Eubie Blake

A new biography of one of the key composers of 20th-century American popular song and jazz, Eubie Blake: Rags, Rhythm and Race illuminates Blake's little-known impact on over 100 years of American culture. A gifted musician, Blake rose from performing in dance halls and bordellos of his native
Baltimore to the heights of Broadway. In 1921, together with performer and lyricist Noble Sissle, Blake created Shuffle Along which became a sleeper smash on Broadway eventually becoming one of the top ten musical shows of the 1920s. Despite many obstacles Shuffle Along integrated Broadway and the
road and introduced such stars as Josephine Baker, Lottie Gee, Florence Mills, and Fredi Washington. It also proved that black shows were viable on Broadway and subsequent productions gave a voice to great songwriters, performers, and spoke to a previously disenfranchised black audience. As
successful as Shuffle Along was, racism and bad luck hampered Blake's career. Remarkably, the third act of Blake's life found him heralded in his 90s at major jazz festivals, in Broadway shows, and on television and recordings.

Tracing not only Blake's extraordinary life and accomplishments, Broadway and popular music authorities Richard Carlin and Ken Bloom examine the professional and societal barriers confronted by black artists from the turn of the century through the 1980s. Drawing from a wealth of personal archives
and interviews with Blake, his friends, and other scholars, Eubie Blake: Rags, Rhythm and Race offers an incisive portrait of the man and the musical world he inhabited.

"Eubie Blake tells the story of one of the key composers of 20th century American popular song. Through his music, he rose from the slums of Baltimore to the heights of Broadway success. His show Shuffle Along was the first African-American show to win a major white audience, becoming the tenth most popular show of the 1920s. The show introduced future black stars - including Josephine Baker, Paul Robeson, and Florence Mills - the syncopated chorus line, and introduced jazz-styled music to Broadway.Blake's composing skills were matched by his piano mastery. Even in the Depression, Eubie continued composing of innovative new works. At 61, he studied the Schillinger Method to expand his harmonic knowledge and ability to compose beyond the confines of traditional popular song.Blake's persistence in maintaining his ties to ragtime and Broadway paid off in the late '60s when he was rediscovered due to new recordings and personal appearances. In the last decade of his life he influenced an entirely new generation of pianists and composers from the jazz and classical worlds.This is the first biography to explore the wealth of personal records, interviews, and deep research to illuminate Blake's life and impact on over 100 years of American culture. It tells the true story of African-American performers struggling to achieve recognition and success in the popular music world at a time of deep racism. Blake's career blazed a path for countless others to rise above the limitations previously faced by blacks in the popular music world"--

"Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty; general readers." -- K. R. Dietrich, CHOICE

"Carlin and Bloom have created an all embracing and unique musical chronicle of Eubie Blake that is compelling, heartbreaking and ultimately joyous thanks to his late life rediscovery. With the use of voluminous first hand research artifacts, they have created a multi faceted account of Blake's life
and in the process, have given us one of the truest depictions of the endemic racism and cut throat culture of 20th Century show business." -- Michael Feinstein

"well-written ... a significant achievement." -- Steve Ramm, The Antique Phonograph

"Authors and music specialists Richard Carlin and Ken Bloom present a densely packed, meticulously researched, and painstakingly incisive portrait of a jazz icon and his times." -- Deb Miller, DC Metro Theater Arts

"Blake, in his ten decades of life, persevered through some highs and many lows, only to be truly celebrated for his remarkable talents when he reached his nineties.�That we never, ever really know a person is a much-said truism. And yet, Carlin and Bloom, through their extensive and exhaustive
research, will make a reader feel and believe that he indeed does know Eubie Blake." -- Peter Filichia, critic emeritus of The Newark Star-Ledger

"Along with many others, I have been waiting for a new, scholarly, thorough, and insightful biography of this one-of-a-kind American figure. Finally, we have one, nicely-illustrated and carefully documented." -- John Edward Hasse, author of Beyond Category: The Life and Genius of Duke Ellington