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On Theme, Part Two: The Cyclical Evolution of Music · Ridiculous History

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  Speaker 1: Ridiculous Histories, a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to the
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  Speaker 1: show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much for
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  Speaker 1: tuning in. Let's give a big shout out to the
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  Speaker 1: man the myth Legend super producer, mister Max Williams.
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  Speaker 2: I am that human being that Ben has referenced.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, yes, this is all what we will call technically
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  Speaker 1: the truth on Reddit. That's an awesome subreddit. It's a
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  Speaker 1: weird one.
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  Speaker 2: Well. Hey, we are in the midst of a conversation
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  Speaker 2: already in progress with the wonderful Eves, Jeff Coats and
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  Speaker 2: Katie Mitchell of on Theme the podcast. We are discussing
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  Speaker 2: the history of minstrel shows and very problematic and difficult
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  Speaker 2: genre of song known as coon songs, and we are
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  Speaker 2: going to get back into it and then take it
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  Speaker 2: even further than I think any of us expect it.
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  Speaker 1: And I'm going to introduce this I'm bim bowling and.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, bread that's right.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, So let's get into it, folks. We're also going
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  Speaker 1: to learn about some philosophical dark nights of the soul,
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  Speaker 1: what happens when art becomes commodified, and this gives us,
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  Speaker 1: this gives us a window into something that I think,
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  Speaker 1: you know, a lot of a lot of people in
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  Speaker 1: the US are they maybe only have a surface awareness
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  Speaker 1: of it without a full understanding of the complexities. And
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  Speaker 1: I'm just picturing right now, Katie Eve's nol Max. I'm
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  Speaker 1: picturing this idea of Earnest finishing a show, right the
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  Speaker 1: show goes well, He's on tour, and then someone comes
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  Speaker 1: to him, maybe a child or something, and is saying, like,
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  Speaker 1: why are you doing this? You know this kind of
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  Speaker 1: like dark Knight of the Soul, wrestling with your conscience?
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  Speaker 1: Uh you said, we said that.
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  Speaker 2: I also had a lot of white folks patting him
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  Speaker 2: on the back and saying, good job.
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  Speaker 3: You look deeper than any.
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  Speaker 1: Some guys like you know, I'm also for bullying Green. Yes,
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  Speaker 1: I think you're doing a great job. Uh yeah, I
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  Speaker 1: see that. But I'm wondering, like, when we're talking about Regret,
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  Speaker 1: what do we know about his his journey, you know,
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  Speaker 1: to pretty much musical stardom and then his later regrets
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  Speaker 1: Because we mentioned that several times.
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  Speaker 4: So I know about his rise in ragtime and his composing.
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  Speaker 4: He wrote plenty of songs, some of them being clone songs.
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  Speaker 4: His regret is only kind of really tangentially mentioned, which
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  Speaker 4: is was the thing that was fascinating to me because
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  Speaker 4: because he was so huge, and because we only have
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  Speaker 4: this very small glimpse or insight into him being like, hey,
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  Speaker 4: I really it's unfortunate that that was part of that
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  Speaker 4: that is part of my history. But one thing that
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  Speaker 4: he did also say about his regret was that he
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  Speaker 4: he also acknowledged how important it was that he was
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  Speaker 4: part of that history, because he acknowledged that coon songs,
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  Speaker 4: if it hadn't been for coon songs, if they never existed,
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  Speaker 4: if ragtime wasn't a part of this, then black entertainers
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  Speaker 4: wouldn't have gotten the opportunities that they would have.
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  Speaker 3: So he acknowledged the.
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  Speaker 2: Approach to it. Yeah, and that is there is truth
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  Speaker 2: to that. Right.
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  Speaker 4: So he died of tuberculosis in nineteen oh nine and
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  Speaker 4: he was just forty four. So although he was working
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  Speaker 4: as an entertainer from an early age and continued doing
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  Speaker 4: that and got big during his life, he was only
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  Speaker 4: forty four when he died, so he only had so
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  Speaker 4: much time to rise to stardom.
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  Speaker 1: Well, we're we're close enough in age that forty four
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  Speaker 1: is officially a scary number.
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  Speaker 2: Bro, I think about it all the time.
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  Speaker 1: From what I understand he was, this was around like
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  Speaker 1: the early nineteen hundred, it's nineteen o eight to nine
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  Speaker 1: and just forty four years old. How did the public react?
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  Speaker 1: What do we know about this guy? Because in full disclosure,
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  Speaker 1: I don't know about you, Noel, but I had never
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  Speaker 1: heard of Hogan before we started talking about doing the show.
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  Speaker 2: Now.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah, And I think also one of the things with
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  Speaker 5: the regret is like, have you ever done something that
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  Speaker 5: you were just like kind of doing for money and
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  Speaker 5: you didn't think like a bunch of people are going
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  Speaker 5: to see it? Or you did it like when you
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  Speaker 5: were younger and like that's not really my thing, but
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  Speaker 5: I'm just doing it and it's illegal for you to
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  Speaker 5: ask me that.
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  Speaker 2: Thankfully, most of those things not a lot of people
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  Speaker 2: saw them, thankfully, but no, certainly any like just the
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  Speaker 2: worry someone will see it, yeahself a thing.
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  Speaker 5: So I think like anything that you're like doing in
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  Speaker 5: your early twenties, you're like, oh, that's like kind of embarrassing.
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  Speaker 5: But like you know, luckily for us, like they didn't
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  Speaker 5: like get to the point where Ernest did. But I
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  Speaker 5: think that's a lot of their regret too. It's just
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  Speaker 5: like I was just doing this thing. I didn't know,
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  Speaker 5: like you said, like there are so many coon songs,
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  Speaker 5: like why is this the one that took off?
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  Speaker 3: And like now this is like my legacy.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, and so just on the coon songs and the
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  Speaker 4: proliferation of coon songs, there were hundreds of them in
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  Speaker 4: the early eighteen nineties so or in the eighteen nineties.
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  Speaker 4: It's the mid eighteen nineties to the late eighteen nineties
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  Speaker 4: is when they started getting popular. So there's this huge
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  Speaker 4: boom of coon songs. I'm not exactly sure how people
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  Speaker 4: responded when Hogan died. I'm not sure if people were like,
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  Speaker 4: oh my goodness, this huge star is gone.
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  Speaker 6: But around the time he died, coon songs.
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  Speaker 4: Were still people were talking about how they were on
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  Speaker 4: their way out kind of around that time. So not
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  Speaker 4: although I'm not able to say exactly how people responded,
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  Speaker 4: I can't think of any individuals who are like, oh
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  Speaker 4: my goodness, or any press that may have been in
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  Speaker 4: the newspapers about his death. People weren't kind of like
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  Speaker 4: not feeling coon songs so much. There were people who
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  Speaker 4: were like that can die. So I would imagine there
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  Speaker 4: are people who were also like, can.
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  Speaker 3: Die along with that?
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  Speaker 4: Oh wow, But I'm sure there were also people who
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  Speaker 4: recognize his legacy had said this person who created this
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  Speaker 4: big hit was like so, I'm sure there was probably
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  Speaker 4: some sort of debate around Coon songs at the time
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  Speaker 4: of his death, because he was so integral in their making.
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  Speaker 2: You know, I just found something kind of interesting because
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  Speaker 2: you mentioned that some of these songs had little satirical
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  Speaker 2: kind of jabs built into them, little easter eggs. I
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  Speaker 2: don't know if this is that I think it is,
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  Speaker 2: but another of Hogan's songs was called the Phrenologist Kuon,
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  Speaker 2: And you know, the idea of phrenology, obviously is a
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  Speaker 2: mega racist concept of being able to tell someone's inferiority
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  Speaker 2: by the bumps on their skull or whatever. And this
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  Speaker 2: article that I found suggests that this song of his
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  Speaker 2: was satirical and was an example of this type of
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  Speaker 2: black culture contributions to pop culture at the time, engaging
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  Speaker 2: with political ideas that were maybe sort of buried beneath
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  Speaker 2: the surface a little bit. I thought that was kind
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  Speaker 2: of cool.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, phrenology is a big one. Yeah, so they did
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  Speaker 4: have comments about stuff. And on that note, I well,
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  Speaker 4: I have some lyrics that I enjoy that I that
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  Speaker 4: are pretty satirical from Irving Jones. He had a song
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  Speaker 4: that called that was called My Money Never Gives Out.
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  Speaker 4: And one of the things that I love about Irvin
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  Speaker 4: Jones is a lot of his songs are about money,
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  Speaker 4: and they're very tongue in cheek, Like I feel like
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  Speaker 4: how sometimes black people just understand other things and black
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  Speaker 4: people's artistry because of this share consciousness and culture that
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  Speaker 4: we have. And when I look at these kind of lyrics,
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  Speaker 4: I could see like a white person reading them back
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  Speaker 4: then and.
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  Speaker 3: Being like, yeah, he's right, I hate those.
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  Speaker 4: You know, and then black people being like, I know
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  Speaker 4: exactly what he's talking about. So he says in these lyrics,
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  Speaker 4: he says, I have everything to eat a king could wish.
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  Speaker 4: On Fridays, I even eat fried goldfish. I make all
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  Speaker 4: the warm coons look ice cold. Eat every tooth in
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  Speaker 4: my mouth is solid gold. And then he also says,
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  Speaker 4: almost every hour I change my hat. A poor coon
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  Speaker 4: I've hired as my doormat. I step on that coon
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  Speaker 4: going through the door so I won't spoil the velvet
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  Speaker 4: carpet on my floor.
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  Speaker 2: Wow.
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  Speaker 4: So just imagine like you know, it's I So he's
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  Speaker 4: speaking it from this kind of first person perspective, but
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  Speaker 4: it's coming out of a black person's mouth, but the
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  Speaker 4: persona he's taken on is one of somebody who has
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  Speaker 4: enormous wealth, Like well, it's a lot of I'm sure
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  Speaker 4: a lot of the white people who were listening to
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  Speaker 4: this song and had this sheet music they didn't have
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  Speaker 4: for themselves, I mean. But also just the tongue in
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  Speaker 4: cheek nature you can see that he's throwing it to
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  Speaker 4: like these are jabs because goldfish fried goldfish, right, that's absurdist.
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  Speaker 4: And velvet carpet also a little absurdist. That's probably beyond
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  Speaker 4: what a lot of people had, Like that wasn't a
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  Speaker 4: normal thing, even for people who were middle class.
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  Speaker 2: Thing, wouldn't it get like scuffed up? Real bad wall covering?
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  Speaker 2: You gotta think about walking on velvet. But it's a
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  Speaker 2: funny too, the cadence of that when you read it,
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  Speaker 2: it really has kind of a modern hip hop kind
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  Speaker 2: of you know, yeah, yeah, no, it's interesting.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, so I really enjoyed that song. Enjoyed is a
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  Speaker 4: word to use for it, But you know, it's fun
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  Speaker 4: like honestly, truly it's fun. And you can see that
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  Speaker 4: in some of the writer's works. I think, like the
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  Speaker 4: Phrenologist Coon and then and My Money Never Gives Out.
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  Speaker 4: I mean, yes, that sounds like rap, like a wrap title.
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  Speaker 2: It would work today.
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  Speaker 4: So all your rappers out there trying to make it big,
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  Speaker 4: if you're still selling your CDs out of trunks, you
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  Speaker 4: might need to look back to some Coon song.
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  Speaker 2: Oh wow, oh great, I love it. Folks.
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  Speaker 1: We live in Atlanta, I know, I know the people
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  Speaker 1: making those mixtapes.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, some of them them are good.
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  Speaker 1: Some of them are good, some of the were good. But
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  Speaker 1: this also shows us I think a period of maybe
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  Speaker 1: decline and then perhaps resurgence and re examination in scholarship
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  Speaker 1: right with with Coon songs. So from my understanding, it
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  Speaker 1: is the early twentieth century when they start to die out,
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  Speaker 1: right like sort of prefaced maybe by the passage of earnest,
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  Speaker 1: but they were.
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  Speaker 2: Considered tasteless or something. I bet there was a sense.
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  Speaker 2: I don't know, it's still the nineteen I know. I
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  Speaker 2: just I wonder what what the sentiment was, though, Like
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  Speaker 2: why did they die out? Like I'm just wondering what
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  Speaker 2: the you know, I just was replaced by something else,
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  Speaker 2: like I just you know, I don't know.
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  Speaker 4: So there are multiple reasons for it dying out, as
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  Speaker 4: with so many other fats. So coon songs were kind
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  Speaker 4: of a fat, like it was a crazy happened, and
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  Speaker 4: then coon songs were a fat and then rag Time,
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  Speaker 4: as part of that history, was also a fat itself.
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  Speaker 4: So I don't know if you want me to back
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  Speaker 4: up or not, because I didn't really get into rag
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  Speaker 4: time too much, so he should do. Yeah, I could
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  Speaker 4: talk about that along with the coinciding of the death.
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  Speaker 2: I think that's perfect, ok yea yeah, because I mean
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  Speaker 2: I think people we didn't really describe it, but you
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  Speaker 2: did use the word syncopation and obviously piano centric oft
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  Speaker 2: the times it's solo piano driven, but then there's also
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  Speaker 2: other instruments. But I think people most people can picture
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  Speaker 2: what a rag time tune sounds like.
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  Speaker 6: Yeah, when I think of six Flags over.
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  Speaker 2: George I knew, yeah, because having like the Western Saloon
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  Speaker 2: kind of vibes.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. I remember one of the one of the first
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  Speaker 1: times I went to six Flags Over Georgia as a kid,
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  Speaker 1: and my my dad.
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  Speaker 2: Was taking us. One of the first things he said
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  Speaker 2: we walked in.
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  Speaker 1: They have that music playing, and he goes, wow, we're
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  Speaker 1: we're definitely in the South.
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  Speaker 2: It sort of you had a little stinger and it's
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  Speaker 2: some up ragtime. It's bout up up, you know, like
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  Speaker 2: it's sort of like that vibe.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, these fingers.
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  Speaker 1: But I didn't I didn't understand that guy's statement in
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  Speaker 1: six Flags until quite sometimes where right?
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  Speaker 2: But this? Okay?
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  Speaker 1: So the history of ragtime is it? Is it distinct
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  Speaker 1: from the history of coon songs? Is there like a
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  Speaker 1: Venn diagram? And if so, to what degree?
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  Speaker 4: So they go together, they go hand in hand, they
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  Speaker 4: are not the same, although you would see in sources
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  Speaker 4: of the era people calling Kon songs ragtime and ragtime
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  Speaker 4: coon songs. So that shows you just how much they
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  Speaker 4: were blended. And it kind of confused me when I
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  Speaker 4: was going back through some primary sources, because I was like,
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  Speaker 4: you're talking about the death of ragtime, but I'm looking
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  Speaker 4: at the newspaper date and that was nineteen oh six
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  Speaker 4: and ragtime still alive in nineteen oh six. So a
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  Speaker 4: lot of times, because coon songs were so inextricably linked
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  Speaker 4: with ragtime, they were called the same thing. So yes,
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  Speaker 4: the histories are very intertwined. But like I said before,
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  Speaker 4: there were kind of coon songs that weren't that weren't
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  Speaker 4: linked to ragtime in the eighteen eighties, and it came
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  Speaker 4: into the eighteen nineties, and then ragtime came around, which
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  Speaker 4: it was this specific kind of music that you know,
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  Speaker 4: Noah was saying, the syncopated beats, It was very piano heavy,
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  Speaker 4: one person was playing a piano, and it was very
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  Speaker 4: lively and energetic. All of this still coming from a
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  Speaker 4: black musical, black folk music background, So that's where ragtime
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  Speaker 4: black ragtime. Ragtime was a specifically black cultural production, So
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  Speaker 4: that's where it came from, which is very interesting where
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  Speaker 4: you think about how linked it is with coon songs
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  Speaker 4: even though it's very rooted.
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  Speaker 6: In true black folk traditions.
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  Speaker 4: So yeah, so they the creation of the two went together,
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  Speaker 4: and there was kind of like a rise of rag
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  Speaker 4: time as there was.
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  Speaker 6: A waning of coon songs.
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  Speaker 4: But that's not so hard line to find because there
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  Speaker 4: were other ragtime songs. But you can kind of think
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  Speaker 4: of it that way because there were other ragtime songs
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  Speaker 4: that came kind of after people were hot on coon
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  Speaker 4: songs that were more like.
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  Speaker 6: People were like this is sophisticated.
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  Speaker 4: Listen to the music, the way they put this together,
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  Speaker 4: Like these aren't coon songs.
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  Speaker 2: So I guess that's what I meant about tasteless, Like
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  Speaker 2: it there's less about like, oh, we're offended by this,
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  Speaker 2: and more like this is two on the nose. We
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  Speaker 2: need something that's a little more subtle and like a
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  Speaker 2: little more elevated perhaps, right.
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  Speaker 4: Yes, it's funny you say that, because I think there
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  Speaker 4: was an element of like coon songs were very overt
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  Speaker 4: in their racism, and then this feels like this is
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  Speaker 4: how America works a lot.
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  Speaker 3: You just move into more covert racist situation dog whistles particular. Huh,
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  Speaker 3: it's sicular.
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  Speaker 5: Sometimes we're overt, sometimes we're subtle, right, right, And that
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  Speaker 5: was the case with these songs.
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  Speaker 4: And and you'll see that, I think in contemporary times
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  Speaker 4: and then in scholarship after the fact to looking back
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  Speaker 4: on it saying there is a difference between rag time
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  Speaker 4: that was simple and it was just it was just commercial,
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  Speaker 4: a commercial endeavor, like we did it for the money,
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  Speaker 4: and then they're a scholar. There was critics then and
• 15:20
  Speaker 4: then scholars after the fact that said, and there were
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  Speaker 4: the people who were creating ragtime as a true musical pursuit,
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  Speaker 4: as you know, a really cultural endeavor.
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  Speaker 3: But no one would have said that about Clon songs.
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  Speaker 6: You don't think, well, I think that.
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  Speaker 3: High brow.
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  Speaker 4: Well you taught me this. The word highbrow. It comes
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  Speaker 4: from prenology.
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  Speaker 3: I had to catch.
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  Speaker 6: Myself just now. I had to roll it back.
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  Speaker 4: But so I think some of the although they that
• 15:53
  Speaker 4: might be accurate use of the word considering the context
• 15:55
  Speaker 4: of the conversation. But yes, so I would say that
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  Speaker 4: most people wouldn't say it was a high endeavor, but
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  Speaker 4: that Coon songs were musical pursuits. Like there were people
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  Speaker 4: who argue this came from a black tradition. So there
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  Speaker 4: were black critics who would say, yes, the lyrics are problematic,
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  Speaker 4: but also don't just completely dismiss the validity of the
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  Speaker 4: music itself, like it is a legitimate craft.
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  Speaker 2: That's what I was asking about Hogan too, because even
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  Speaker 2: though he may have contributed some problematic things in terms
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  Speaker 2: of the lyrics, he also was a big part of
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  Speaker 2: shaping that sound right.
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  Speaker 4: So there was a history of debate between different critics
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  Speaker 4: at the time talking about how they felt about Coon songs.
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  Speaker 4: And this is black critics speaking amongst each other. So
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  Speaker 4: you know, there are often conversations. You could imagine put
• 16:51
  Speaker 4: yourself back in this day and think about how white
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  Speaker 4: people would feel about coon songs and how black people
• 16:56
  Speaker 4: would feel about coon songs.
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  Speaker 3: Those are two.
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  Speaker 4: Different discussions, and the discussions amongst black people would need
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  Speaker 4: to be had amongst black people, like this is like,
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  Speaker 4: we're talking about how we feel about this with other
• 17:06
  Speaker 4: black people.
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  Speaker 1: And because it changes if like the it changes if say,
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  Speaker 1: there there's a conversation with musicians and then white musicians
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: strolls into the room and it's like, well, I also
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: have some opinions.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah, right, changes the whole vine, the whole vibe.
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  Speaker 4: So there were people who commented on how they didn't
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  Speaker 4: like coon songs in newspapers and black newspapers. So these
• 17:32
  Speaker 4: are newspapers that are catering to black audiences, okay, and
• 17:36
  Speaker 4: the people who are writing the articles in the newspapers
• 17:38
  Speaker 4: are black people. And then there are other black critics
• 17:41
  Speaker 4: at the time who are responding and saying, look.
• 17:46
  Speaker 6: Coon songs.
• 17:46
  Speaker 4: Yes, we need to talk about the issues with coon songs,
• 17:49
  Speaker 4: but we also need to acknowledge that these are legitimate
• 17:52
  Speaker 4: musicians who are creating these songs. So this is even
• 17:57
  Speaker 4: just amongst black people who are debating the importance of
• 18:02
  Speaker 4: coon songs and the impact that they did have. So
• 18:05
  Speaker 4: around the time the turn of the twentieth century and
• 18:11
  Speaker 4: into the early the first decade of the nineteen hundreds,
• 18:13
  Speaker 4: people were starting to have these conversations talking about how
• 18:19
  Speaker 4: coon songs were going out of style. So I do
• 18:24
  Speaker 4: have a couple of quotes. Some of them are quite long,
• 18:27
  Speaker 4: but they are interesting. So this was from a nineteen
• 18:30
  Speaker 4: oh one article in the Indianapolis Freemen, and they said,
• 18:35
  Speaker 4: it is said that ragtime music is going out of fashion.
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: We are glad of it.
• 18:39
  Speaker 4: More lies have been sprung over the footlights in ragtime
• 18:42
  Speaker 4: than otherwise.
• 18:43
  Speaker 6: Take the vile lie. All kuons look alike to me?
• 18:48
  Speaker 4: And another song he mentions in this quote every race
• 18:51
  Speaker 4: has a flag but the coon. So they're mentioning that
• 18:55
  Speaker 4: big song all kuons look alike to me. And I
• 18:57
  Speaker 4: should add the caveat here just alone the lines of
• 19:00
  Speaker 4: what I said earlier. They're using rag time to mean
• 19:02
  Speaker 4: coon songs. In this instance, they're not talking because.
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: She still has time left.
• 19:09
  Speaker 6: Rag time has time left. This is nineteen oh one.
• 19:11
  Speaker 4: So this is where I was saying, they conflate ragtime
• 19:13
  Speaker 4: with coon songs, and you can kind of tell that
• 19:16
  Speaker 4: from the context, because they're clearly talking about all coons
• 19:19
  Speaker 4: look alike to me, and every race has a flight
• 19:20
  Speaker 4: with the coon.
• 19:21
  Speaker 6: Those are coon songs.
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: Ernest is alive to also be cognizant of this criticism exactly.
• 19:28
  Speaker 4: So they go on in this article to talk about
• 19:30
  Speaker 4: how the music is of rag time is tolerable, but
• 19:33
  Speaker 4: most of the sentiment of it.
• 19:35
  Speaker 3: Is false, degrading, and intolerable.
• 19:37
  Speaker 4: We want our men and women on the stage, but
• 19:39
  Speaker 4: we want them in a decent and honorable way.
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: There is a black critic, of course, right, this is
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: a black.
• 19:43
  Speaker 4: Critic, yes, And then they say, there is nothing happened
• 19:47
  Speaker 4: since the war that did so much to show up
• 19:49
  Speaker 4: Negro weaknesses as that very thing of rag time music.
• 19:54
  Speaker 4: And then they say, the truth of the whole business
• 19:56
  Speaker 4: is there was a whole sale letting down of the
• 19:58
  Speaker 4: racial standard, whatever that might have been. And this is
• 20:02
  Speaker 4: one of the very interesting quotes from this article. To me,
• 20:05
  Speaker 4: the writer says, even the whites were becoming inoculated. But
• 20:09
  Speaker 4: remember the songs did not refer to them. They gave
• 20:12
  Speaker 4: the shekels that's money to hear us sing away our
• 20:16
  Speaker 4: honor and we sang. So you can see in the
• 20:20
  Speaker 4: collective we that they're trying to call attention to the
• 20:23
  Speaker 4: issues that they may be dealing with this in real time.
• 20:27
  Speaker 4: It also feels a little respectable to me because they're saying,
• 20:29
  Speaker 4: look at how we look in front of white people
• 20:31
  Speaker 4: in a way, but they're also saying, look, you know
• 20:35
  Speaker 4: about what we're doing to ourselves, like this is still
• 20:37
  Speaker 4: an internal thing.
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: The shekels is a little antismitic.
• 20:41
  Speaker 5: Just a tad, just a tad, yes, so there will
• 20:43
  Speaker 5: say more. I don't know about that.
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: It's just it's sort of like a referring to I
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: think sort of. I don't know how would you describe
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: it then, So it's it's the choice of that kind
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: of currency. It's a smaller point in this, but the
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: choice of that kind of currency shows us. I think
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: again that this critic who is raising valid points is
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: also giving a nod to the old stereotype or conspiratorial
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: thought about Jewish people running Hollywood. Yeah and being yeah,
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: that particular choice feels a little pointed. It's irrelevant. It's
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: just interesting how people talking, people speaking out against racism
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: can also themselves be a little racist. It's very it's
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: just very interesting.
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: But I think you're I mean, I really appreciate that
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: quote because it does show us it pain's a perfect picture.
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: Like like you and Katie were saying earlier, you know,
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: this is how it's the discourse of like this is
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: how we look this is important, right, and how do
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: we how do we respect the artistry and the drive
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: of again legitimate musicians while also acknowledging the dangerous or
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: problematic things about it. I mean, did scholarship, I'm not
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: read up on the research scholarship ever reach a conclusion
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: about this, because I'm sure people went back over time
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: and re examined this specific genre of music.
• 22:04
  Speaker 5: Well, I think the main point here, like with the sentence,
• 22:06
  Speaker 5: we want our men and women on the stage, but
• 22:08
  Speaker 5: we want them they're in a decent way.
• 22:09
  Speaker 3: I think like the.
• 22:11
  Speaker 5: Whole representation of it all is I think a lot
• 22:14
  Speaker 5: of people's solution to that so like, yeah, like some
• 22:16
  Speaker 5: people are going to be doing like some coon stuff
• 22:19
  Speaker 5: like in the Year of Our Lord twenty twenty four,
• 22:21
  Speaker 5: Like there are people doing that, but there's other opportunities
• 22:24
  Speaker 5: for you to do something else. And I think that
• 22:26
  Speaker 5: was kind of the main tension, like this is the
• 22:29
  Speaker 5: only way we're able to show up in this space,
• 22:32
  Speaker 5: and you know, some like this is people's talents, their singers,
• 22:35
  Speaker 5: their actors, and if this is the only way they
• 22:36
  Speaker 5: could get their art out, then that's the issue. But like,
• 22:39
  Speaker 5: if there's other ways where you can be decent and
• 22:41
  Speaker 5: honorable and respectable intolerable, then I think that is kind
• 22:46
  Speaker 5: of what they were, you know, fighting for.
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: I mean, that would certainly come you know, I mean
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: ragtime was also sort of a proto form of jazz,
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: and then you know, jazz is very much a black
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: and American you know, tradition.
• 23:00
  Speaker 4: Well that was also seen as evil jazz. Yes, it
• 23:04
  Speaker 4: faced it, Yes it was and on into hip hop.
• 23:06
  Speaker 4: But I think it's interesting because there was a book
• 23:08
  Speaker 4: that I was reading that was really arguing for ragtime
• 23:11
  Speaker 4: as its own distinct because a lot of people do
• 23:14
  Speaker 4: associate ragtime with jazz, but as its own distinct cultural
• 23:18
  Speaker 4: influence where jazz did come after, and people were kind
• 23:22
  Speaker 4: of like, you know, look at this elevated art form
• 23:26
  Speaker 4: versus ragtime felt a little more simple. Earlier, it was
• 23:29
  Speaker 4: more about ritual in the music. It was coming from
• 23:32
  Speaker 4: like it was repetitive. Ragtime was very repetitive, and going
• 23:37
  Speaker 4: into jazz it was more like free flowing.
• 23:39
  Speaker 6: And it was it was. It was definitely different.
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: Like considering it was more academically in a way too.
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: I mean, like the ragtime was pretty pure like popcorn
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: kind of you know, going to the movie's tent pole stuff,
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: and jazz is a little more high minded. Are there
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: banjo's and jazz?
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: There can't be there can be jazz jazz manzz.
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, So.
• 24:02
  Speaker 4: I think there there was an argument in a book
• 24:05
  Speaker 4: that was reading that like it is, it was a
• 24:07
  Speaker 4: very it was this rag Time was his own distinct
• 24:12
  Speaker 4: era of black cultural music that without that era of Ragtime,
• 24:18
  Speaker 4: like everything after it that came and black musical culture
• 24:24
  Speaker 4: in the United States wouldn't have happened. Like it was
• 24:27
  Speaker 4: specifically because of rag Time that black entertainer black entertainers
• 24:32
  Speaker 4: were able to enter the mainstream, right.
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: I think that's what I was getting at. I mean,
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: like it was just it just got better from there.
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: But you're to your point about the evil aspect. I'm
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: really interested in a little more of that, Like what
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: do you mean when you say it was I know
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: there was kind of controversial figure it was it was
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: like corrupting the youth and stuff. Is that kind of
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: what you're referring to.
• 24:49
  Speaker 5: Yeah, And I think because it was like a very
• 24:51
  Speaker 5: black uh export, it was like, ah, this is evil,
• 24:54
  Speaker 5: like what are they doing, Like we don't understand it.
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: You know, to stop it from being intensely popular, which
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: is controversial.
• 25:00
  Speaker 5: I mean, I think the same thing with like hip hop,
• 25:02
  Speaker 5: like and say it's evil and then it's like the
• 25:04
  Speaker 5: number one selling music in the United States.
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: So because there's there's also I think for at least
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: the white part of America in the age of jazz,
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: at least was there there was this idea that there
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: was something forbidden, right, and then now now they're on
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: they're walking on a dangerous side, which, of course is
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: it uh, pretty messed up, I think. But we also see,
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: you know, the moral panic that sprang out of jazz
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: bringing communities together in different ways, and I think that
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: led that was a big part of what later leads
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: to Harry and Slinger's war against cannabis, right, because a
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: lot of the marijuana madness was based on the idea
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: of like someone smoking again a jazz cigarette and the
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: next thing, you know, they're like not down with Jim
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: Crow or something. Right, this is I just I keep
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: thinking about your point, Katie, about the way things informed policy, right,
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: and do we see this? I guess we do see
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: it continuing to under the present.
• 26:15
  Speaker 5: Absolutely. We had an episode about because you know, thugs
• 26:19
  Speaker 5: on trial right now? Oh yeah, yeah, So we had
• 26:21
  Speaker 5: an episode about how rap lyrics are used in court
• 26:24
  Speaker 5: to say like.
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah you did this, he murdered somebody else. Super problematic.
• 26:28
  Speaker 7: Right, there's some great key and sketches thinking about with
• 26:33
  Speaker 7: this now that's been coming up more and more lately,
• 26:35
  Speaker 7: that that whole idea, it seems a little bit of
• 26:37
  Speaker 7: a reach too or overreach.
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: I don't know what your thoughts are on that.
• 26:41
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean we talked to a documentary filmmaker and
• 26:47
  Speaker 5: artist who looked at Atlanta, Chicago, New York, LA and
• 26:51
  Speaker 5: London just trying to get people's take on it, and
• 26:54
  Speaker 5: it does seem like a reach, especially when you look
• 26:57
  Speaker 5: at the other forms of music where they're talking about
• 26:59
  Speaker 5: like shooting people and.
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: I wrote a short story about a school shooter. You know,
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: does that mean that? I'm like, where does the creative
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: artistic license coming. I shot a man just to see
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: him dye, right. I took some cocaine and then I
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: like shot that something down. Yeah. Yeah, well I'm sure
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: that's great on kicks one oh five or whatever.
• 27:25
  Speaker 5: Yeah, but because it has like a trap beat to it,
• 27:27
  Speaker 5: it's like it's true, it's true.
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: So yeah, we definitely see that now.
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: And this brings us to our earlier question. The prompted
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: the exploration of ragtime and jazz right the So we've
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: established that coon songs are starting to die out right
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: and ragtime continues afterward for what a good like five years.
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: For lag tens.
• 27:51
  Speaker 4: So around the early nineteen or to late nineteen tens
• 27:54
  Speaker 4: is when ragtime starts giving way to jazz. In the
• 27:57
  Speaker 4: nineteen twenties, you get into more jazz situation. So yeah,
• 28:02
  Speaker 4: I love a good jazz. That's a wide range of things.
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: I completely agree.
• 28:11
  Speaker 4: But yeah, so ragtime was very influential in the rise
• 28:14
  Speaker 4: of black music, and kind of what we were talking
• 28:15
  Speaker 4: about earlier, NOL is that ragtime was the first black
• 28:19
  Speaker 4: music of the United States to achieve why commercial popularity,
• 28:22
  Speaker 4: which is why I was emphasizing the importance of ragtime
• 28:25
  Speaker 4: because like like Ernest Hogan gave not to, and other
• 28:29
  Speaker 4: entertainers at the time would give nod to. It's like
• 28:32
  Speaker 4: if it weren't for coon songs gave black entertainers an
• 28:35
  Speaker 4: avenue to put their workout right, so we think in
• 28:38
  Speaker 4: rag time. So then we get into Ragtime. So now
• 28:41
  Speaker 4: we see black entertainers being able to put their music
• 28:43
  Speaker 4: out in front of people and get in front of
• 28:45
  Speaker 4: audiences they wouldn't have been in front of before because
• 28:48
  Speaker 4: white folks were like not so high in that black
• 28:50
  Speaker 4: folks stuff. A lot of them were until Ragtime came
• 28:54
  Speaker 4: around and they're like, oh, this has some merit, and
• 28:56
  Speaker 4: then they were able to start They Now black people
• 29:00
  Speaker 4: were able to reach a different kind of commercial.
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: Level open closed doors.
• 29:04
  Speaker 6: Open closed doors.
• 29:05
  Speaker 4: So that didn't delegitimize the fact that the music that
• 29:07
  Speaker 4: they were doing before they didn't need outside approval for it.
• 29:12
  Speaker 4: But the reality is that outside approval got them put
• 29:14
  Speaker 4: in front front of larger audiences.
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: Well, and while you might not have heard of Ernest Hogan,
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: you've probably heard of Scott Joplin. Yeah you know, I
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: mean that's like a megastar of the Ragtime movement.
• 29:25
  Speaker 4: Yes, yeah, and people have probably heard their music even
• 29:27
  Speaker 4: if they don't know there exactly.
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and this is this is I think some of
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: the more important things we're hitting on here. This shows us,
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: like you were saying, the cyclical nature of the of
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: the explorations, the way art will tackle the real world,
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: and the way the real world will influence art. And
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: our story is not completely over yet, isn't that right?
• 29:51
  Speaker 3: That is right?
• 29:58
  Speaker 4: So I will say that in the book The Art
• 30:01
  Speaker 4: of Ragtime, the authors say that Ragtime affected a total
• 30:05
  Speaker 4: musical revolution. That's how serious they said it was, and
• 30:07
  Speaker 4: that it was the first great impact of black folk
• 30:10
  Speaker 4: culture and the dominant white middle class culture of America.
• 30:13
  Speaker 6: So it was just huge.
• 30:16
  Speaker 4: Yes, it can be considered like a precursor to jazz,
• 30:19
  Speaker 4: but it wasn't just that jazz grew out of it totally.
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: It was just it was the next thing that happened.
• 30:24
  Speaker 4: And of course, as we think of how different eras
• 30:28
  Speaker 4: of culture or different genres spring out of things, the
• 30:32
  Speaker 4: origins of that are so huge, like they did come
• 30:36
  Speaker 4: from so many different places, and I think that was
• 30:37
  Speaker 4: the case for a jazz as well. But yeah, ragtime,
• 30:42
  Speaker 4: it just referred to this kind of like broken rhythmic
• 30:45
  Speaker 4: features and that came out of some of the same
• 30:49
  Speaker 4: elements that the coon songs had, and.
• 30:53
  Speaker 6: It morphed into.
• 30:56
  Speaker 4: This really huge popular It was a really big explosion basically,
• 31:01
  Speaker 4: and so these rags were at first, in terms of
• 31:07
  Speaker 4: the history of ragtime, the word rag referred to these
• 31:10
  Speaker 4: simple black folk melodies. So these songs were usually really brief,
• 31:14
  Speaker 4: and they were simple, and they were repetitive, and the
• 31:17
  Speaker 4: songs weren't that complex. So as we can see, that
• 31:18
  Speaker 4: alignes really well with coon songs, and it grew out
• 31:22
  Speaker 4: of that history of blackface minstrel shows. But also there
• 31:26
  Speaker 4: was that element of black dance music that was in
• 31:28
  Speaker 4: ragtime as well. So yeah, it kept going, but then
• 31:34
  Speaker 4: it was it didn't last that long, So it ended
• 31:37
  Speaker 4: in the nineteen teens, and that did, as we were
• 31:43
  Speaker 4: talking about, jazz come back later on. So in the
• 31:46
  Speaker 4: nineteen forties and in the nineteen fifties, ragtime had a
• 31:51
  Speaker 4: kind of resurgence because there were jazz musicians who were
• 31:56
  Speaker 4: looking back to ragtime and using that in their shows.
• 32:01
  Speaker 4: And then also previous ragtime songs were being recorded so
• 32:08
  Speaker 4: that they were able to be released and published. So
• 32:11
  Speaker 4: there was a resurgence that came back from ragtime, but
• 32:14
  Speaker 4: as a popular and dominant genre that kind of faded
• 32:18
  Speaker 4: out around the.
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: Nineteen So twenty twenty five is not the year for
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: RAGTIME's big comeback.
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: You never know, you never know, sampling and who knows, right,
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think that's so interesting too, the idea
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: of I mean, when I think of ragtime, it does
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: feel a little dated to me, just and it's used
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: in that way in movies or whatever. It like evokes
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: this time and place kind of vibe where jazz to
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: me feel a little more universally.
• 32:43
  Speaker 3: Kind of time. Yeah, I think so.
• 32:45
  Speaker 5: I wonder if there were people that made coon songs
• 32:48
  Speaker 5: and then made ragtime and then made jazz.
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: People who just sort of adapted to the prevailing taste. Yeah,
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: I imagine there had to be, right, just because at
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: that point you're like a full time musician.
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you're just going with it.
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: You're just trying to go with whatever, whatever will still sell.
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: And I'm very conscious when I say that, I'm very
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: conscious of the fact that we roasted Drake a little
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: bit for doing the exact same thing. But I guess
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: you'll just have to cry on a pile of money,
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: you know.
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: And also there's lyrics. Yeah, oh he does.
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right.
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: Maybe those will be using court.
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: Do you know if Drake's bed costs one hundred thousand dollars, Yeah,
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: it's made of horse hair. It's like some German bed
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: manufacturer custom made this mattress. A fool and his money.
• 33:39
  Speaker 3: Congrats to him.
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: Yes, yes, a good night's sleep is important. Sorry, but
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: where where does this leave us? Where does this take us?
• 33:48
  Speaker 4: This exploration, Well, just going to Katie's point of kind
• 33:51
  Speaker 4: of this negative these negative ideas that were.
• 33:54
  Speaker 3: Coming upround around jazz and being evil.
• 33:57
  Speaker 4: There were people who two things about that. On one side,
• 34:02
  Speaker 4: there were people who saw ragtime now as like this
• 34:06
  Speaker 4: new image of black people. So now the general public
• 34:10
  Speaker 4: were starting to understand ragtime artists is like true artists
• 34:15
  Speaker 4: in a way, rather than looking at them as like, oh,
• 34:18
  Speaker 4: they're just people who write these simple melodies and coone songs.
• 34:20
  Speaker 4: So that idea of the coon song and the unrefined
• 34:25
  Speaker 4: artists kind of started to transform as they moved into
• 34:28
  Speaker 4: later ragtime.
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: They acknowledged the talent.
• 34:31
  Speaker 6: They acknowledged the talent.
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, same thing happened with hip hop. The early era
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: of hip hop, where things were a little simpler maybe,
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: and it was almost given short shrift by popular culture
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: and like you know, white critics and stuff. But then
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: you started to see the emergence of true universally recognized artists,
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: you know, in the hip hop world exactly.
• 34:50
  Speaker 4: And the people who were pro ragtime were like, it's
• 34:53
  Speaker 4: this new and innovative frontier. It's one that hasn't happened
• 34:56
  Speaker 4: with American musicians and composers before.
• 34:59
  Speaker 6: So they saw that as a really good thing.
• 35:00
  Speaker 4: But then there were other anti ragtime people who thought
• 35:03
  Speaker 4: it was like vulgar, it was noisy, it was unrefined,
• 35:06
  Speaker 4: and then it was associated with these morally indecent themes.
• 35:10
  Speaker 4: So an example of that is Samuel Colerich Taylor, who
• 35:13
  Speaker 4: in a nineteen oh four interview said that coon songs
• 35:16
  Speaker 4: were the worst sort of rot and taking extrapolating that
• 35:21
  Speaker 4: to rag time. There is also a quote from Booker T.
• 35:24
  Speaker 4: Washington in nineteen oh five that prefaced a book of
• 35:26
  Speaker 4: spirituals So there were distinctions made between spiritual music that
• 35:34
  Speaker 4: black people created and the coon songs that they created
• 35:37
  Speaker 4: in terms of that history or ragtime. So there were
• 35:39
  Speaker 4: black people who felt that these spiritual songs were where
• 35:44
  Speaker 4: we should be headed like we should be doing spiritual songs,
• 35:47
  Speaker 4: because that was a more elevated practice than the coon
• 35:49
  Speaker 4: songs and the ragtime and all these simple melodies. Were like,
• 35:52
  Speaker 4: this is a higher form of artistry that were creating
• 35:55
  Speaker 4: in these spirituals and Booker T. Washington kind of nodded
• 35:58
  Speaker 4: to that in his quote when he says that when
• 36:00
  Speaker 4: the Negro song is in too many minds associated with
• 36:03
  Speaker 4: rad music and the more reprehensible coon song, that the
• 36:07
  Speaker 4: most cultivated musician of his race, a man of the
• 36:09
  Speaker 4: highest esthetic ideals to seek to give permanence to the
• 36:12
  Speaker 4: folk songs of his people by giving them a new interpretation.
• 36:15
  Speaker 6: And that goes on.
• 36:16
  Speaker 4: He was referring to like Samuel Colerich Taylor and the
• 36:19
  Speaker 4: people who were doing this more spiritual music.
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: Also that sounds like classic Booker T. Washington, but does
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: sound like one of his quotables. And Samuel Coleridge Taylor,
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: I believe is British.
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: No, he's not, lest he be confused, not to be
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: confused with Samuel Coleridge. And like an opium at it.
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: That's totally like I had to look it up and
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: I'm like, that can't be the guy yeah. Yeah, so
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: we've got that, We've got that sorted. And we also
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: have to one thing I think that's very important for
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: people to remember as we're learning about this sort of
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: stuff is that with every iteration of these genres of
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: music or approaches there there was not monolithic approval. Right
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: Like when jazz came out.
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: I imagine there were many black critics who also there's
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: always someone who's like, I liked the other stuff, right,
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: you know what I mean, like jazz too experimental, bring
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: the banjo back?
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: Where's the rag time? Right?
• 37:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah? For sure.
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: How prominent were those voices.
• 37:23
  Speaker 6: The voices that said bring back ragtime?
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: The voices the voices who were like the voices who
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: seemed to look as scance at things like jazz.
• 37:35
  Speaker 3: As it emerged multitudinous.
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, the right.
• 37:40
  Speaker 3: Thank you. Yeah, there were a lot of them.
• 37:43
  Speaker 4: And I also must say that there are people who
• 37:47
  Speaker 4: talked about in the contemporary press back then about how
• 37:51
  Speaker 4: rag time as it fizzled out, it gave way to
• 37:54
  Speaker 4: other forms of racism, like orientalism was on the rise
• 37:57
  Speaker 4: at the time, so there was a lot there were
• 37:59
  Speaker 4: a lot of America were really into Indian culture, so
• 38:01
  Speaker 4: then they were into Indian music at the time, so
• 38:04
  Speaker 4: some of these other ring exoticizing fascinations turned into different directions.
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: As it does as it does. So I did just
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: want to point out maybe I'm just this is just
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: in my head, but it feels to me like Ragtime
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: heavily influenced a lot of Broadway musical theater styles like
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: Leonard Bernstein and stuff like Bernstein, Like just that kind
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: of theatricality of piano driven ragtime music and the syncopation.
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: It's very like a Broadway in the head.
• 38:34
  Speaker 3: For some reason, Ragtime fel this is show business.
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: They write songs, Yeah, they write songs about doing songs
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: on stage, you know what I mean. It's not too
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: much of an artistic leap. I'm a sucker for Broadway,
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: I'll say it. I feel like we've gotten to know
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: each other well enough now that I can admit it.
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: Have a stupid love of musical too.
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: I saw I just have the Sufian Stevens Illinois musical
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: UH in New York, and I cried the whole time.
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: It was awesome.
• 39:02
  Speaker 3: So I have a question for y'all.
• 39:04
  Speaker 4: If a Ragtime show were put on today and it
• 39:07
  Speaker 4: was the same as it would have been back then
• 39:09
  Speaker 4: like coon songs and in all, would you go.
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: To it only if I got permission from the black community.
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: I don't know. I don't think so well, it depends, right,
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: like is it satire? Like as a young white dude
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: watching Bamboozled, it made me feel a way like I
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: was like, should I feel really bad for watching this?
• 39:29
  Speaker 4: Like?
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: Am I in trouble for even sitting and watching this?
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: Does that make me a bad person? And that's the
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: whole point of the movie. If anyone hasn't seen it, it
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: really is about kind of like I mean, I'm sure
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: watching it as a young black person feel different in
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: a whole other way. But I don't know. It did
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: feel like a thing that I wasn't supposed to be watching,
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: but I did learn a lot from it. And you know,
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: it is satire. So if it was a satire and
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: it felt like it was done thoughtfully, then I would go.
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: But I wouldn't go just to just to see it.
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: And I mean I think that would.
• 39:58
  Speaker 3: Be for the giggles.
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, No, I don't, No, No, It's kind of one
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: of those things where, God, what an excellent question. Is
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: it is a really good thing it's kind of one
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: of the good things. No, no, no, you're doing great,
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: like I think it was. I think one of the things.
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: And this is this is kind of a cheat code
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: answer is I would want to know.
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: Who who this was for. That's what I'm the audience, right.
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: It reminds me of some interviews I read with the activist,
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: a musician no name who was saying, you know, she
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: was like, look, I am I am an activist. I
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: am also a musician. I don't like looking out into
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: the audience and seeing, lack of a better phrase, a
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: ton just a bunch of white people rights like, so
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: this is I want my music for a specific amount
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: of people. I don't know what I would do to
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: see what is essentially an historical reenactment of a Ragtime show.
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: You know, I don't know. I don't know if I
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: would have enough information, and I'd be really worried that people
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: might raptionalize it. You know, like when Dave Chappelle was
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: talking about, uh, he's talking about doing stuff on The
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: Chappelle Show, and he would realize people were laughing for.
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: It the wrong wrong. I love that black landsman, you know,
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: going back to I don't think you got the point.
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: The Ernest Hogan thing we're talking about when he gets
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: done with the show and some white guy from Kentucky walks.
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: Up and is like, great job. That's that's I don't
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: know you like our non answers.
• 41:27
  Speaker 6: I mean I liked it.
• 41:28
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that what you were just saying reminded me of
• 41:31
  Speaker 4: I read in some sources I can't remember, but one
• 41:34
  Speaker 4: of the black performers he was on tour. He was
• 41:35
  Speaker 4: going around the country and he was talking about I
• 41:37
  Speaker 4: think he had been singing all Kunes luck alike to me,
• 41:39
  Speaker 4: but if it wasn't that song, it was another coon song.
• 41:41
  Speaker 4: And he talked about a white kid coming up to
• 41:43
  Speaker 4: him afterward, and just like I was like, I don't
• 41:46
  Speaker 4: know if I should be doing this anymore. So, yeah,
• 41:50
  Speaker 4: and these productions of things you mentioned. Scott Joplin earlier,
• 41:55
  Speaker 4: he had an opera that was It contained many different styles,
• 41:58
  Speaker 4: but it was referred to as a ragtime opera and
• 42:01
  Speaker 4: it was called tree Minisha or Tremonsha, I'm not sure
• 42:04
  Speaker 4: exactly how to pronounce it. But that was produced in Atlanta,
• 42:08
  Speaker 4: so a hometown alignment in January of nineteen seventy two,
• 42:13
  Speaker 4: So in that resurgence I was talking about earlier in
• 42:15
  Speaker 4: the nineteen forties and fifties and into the sixties and seventies.
• 42:18
  Speaker 3: You see these.
• 42:18
  Speaker 4: Little pockets of time when people are referring back to
• 42:21
  Speaker 4: the history of ragtime and of coon song.
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: Well, what would be the in your opinion's opinion, to
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: turn it around an appropriate context for such a reenactment
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: like what you were described.
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: And to add to that question back, we're just gonna
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: like direct the energy here.
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: Would you all go, yeah, yeah, Now is there a
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: world or a reason why something like that should exist?
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: And if there's an answer to that separately, would you
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: go absolutely?
• 42:47
  Speaker 6: And if I was the white person, I would go.
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: To Katie, what about you?
• 42:52
  Speaker 3: I don't think I would go because I feel like
• 42:53
  Speaker 3: that the it would just be outdated.
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: To me.
• 42:58
  Speaker 3: Give me some new stuff. Like to watch all the sitcoms.
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: They usually usually I need to say it, they're usually
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: not good. All sitcoms. The best part is always the
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: theme song, especially when it's a theme song where they
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: explain the ridiculous set up and you know.
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: We love that. Yeah, I was.
• 43:16
  Speaker 6: I was enjoying Amos and Andy.
• 43:18
  Speaker 4: I had like a d v D, like said of
• 43:20
  Speaker 4: it wasn't because I like stuff like that, Like I
• 43:23
  Speaker 4: also like collect.
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: Andy's borderline minstrel it is it is fully literally. It
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: was a radio show, right, wasn't it.
• 43:31
  Speaker 4: It was a TV show too. It was a radio
• 43:32
  Speaker 4: show first and then it became a TV show.
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: But yes, that's why I remember the stock characters. It
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: was like sleep and eat or something like that. Yeah,
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: that's what's sleep eat?
• 43:44
  Speaker 4: I think it was another one to Actually that's right. Yeah,
• 43:46
  Speaker 4: I think that might have been from bamboozl Sleep and Eat.
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: It might have been, but it was referring to.
• 43:50
  Speaker 4: Yes, but you're on it. But I oddly like, you know,
• 43:55
  Speaker 4: I collect. I collect things like that too, like I
• 43:59
  Speaker 4: actually meant to bring. I think I actually had some
• 44:01
  Speaker 4: sheet music. I don't know if it was specifically Coon songs,
• 44:03
  Speaker 4: but for y'all to see the covers, because I actually
• 44:05
  Speaker 4: have some of that old problematic music and some of
• 44:09
  Speaker 4: the old postcards that people will send of like these, uh,
• 44:13
  Speaker 4: what's the red lip characters?
• 44:15
  Speaker 6: I'm forgetting.
• 44:16
  Speaker 4: I have like like pickaninnies and mammies, and I have
• 44:20
  Speaker 4: the old coon banks like so I like stuff like that,
• 44:23
  Speaker 4: and I read like anti black propaganda too so I
• 44:28
  Speaker 4: think that's why I'm so in for it, and I
• 44:30
  Speaker 4: also understand, you know where Katie's coming from. So I
• 44:34
  Speaker 4: think it's just because of my particular proclivities.
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, I pretreciate both of the sleeping also was a
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: real character. It was a TV character played by Willie Best.
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: So I think a lot of stuff in Bamboozo was
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: like pulled from history.
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: And we have to we have to eventually, uh we
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: we will have to wrap this episode up. We have
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: to have we have to have you all back if
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: you'd like to. Because one of the things that I
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: think we're we're finding here, it's a point that's so true.
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: It verges onto cliche at times, but it's easy for
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: people to forget history and to do that quarts I
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: think some very dangerous things. This is an amazing exploration.
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Katie, Thank you so much.
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: Eaves.
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: You have to tell us where people can find on theme?
• 45:22
  Speaker 3: Well, thank you so much for having us. This is fun.
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: So also thank you for helping us get ahead and
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: our buffer.
• 45:34
  Speaker 3: A struggle.
• 45:36
  Speaker 2: Thank you'all. But yeah, where can we find all of
• 45:39
  Speaker 2: your work and the podcast, the book everything coming down
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: the Pipe?
• 45:43
  Speaker 5: Yeah, so you can find on Theme on any platform
• 45:46
  Speaker 5: that you listen to podcasts, and then our instagram is
• 45:50
  Speaker 5: on theme show. Our website is on theme dot show,
• 45:54
  Speaker 5: and you can send us at email it hello at
• 45:56
  Speaker 5: on Theme dot show and we will write you back.
• 46:00
  Speaker 5: For the book, it's called Pros to the People. It's
• 46:02
  Speaker 5: out February twenty twenty five. You can pre order it
• 46:05
  Speaker 5: now if you just google pro to the People Katie
• 46:07
  Speaker 5: Mitchell and it'll show up on anywhere you want to.
• 46:12
  Speaker 5: You want to pre order.
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: And this pre orders matter, y'all are important, big deal.
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: Publishers love to see that.
• 46:19
  Speaker 3: Yes, I shut up for it.
• 46:20
  Speaker 4: And if for whatever reason anybody wants to find me,
• 46:22
  Speaker 4: they can find me on Instagram at not apologizing, or
• 46:26
  Speaker 4: you can.
• 46:26
  Speaker 3: Just go to my website, Eve's Jeffcote dot com.
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: Serious yoga content. I'm not apologizing makes me feel terrible
• 46:33
  Speaker 2: a boy myself in the best way. I thank you.
• 46:35
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I'll bringing all the people to yoga.
• 46:38
  Speaker 3: Let them know. Yeah, that's it.
• 46:40
  Speaker 4: Oh and if you want to know how to spell,
• 46:41
  Speaker 4: my name is y V S. Jeff like the guy's name,
• 46:46
  Speaker 4: COT likes the thing.
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: You wear, j E, F F and H.
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: This is uh.
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: This is your opportunity, folks, to check out episodes of
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: on theme. We're excited to tune in any any fan
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: of history will agree. They're also just to be quite
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: quite honest, I'm impressed by the caliber of the literary
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: explorations that you all have on the show.
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and if you don't don't like.
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: Smart shows, you can also check Max and Nola myself
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: out every week on Ridiculous History. You're really the bus
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: the super producer, mister Max Williams. Big thanks to Jonathan
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: Strickland aka the Quizz.
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah he's Jeff cot here in person, yeah, corporeally, and
• 47:32
  Speaker 2: also Christiraciotis, who is in fact here in spirit.
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: Alex Williams who composed this slap and bop you here
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: at the beginning and end of every show, aj Bahamas
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: Jacobs aka the Puzzler, and Noel.
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: Thanks to you how you tubo buddy. We'll see you
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: next time, folks. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the
• 47:55
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• 47:58
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