[Dixielandjazz] Song parodies - Shine and others.

[Steve Barbone]

In order to fully understand black song writers (and jazz musicians) it may
be helpful to look at what they were doing from a Black perspective. The
following excerpt is from a Black publication.

It references "Shine" about half way down the article. I indented the verse
in the text as a highlight. The song it self was written about a racial
incident that occurred in NYC about 1901.

I apologize for the length of the quote, however feel that it is impossible
to understand Shine, (and other early songs by black songwriters) without
the background. Quite possibly, Black & Blue fits into this scenario.

It is also, quite possible that most Blacks and Whites, had no idea what
these songs, as well as Strange Fruit really meant. Certainly some of both
races did, especially the musicians/ song writers / artists / and the hipper
segment of the population, but there is ample evidence that most did not.

Pages 4 & 5 are below. The entire article, about 11 pages, may be read at:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2838/is_n2_v29/ai_17534807/pg_1

Cheers,
Steve Barbone

Parody and Double Consciousness in the Language of Early Black Musical
Theatre . . . African American Review,  Summer, 1995  by David Krasner

NOTE: See the references to "That's Why They Call Me Shine" about half way
down. Note also the verse which I have indented in the text.

"The Longman Dictionary of Poetic Terms defines parody as "an ancient device
of comic imitation or sustained allusion meant to satirize previous works or
ideas for the sake of humor or serious criticism by using the original form
and/or content as a model" (Myers and Simms 225). The definition is
important in helping to emphasize the complexity of the position black
writers and performers occupied toward the subject of their portrayals.
Since black theatrical productions were often forced to delineate their
characters and dialogue within a proscribed framework patterned after
minstrel theatre, parody and signifyin(g) evolved as principal means of
satirizing minstrel devices."

"Parody of racism and the sense of double consciousness in African American
life surface repeatedly in the lyrics of black songs. In Aida Overton
Walker's popular tune from the Williams and Walker production of Sons of
Ham, "Miss Hannah From Savannah,"(9) the lyrics are unabashedly
self-confident and proud:"

"My name's Miss Hannah from Savannah Ah wants all you folks to understand -
ah; Ahm some de blue-blood ob de land - ah, I'se Miss Hannah from Savannah!"

"This song's assertive nature suggests, according to Richard Newman, the
singer's "strong sense of identity and self-worth" (478). White audiences
may have found the African American dialect amusing, but the paradox and
double consciousness lie in the singer's defiant tone. She may be from
Savannah (an allusion to black regional inferiority), but she is also an
American (blue-blood). In Du Bois's terms, the character draws our attention
to "the two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone
keeps it from being torn asunder" (215)."

"Aida Overton Walker recognized her own historical position as an African
American woman and responded to it with skill and determination. Her
awareness of historical context included sensitivity to conditions of race
and gender and to theatrical conventions as these affected the circulation
and reception of productions by and among black people. The Souls of Black
Folk, for example, appears to have had a considerable impact on Walker's
public discourse. Du Bois wrote that the "problem of the twentieth century
is the problem of the colorline" (221). Three years later Walker voiced
similar sentiments: "In this age, we are all fighting the one problem - that
is the color problem" (571). Walker wanted to capture the attention of white
audiences, but equally, if not more, she wanted to foster an awareness of
the conditions which African American performers had to endure. In a 1906
interview, she voiced the following outrage at her life in musical theatre:"

"You haven't the faintest conception of the difficulties which must be
overcome, of the prejudices which must be left slumbering, of the things we
must avoid whenever we write or sing a piece of music, put on a play or a
sketch, walk out in the street or land in a new town."

"No white can understand these things, much less appreciate them. Every
little thing we do must be thought out and arranged by Negroes, because they
alone know how easy it is for a colored show to offend a white audience."

"Let me give you an example. In all the ten years that I have appeared [in]
and helped produce a great many plays of musical nature, there has never
been even the remotest suspicion of a love story in any of them."

"During those same ten years I do not think there has ever been a single
white company which has produced any kind of a musical play in which a love
story was not the central notion."

"Now, why is this. It is not an accident or because we do not want to put on
plays as beautiful or as artistic in every way as do white actors, but
because there is a popular prejudice against love scenes enacted by
negroes.(10)"

"In "That's Why They Call Me Shine,"(11) a tune Walker created for S. H.
Dudley's production of His Honor the Barber,(12) double consciousness and
parody surface again:"

"'Cause my hair is curly 'Cause my teeth are pearly Just because I always
wear a smile Like to dress up in the latest style 'Cause I'm glad I'm living
Take trouble smiling, never whine Just because my color's shady That's why
they call me "Shine." "

"Not only do the lyrics echo themes in Paul Laurence Dunbar's 1895 poem "We
Wear the Mask," the text signifies what Du Bois calls living a "double life,
with double thoughts, double duties, and double social classes . . ." (346).
The lyrics of "Shine" draw our attention to the double consciousness of
racial identity, and parody racism through inverting the position of the
signifier. The signifier (Walker) inverts the signified (racial
identification; i.e., names), subverting racist signification. "Shine,"
Richard Newman writes, "is almost a song of social protest in its
antiracism" (479):"

>VERSE To SHINE:  "When I was born they christened me plain Samuel Johnson
Brown, >I hadn't grown so very big 'fore some folks in the town Had changed
it 'round >to Sambo, I was Rastus to a few Then Choc'late drop was added by
some others >that I knew. So when these clever people call me shine, or
coon, or smoke, I >simply smile, then smile some more, and vote them all a
joke, I'm thinking just >the same, what is there in a name." END VERSE.

Bert Williams adapted "Somebody Lied," a song written by Jeff T. Branen and
Evans Lloyd,(13) incorporating it into the third act of Bandana Land
(1907-1909). The lyrics of "Somebody Lied," writes Bert Williams's
biographer Eric Ledell Smith, "contain an element of political protest that
is surprising for 1908" (98). Parody of the American Dream is clearly
defined in the song lyrics of "Somebody Lied":

George Washington, so his'try says would never tell a lie; I wish there were
more Washingtons I do I hope to die

When I was but a little boy, somebody felt my head: Says he "you'll be a
President some day" that's what he said.

Somebody lied, Some lied you see, There never was a President that ever
resem- >bled me Somebody lied, As plain as plain can see Somebody lied, As
sure's >you're born, Somebody falsified to me.

Bell Hooks maintains that, whenever African Americans created music, dance,
poetry, and theatre, "it was regarded as testimony, bearing witness,
challenging racist thinking which suggested that black folks were not fully
human, were uncivilized, and that the measure of this was our collective
failure to create 'great' art. . . . Responding to this propaganda,
nineteenth-century black folks emphasized the importance of art and cultural
production, seeing it as the most effective challenge to such assertions"
(105). Building on nineteenth-century aesthetics, turn-of-the-century black
theatrical productions served as a mechanism by which African Americans
could communicate and create in a culture that rarely permitted them the
opportunity to exist beyond menial service. Through performance African
Americans expressed and transmitted their creativity to black and white
audiences whom they could in no other way reach. Moreover, the will to
deconstruct "coon-song" minstrel stereotypes prompted several black
performers to create an artful and aesthetic use of parody and double
consciousness in song lyrics as weapons in the struggle against the
de-humanizing effects of racism.