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Ragged but Right: Black Traveling Shows, ""Coon

Ragged but Right: Black Traveling Shows, ""Coon Songs,"" and the Dark Pathway to Blues and Jazz Paperback / softback - 2012

by Lynn Abbott

  • New
  • Paperback

Description

Paperback / softback. New. A study of how ragtime comedies, bands, and minstrel shows brought blues to the masses. It traces the mass popularity of so-called "coon songs" during the early years of rag, to their eventual transformation into the original blues music listened to and loved by millions around the world.
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Details

  • Title Ragged but Right: Black Traveling Shows, ""Coon Songs,"" and the Dark Pathway to Blues and Jazz
  • Author Lynn Abbott
  • Binding Paperback / softback
  • Edition Reprint
  • Condition New
  • Pages 472
  • Volumes 1
  • Language ENG
  • Publisher University Press of Mississippi
  • Date 2012-09-25
  • Illustrated Yes
  • Features Bibliography, Illustrated, Index, Table of Contents
  • Bookseller's Inventory # B9781617036453
  • ISBN 9781617036453 / 1617036455
  • Weight 2.8 lbs (1.27 kg)
  • Dimensions 10 x 7.9 x 1.3 in (25.40 x 20.07 x 3.30 cm)
  • Themes
    • Chronological Period: 20th Century
    • Ethnic Orientation: African American
  • Library of Congress subjects African Americans - Music - History and, Sideshows - United States - History
  • Library of Congress Catalog Number 2006015009
  • Dewey Decimal Code 781.640

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From the publisher

The commercial explosion of ragtime in the early twentieth century created previously unimagined opportunities for black performers. However, every prospect was mitigated by systemic racism. The biggest hits of the ragtime era weren't Scott Joplin's stately piano rags. "Coon songs," with their ugly name, defined ragtime for the masses, and played a transitional role in the commercial ascendancy of blues and jazz.

In Ragged but Right, Lynn Abbott and Doug Seroff investigate black musical comedy productions, sideshow bands, and itinerant tented minstrel shows. Ragtime history is crowned by the "big shows," the stunning musical comedy successes of Williams and Walker, Bob Cole, and Ernest Hogan. Under the big tent of Tolliver's Smart Set, Ma Rainey, Clara Smith, and others were converted from "coon shouters" to "blues singers."

Throughout the ragtime era and into the era of blues and jazz, circuses and Wild West shows exploited the popular demand for black music and culture, yet segregated and subordinated black performers to the sideshow tent. Not to be confused with their nineteenth-century white predecessors, black, tented minstrel shows such as the Rabbit's Foot and Silas Green from New Orleans provided blues and jazz-heavy vernacular entertainment that black southern audiences identified with and took pride in.

About the author

Lynn Abbott is an independent scholar living in New Orleans. He is coauthor (with Doug Seroff) of Out of Sight: The Rise of African American Popular Music, 1889-1895; The Original Blues: The Emergence of the Blues in African American Vaudeville; and To Do This, You Must Know How: Music Pedagogy in the Black Gospel Quartet Tradition, all published by University Press of Mississippi. His work has also been published in American Music, 78 Quarterly, American Music Research Center Journal, and The Jazz Archivist. Doug Seroff is an independent scholar living in Greenbrier, TN. He is coauthor (with Lynn Abbott) of Out of Sight: The Rise of African American Popular Music, 1889-1895; The Original Blues: The Emergence of the Blues in African American Vaudeville; and To Do This, You Must Know How: Music Pedagogy in the Black Gospel Quartet Tradition, all published by University Press of Mississippi. His work has also appeared in American Music, Black Music Research Newsletter, Blues Unlimited, and Record Exchanger, among others.

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