddy” replaced Matthews as stage manager, the Royal’s offerings fell more in line with the southern vaudeville idea. Trixie Colquitt and Charles Anderson filled extended engagements at the Royal, as did child dancing wonder Little Cuba Austin, who later became an acclaimed drummer.³³⁶

On March 26, 1910, Thomas Briggs died at his home in Yazoo City, Mississippi.³³⁷ One week later, Thomas E. Kinnane, proprietor of the Royal Theater and brother of Jim Kinnane, also died, of kidney failure: “All the theaters in North Memphis closed their doors to show their respect for their gallant manager.”³³⁸

The Gem Theater may have opened some time in 1907. The house pianist was Cornelius Taylor, “better known as ‘Old Folks.’”³³⁹ The Gem’s most noteworthy distinction was its early association with Willie and Lula Too Sweet, who were soon to become stars of southern vaudeville. Willie Perry, known in the profession as Long Willie Too Sweet, was stage manager at the Gem for more than two years. His wife Lula (or “Lulu”), whose real name was Susie Johnson, wrote farce comedies for the Gem Theater players.³⁴⁰

Willie and Lula Too Sweet were Memphis’s premier husband-and-wife comedy act. From their excellent vantage point at the Gem Theater they were able to observe the direction southern vaudeville was taking. Under Long Willie’s aegis, the Gem put on a typical mix of vaudeville features, highlighted by Lula’s comedy skits:

The Gem is certainly some colored play house. Our stage manager put on about one of the best silent and fun acts ever put on in Memphis by colored talent entitled “The Dancing Cafe,” which consisted of buck dancing sitting down and standing up, by every character in the play.… Miss Floyd Fisher is a favorite, singing “It Makes No Difference,” and is a wonder. Miss Lulu Too Sweet, our playwright and leading lady says, “She Wants A Man Like Romeo,” and she’s right.³⁴¹

By the spring of 1910 the Too Sweets had left the Gem to perform at Fred A. Barrasso’s Savoy Theater, which proved to be the real gem of the Memphis Stroll. Barrasso was a different sort of entrepreneur than Memphis’s ephemeral black theater world had seen before. He had the financial resources and hands-on commitment to establish a “colored vaudeville” enterprise with lasting impact, not only in Memphis but throughout the region.

The 1908 Memphis City Directory indicates Fred Barrasso was the proprietor of a saloon at 146 North Main Street. In January 1909, at age twenty-five, Barrasso opened the Amuse U Theater at 253 North Main, across the street from the Gem Theater: “Amuse U is putting on a first class vaudeville show, introducing Centers and Centers, Jennings and wife, Mrs. Love, Mrs. Eugene Clark, and Eugene Clark with his old man impersonations, closing the bill with an afterpiece by Eugene Clark, entitled ‘Fun in a Chinese Laundry,’ which is sending the people away screaming. H. Kidd Love is musical director of the Amuse U orchestra.”³⁴⁴

Barrasso closed the Amuse U for remodeling in June 1909, reopening in early July with the George Lewis Stock Company in a mixed program of musical comedy and vaudeville. Appearing on the bill in early September, but not in a featured role, was Miss Virginia Crawford (later Liston).³⁴⁵

On October 25, 1909, Barrasso opened a second vaudeville house, initially dubbed the Amuse U No. 2, at 121 South Fourth Street, corner of Gayoso, former site of Tick’s Big Vaudeville.³⁴⁶ In January of the following year, after some remodeling, the playhouse reopened as the Savoy Theater. It became the new hot spot in Memphis vaudeville, and ultimately, the flagship of an expanding theatrical empire.

Admission to the new Savoy Theater was five cents. The facility included a “buffet” or lounge, where food and drinks were served. For his “grand opening,” Barrasso brought in former members of J. Ed Green’s famous Chicago Pekin Stock Company, including Charles Gilpin, J. Francis Mores, and basso John C. Boone, a veteran of Black Patti’s Troubadours. These experienced showmen stayed in Memphis for extended engagements. Gilpin, the future star of Eugene O’Neill’s The Emperor Jones, became the Savoy’s producer and stage manager, while Mores served as chorus director, and J. C. Boone as business manager. The multi-talented Boone also designed sets and painted scenery.³⁴⁷

In the spring of 1910, Laura Smith, Estelle Harris, Willie and Lula Too Sweet, and other “southern specialists” combined with this Chicago contingent to form the strongest stock company Memphis theatergoers had yet seen. It was a perfect integration of the State Street model and the new southern brand of vaudeville.

The Savoy Theater Orchestra was under the direction of pianist H. P. “Buddy” McGill, and included Will Blake, cornet; Jim Scott, trombone; (?) Williams, violin; and Alexander Dukes, drums.³⁴⁸ Theater reports declared: “Prof. Buddy McGill is still doing funny stunts on the ivory and taking the house nightly with his overture.… His latest stunt on the piano is playing ‘Home, Sweet Home’ with his left hand and ‘Nearer My God To Thee’ with his right.”³⁴⁹

In May the Freeman described the program at Barrasso’s state-of-the-art black vaudeville theater:

The stability and ambition manifest in Barrasso’s Memphis enterprise mark a defining moment in the development of southern theater vaudeville. Nevertheless, the continued presence of mixologists, pool tables, and other saloon trappings indicate a hedge against the vagaries of the entertainment business. Saloon-theaters and park pavilions were experimental adjuncts to established institutions. If vaudeville proved unsuccessful, the survival of the saloon or park was not necessarily endangered. Proprietors of free-standing vaudeville theaters ran more of a risk and had more to gain or lose.

There was no identifiable permanent facility for African American vaudeville in Atlanta until the spring of 1909, when white theatrical entrepreneur Charles P. Bailey established the Arcade Theater at 81 Decatur Street.³⁵¹ News in December said the Arcade/81 “has been remodeled and now have 500 opera chairs, and doing the biggest business in Atlanta with the biggest and best experienced bunch in the South in vaudeville. We have two matinees and three shows at night. Each show S. R. O. [standing room only]. We don’t think we are wrong when we say we have the prettiest theater in town, and best equipped with scenery. We have the best proprietor in the South. Mr. Chas. Bailey is a perfect gentleman.”³⁵²

Many in the black show world would have taken that last statement for a joke. According to vaudevillian “Happy-Go-Lucky” Simpson, Bailey was “nothing but a cracker from the back woods of Georgia.”³⁵³ Perry “Mule” Bradford weighed in: “We have got to try and put a stop to the man Bailey, because he is treating our brothers and sisters too dirty.… He hit Wayne Burton in the face with a revolver for asking him could he draw some dough.”³⁵⁴ Ethel Waters detested Bailey: “I’d heard what he’d done to Bessie Smith after they’d had an argument. He’d beaten Bessie up, then had her thrown in jail.”³⁵⁵

Bailey’s bad reputation notwithstanding, the importance of the 81 Theater as a foothold for African American vaudeville in Atlanta is indisputable. Its success was prelude to an outbreak of local theatrical activity. Within two years of its opening, the Famous Theater (124 Decatur), Duval Theater, Central Theater (16 Central Avenue), Paradise Theater (170 Peters Street), and Luna Park Theater (99 Decatur) had all commenced operations in Atlanta.

By 1910–11 there were more than 100 small black vaudeville theaters in the South, strung from Texas to Florida and Virginia.³⁵⁶ A growing legion of entertainers traveled back and forth across the southern states; others came south from Chicago and the greater Midwest. The stage was set for an American cultural revolution—the popular emergence of the blues.