Monarchs of minstrelsy, from "Daddy" Rice to dateRice, Edw. Le Roy (Edward Le Roy)
History
Monarchs of minstrelsy, from "Daddy" Rice to date
Rice, Edw. Le Roy (Edward Le Roy)
Actors -- United States; Minstrel shows
Next day found the song of Jim Crow, in one style of delivery or
another, on everybody’s tongue. Clerks hummed it serving customers at
shop counters, artisans thundered it at their toils to the time-beat
of sledge and of tilt-hammer, boys whistled it on the streets, ladies
warbled it in parlors, and house-maids repeated it to the clink of
crockery in kitchens. Rice made up his mind to profit further by its
popularity: he determined to publish it. Mr. W. C. Peters, afterwards
of Cincinnati, and well known as a composer and publisher, was at that
time a music dealer on Market Street in Pittsburg. Rice, ignorant
himself of the simplest elements of musical science, waited upon Mr.
Peters, and solicited his co-operation in the preparation of his song
for the press. Some difficulty was experienced before Rice could be
induced to consent to the correction of certain trifling informalities,
rhythmical mainly, in his melody; but, yielding finally, the air as
it now stands, with a pianoforte accompaniment by Mr. Peters, was put
upon paper. The manuscript was put into the hands of Mr. John Newton,
who reproduced it on stone with an elaborately embellished title-page,
including a portrait of the subject of the song, precisely as it has
been copied through succeeding editions to the present time. It was the
first specimen of lithography ever executed in Pittsburg.
Jim Crow was repeated nightly throughout the season at the theatre;
and when that was ended, Beale’s Long Room, at the corner of Third and
Market Streets, was engaged for rehearsals exclusively in the Ethiopian
line. “Clar de Kitchen” soon appeared as a companion piece, followed
speedily by “Lucy Long,” “Sich a Gittin’ up Stairs,” “Long-Tail Blue,”
and so on, until quite a repertoire was at command from which to select
for an evening’s entertainment.
Rice remained in Pittsburg some two years. He then visited
Philadelphia, Boston, and New York, whence he sailed for England, where
he met with high favor in his novel character.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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