We Didn’t Have a "Negro Act"--Eubie Blake
Unlike Miller and Lyles, Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake never wore blackface on stage. In many interviews later in his life, Eubie insisted that their act was a "class" one that never played on racial stereotypes. When he was interviewed in 1967 by jazz historian Rudi Blesh about his performances with Noble Sissle in vaudeville, he described how they could only play certain theaters because of their skin color. However, he insisted that their act was not a “Negro” one because they didn’t wear blackface or employ blackface humor—although he did admit that he occasionally spoke using “Negro dialect” for comic effect.
Transcription
Don’t you know they wouldn’t let us play, when we went into deluxe houses, they wouldn’t let us play the deluxe houses like the Paramount and places like that. They say we drew Negros. We didn’t draw Negros, because we didn’t have a Negro act. I’m the only one did light comedy, Negroid comedy: “Is you a fool?” “What do you think I am?” No, “what do you think I is?” See, I’d do that, that’s all, just once or twice. Sissle didn’t like that. But it got laughs. He says, “What you want…” I says, “It got a laugh, didn’t it. Yeah.” I said, “I know how to talk different.” You see, but he never liked that very much.[i]
[i] From an interview conducted by Rudi Blesh and Mike Lipscomb, 1967; audio from private collection.
Eubie's Views on Blackface
Eubie says he employed stereotypical Black or Negro dialect for comedic effect. And it didn’t bother him to do so because it pleased his audience, and therefore won him more work at better pay. And, as he emphasized in this interview, he knew how to speak proper English—so he was only fooling his audience. To Eubie, Sissle and Blake were not a “black” act because their repertory, presentation, and dialogue were all geared to appeal to a white audience.
Blake was not embarrassed by the blackface tradition, and had great respect for earlier Black comic performers like Bert Williams and Ernest Hogan who wore blackface makeup. Asked whether he felt that minstrelsy was demeaning, Blake replied that both minstrelsy and burlesque were important training grounds for black singers, actors, and dancers. Specifically asked about Ernest Hogan’s 1896 song “All Coons Look Alike to Me,” Blake defended the singer/songwriter, saying:
I knew Ernest Hogan, personally… He was a fine gentleman. But, [he wrote] that [song] to sell it…because they called us “coons.” No matter what they did to us, in those days, it was all right. … I hear a lot of colored people knock Ernest Hogan because he wrote that tune. [But] it was the vogue in those days.[i]
Hogan defended his song saying it was a major reason for the broad acceptance of ragtime and several historians credit him with popularizing the form. Eubie believed that Hogan was simply catering to the market; and the fact that he could make a good living—substantially better than the average black worker—was more than enough justification in his mind for catering to the day’s racial stereotypes. Hogan was billed as the “Unbleached American” and despite his use of the word “coon” had great pride in being black.
[i] Neil Conan and Ian Whitcomb, December 1969, radio interview originally broadcast on KPFA Berkeley, CA; author’s collection; tapes on deposit at UNC Center for Southern Folklife; transcribed by author.
Encountering Prejudice in Vaudeville
Even when they were novices on the vaudeville circuit, Sissle and Blake did not appear in blackface. Their agent, Pat Casey, supported their desire to appear as a "class act" as Eubie later recalled. Casey refused the request of the managers of the Palace Theater to have them appear wearing demeaning clothing or speaking in dialect. Eubie also defied the manager at the duo's next show in Baltimore, ignoring his request that he wear blackface makeup before going on stage.
Transcription
Now, when they want to put us in the Palace, they said [to Pat Casey], "They colored, yea? Now, we'll tell you what to do, Pat: Put 'em in grotesque clothes and put a upright piano on stage in the box, take it out of the box, and we come out here, say
Rudi Blesh: Shuffle out
Eubie: Now we been playing in millionaire's homes. I'll show you how these people were, they not that way now. I says, "Hey, hey, hey Noble. Wha-what is dat over dere?"... Noble says, "I don't know I never seen one of them things." Now, I go sit down, I'll show you how inconsistent they were. I'm going to sit down and play this thing, see. So I go to touch the piano, and Pat Casey, he was a rough guy. He's sittin' there listening to them, letting them talk. He's a big shot in Keith's [a major vaudeville circuit]. So, Pat say, "You finished?"
"Yeah."
“Do you know these fellows? Do you know who there are? They were with Jim Europe’s band … The big Negro band. They worked for all the millionaires in the world. You can’t put no overalls on them, you might can, but I’m not going to put them on them. They’re going to work in tuxedos, like they always work, and play the piano and sing. And if you don’t want ‘em, say you don’t want them.” And he was a big guy. Course, I can’t say the language THAT HE SAID. Boy he cussed the heck out of them. Says, "what you talkin about?" And we went on, in tuxedos.
Now wait a minute. We go from the Palace to Maryland Theater in Baltimore. So a fellow named Harry Delth was on...he was a great monologue artist. And I'm standing in the wings, looking at him. This is the first day.
And the stage manager, there, he keeps looking at me. I'm standing there in a tuxedo. He says, “Hey you Sissle and Blake?" I said, "Yeah." "Do you know you follow that act?”
“Yeah, I know I follow that, yeah I’m up on the board.”
And he says, “Well, when are you going to makeup?”
Now, he’s talking about cork, but I don’t know what he’s talking about. I says, “I just put a little powder on my face, take the shine off, I’m already made up.”
He says, “No, when you going to put the cork on? You ain’t going on my stage with the…” dah-dah-dah, and I walked right out on stage.
Rudi: Your cue came right at that moment?
Eubie: Yeah. Now this was in Baltimore.