Showgirls and stars
Black-cast revues and female performers in Britain 1903–1939
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/pomh.v1i2.167Keywords:
Revue, British Popular Culture, African-American revue artistsAbstract
This article is a study of the part played by musical revues in the provision of employment opportunities for African-American performers and the dissemination of African-American music into British popular culture. The role and artistic significance of dancers and musical-comedy artists has frequently been overlooked by conventional accounts concentrating on the contributions of recorded musicians. The study seeks also to give credit by name to the numerous female dancers who have joined the ranks of the artistic world's invisible women.
References
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Oliver, Paul. 1972. The Story of the Blues. London: Barrie & Rockliff.
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Shipton, Alyn. 2006. I Feel a Song Coming on: The Life of Jimmy McHugh. Unpublished MS, Oxford.
Stearns, Marshall, and Jean Stearns. 1968. Jazz Dance: The Story of American Vernacular Dance. London: Macmillan.
Stewart-Baxter, Derrick. 1970. Ma Rainey and the Classic Blues Singers. London: Studio Vista.
Taylor, Frank C., with Gerard Cook. 1988. Alberta Hunter: A Celebration in Blues. New York City: McGraw-Hill.
Watson, Don. 1988. ‘A Lifetime in Love with Lindy’. City Limits, 21-28 April 1988: 14–15.
Badrock, Arthur. 2001. ‘Hatch & Carpenter In England’. VJM’s Jazz and Blues Mart 121: 4–8.
Bradford, Perry. 1965. Born With The Blues: Perry Bradford’s Own Story. New York: Oak Publications.
Bourne, Stephen. 1998. Black in the British Frame: Black People in British Film and Television 1896–1996. London: Cassell.
Brown, Scott E. 1986. James P. Johnson: A Case of Mistaken Identity. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press & The Institute of Jazz Studies.
Calloway, Cab, and Bryant Robbins. 1976. Of Minnie the Moocher and Me. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell.
Chilton, John. 1980. A Jazz Nursery: The Story of the Jenkins’ Orphanage Bands. London: Bloomsbury Book Shop.
Cochran, Charles B. 1932. I Had Almost Forgottten… London: Hutchinson.
Dixon, Robert M. W., and John Godrich. 1970. Recording the Blues. London: Studio Vista. Reprinted in Paul Oliver, Tony Russell, Robert M. W. Dixon, John Godrich and Howard Rye. Yonder Come the Blues. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
Egan, Bill. 2004. Florence Mills: Harlem Jazz Queen. Lanham, MD: The Scarecrow Press.
Emery, Lynne Fauley. 1980. Black Dance in the United States from 1619 to 1970. New York: Dance Horizons.
Francis, Harry. 1979. ‘As I Heard It… Thanks for the Memory’. Crescendo International 18, no. 4: 12.
Green, Jeffrey P. 1983. ‘In Dahomey in London in 1903’. The Black Perspective In Music 11, no. 1: 23–40.
—1990. ‘The Negro Renaissance and England’. In Samuel A. Floyd, Jr, Black Music in the Harlem Renaissance: A Collection of Essays. Westport, CN: Greenwood Press.
Haskins, Jim. 1977. The Cotton Club. New York: Random House.
Hughes, Spike. 1946. Opening Bars: Beginning an Autobiography. London: Pilot Press.
Kimball, Robert, and William Bolcom. 1973. Reminiscing with Sissle and Blake. New York: Viking Press.
Lotz, Rainer. 1986. ‘Will Garland and his Negro Operetta Company’. In Under the Imperial Carpet: Essays in Black History 1780–1950, ed. Rainer Lotz and Ian Pegg, 130–44. Crawley, England: Rabbit Press, 1986.
—1992. ‘The Musical Spillers: An Examination’. Storyville 152: 60–70.
—1997. Black People: Entertainers of African Descent in Europe, and Germany. Bonn: Birgit Lotz Verlag.
Oliver, Paul. 1972. The Story of the Blues. London: Barrie & Rockliff.
Oliver, Paul, ed. 1990. Black Music in Britain: Essays on the Afro-Asian Contribution to Popular Music. Milton Keynes and Philadelphia: Open University Press.
Panassié, Hugues, and Madeleine Gautier. 1987. Dictionnaire du Jazz. Nouvelle édition revue et augmentée. Paris: Alvin Michel.
Partridge, Eric. 1984. A Dictionary of Historical Slang and Unconventional English. 8th ed. Ed. Paul Beale. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Pickering, Michael. 1990. ‘A Jet Ornament to Society: Black Music in Nineteenth Century Britain’. In Oliver 1990: 16–33.
Public Record Of?ce: Board of Trade, Passenger Lists, Inwards, 1878–1960 (BT 26). Public Record Of?ce: Board of Trade, Passenger Lists, Outwards, 1890–1960 (BT 27).
Rye, Howard. 1982. ‘Visiting Firemen 6: Teddy Hill & The Cotton Club Revue’. Storyville 100: 144–46.
—1983. ‘Visiting Firemen 7: Eubie Blake & Noble Sissle’. Storyville 105: 88–95.
—1984. ‘Visiting Firemen 9: The Blackbirds and their Orchestras’. Storyville 112: 133–47; ‘Additional Information to Previous Visiting Firemen Instalments: The Blackbirds and their Orchestras’. Storyville 114: 216–17.
—1986. ‘Visiting Firemen 12(a): Ethel Waters’. Storyville 126: 219–22.
—1987. ‘Visiting Fireboys: The Jenkins Orphanage Bands in Britain’. Storyville 130: 137–43.
—1988a. ‘Visiting Firemen 13: “The Plantation Revues” ’. Storyville 133: 4–15.
—1988b. ‘Visiting Firemen 14: Joe Jordan 1915’. Storyville 134: 55–58.
—1989. ‘What The Papers Said: Charlie Elgar & Plantation Days’. Storyville 138: 214–16.
—1990a. ‘Fearsome Means of Discord: Early Encounters with Black Jazz’. In Oliver 1990: 45–57.
—1990b. ‘Visiting Firemen 15: The Southern Syncopated Orchestra (Part 1)’. Storyville 142: 137– 146; ‘(Part 2)’. Storyville 143: 165–78; ‘(Part 3)’. In Storyville 144: 227–34.
—1997 ‘Visiting Firemen: Additional Information to Previous Instalments: The Blackbirds and their Orchestras’. In Storyville 1996/7, ed. Laurie Wright, 29. Chigwell, Essex: L. Wright, 1997.
—1999. ‘Visiting Firemen 17: Valaida Snow’. In Storyville 1998–9, ed. Laurie Wright, 116–27. Chigwell, Essex: L. Wright.
—2001. ‘Visiting Firemen: Additional Information to Previous Instalments: The Blackbirds and their Orchestras’. In Storyville 2000–01, ed. L. Wright, 249. Chigwell, Essex: L. Wright.
—2003. ‘Visiting Firemen 19 (c): Amanda Randolph’. In Storyville 2002–3, ed. L. Wright, 131–33. Chigwell, Essex: L. Wright.
—2004. ‘The Cotton Club Tramp Band’. Names & Numbers 29: 7–10.
Shipton, Alyn. 2006. I Feel a Song Coming on: The Life of Jimmy McHugh. Unpublished MS, Oxford.
Stearns, Marshall, and Jean Stearns. 1968. Jazz Dance: The Story of American Vernacular Dance. London: Macmillan.
Stewart-Baxter, Derrick. 1970. Ma Rainey and the Classic Blues Singers. London: Studio Vista.
Taylor, Frank C., with Gerard Cook. 1988. Alberta Hunter: A Celebration in Blues. New York City: McGraw-Hill.
Watson, Don. 1988. ‘A Lifetime in Love with Lindy’. City Limits, 21-28 April 1988: 14–15.
Published
2004-02-10
Issue
Section
Articles
How to Cite
Rye, H. (2004). Showgirls and stars: Black-cast revues and female performers in Britain 1903–1939. Popular Music History, 1(2), 167-188. https://doi.org/10.1558/pomh.v1i2.167
