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Female Firsts: Sissieretta Jones · Stuff Mom Never Told You

0:05
Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and welcome to stuff
0:07
Speaker 1: I've never told you protection of I Heart Radio and
0:18
Speaker 1: it's time for another female first, which means we are
0:22
Speaker 1: once again thrilled to be joined by the amazing, fantastic Eaves.
0:26
Speaker 1: Welcome you. Hello, Hello, Hi, how are you? How have
0:30
Speaker 1: you been? I am doing very well. I don't know
0:33
Speaker 1: what to say. It's hide outside. I'm trying to stay
0:38
Speaker 1: you know, outside as much as possible without melting mm hmm.
0:42
Speaker 1: Has been possible so far, so I'm excited about that.
0:45
Speaker 1: But you know, wow, that's a skill. How have you
0:48
Speaker 1: been pulling it off pretty well? You know, I mean
0:52
Speaker 1: staying in the shade a lot. I was. I was
0:55
Speaker 1: like outside in the car yesterday saying, how this feels impossible,
0:59
Speaker 1: Like I am not even that close to the equator
1:02
Speaker 1: and this is that far away from me, and it's
1:06
Speaker 1: this hot. It doesn't really make any sense. But you know,
1:10
Speaker 1: I was gonna. I was saying, I prefer this to
1:11
Speaker 1: being cold. But I feel like that also that has
1:15
Speaker 1: a little bit more meaning because of climate change a
1:19
Speaker 1: certain direction. So I had to double I had to
1:21
Speaker 1: think about that again for a second. Yeah, I mean true, true,
1:27
Speaker 1: I've been like the opposite. I prefer the cold, and
1:30
Speaker 1: I've gone outside very very little, um, which makes me
1:33
Speaker 1: sad because I do love going outside. I mean, I'll
1:36
Speaker 1: be out there for like a minute and I know,
1:38
Speaker 1: what is this? Go back inside does not compute? M hmmmmmm.
1:44
Speaker 1: What about you, Savantha, what are your Yeah? Well, I'm
1:48
Speaker 1: on the same lines with as. I don't want to
1:50
Speaker 1: say it too loudly either, because I feel like when
1:53
Speaker 1: we do, especially in Georgia, the climates really test you. Like, yeah,
1:58
Speaker 1: you think you want to be warm, but hut. But
2:00
Speaker 1: as we speak, I'm a little cool right now, to
2:03
Speaker 1: the point that I'm like, where's my blanket? Which I
2:05
Speaker 1: have are all year long in my office, so you know.
2:09
Speaker 1: But yes, it's definitely been, um one of those times
2:12
Speaker 1: where it's like, yeah, but I don't love sweating either,
2:15
Speaker 1: So which is it. It's a delicate balance. It's a
2:21
Speaker 1: delicate balance for sure. Well. I am very very excited
2:25
Speaker 1: to talk about who brought today. He's this very compelling story.
2:28
Speaker 1: But before we get into it, I'm just curious where
2:30
Speaker 1: you bothly on like the singing scale, Like how do
2:34
Speaker 1: you rate yourself? Do you enjoy singing. Did you ever
2:36
Speaker 1: think you're going to be a singer, Samantha, Do you
2:38
Speaker 1: want to go that's funny as our listeners pretty much? No,
2:43
Speaker 1: I do love to just randomly sing. Do I think
2:47
Speaker 1: I'm great at it? No? Do I think I can
2:48
Speaker 1: hit a tune? And am I okay with harmonizing? Yes,
2:53
Speaker 1: that's how I would keep it. Did I think I
2:56
Speaker 1: could be a star once upon a time, especially when
2:58
Speaker 1: you know Whitney came out with her Bodyguard soundtrack, I'm like, yeah,
3:01
Speaker 1: I definitely could hit these notes. By the way, I
3:03
Speaker 1: could not. I could not, but I really wanted to
3:07
Speaker 1: try at that point in time, um and had those
3:10
Speaker 1: small dreams and like, maybe I could be a singer.
3:12
Speaker 1: At least I could do the harmony, the background vocals,
3:16
Speaker 1: but that's about it. And yeah, now that I'm getting older,
3:19
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh no, yeah, I definitely couldn't do that.
3:22
Speaker 1: I think singers are really amazing, and I'm all honestly
3:27
Speaker 1: just so often astonished at how many people can sing.
3:29
Speaker 1: But it's not their careers. But I can blow people
3:32
Speaker 1: out of the water when it comes to singing. I
3:34
Speaker 1: am not one of those people. I took chorus for
3:36
Speaker 1: about a year or something like that in elementary school.
3:41
Speaker 1: And I honestly have no idea why I was in it.
3:44
Speaker 1: I think it was probably just because my mom put
3:46
Speaker 1: me in it. But I wasn't particularly great at singing,
3:49
Speaker 1: and I think that I can hold a note decently well.
3:54
Speaker 1: But I know that I don't have it because I've
3:58
Speaker 1: heard people plenty of people who have it, and I
4:00
Speaker 1: got whatever that is. Um. So yeah, I sing in
4:05
Speaker 1: the shower, I sing along with songs like I sing
4:08
Speaker 1: in the car. I love singing like it feels great,
4:10
Speaker 1: it feels expressive, and I like the way it makes
4:12
Speaker 1: me feel. And sometimes I will even record myself singing
4:16
Speaker 1: and listen him back to it and say, do I
4:19
Speaker 1: sound like I think I sound? Because I'm always very
4:21
Speaker 1: curious because I feel like I sound okay, but do
4:24
Speaker 1: I have So I'll do that. Sometimes I'm like, okay,
4:28
Speaker 1: that's how I feel about it, this basically okay, and
4:31
Speaker 1: then I'll move ali. So No, definitely, not any significant
4:36
Speaker 1: or noteworthy history of singing in my life. I love that.
4:41
Speaker 1: I too. I like singing like in the car around
4:44
Speaker 1: the house. I love a good karaoke. Um. I don't
4:49
Speaker 1: think I'm very good but I have fun. I used
4:52
Speaker 1: to think. I used to think when I was a
4:55
Speaker 1: kid that I was a good singer and I was
4:57
Speaker 1: singing in the shower in a bit like oh, this
4:59
Speaker 1: melodious voice. Now I don't think that. So I'm wondering
5:02
Speaker 1: if that's a shift in confidence or like perception. Like
5:05
Speaker 1: when I was a kid, I was like, oh, yeah,
5:07
Speaker 1: I'm good and now like, let's temper the truth differ
5:10
Speaker 1: with the truth. I don't know. Um, I mean I
5:14
Speaker 1: but I never I used to think I could be
5:16
Speaker 1: like a big time actor. I never thought I could
5:18
Speaker 1: be a singer. There was never a moment where I
5:20
Speaker 1: was like, I'm that good, but I did. I was
5:23
Speaker 1: jealous of it. I was really jealous of people who
5:26
Speaker 1: could sing. And I had friends and could just yeah,
5:28
Speaker 1: they would nail it, and they made it look so easy,
5:32
Speaker 1: Like why can't I do that. It's a talent, it's
5:35
Speaker 1: a skill. Um, but yeah, I do enjoy it. Well,
5:40
Speaker 1: all right, now that we've got our past and experiences
5:43
Speaker 1: out of the way, who did you bring for us
5:45
Speaker 1: to discuss Today's Today we will be talking about Cissy
5:49
Speaker 1: Auretta Jones, and that's why we were talking about singing
5:52
Speaker 1: because she was an amazing singer, and even so, there
5:56
Speaker 1: were still a lot of people who criticized the way
5:59
Speaker 1: she's sang or her Olydian singing. But she was the
6:02
Speaker 1: first Black American woman to headline a concert at Carnegie Hall.
6:06
Speaker 1: So we'll be going through her history. It was long,
6:09
Speaker 1: it lasted many decades, and it was very storied, and
6:13
Speaker 1: she traveled a lot. She toured a lot, So I'm
6:15
Speaker 1: excited to talk about her today. She is, like so
6:18
Speaker 1: many of the people we talked about on other episodes
6:21
Speaker 1: of Female First, a person who's popularity or interest has
6:26
Speaker 1: waned over the years posthumously after her death. During the
6:29
Speaker 1: time she was alive, she had a lot, a lot
6:32
Speaker 1: of fame in many places around the world, but her
6:37
Speaker 1: notoriety after she died did wayne a little bit, and
6:42
Speaker 1: then she came back into the view um of the
6:45
Speaker 1: mainstream in certain ways. So yeah, I'm excited to talk
6:48
Speaker 1: about her and share her story with everyone. Yes, yes, um,
6:53
Speaker 1: we're very excited to hear it too, And I'm glad
6:57
Speaker 1: she's getting more attention lately because it was just she
7:00
Speaker 1: did so much and it was just kind of tragic
7:02
Speaker 1: that Yes disappeared and you can't find any recordings yeah
7:07
Speaker 1: of her. Um, So I'm glad people are some people
7:11
Speaker 1: have been just fighting for so long, like do not
7:13
Speaker 1: forget this person, not forget what she did. And I'm
7:15
Speaker 1: glad more and more people are like catching on and
7:18
Speaker 1: hearing this story and you have brought it to share
7:20
Speaker 1: even more. So Yeah, thanks me happy. Yeah, Yes, shout
7:23
Speaker 1: out to all the biographers who do the heart work
7:26
Speaker 1: of making sure that these people's names stand people's minds
7:30
Speaker 1: and in people's hearts every year. So really grateful for
7:33
Speaker 1: all of them, obviously, So we'll get into her story.
7:37
Speaker 1: She was born Matilda Sierreta Joiner in Portsmouth, Virginia, not
7:42
Speaker 1: long after the end of the Civil War in eighteen
7:44
Speaker 1: sixty eight or sixty nine. She was the oldest of
7:47
Speaker 1: three children born to her parents, but her siblings die
7:51
Speaker 1: when they were very young. Her father was Jeremiah Malchai Joiner,
7:56
Speaker 1: and he was born into slavery in North Carolina, and
7:59
Speaker 1: when she was born, he was a carpenter and a
8:01
Speaker 1: pastor as well as a choir leader at a church.
8:05
Speaker 1: Her mother was named Henrietta, and she did laundry and
8:08
Speaker 1: she sang in the choir as well. And she was
8:11
Speaker 1: also from North Carolina. In her early life, Cecierretta was
8:16
Speaker 1: called Matilda her first name, and also called Sissy, and
8:20
Speaker 1: they moved to Providence, Rhode Island, to the east side
8:23
Speaker 1: of the city. Not long after they moved to Providence,
8:27
Speaker 1: though Henrietta and Jeremiah did stop living together. Henrietta was
8:33
Speaker 1: played a huge role in Ceiretta's upbringing and they made
8:37
Speaker 1: money by doing laundry and she would iron in her home,
8:41
Speaker 1: and around eighteen eighty nine, the Csiretta's parents divorced, but
8:46
Speaker 1: she was already singing at a young age. She sang
8:48
Speaker 1: at school and at work, and as a teenager she
8:51
Speaker 1: began attending the Providence Academy of Music. Pretty early on,
8:55
Speaker 1: she married David Richard Jones, who was a hotel porter.
8:59
Speaker 1: That was eighteen eighty three when they married, and marriage
9:01
Speaker 1: records said that she was eighteen and he was twenty four,
9:05
Speaker 1: but they were likely both a few years younger than that,
9:08
Speaker 1: and in April of eighteen eighty four, their daughter, Mabel
9:12
Speaker 1: was born, so she Cecaretta began singing at more church
9:18
Speaker 1: concerts and performing with groups here and there. In eighty five,
9:23
Speaker 1: she performed with Flora Batson, who was another big name
9:26
Speaker 1: in the singing community. She was a well known black
9:28
Speaker 1: concert singer, and Jones also sang a solo and a
9:33
Speaker 1: play featuring black actor John A. R No as King
9:37
Speaker 1: Richard the Third that year, and later that year it
9:41
Speaker 1: was kind of a big deal when she sang in
9:43
Speaker 1: a concert at the Providence Music Hall starring Marie Selca
9:47
Speaker 1: or Selca, I'm not exactly sure how to pronounce that
9:49
Speaker 1: part of her name, but she was a black vocalist,
9:51
Speaker 1: and she also had a first. She was the first
9:53
Speaker 1: black artist to sing at the White House. But sadly,
9:57
Speaker 1: Jones's daughter, Mabel did die when she was two years old,
10:01
Speaker 1: which had an emotional toll on her and affected how
10:05
Speaker 1: she showed up for her career. But she did go
10:08
Speaker 1: back to singing and she performed more with Flora Batson,
10:12
Speaker 1: and she studied may have studied either at the Boston
10:16
Speaker 1: Conservatory of Music or the New England Conservatory of Music,
10:20
Speaker 1: but it does seem like she studied in Boston in
10:23
Speaker 1: the late eighteen eighties. So she had a concert tour
10:27
Speaker 1: starting in early eighteen eight for cities in the New
10:31
Speaker 1: England area, and she signed a contract with a management
10:35
Speaker 1: firm called Abbey Shuffle and grow. I feel like my
10:38
Speaker 1: German is in My German is not the best, so
10:40
Speaker 1: police forgive me for that. She went on a tour
10:43
Speaker 1: of the Caribbean and South America with the company of
10:46
Speaker 1: black American singers called the Tennessee Jubilee Singers. So this
10:51
Speaker 1: is she's still very young, but she's already doing a
10:54
Speaker 1: lot of traveling with her singing career and getting really
10:58
Speaker 1: invested involved in it and working with a lot of
11:01
Speaker 1: different people. Um. And it's unclear who was the very
11:05
Speaker 1: first person to call her this, but several newspapers didn't
11:08
Speaker 1: refer to her as black Potty, and those newspapers said
11:11
Speaker 1: that her managers called her black potty, which, um, I
11:16
Speaker 1: wasn't there, But to have my manager called me by
11:21
Speaker 1: some weird personification of somebody else, I just feel like
11:25
Speaker 1: that's very strange in practice. But apparently that's what those
11:29
Speaker 1: newspapers said. This was a reference to Adelina Patti, who
11:33
Speaker 1: was a really popular opera singer in the nineteenth century,
11:37
Speaker 1: and they called Jones that. For the rest of her career.
11:40
Speaker 1: You'll see this referred to in articles about her and
11:44
Speaker 1: in advertisements about the work that she was doing her
11:48
Speaker 1: being called the black potty, and she even referred to
11:50
Speaker 1: herself as that, But she did say that she didn't
11:53
Speaker 1: care for the moniker um. She said in the Detroit
11:56
Speaker 1: Evening News quote, I am afraid people will think I
11:59
Speaker 1: consider myself the equal of Patty herself. I assure you
12:03
Speaker 1: I do not think so. But I have a voice,
12:05
Speaker 1: and I am striving to win the favor of the
12:07
Speaker 1: public by honest merit and heart work. Perhaps someday I
12:11
Speaker 1: may be as great in my way, but that is
12:13
Speaker 1: a long way of hit, a long way ahead. So
12:16
Speaker 1: she was pretty gracious about that back then, even though
12:19
Speaker 1: she's commented on that moniker more later in life and
12:22
Speaker 1: was just like, that's not for me. I didn't put
12:24
Speaker 1: that on myself, but I got it. But she seemed
12:26
Speaker 1: to accept it pretty gracefully, even though we've talked about
12:31
Speaker 1: before our female first my disdame for this weird using
12:37
Speaker 1: these these names to refer to somebody else of a
12:40
Speaker 1: different race, to say, yere of this race. But yeah,
12:43
Speaker 1: so it was. It was something that was attached to
12:45
Speaker 1: her and that lasted and worked well for branding. So um,
12:49
Speaker 1: we know how important that is. Some other critics didn't
12:53
Speaker 1: care for the name either, and that was for various reasons,
12:57
Speaker 1: Like some of it was more from the direction that
13:00
Speaker 1: he was coming from, like I don't I don't need that,
13:02
Speaker 1: I don't need this weird comparison to another race. But
13:05
Speaker 1: some people also thought that she didn't measure up to
13:07
Speaker 1: Adolina Patti, or there was no need to draw those comparisons,
13:11
Speaker 1: or even that like she wasn't black. So while we
13:14
Speaker 1: call her black, she's quote unquote mulatto, some would say.
13:17
Speaker 1: So there are various reasons people thought this, but the
13:20
Speaker 1: black potty is one thing that people caught her. So
13:24
Speaker 1: she and her husband, along with the company went to
13:27
Speaker 1: Jamaica in August of eight as the first stop on
13:32
Speaker 1: their six month tour. They played in Panama, Barbados, Trinidad,
13:36
Speaker 1: what was then British Guyana, Antigua, and St. Kits and
13:40
Speaker 1: other places, and the audiences of these shows were mixed
13:43
Speaker 1: when it came to race, and reportedly the manager made
13:47
Speaker 1: some somewhere around four thousand dollars off of the tour.
13:51
Speaker 1: And minstrel shows were a thing at this time associated
13:55
Speaker 1: with black face and this kind of silly performance on stage,
14:01
Speaker 1: um caricatures and things like that, But she did perform
14:05
Speaker 1: and Menstrell show sometimes and her first was probably in nine.
14:10
Speaker 1: By that point, her husband David was helping move her
14:13
Speaker 1: career for a lot as her manager. But yeah, so
14:18
Speaker 1: he will come up over the years as being involved
14:23
Speaker 1: in the work that she did, booking her shows, going
14:25
Speaker 1: with her on tours, although that relationship did sour the
14:30
Speaker 1: personal relationship as well as that professional relationship, and Secretta,
14:35
Speaker 1: as part of another troop, later went back to the
14:38
Speaker 1: Caribbean and to South America, visiting places like Haiti, Cuba, Granada,
14:44
Speaker 1: and St. Thomas. But this time was a little bit
14:47
Speaker 1: different than the other time. Her husband and a black
14:50
Speaker 1: woman who was a former newspaper reporter named Florence Williams
14:53
Speaker 1: managed the tour. Reports of their shows overseas were sent
14:57
Speaker 1: back to the States and that helped grow her reputation
15:00
Speaker 1: in and she talked about how she had gotten all
15:03
Speaker 1: of these gifts from people around the world and the
15:06
Speaker 1: countries that she visited. So this one thing that comes
15:09
Speaker 1: up in her story a lot is a tear that
15:11
Speaker 1: she got with diamonds in it. She got money, she
15:14
Speaker 1: got gold medals and various gyms, and you can although
15:18
Speaker 1: we don't have recordings of her. Everybody can go look
15:21
Speaker 1: at pictures of her own line. They do exist, many
15:23
Speaker 1: of them, and they're really fun to look at because
15:26
Speaker 1: she looks very grand, she looks very regal, and a
15:30
Speaker 1: lot of the pictures because she's wearing these long, flowing
15:32
Speaker 1: gowns and dramatic capes, and in she you can also
15:37
Speaker 1: see her wearing all of her medals, which is it
15:40
Speaker 1: feels like the ultimate flex to me for her to
15:43
Speaker 1: put all of her medals on her chest and take
15:45
Speaker 1: a picture like that. But it's just reflective of this
15:48
Speaker 1: part of her history that we're reading about and learning
15:50
Speaker 1: about and hearing like she got all these medals, which
15:52
Speaker 1: can sound very like we're trying to impress a certain
15:55
Speaker 1: thing upon her biography that wasn't necessarily there. But she
15:58
Speaker 1: really did get these medals, and she showed that she
16:00
Speaker 1: got these medals, and there's actual documentation of that that
16:03
Speaker 1: we can see today, so I think that's pretty cool.
16:06
Speaker 1: But anyway, all of this happened by the time she
16:08
Speaker 1: was in her early twenties, just her context, so she
16:10
Speaker 1: was doing a lot and going a lot of places,
16:12
Speaker 1: clearly working very hard. In two she's sang at the
16:29
Speaker 1: White House for President Benjamin Harrison, and she reportedly sang
16:34
Speaker 1: at the White House for later presidents as well. That
16:38
Speaker 1: same year, she was in an event called the Grand
16:41
Speaker 1: Negro to Believe at Madison Square Garden. It was in
16:45
Speaker 1: a large venue, it had this mixed race audiences, and
16:49
Speaker 1: she appeared as this prima donna in the show, and
16:51
Speaker 1: she garnered a lot of us attention for it. She
16:55
Speaker 1: later said about this appearance, quote, I woke up famous
16:59
Speaker 1: after singing at the Garden and didn't know it. So
17:01
Speaker 1: this clearly was a pivotal point in her story and
17:05
Speaker 1: her becoming this little kind of larger than my figure
17:08
Speaker 1: that she became. So in June, she and her husband
17:13
Speaker 1: signed a contract with the manager named James B. Pond.
17:17
Speaker 1: So that contract was supposed to be lucrative, paying her
17:21
Speaker 1: more than six thousand dollars a year, which would be
17:24
Speaker 1: around two hundred thousand dollars today. So that is obviously
17:28
Speaker 1: a large sum of money for then and for today,
17:31
Speaker 1: like and she was one of the highest paid entertainers
17:36
Speaker 1: of her time black black American of black Americans. So
17:41
Speaker 1: that same month she was featured as a soprano and
17:44
Speaker 1: in all Black performance at Carnegie Hall. Um, And there
17:48
Speaker 1: are a lot of quotes about her voice. Obviously, we
17:54
Speaker 1: can't hear it, and there's only so much that we
17:56
Speaker 1: can get out of words trying to represent what her
17:58
Speaker 1: voice sounded like. But a lot of those quotes do
18:02
Speaker 1: tend to mention how great her enunciation was. Like, even
18:06
Speaker 1: if those people who were writing about her were hating
18:09
Speaker 1: on her and didn't really care for her performance, they
18:11
Speaker 1: were like, oh, her enunciation was really great. And some
18:14
Speaker 1: of them would compare her voice to angels and birds,
18:18
Speaker 1: which is an obvious comparison because the song birds exist,
18:22
Speaker 1: so it makes sense. Um, But yeah, so um. They
18:26
Speaker 1: also mentioned her manner and speaking to people. They would
18:30
Speaker 1: say things like she's very lovely and that she is
18:34
Speaker 1: a good conversationalist. So apparently people did take pretty well
18:39
Speaker 1: to her demeanor outside of the stage. But that makes
18:43
Speaker 1: sense as well, because it's all fitting as part of
18:45
Speaker 1: the work that she was doing in the demeanor that
18:47
Speaker 1: she was expected to carry in front of these large
18:50
Speaker 1: audiences at the time. Um. And I can give you
18:53
Speaker 1: a quote, for instance, about what one person said from
18:57
Speaker 1: the Saratoga Union quote. There is neither brass in her
19:00
Speaker 1: notes north, thickness in her phrasing. Her annunciation is also perfect.
19:05
Speaker 1: The exquisite christness with which she executes complicated skills and
19:09
Speaker 1: rapid time delighted all with all she sings intelligently, without affectation,
19:14
Speaker 1: and with much feeling. These newspaper articles talked about her
19:18
Speaker 1: appearance as well, but often they had this air of
19:23
Speaker 1: being surprised that she was actually great at her craft,
19:26
Speaker 1: even though not every person who was a critic of
19:29
Speaker 1: hers said that, you know, she was good at her craft. Um.
19:35
Speaker 1: Some people did say she has natural talent, but you know,
19:38
Speaker 1: the craft ain't so much there she could do with
19:41
Speaker 1: more professional schooling, more training and things like that. They
19:45
Speaker 1: would also do this thing where they were like, oh wow,
19:49
Speaker 1: I wasn't necessarily expecting that. I was just expecting her
19:53
Speaker 1: as like as if her her race would proceed her
19:57
Speaker 1: the work that she was doing, like it was the
19:59
Speaker 1: race was reason that she had this grand reputation that
20:02
Speaker 1: would precede her um, And they would do the same
20:05
Speaker 1: thing that a lot of media does today with women
20:09
Speaker 1: and with black women, comparing her to other female singers
20:12
Speaker 1: like Flora Batson, for instance. But she was still well
20:15
Speaker 1: received in a lot of these places and she was
20:19
Speaker 1: making money and she was able to support herself through
20:21
Speaker 1: her work that way and doing what she loved in
20:23
Speaker 1: terms of concert singing. So her manager, James Pond, set
20:27
Speaker 1: her up to go on a tour with a troupe
20:30
Speaker 1: of white European musicians. That meant that at the same
20:35
Speaker 1: time as they would attract an audience who wanted to
20:38
Speaker 1: see white musicians, but they would also choose to perform
20:42
Speaker 1: on stage with her, which is something that some white
20:46
Speaker 1: musicians didn't want to do. UM White Americans, particularly Um
20:52
Speaker 1: and under Pond, she was mostly performing for white audiences,
20:56
Speaker 1: which up until that point her audiences were mostly black.
21:01
Speaker 1: So she's staging with a bunch of different people, like
21:04
Speaker 1: it would be an exhaustive list to go through all
21:07
Speaker 1: of the concerts that she did. Was just so many
21:10
Speaker 1: over the years and with so many people. But she
21:13
Speaker 1: would continue to do voice lessons UM for years. She
21:16
Speaker 1: did them with Luisa Capiani, who was a voice teacher
21:19
Speaker 1: from Austria and lived in New York City. So musician
21:23
Speaker 1: and composer will Marian Cook he wanted to put on
21:27
Speaker 1: a black opera called Scenes from Uncle Tom's Cabin at
21:31
Speaker 1: the Chicago World's Fair, which was also known as the
21:35
Speaker 1: Colombian Exposition. Spoiler alert, that did not happen. That performance
21:40
Speaker 1: didn't happen. Um Jones did sing one night at the
21:42
Speaker 1: Exposition though. Either way. There was a benefit concert at
21:47
Speaker 1: Carnegie Music Hall and Secretta headline that concert, which marked
21:51
Speaker 1: the first time that black Americans played in the main
21:55
Speaker 1: hall at Carnegie and there in was Assistretta's first there there.
22:01
Speaker 1: There wasn't much known commentary from Ssirata on how she
22:04
Speaker 1: felt about the racial climate in the United States. There
22:09
Speaker 1: was some she talked about in Europe, how she felt
22:12
Speaker 1: like she didn't have to go through and black people
22:14
Speaker 1: didn't go through as much there as they did in
22:16
Speaker 1: United States, and saying that there wasn't as much racism there.
22:20
Speaker 1: She did comment on things like when she how she
22:24
Speaker 1: thought it was unreasonable at these segregated shows where black
22:28
Speaker 1: people would be confined to the gallery and white people
22:31
Speaker 1: were able to sit in the orchestra, even if that
22:33
Speaker 1: didn't really make sense because there were all these seats
22:37
Speaker 1: in the orchestra and they get while the gallery was
22:39
Speaker 1: packed and they were having to turn people away from that.
22:42
Speaker 1: And also along the way things would happen even when
22:45
Speaker 1: they were on their tours outside of the United States
22:47
Speaker 1: of where they had difficulties finding hotels and getting turned
22:51
Speaker 1: around from hotels when she was having a hot from
22:54
Speaker 1: place to place um and stay in hotels along the way.
22:57
Speaker 1: But either way, David concerts for her and Pond book
23:03
Speaker 1: concerts for her, And at a certain point there was
23:08
Speaker 1: controversy over that because when David booked some contracts concerts
23:13
Speaker 1: for Ceceretta, Pond said that they had violated their contract,
23:17
Speaker 1: so he sued them, and he even said that Ceceretta
23:21
Speaker 1: refused to sing the concerts that he booked, and they
23:26
Speaker 1: had a bunch of back and forth over that. There
23:28
Speaker 1: was a whole court case with a lot of dealings,
23:31
Speaker 1: and Sinceretta wanted damages of five thousand dollars saying that
23:35
Speaker 1: nobody had been abiding by this contract that they had
23:39
Speaker 1: initially agreed to in the first place. Like that was
23:41
Speaker 1: basically Nolan Voyd after a certain point, and an initial
23:45
Speaker 1: ruling did go into her favor her and David's favor,
23:49
Speaker 1: but then another one right after that went into Pond's
23:52
Speaker 1: favor with the different judge, and David couldn't book Sinceretta
23:57
Speaker 1: to sing at that point and gigs could only be
23:59
Speaker 1: book under Ponds management. The judge basically deemed her ungrateful
24:06
Speaker 1: um for all that Pond had done for her hugely
24:10
Speaker 1: successful career. And yeah, but so there was this contention
24:17
Speaker 1: between her and her manager over this point, and Pond
24:22
Speaker 1: did stop being her manager in mid four anyway, and
24:26
Speaker 1: Rudolph Vocal would soon manage her for the rest of
24:29
Speaker 1: her career not long after that. So her career continued
24:33
Speaker 1: to be successful, but that was kind of a contentious
24:36
Speaker 1: split between her and a person who seemingly did have
24:40
Speaker 1: played a huge role in her growing into this large
24:44
Speaker 1: name that she was. So that's pretty complicated, but yeah,
24:48
Speaker 1: she toured Europe for most of She went to places
24:53
Speaker 1: like Germany, England, France, and Italy, and at a certain
24:57
Speaker 1: point she began appearing in more vaudeville show US. When
25:00
Speaker 1: she got to the back to the US, there weren't
25:03
Speaker 1: as a mini concert opportunities for her at this point,
25:07
Speaker 1: and this a enigma and mystery around Black Prima Donnas
25:13
Speaker 1: at that point was kind of fading. But she moved
25:16
Speaker 1: into a career as the star of the Black Petty Troubadours.
25:22
Speaker 1: There shows were a mix of comedy of vaudeville, opera,
25:27
Speaker 1: and burlesque, and they were sing quote unquote coon songs,
25:32
Speaker 1: which was a thing at the time. UM, and have
25:36
Speaker 1: all these skits as part of this super long, hours
25:39
Speaker 1: long show and then Cinceretta would close them out with
25:43
Speaker 1: this grand operatic performance. And that lasted for a long time. Um,
25:50
Speaker 1: a super long time. And like I alluded to earlier,
25:56
Speaker 1: she did fall from for divorce from David, saying that
25:59
Speaker 1: he liked it to support her, he was cruel to
26:02
Speaker 1: her and he had quote unquote continued drunkenness, and she
26:07
Speaker 1: wanted her old last name back. She wanted to join
26:09
Speaker 1: her back, and they granted her that, though she did
26:12
Speaker 1: continue to use Jones and her stage name and the
26:17
Speaker 1: Black Potty Troubadors eventually changed her name to the Black
26:20
Speaker 1: Potty Musical Comedy Company, but that didn't last too long
26:23
Speaker 1: and they broke up in nineteen fifteen. She had a
26:27
Speaker 1: lot of travels over her life and did a bunch
26:29
Speaker 1: of shows while she was part of It would be
26:32
Speaker 1: impossible to condense her story with the Troubadoors into such
26:37
Speaker 1: a short space because she did so many shows. A
26:39
Speaker 1: lot of them were these one off nights. Sometimes she
26:42
Speaker 1: would do weeklong engagements and places she went everywhere. She
26:46
Speaker 1: was in San Francisco, she was in Atlanta, she was
26:49
Speaker 1: in the Northeast, she was all these places that she
26:53
Speaker 1: would tour with them and got good reception, got different
26:56
Speaker 1: positive and negative reviews in the press, and a lot
27:01
Speaker 1: of deaths within the Troubadors because these were these were
27:06
Speaker 1: huge performances with a lot of people in them, dozens
27:10
Speaker 1: of people, um. So she was also surrounded by things
27:14
Speaker 1: like that drama with people who wanted certain kinds of
27:17
Speaker 1: ownership and credit over things that were happening in the show,
27:21
Speaker 1: and a split between the managers who were over the
27:25
Speaker 1: Troubadors and them going their own separate ways. So all
27:29
Speaker 1: of those things that you would expect was something involving
27:31
Speaker 1: so many people and is an artistic endeavor and happens
27:35
Speaker 1: in so many different places, and mind you, is occurring
27:39
Speaker 1: while all these turbulent and like um, just really dramatic
27:46
Speaker 1: things are happening in the United States and in the world.
27:49
Speaker 1: Wars are happening, a lot of technological advancement like cars
27:53
Speaker 1: being created, um planes, you know, all of these things
27:58
Speaker 1: are happening all she is going through all of this.
28:02
Speaker 1: So she did end up returning to Providence and taking
28:08
Speaker 1: care of her mother after that split with the True Dodoors.
28:11
Speaker 1: Her mother was sick. Um. There was a period when
28:14
Speaker 1: towards the end of her career with the True Dodoors
28:16
Speaker 1: when she got ill as well. After she returned to Providence,
28:20
Speaker 1: she stopped performing on stage, and she ended up selling
28:25
Speaker 1: a lot of her jury and property to support herself.
28:30
Speaker 1: She died in nineteen thirty three, and I think her
28:35
Speaker 1: story is very fascinating in terms of what she was
28:38
Speaker 1: able to do at that time and how how much
28:42
Speaker 1: confidence she had. And I really wish that I could
28:46
Speaker 1: hear her voice, just so I could like hear what
28:48
Speaker 1: everyone else was hearing at the time. And we're so
28:54
Speaker 1: impressed by and that so many people had opinions about.
28:57
Speaker 1: But it does feel like her story is so bitter
29:00
Speaker 1: sweet because she there's this feeling of she didn't leave
29:04
Speaker 1: this world with much, but that she left it with
29:06
Speaker 1: a lot um. I don't know her character personally, but
29:10
Speaker 1: from the way it's described, it seems like at the
29:12
Speaker 1: end of her life she was the same as she
29:14
Speaker 1: was throughout the rest of her life. And so she
29:17
Speaker 1: had this grand experience where she was invited and welcomed
29:21
Speaker 1: by all these dignitaries and performed with all these high,
29:27
Speaker 1: high faluting people, and was in circles with people, um
29:33
Speaker 1: who were notable when it came to abolition, um so,
29:37
Speaker 1: some civil rights leaders, um. People like Paul Lawrence Dunbar, so,
29:43
Speaker 1: huge artists, um so, people who were super culturally relevant
29:48
Speaker 1: and did a lot of things that we remember them for.
29:50
Speaker 1: But also all of the quote unquote normal people who
29:53
Speaker 1: were in the audience and watching her and seeing her
29:56
Speaker 1: rise to stardom and all these things that she was doing,
29:59
Speaker 1: and her being on all these trains and being the
30:03
Speaker 1: star of the show. It seems like such a glamorous
30:06
Speaker 1: life in such a difficult time. I just have a
30:10
Speaker 1: lot of complicated feelings around it, because she seemed to
30:14
Speaker 1: be characterized as this person at the end of her
30:17
Speaker 1: life who was a lot more mellow and calmer, like
30:21
Speaker 1: keeping things a lot more low key at the end
30:23
Speaker 1: of her life than she did before. Like she was
30:26
Speaker 1: just she the neighborhood kids knew her and would come over,
30:30
Speaker 1: and artists would visit her home, and she would be
30:34
Speaker 1: in her garden, and she was respected a little bit,
30:39
Speaker 1: well respected and feared a little bit and um, but
30:44
Speaker 1: also the modest and economics for the way that her
30:48
Speaker 1: money was at the time, all the savings that she
30:50
Speaker 1: had burned through and having to sell these things and
30:53
Speaker 1: make deals with people to be able to afford things
30:55
Speaker 1: and take care of her mother. And she died not
30:58
Speaker 1: long after her mother died. Actually, so yeah, it's at
31:01
Speaker 1: leads me with this very bittersweet feeling of this very
31:04
Speaker 1: this life full of riches in so many ways that
31:08
Speaker 1: didn't necessarily end in riches. But I'm hesitant to say
31:12
Speaker 1: like she died in poverty because she didn't die in poverty.
31:15
Speaker 1: She lived a life of wealth in so many ways
31:18
Speaker 1: that are more than just the tangible ways that are
31:21
Speaker 1: related to her monetary things, her belongings and the things
31:25
Speaker 1: that you know, one could put their hands on and
31:27
Speaker 1: say that that has a certain value. Like her life
31:30
Speaker 1: definitely had value outside of those things. And you know
31:33
Speaker 1: that's why I, like I am, you know, grateful to
31:36
Speaker 1: be able to share her story and share so many
31:38
Speaker 1: of these stories. Um. But headstone wasn't put on her
31:42
Speaker 1: unmarked grave until and yeah, like like Annie said, earlier.
31:48
Speaker 1: There are no known recordings of her singing, and people
31:52
Speaker 1: are you know, still hopeful that that will turn up
31:55
Speaker 1: one day because even though there was a black potty
31:59
Speaker 1: wreck a labels, she didn't really have anything to do
32:02
Speaker 1: with that. Uh yeah, but that's her story and I'm
32:06
Speaker 1: happy to share it. Um. We're happy as always that
32:22
Speaker 1: you brought it to us and you did all this
32:24
Speaker 1: work and you put it together in such a great
32:26
Speaker 1: way because it it is. It's an amazing, amazing story, um.
32:33
Speaker 1: And there's so much, like you said, like this is
32:35
Speaker 1: a condensed thing, but there's so much that she did
32:39
Speaker 1: that was fascinating, and it's like hard to I kept
32:43
Speaker 1: finding all these other rabbit holes I want to go down, like, oh,
32:45
Speaker 1: I want to hear more about this. I learn more
32:47
Speaker 1: about this in her life, um, and all of her accomplishments.
32:51
Speaker 1: And then I don't know, when I was reading it,
32:54
Speaker 1: I'm glad you put you you have you shared your
32:58
Speaker 1: conflicting feelings around it, because I was like, wow, she
33:02
Speaker 1: it was buried an unmarked grave after all of the years,
33:06
Speaker 1: and it was I think it was a go fund
33:07
Speaker 1: me campaign. Um, it took that long when she did
33:12
Speaker 1: have this big of an impact and people did know her.
33:14
Speaker 1: That just sort of like I have have to have
33:18
Speaker 1: those people fighting for you to still be remembered and
33:21
Speaker 1: still be heard. And I'm glad, as I said at
33:24
Speaker 1: the top, I'm glad people have been doing that um
33:27
Speaker 1: for a long time and continue to do so. And
33:31
Speaker 1: I am very happy to get Eves that you you
33:35
Speaker 1: shared that story and now our listeners maybe can share
33:38
Speaker 1: that story, and because it's one worth being told, maybe
33:42
Speaker 1: someone can find a recording. I'm thinking maybe somewhere in
33:45
Speaker 1: Europe has a hidden recording of her Grand Tour now
33:50
Speaker 1: that have to be discovered. The HBO mini series you
33:53
Speaker 1: keep bringing up would be the search for the lost recording.
33:58
Speaker 1: That's the beginning. I would love it too, because I
34:00
Speaker 1: I was, I was like, oh, I can't wait to
34:02
Speaker 1: hear your voice. Couldn't find it anywhere. It's like, no,
34:06
Speaker 1: even more haunting joke, it really is. I know that's
34:09
Speaker 1: one of the biographers, like that's the one wish that
34:12
Speaker 1: they had, And yeah, that's so haunting to know that
34:15
Speaker 1: this amazing performances out there that was a show stopper.
34:20
Speaker 1: Literally people were just odd and would sit there for
34:22
Speaker 1: hours to listen to this and we can't hear it.
34:25
Speaker 1: Oh no, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like it's all of
34:31
Speaker 1: that that goodness of hearing her voice has to be
34:34
Speaker 1: confined to that time, even though thousands of people heard
34:39
Speaker 1: her voice. It's like, we'll never get too but sometimes
34:43
Speaker 1: hopefully we will, but right now and it's maybe one
34:46
Speaker 1: person out there. Um. It kind of also takes the
34:48
Speaker 1: lesson of taking people for granted and not realizing the
34:53
Speaker 1: legend that is happening at that point in time, not
34:56
Speaker 1: not realizing that and not recognizing what she was doing,
34:59
Speaker 1: which just doing something that she loved and was really
35:02
Speaker 1: really really well trained at and good at and talented
35:04
Speaker 1: in um and did a lot of work to be
35:07
Speaker 1: in that field. Um. And it makes me said that
35:10
Speaker 1: we don't get to hear that. At the same time,
35:12
Speaker 1: it sounds like yeah, you know, uh, some of the
35:15
Speaker 1: treatment as a conflict as you have and like seeing
35:18
Speaker 1: I'm glad to see that she continued to thrive as
35:20
Speaker 1: in I guess I'm not thinking and being able to
35:24
Speaker 1: be in her own privacy and to do what she
35:27
Speaker 1: needed to do. But at the same time, all of
35:28
Speaker 1: the harshness that she had to deal with, especially in
35:31
Speaker 1: the United states. You know, it's like, yeah, we did
35:33
Speaker 1: this to ourselves, so we punished, Like we're punished because
35:37
Speaker 1: we couldn't recognize how amazing this was. And then those
35:40
Speaker 1: the evils behind, which is kind of familiar today of
35:43
Speaker 1: like the recording industry. That's kind of like comes back
35:47
Speaker 1: to play and you're like, yeah, this is what happens
35:49
Speaker 1: when things like this are neglected. I guess it does
35:55
Speaker 1: feel to think about another place in which a lot
36:02
Speaker 1: of these conflicting feelings come up for me, is and
36:04
Speaker 1: how much she worked and up to I think it
36:09
Speaker 1: was around forty five weeks out of the year, she
36:12
Speaker 1: would be on tour with these troubadors, night after night
36:16
Speaker 1: after night after night, you know, using her physical body.
36:21
Speaker 1: Another part of this is that this was a very
36:23
Speaker 1: it's singing, but it's a very physical thing that from
36:25
Speaker 1: her moving from one place to the other, you know,
36:27
Speaker 1: imagining the amount of sleep that she was able to get,
36:30
Speaker 1: you know, how how she had to maintain her health.
36:33
Speaker 1: But at the same time her health was so taxed
36:36
Speaker 1: because of the work that she did, and just thinking
36:39
Speaker 1: about how many years of consistent grind that she had
36:42
Speaker 1: to go through, and also so much of the loss
36:46
Speaker 1: that she was having to deal with when it came
36:48
Speaker 1: to her, her children, her siblings, her mother who got
36:54
Speaker 1: not long before her, And it feels like a lot
37:00
Speaker 1: of weight for one person. But at the same time,
37:04
Speaker 1: she had so much beauty in her life as as well.
37:09
Speaker 1: Um that offered another narrative, you know, beyond the tragedy
37:14
Speaker 1: in her life. But I just think about that too
37:16
Speaker 1: in terms of she so anomalous for the time as
37:20
Speaker 1: a black woman who achieved the kind of success that
37:22
Speaker 1: she did in concert singing, even though she never did
37:26
Speaker 1: opera because we didn't really touch on that, but opera
37:29
Speaker 1: was and is can be such a very white space
37:33
Speaker 1: and she didn't have access to that in many ways.
37:36
Speaker 1: But yeah, and and how much she had to grind
37:42
Speaker 1: and push herself to these kinds of limits during that time.
37:49
Speaker 1: It just I think about that in terms of what
37:52
Speaker 1: people do today and what musicians and artists do today
37:55
Speaker 1: as well. Yeah, Yeah, a lot of sacrifices were made,
37:59
Speaker 1: for sure. Whenever we get to that, because I feel
38:01
Speaker 1: like we've been talking a lot about celebrity and the past,
38:04
Speaker 1: tom whenever we do that one about privacy and celebrity
38:08
Speaker 1: and kind of demands on artists and the entitlement we
38:11
Speaker 1: feel a lot of times we're on. Artists can talk
38:13
Speaker 1: on this, talk about this some more. Yes, thank you, Eats. Well,
38:23
Speaker 1: it was a pleasure as always to have you. Thank
38:26
Speaker 1: you so much, um for coming on. Where can the
38:30
Speaker 1: good listeners find you? Eaves? Y'all can find me on
38:34
Speaker 1: Instagram at not Apologizing, I'm on Twitter at Eves jeff Co.
38:38
Speaker 1: Or you can just go to my website Eve jeff
38:41
Speaker 1: cot dot com and get the links to all of
38:43
Speaker 1: those things. Yes, um, and you should do that if
38:47
Speaker 1: you haven't done it already. You can also find her
38:49
Speaker 1: on this very show, um, which are always excellentcyments. Oh yes,
38:55
Speaker 1: this thing I am doing currently, Yes, yes, shows uh
39:01
Speaker 1: and listeners. If you would like to reach out to us,
39:03
Speaker 1: you can or email Stuff Media mom Stuff at I
39:05
Speaker 1: hurt me dot com. You can find us on Twitter
39:06
Speaker 1: at mom Stuff podcast or on Instagram and stuff I've
39:09
Speaker 1: Never told You. Thanks as always to our super producer Christina.
39:11
Speaker 1: Thank you Christina, and thanks to you for listening stuffhe
39:13
Speaker 1: ever told you. The production of I Heart Radio more
39:15
Speaker 1: podcast from my Heart Radio. You can visit the iHeartRadio app,
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