Here’s a video of a parlor guitar instrumental version of a sentimental dance tune called “St Louis Waltz.” It’s a civil war -era song that I learned from The Drummer’s and Fifers’ Guide by Bruce and Emmet.
Just the files:
MP3,
Ogg Vorbis,
Ogg Flac,
Aiff,
My recordings here are all hereby dedicated to the public domain per CC0 1.0 Universal.
May 31, 1890: “New York City News,” “On Sunday last, there was buried from 194 Bleeker street, a man whose name once was the synonym for skill upon the banjo, Horace Weston. His career is a striking example of of the rise and fall of natural genius in the fickle field of fancy. Years ago he stood without a peer, and in clever measure, thumbed his melodies of the day before the crowned heads and rulers of the world. From troupe to troupe he drifted and through loose and careless habits gradually fell from grace, and saw the championship drift away from him.”
From Out of sight: the rise of African American popular music, 1889-1895 By Lynn Abbott, Doug Seroff
Other posts in this series on Horace Weston:
This 1914 recording by the zither banjo megafauna Oakley (brit) and Cammeyer (yank) rocks unbelievably hard, like the Ventures on punk:
Here’s the sheet music to read along:
Two recordings on zither banjo by a turn of the century British virtuoso named Jan Wien, courtesy of the zither-banjo web site:
And more by an opera banjo player named Joseph Bull:
Intermezzo from “Cavalieria Rusticanain”
And while you are enjoying the music, here is something whacky.
W.G. Underwood, a sailor on board H.M.S. Calypso has adopted a new style of playing the banjo aloft while hanging by his teeth. He tells me (editor Emile Grimshaw) that the tune he was playing when this photograph was taken was “Lenton Waltz”. He also says that “although a simple tune, it always goes down well when played in this manner at a height of twenty feet.
I have kept using and improving my custom search engine for public domain sheet music for about a year now. It’s really useful, and all I have to do to maintain it is add new sites as I come across them. The reason this search engine is necessary is that sheet music vendors and malware sites have successfully gamed the search engines, so you can’t find free (as in freedom) sheet music unless you whitelist providers. If you know of new sites, let me know.
Sites currently in the whitelist:
I like the calm mood and the round tone of this classic (as in classical) banjo piece.
From the August-September 1884 issue of S. S. Stewart’s Guitar and Banjo Journal (PDF):
Source is via University of Rochester.
Biography of Horace Weston at the Library of Congress:
Horace Weston (1825-90), was one of the biggest stars of the minstrel stage during its heyday in the late 19th century, along with James Bland, Billy Kersands, and Sam Lucas. A freeborn black from Connecticut and a virtuoso banjo player, he started with Buckley’s Serenaders in 1863, but spent most of his career with the Georgia Minstrels. In 1873 he became the first black performer featured in a special role when he toured overseas in a production of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Late in his career, he performed with the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey (Circus) Greatest Show on Earth.
One of Weston’s principal champions was Samuel Swain Stewart, a proponent of the banjo, who published pieces by Weston and other banjo players. Among Weston’s compositions are: “Horace Weston’s Home Sweet Home,” “Horace Weston’s New Schottische,” “Horace Weston’s Old-Time Jig,” “The Egyptian Fandango,” and “Weston’s Great Minor Jig.”
And over on the Library of Congress site for sheet music, here’s an 1883 composition by Weston that is an incredibly early publication for a black American composer, way way before its time:
Courtesy of the Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project, originally published in The Edison Phonograph Monthly,” v.11 (1913), here's an MP3 of the 1867 hit Teddy Bear's Picnic:
“You Can’t Win” is the 1926 autobiography of a petty criminal whose career spanned from reconstruction to the depression. Fun and colorful writing, great stories, lots of lowlife flavor.
It’s moralistic and dire in a Victorian way, true to the 19th century sources. But it also glories in the noir crime style that was just taking off around the 1920s.
Here’s an excerpt describing rock bottom bars around the turn of the 19th century.
The show at Where/MMM on Friday was pretty much empty, I have to admit. I really owned the responsibility, because I didn’t inject energy into the whole situation by getting a flier made, nudging the bands to promote their sets, and doing promotion for my own set.
But it turned out to be a fun time anyhow.
Homesick Elephant‘s style is built on creative things to do with counterpoint and structure, and the space was perfect for getting to listen closely because it’s a comfortable room where you can concentrate. Also, they’re getting married in a month and you can hear romantic chemistry in the way their lines intertwine. Here are photos:
And then Siggy came up with a lot of anarchic energy and created a happy group of listeners. There was even moshing. Well, the moshing was me and the guitarist’s girlfriend.
Tomorrow I’ll be playing in the hospital for sick children. Like, at their bedsides.
And then Friday at happy hour I’ll be at Cinema Bar in Culver City, playing for the drinkers after work. Same thing pretty much.
Musicians gotta play. The point of playing is the music, and the way to get it good is to do it a lot.