Eubie Blake

Eubie Blake

James Hubert Blake (February 7, 1887 – February 12, 1983) was a composer, lyricist, and pianist of ragtime, jazz, and popular music. With long time collaborator Noble Sissle, Blake wrote the Broadway musical Shuffle Along in 1921; this was one of the first Broadway musical ever to be written and directed by African Americans. Blake's compositions included such hits as, "Bandana Days", "Charleston Rag", "Love Will Find A Way", "Memories of You", and "I'm Just Wild About Harry". The musical Eubie!, which featured the collective works of Blake opened on Broadway in 1978.

Biography

Early years

Blake was born at 319 Forrest Street in Baltimore, Maryland to former slaves John Sumner Blake (1838-1917) and Emily "Emma" Johnstone (1861-1927). He was the only surviving child of eight who all died in infancy. In 1894 the family moved to 414 North Eden Street, and later to 1510 Jefferson Street. John Blake worked earning US$9.00 weekly as a stevedore on the Baltimore docks.

In later years Blake claimed to have been born in 1883, but his Social Security application and all other official documents list his year of birth as 1887. Many reliable sources mistakenly give his year of birth as the earlier year.

Music

Cover page for "I'm Just Wild About Harry" from the musical Shuffle Along by Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake, 1921.

Blake's musical training began when he was just four or five years old. While out shopping with his mother, he wandered into a music store, climbed on the bench of an organ, and started "foolin’" around. When his mother found him, the store manager said to her: "The child is a genius! It would be criminal to deprive him of the chance to make use of such a sublime, God-given talent." The Blakes purchased a pump organ for US$75.00 making payments of 25 cents a week. When Blake was seven, he received music lessons from their neighbor, Margaret Marshall, an organist from the Methodist church. At age fifteen, without knowledge of his parents, he played piano at Aggie Shelton’s Baltimore bordello.

Blake said he first composed the melody to the "Charleston Rag" in 1899, which would have made him 12 years old, but he did not commit it to paper until 1915, when he learned to write in musical notation.

In 1912, Blake began playing in vaudeville with Jimmy Europe's "Society Orchestra" which accompanied Vernon and Irene Castle's ballroom dance act. The band played ragtime music which was still quite popular at the time. Shortly after World War I, Blake joined forces with performer Noble Sissle to form a vaudeville music duo, the "Dixie Duo." After vaudeville, the pair began work on a musical revue, Shuffle Along, which incorporated many songs they had written, and had a book written by F. E. Miller and Aubrey Lyles. When it premiered in June 1921, Shuffle Along became the first hit musical on Broadway written by and about African-Americans. The musicals also introduced hit songs such as "I'm Just Wild About Harry" and "Love Will Find a Way."

In 1923, Blake made three films for Lee DeForest in DeForest's Phonofilm sound-on-film process. They were Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake featuring their song "Affectionate Dan", Sissle and Blake Sing Snappy Songs featuring "Sons of Old Black Joe" and "My Swanee Home", and Eubie Blake Plays His Fantasy on Swanee River featuring Blake performing his "Fantasy on Swanee River". These films are preserved in the Maurice Zouary film collection at in the Library of Congress collection.

Personal life

In July 1910, Blake married Avis Elizabeth Cecelia Lee (1881–1938), proposing to her in a chauffeur-driven car he hired. Blake and Lee met around 1895 while both attended Primary School No. 2 at 200 East Street in Baltimore. In 1910 Blake brought his newlywed to Atlantic City, New Jersey, where he had already found employment at the Boathouse nightclub.

File:Eubie Blake Headstone 1024.jpg

The headstone of Eubie Blake in Cypress Hills Cemetery

In 1938 Avis was diagnosed with tuberculosis and died later that year at 58. Of his loss, Blake is on record saying, "In my life I never knew what it was to be alone. At first when Avis got sick, I thought she just had a cold, but when time passed and she didn’t get better, I made her go to a doctor and we found out she had TB … I suppose I knew from when we found out she had the TB, I understood that it was just a matter of time."

Blake claimed that he started smoking cigarettes when he was 10 years old, and continued to smoke all his life. The fact that he smoked for 85 years was used by some politicians in tobacco-growing states to build support against anti-tobacco legislation.

Blake continued to play and record into late life. He died in 1983 in Brooklyn just five days after celebrating his claimed 100th birthday (actually his 96th -- see below). He was interred in the Cypress Hills Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York.

If I'd known I was going to live this long, I would have taken better care of myself.

— Eubie Blake

Age discrepancy

In later years Blake listed his birth year as 1883; his 100th birthday was celebrated in 1983. Most sources, including the Encyclopædia Britannica, and a U.S. Library of Congress biography, incorrectly list his birth year as 1883. Every official document issued by the government, however, records his birthday as February 7, 1887. This includes the 1900 Census, his 1917 World War I draft registration, 1920 passport application, 1936 Social Security application, and death records as reported by the United States Social Security Administration. Peter Hanley writes: "In the final analysis, however, the fact that he was only ninety-six years of age and not one hundred when he died does not in any way detract from his extraordinary achievements. Eubie will always remain among the finest popular composers and songwriters of his era."

Timeline

1887 Birth 1900 US Census – Hubert Blake, Baltimore 1910 US Census – Hubert Blake, Baltimore 1910 Marriage to Avis Elizabeth Cecelia Lee 1915 Meets Noble Sissle May 16 1917 World War I draft registration card 1920 US passport application 1920 US passport 1920 US Census – James Blake, New York City 1921 Shuffle Along debut

1925 US passport 1930 US Census - Hubert Blake, New York City 1938 Avis dies of tuberculosis 1973 The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson on January 27 1978 Eubie! Broadway debut 1979 Saturday Night Live: musical guest for the episode hosted by Gary Busey on March 10 1981 Awarded Medal of Freedom 1983 100th birthday celebration 1983 Death

Honors and awards

• 1969: Eubie Blake's nomination for a Grammy Award for The 86 Years of Eubie Blake in the category of "Best Instrumental Jazz Performance, Small Group or Soloist with Small Group".
• 1972: Omega Psi Phi Scroll of Honor
• 1974: Diploma, Rutgers University Doctor of Fine Arts
• 1978: Diploma, University of Maryland Doctor of Fine Arts
• 1979: Diploma, Dartmouth College, Doctor of Humane Letters
• 1979: Diploma, Morgan State University Doctor of Music
• 1980: Received the Johns Hopkins University's, George Peabody Medal
• 1981: Received the Presidential Medal of Freedom on October 9, 1981, awarded by President Ronald Reagan.
• 1982: Diploma, Howard University Doctor of Music
• 1983: Inducted in the Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame
• 1995: The United States Postal Service issued a stamp in his honor.
• 1995: Inducted into the New York's American Theatre Hall of Fame.
• 1998: James Hubert Blake High School was built in Silver Spring, Maryland in his honor. Eubie Blake HS claims to have a strong focus on the performing arts, saying its instrumental music ensembles are perennial award winners. Unfortunately it's been told by the county that it cannot do this anymore.
• 2006: The album The Eighty-Six Years of Eubie Blake (1969) was included by the National Recording Preservation Board in the Library of Congress' National Recording Registry. The board selects songs in an annual basis that are "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."

See also

• African American musical theater
• Age fabrication

References

• Brugger, Robert J. (1988). Maryland, A Middle Temperament: 1634-1980. Johns Hopkins University Press. pp. 473–476. ISBN 080183399X.
• Rose, Al (1979). Eubie Blake. New York: Schirmer Books. ISBN 0028721705.
• Salute to Eubie Blake; The Rag Times; May/June 1969
• New York Times; December 27, 1982, Monday. "Eubie Blake Birthday Party. In honor of Eubie Blake's 100th birthday, St. Peter's Church, at Lexington Avenue and 54th Street, will hold a 24-hour celebration beginning at midnight Feb. 6. The tribute to the composer will feature a host of musicians, vocalists and dancers, including Billy Taylor, Bobby Short, Dick Hyman, Honi Coles and the Copacetics, Bill Bolcom and Joan Morris, Max Morath, Marianne McPartland, Maurice Hines and Cab Calloway. Mr. Blake, born in Baltimore Feb. 7, 1882, may attend."
• New York Times; February 13, 1983, Sunday. "Five days after his 100th birthday was celebrated with gala performances of his music, Eubie Blake, the composer and pianist whose career covered a span from the ragtime era in the 19th century to the contemporary Broadway theater a year ago, died yesterday at his home in Brooklyn"

External links

• Eubie Blake at Find a Grave
• Please use a more specific IBDB template. See the documentation for available templates.
• The Eubie Blake Collection at the Maryland Historical Society
• Eubie Blake & Ragtime includes transcription of 1970 interview with Blake
• Biographical article by Peter Hanley
• James Hubert Blake's WWI Draft Registration Card and essay

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