[Dixielandjazz] Big Butter and Egg Man

Fri Sep 27 00:21:39 EDT 2019

> Ron L'Herault <lherault at verizon.net> wrote:
> Here’s a bit of a mystery.  This link https://youtu.be/gmMc7a3MLk4
> takes you to a video where the performer, Phil Baker claims to have written the tune.
> Percy Venable gets credit for the one Louis did, and Cliff Friend et. al. wrote this one:
> https://yorkspace.library.yorku.ca/xmlui/bitstream/handle/10315/27294/0001.jpg?sequence=2&isAllowed=y
> Are they the same tune?  Baker’s is close from what  I hear.  Don’t know anyone with the sheet music linked above.   So, is it the same tune?

Dear Ron,
It isn't.
As usual, from me, the following is more than you needed to know.
Big Butter and Egg Man was an early 1920s colloquial term allegedly popularised by 'hostess' Texas Guinan: 
'A butter-and-egg man is a traveling businessman eager to spend large amo9nts of money in the big city, so someone wealthy and unwary.' 
Although, disputed in later years and attributed to master of ceremonies Harry Richman, and the original ‘butter-and-egg man’ identified as ‘Uncle Sam’ Balcon, a New York provisioner.
As a result and not unexpectedly a play, film and numerous musical copyrighted compositions emerged at the time.
However, the Louis Armstrong version stood the time test and trumped them all.
Here it is chronologically: 

• 1924 July.  "The Big Butter And Egg Man". Copyright, sheet music. Cliff Friend, Sidney Clare and Jos. H Santly. Recorded for Brunswick in July 1924 by Billy Johns & Ernest Hare.

• 1925 July.  "Big Butter And Egg Man".  Copyright by vaudevillian Phi Baker (A Bad Boy from a Good Family) and recordings by him for Columbia, Perfect and Edison and a film short. The Columbia and Edison recoedings are on YouTube.

• 1925 July.  "All The Girls Think I'm Wonderful, I'm A Big Butter And Egg Man From The West". Copyright. Fred Fisher, Al Koppel. (Discovered years ago by listmate Dick Baker). I could not find the sheet music or any recordings.

• 1925 Sept.  "The Big Butter And Egg Man". A play.  http://www.georgeskaufman.com/play-catalogue/16-play-catalogue/critics-choice/81-the-butter-and-egg-man-1925.html

• 1926 May.  "Butter and Egg Man Blues".  Copyright by Everett Murphy and recorded by Papa Charlie Jackson for Paramount 12358  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6jmwuTPFvw

• 1926 Oct.  "I Want a Big Butter And Egg Man". Copyright by Percy Venable but recorded by Louis Armstrong as ""The Big Butter And Egg Man From The West" along with Venable's "Sunset Cafe Stomp" in November 1926. Louis Armstrong was added to the copyright as co-composer in August 1950). 

• 1928 July.  "The Butter And Egg Man". Film, First National Pictures, NY.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Butter_and_Egg_Man_(1928_film) 

Kind regards,
Bill.

THE COPYRIGHTS

SHEET MUSIC

THE RECORDINGS

>  

THE PLAY

THE 1928 FILM

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