Coon song

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Coon song
Sheet music for "Coon, Coon, Coon", which bills itself as "The Most Successful Song Hit of 1901" with insert photo of minstrel show star Lew Dockstader in blackface
Stylistic origins
Cultural originsc. 1840s United States
Other topics

Coon songs were a genre of music that presented a stereotype of Black people. They were popular in the United States and Australia from around 1880[1] to 1920,[2] though the earliest such songs date from minstrel shows as far back as 1848, when they were not yet identified with "coon" epithet.[3] The genre became extremely popular, with white and Black men[4] giving performances in blackface and making recordings. Women known as coon shouters also gained popularity in the genre.[5]

Rise and fall from popularity

Although the word "coon" is now regarded as racist, according to

Zip Coon", a variant of "Turkey in the Straw", notably in performances by George Washington Dixon who performed in blackface, was published around 1834.[8][9] The word "coon" meaning "Black person" was in use by 1837.[10] An alternative suggestion of the word's origin to mean a Black person is that it was derived from barracoon, an enclosure for slaves, which became increasingly used in the years before the American Civil War as temporary enclosure for slaves escaping or traveling.[7] It may also have been used earlier on the stage; a Black man named Raccoon was one of the lead characters in a 1767 colonial comic opera "The Disappointment".[10]

Whatever the origin, by 1862, "coon" had come to mean a Black person.

J. P. Skelley.[1] Other notable early coon songs included "The Coons Are on Parade", "New Coon in Town" (by J. S. Putnam, 1883), "Coon Salvation Army" (by Sam Lucas, 1884), "Coon Schottische" (by William Dressler, 1884).[1] The most popular coon songs of this early period, however, were written by whites, and only one, "New Coon in Town", has enough syncopation "to foreshadow the true, shouting, ragtime school". Black Americans had also entered the music business by this time, and their syncopated music then came to be identified with real coon songs.[11] By the mid-1880s, coon songs were a national craze; over 600 such songs were published in the 1890s.[12][13] The most successful songs sold millions of copies.[12] To take advantage of the fad, composers "add[ed] words typical of coon songs to previously published songs and rags".[14] The first hit recorded song by a Black man was "The Whistling Coon" by George W. Johnson recorded in 1890. After the turn of the century, coon songs began to receive criticism for their racist content.[15] In 1905, Bob Cole, an African-American composer who had gained fame largely by writing coon songs, made somewhat unprecedented remarks about the genre.[15] When asked in an interview about the name of his earlier comedy A Trip to Coontown, he replied: "That day has passed with the softly flowing tide of revelations."[15]

In 1908, the Broadway company Cinemaphone, created by J. A. Whitman, released a short film "Coon Song" which had an audible track featuring singers such as Blanche Ring, Anna Held, Eva Tanguay and Stella Mayhew.

All Coons Look Alike to Me" were identified by H. L. Mencken as being the three songs which firmly established the derogatory term "coon" in the American vocabulary.[18] Originally in the 1830s, the term had been associated with the Whig Party. The Whigs used a raccoon as its emblem, but the party also developed a more tolerant attitude towards Black people than the other political factions. The latter opinion is likely what transformed the term "coon" from mere political slang into a racial slur.[19]

It is possible that the popularity of coon songs may be explained in part by their historical timing: coon songs arose precisely as the popular music business exploded in Tin Pan Alley.[12] However, James Dormon, a former professor of history and American studies at the University of Southwestern Louisiana, has also suggested that coon songs can be seen as "a necessary sociopsychological mechanism for justifying segregation and subordination."[20] The songs portrayed Black people as posing a threat to the American social order and implied that they had to be controlled.[20]

Sheet music to "Every Race Has a Flag But the Coon"

Composers

Niggardly
Nigger”, an example of a British coon song, published in London in 1900.

At the height of their popularity, "just about every songwriter in the country" was writing coon songs "to fill the seemingly insatiable demand".

All Coons Look Alike to Me", the most famous coon song);[23][24] Sam Lucas (who wrote the most racist early coon songs by modern standards);[1] minstrel and songwriter Sidney L. Perrin (who wrote "Black Annie," "Dat's De Way to Spell Chicken," "Mamma's Little Pumpkin Colored Coons," "Gib Me Ma 15 Cents," and "My Dinah"); Bob Cole (who wrote dozens of songs, including "I Wonder What the Coon's Game Is?" and "No Coons Allowed"); Irving Jones, Bert Williams and George Walker.[25] Even classic ragtime composer Scott Joplin wrote at least one coon song ("I Am Thinking of My Pickaninny Days"), and may have composed the music for several more, using lyrics written by others.[26]

Characteristics

Coon songs almost always aimed to be funny and incorporated the

caricature of African Americans. In keeping with the older minstrel image of Black people, coon songs often featured "watermelon- and chicken-loving rural buffoon[s]".[28] However, Black people "began to appear as not only ignorant and indolent, but also devoid of honesty or personal honor, given to drunkenness and gambling, utterly without ambition, sensuous, libidinous, even lascivious."[28] Black people were portrayed as making money through gambling, theft, and hustling, rather than working to earn a living,[28]
as in the Nathan Bivins song "Gimme Ma Money":

Last night I did go to a big Crap game,
How dem coons did gamble wuz a sin and a shame...
I'm gambling for my Sadie,
Cause she's my lady,
I'm a hustling coon, ... dat's just what I am.[29]

Coon songs portrayed Black people as "hot", in this context meaning promiscuous and libidinous. They suggested that the most common living arrangement was a "honey" relationship (unmarried cohabitation), rather than marriage.[30] Black people were portrayed as inclined toward acts of provocative violence. Razors were often featured in the songs and came to "symbolize" Black people's "wanton tendencies".[28] However, violence in the songs was uniformly directed at Black people instead of whites (perhaps to discharge the threatening notion of Black violence amongst the coon songs' predominantly white consumers). Hence, the spectre of Black-on-white violence remained illusive.[31] The street-patrolling "bully coon" was often used as a stock character in coon songs.[32] The songs showed the social threats that whites believed were posed by Black people. Passing was a common theme,[33] and Black people were portrayed as seeking the status of whites, through education and money.[34] However, Black people rarely, except during dream sequences, actually succeeded at appearing white; they only aspired to do so.[35]

Use in theater

Coon songs were popular in vaudeville theater, where they were delivered by "coon shouters", who were typically white women.[14] Notable coon shouters included Artie Hall,[36] Sophie Tucker, May Irwin, Mae West, Fanny Brice, Fay Templeton, Lotta Crabtree, Marie Dressler, Emma Carus, Nora Bayes, Blanche Ring, Clarice Vance, Elsie Janis, Trixie Friganza, Eva Tanguay and Julia Gerity.[14] As with minstrel shows earlier, a whole genre of skits and shows grew up around coon songs, and often coon songs were featured in legitimate theater productions.[14]

Artie Hall in blackface on the sheet music cover to "Jessamine" (c) 1906 Jerome H. Remick & Co. NY, NY.

Effects on African-American music

Coon songs contributed to the development and acceptance of authentic

African American musical theater based at least in part on African-American traditions.[37] Coon songs also contributed to the mainstream acceptance of ragtime music, paving the way for the acceptance of other African-American music.[37] Ernest Hogan, when discussing his "All Coons Look Alike to Me
" shortly before his death, commented:

(That) song caused a lot of trouble in and out of show business, but it was also good for show business because at the time money was short in all walks of life. With the publication of that song, a new musical rhythm was given to the people. Its popularity grew and it sold like wildfire... That one song opened the way for a lot of colored and white songwriters. Finding the rhythm so great, they stuck to it ... and now you get hit songs without the word 'coon.' ... [Ragtime music] would have been lost to the world if I had not put it on paper.[27]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c d Dormon 1988, p. 452.
  2. ^ Reublin, Parlor Songs, April 2001.
  3. ISBN 0-791-092-119
  4. ISBN 082233643X
  5. ^ Stras, Laurie; White Face, Black Voice: Race, Gender, and Region in the Music of the Boswell Sisters, in Journal of the Society for American Music; Vol1:Issue 2; May 2007, pp 207-255. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.
  6. ^ a b "Old Zip Coon". The Traditional Tune Archive. 24 February 2022.
  7. ^
    ISBN 9781839768309
    .
  8. ISBN 978-0684810102
    .
  9. ISBN 9780486414751
    .
  10. ^ a b "Coon", Online Etymological Dictionary. Retrieved 28 April 2020
  11. ^
    ISBN 9780521624435
    .
  12. ^ a b c d Dormon 1988, p. 453.
  13. ^ a b Lemons, 106.
  14. ^ a b c d e f g Reublin & Maine.
  15. ^ a b c d Abbott & Seroff 2007, p. 35.
  16. ISBN 978-0289703267
    .
  17. ^ The First Holywood Musicals: Edwin M Bradley
  18. ^ Mencken, H. L. "Designations for Colored Folk (1944)". www.virginia.edu. Retrieved 18 February 2017.
  19. ^ Sotiroupoulos, 91.
  20. ^ a b Dormon 1988, p. 466.
  21. ^ Lemons, 108.
  22. ^ Hamm, 145–146.
  23. ^ Dormon 1988, p. 459.
  24. ^ Lemons, 105.
  25. ^ Lemons, 107.
  26. ^ Blesh, Rudi and Harris, Janet; They All Played Ragtime; Alfred P. Knopf; New York: 1950.; p.37.
  27. ^ a b Peress, 39.
  28. ^ a b c d Dormon 1988, p. 455.
  29. ^ Dormon 1988, p. 456.
  30. ^ Dormon 1988, p. 458.
  31. ^ Dormon 1988, p. 460.
  32. ^ Dormon 1988, pp. 460–461.
  33. ^ Dormon 1988, p. 461.
  34. ^ Dormon 1988, p. 462.
  35. ^ Dormon 1988, p. 463.
  36. ^ Abbott & Seroff 2007, p. 17.
  37. ^ a b c d Dormon, 467.
  38. ^ Abbott & Seroff 2007, pp. 25–26.
  39. ISBN 978-1-351-56170-9
    . Retrieved Jan 20, 2024.

Works cited

External links

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