Home / Full timeline / Eubie Blake, Black-American ragtime pianist composer, dies of natural causes in Brooklyn, New York, after having celebrated his one-hundredth birthday on February 7.
Eubie Blake, Black-American ragtime pianist composer, dies of natural causes in Brooklyn, New York, after having celebrated his one-hundredth birthday on February 7.
1983 (Feb 12)
Eubie Blake, Black-American ragtime pianist composer, died of natural causes in Brooklyn, New York, after having celebrated his one-hundredth birthday on February 7. Blake, the son of former slaves, was born in Baltimore, Maryland. At the age of four, he wandered into a music store while his mother was shopping and began to play a pump organ. A salesman convinced his mother that the boy had "a God-given talent" and she purchased the $75 instrument. Blake learned about ragtime by tagging after Black funeral processions, where he heard melodies played as dirges on the way to the cemetery and "ragged” on the way back. In his biography, Eubie Blake by Al Rose, he recalled the processions and exclaimed, “Oh how they'd swing." Like most young Black musicians of his time, Blake began his career as a pianist playing in a local bordello. He was fifteen at the time and his mother, Emily Blake, a deeply religious woman, was mortified when she found out. His father, however, convinced her to allow him to continue to play, especially since he contributed a portion of his earnings to the family. Blake wrote his first composition, Charleston Rag, in 1899 (although it was not notated until 1915). Yet Blake observed in his memoirs that "it ain't until modern times that I ever really looked at it as a piece of music.” His biographer Rose also observed that Blake “considered most of what he composed a mere point of departure for his personal improvisations. The music on the paper wasn't designed to be played literally. In fact, it would change in each rendition.” After 1915, Blake collaborated with bandleader Noble Sissle, who served not only as a lyricist but also a business agent. Then, in 1921, Blake composed Shuffle Along, one of the first Black musicals to appear on Broadway. It played for 504 performances and helped launch the careers of Josephine Baker, Florence Mills, and Paul Robeson, among others. The song Love Will Find a Way made musical history depicting Blacks as people with a full range of emotions. Shuffle Along was such a success that police had to make 63rd Street in New York into a one-way thoroughfare in order to handle the crowds. After Broadway, the show toured the country in three companies. Another of Blake's shows, Blackbirds (with lyrics by Andy Razaf), became a big hit in 1930. It featured John Bubbles, Buck Washington, and Ethel Waters and such famous tunes as Memories of You and You're Lucky to Me. Blake's popularity began to wane during the Great Depression of the 1930s, and he himself fell into a state of dejection and depression following the death of his wife of twenty-eight years, Avis, in 1939. He emerged to play in USO camps and military hospitals during World War II. In 1945, Blake married Marion Tyler, a former showgirl and secretary, who helped him put his personal life and business affairs back in order. But it was not until the 1960s, with the increased awareness of Scott Joplin and ragtime (furthered by the emergence of the Black consciousness and Black studies movements), that Blake became known to new generations of music lovers. In 1969, Columbia Records signed him to a massive recording project. At the time, Blake was the oldest living exponent of ragtime, and scores of fans hummed I'm Just Wild About Harry, the hit tune from Shuffle Along, and the song that also became the theme song for Harry Truman's 1948 presidential campaign.
References:
- • Hornsby, Alton. Chronology of African-American History: Significant Events and People from 1619 to the Present. Detroit: Gale Research, 1995.