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Female Firsts: Moms Mabley · Stuff Mom Never Told You

0:05
Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and welcome to Steph.
0:07
Speaker 1: I never told your production of I Heart Radio. It
0:18
Speaker 1: is time for another female first, which means we are
0:21
Speaker 1: once again joined by our good friend Eves High. Eves, Hello,
0:27
Speaker 1: oh man. We're always excited to see you. I know
0:30
Speaker 1: I'm excited to It always felt like a celebration. It does.
0:34
Speaker 1: It does, And even though we're still you know, we
0:36
Speaker 1: had our one brief cheesecake champagne moment from the studio
0:40
Speaker 1: in person. Other than that we're still coming from our
0:44
Speaker 1: home studios, it does feel like, oh yeah, we get
0:47
Speaker 1: to see each other again, and it is a celebration.
0:49
Speaker 1: I totally agree. And we just had a rousing discussion
0:54
Speaker 1: about horror movies, which I'm very excited about because for
0:58
Speaker 1: a while we were doing like horror movie reviews at
1:01
Speaker 1: the beginning of these we stopped that pretty quick, but
1:07
Speaker 1: season so it's allowable now. I mean, I'm ready all
1:10
Speaker 1: the time. But yes, I suppose not everyone is into
1:14
Speaker 1: not everyone's into Heart. That's cool. But uh, not to
1:18
Speaker 1: tease you listeners and then not tell you what we
1:21
Speaker 1: were talking about. But I did want to ask you, Eves,
1:23
Speaker 1: because we also a long time ago we talked about
1:25
Speaker 1: like talent shows and kind of infamous talent shows in
1:31
Speaker 1: our lives, and you are an excellent writer and performer, Um,
1:37
Speaker 1: do you still do you get nervous when you're performing
1:41
Speaker 1: in front of people? And I mean, is that something
1:44
Speaker 1: you've always been into from like childhood? Still get nervous?
1:49
Speaker 1: I usually moderate that by breathing, Like breathing has been
1:53
Speaker 1: a thing that's really helped me. But I'm one percent
1:56
Speaker 1: nervous and I was not. I don't, historically do not
2:00
Speaker 1: like being in front of people. Like I'm a very
2:03
Speaker 1: what people would think of as a like stereotypical writer. Um.
2:09
Speaker 1: And that's like I wanted to be in the closet
2:11
Speaker 1: all day long, which I guess is like in podcasting
2:13
Speaker 1: we can be in closets now, so it kind of
2:15
Speaker 1: works out true. I don't like to be the center
2:19
Speaker 1: of attention at all. I don't like to be in
2:22
Speaker 1: front of crowds. Crowds really freaked me out, So I guess, honestly,
2:26
Speaker 1: like now that I'm thinking about it, that one talent
2:28
Speaker 1: show that I did when I was a kid was
2:30
Speaker 1: kind of me stepping out on a limb, because you know,
2:33
Speaker 1: I was always into like the arts and forms of storytelling.
2:35
Speaker 1: It was like in mild place, like nothing serious or anything.
2:39
Speaker 1: But I did do like performance things, but it was
2:42
Speaker 1: never something that I was like, this is my time
2:44
Speaker 1: to shine. I'm in the spotlight. This is where I'm
2:46
Speaker 1: meant to be. Like never that for sure. I like
2:52
Speaker 1: that you wait for a pose in this in this telling.
2:56
Speaker 1: I like that to embody that and that was not
3:00
Speaker 1: what I was. Yeah, I still get really nervous too.
3:05
Speaker 1: I find this really interesting about performing for me is
3:11
Speaker 1: I'm both very nervous and I also really love it.
3:15
Speaker 1: But it's it's very It sounds silly to say, but
3:19
Speaker 1: I love it. When it's going well. It's not going well,
3:24
Speaker 1: I'm like, never again shall I do this thing? But
3:28
Speaker 1: when you have that like synergy and vibe with an audience,
3:32
Speaker 1: the nerves can kind of work in my favor, I think,
3:35
Speaker 1: and I do really enjoy it. But it's something that
3:37
Speaker 1: every time I ask myself, why am I doing this?
3:40
Speaker 1: This is I'm so scared, I'm so miserable. Why am
3:43
Speaker 1: I doing that? Yeah, I think in the same way,
3:47
Speaker 1: it's that like the anticipation is what gets me, Like
3:51
Speaker 1: I get sleepless the night before whenever, and knowing that
3:55
Speaker 1: something is coming, and then I black out during often,
3:59
Speaker 1: especially if it's like us giving speeches or having panels
4:02
Speaker 1: and such anything like that, I black out like wait
4:06
Speaker 1: did I did I do? Okay, what did I say?
4:08
Speaker 1: What did I say? Can someone tell me? And I
4:11
Speaker 1: feel like during that time, I definitely respond to people's
4:15
Speaker 1: reaction to me. So if I can get one or
4:16
Speaker 1: two good responses, then I'll focus on that, which is
4:20
Speaker 1: why you plant people in the audience. That's my new discoveries.
4:23
Speaker 1: At least planting people like you have to laugh at
4:25
Speaker 1: some of the things that I said, please, or I
4:29
Speaker 1: might pass out the fact, you know, being like okay,
4:32
Speaker 1: I did it, and feel like I did something really huge,
4:35
Speaker 1: as if I just ran a marathon. Because of that
4:36
Speaker 1: will hide and then I'm like okay, I mean planting
4:42
Speaker 1: sounds so nefarious. It could also just be you have
4:45
Speaker 1: supporters for sure to be there. Yeah, I didn't threaten
4:51
Speaker 1: the life or promise drinks or something one of those things.
4:58
Speaker 1: The reward of the feedback and the gratification that comes
5:01
Speaker 1: from the audience response is definitely something that helps. But
5:05
Speaker 1: um I it's not something that I would run towards,
5:09
Speaker 1: you know, like it's like I can do it, and
5:11
Speaker 1: it's great, and it's definitely rewarding. And I think one
5:14
Speaker 1: of the things about it is to like, if it's
5:16
Speaker 1: something that I've like, if it's something that I've created,
5:21
Speaker 1: it's really rewarding to share it with people and to
5:24
Speaker 1: be like, yeah, there's this thing that I did that
5:27
Speaker 1: came from my own weird mind mills and from my
5:31
Speaker 1: own hands. And there are other people that are getting
5:35
Speaker 1: something out of this enough to be able to make
5:37
Speaker 1: voices or you know, look like they're enjoying themselves in
5:42
Speaker 1: some way. But being solo, like having someone else there,
5:46
Speaker 1: it's also very helpful being solo when all the lights,
5:51
Speaker 1: the glory and the pressure is just on me. That
5:53
Speaker 1: also definitely makes it a lot more difficult for some reason.
5:59
Speaker 1: You know, you have those memories that just come back
6:01
Speaker 1: and torment you and you're like why why. When I
6:04
Speaker 1: was a kid, I used to give comedy shows to
6:07
Speaker 1: a very you know, unwilling audience of my family, and
6:11
Speaker 1: I remember I went through this phase where I told
6:14
Speaker 1: knock knock jokes, but I clearly didn't understand the setup
6:17
Speaker 1: of knock knock jokes. And so one of the jokes
6:20
Speaker 1: I told was like, knock knock, who's their garbage truck?
6:24
Speaker 1: Garbage truck? Qu oh, it smells like that was the joke. Um,
6:29
Speaker 1: And for some reason that joke caught me. It worked,
6:34
Speaker 1: It worked everything, and my older brother was like, that's
6:41
Speaker 1: not funny, and my mom was like, yeah, at least
6:46
Speaker 1: your mom was supportive. She was very, very very supportive.
6:49
Speaker 1: I have dabbled in like comedy and improv in that level,
6:53
Speaker 1: and I don't think. I think I just get so
6:55
Speaker 1: nervous and timing is so key in comedy. But I
6:57
Speaker 1: did enjoy like that feeling of making people and like
7:00
Speaker 1: they were connecting to you. My bad knock knock jokes aside,
7:03
Speaker 1: But I wanted to bring this up because you brought
7:07
Speaker 1: somebody that I actually have heard of and I'm very
7:09
Speaker 1: excited to talk about. Yes, so who did you bring
7:13
Speaker 1: for us today? Eves? Today is Mom's maybe, which is
7:17
Speaker 1: not her real name. Her real name is Loretta Mary Aiken,
7:20
Speaker 1: but she is famously known as Moms Mayblye And yeah,
7:26
Speaker 1: so what was your what was y'all's if any I
7:29
Speaker 1: don't know Samantha if you're familiar with her before but Annie,
7:32
Speaker 1: what was your relationship to Mom's. Maybe I had definitely
7:38
Speaker 1: seen some things that had her in it when I
7:41
Speaker 1: was growing up, and it was one of those things
7:44
Speaker 1: where my dad he liked a lot of and this
7:48
Speaker 1: is also just when he grew up, but to me
7:50
Speaker 1: old older things, so he would constantly be watching them,
7:54
Speaker 1: and I remember seeing and hearing some of moms maybe. However,
8:00
Speaker 1: here I'm not sure I would have recognized the name
8:05
Speaker 1: other than I had seen marvelous Mrs Mazel recently, and
8:09
Speaker 1: when I saw that, I was like, oh, yeah, I
8:11
Speaker 1: know who that is, and it just like brought al
8:13
Speaker 1: these things back. So it was from like a young age,
8:16
Speaker 1: and then there was a long period where I hadn't
8:19
Speaker 1: seen anything or heard anything from her or about her.
8:22
Speaker 1: And then when I saw that Wanda Pyke says, mom,
8:25
Speaker 1: Maples on marvelous Mrs Mazel, that's a lot of him,
8:31
Speaker 1: it all kind of came back to me. So I'm
8:33
Speaker 1: very happy. I was happy to look more into her,
8:36
Speaker 1: and I'm happy that we were talking about her today.
8:39
Speaker 1: Did you have a history with her, Eves? No, I didn't,
8:43
Speaker 1: and I I think, and just backing up a little bit,
8:47
Speaker 1: like Mom's Mayblee is a she's a comedian, like, did
8:51
Speaker 1: a lot of work on stage and in the Vaultville circuit.
8:54
Speaker 1: She was also in films and appeared on television. Such,
8:56
Speaker 1: she had a huge, like rise to stardom, but you know,
9:00
Speaker 1: didn't necessarily garner a lot of recognition before that time
9:04
Speaker 1: when she was really popping and did mention of her
9:07
Speaker 1: and recognition of her and her legacy did kind of
9:11
Speaker 1: dwindle a little bit after she passed away. But no,
9:14
Speaker 1: I didn't. I didn't have much of a relationship to
9:18
Speaker 1: mom's maybe, but I'm super glad that I learned a
9:21
Speaker 1: lot more about her because she had her hand in
9:24
Speaker 1: so many pots, Like she was a part of so
9:28
Speaker 1: many different fascinating cultural, musical, storytelling realms and clearly clearly
9:38
Speaker 1: has influence and had such a big hand and being
9:40
Speaker 1: a pioneer in comedy. Um, but it's not it's I
9:44
Speaker 1: didn't know a ton about her story, and I'm really
9:47
Speaker 1: grateful that I got to learn more about the history
9:49
Speaker 1: that she was in because it's so integral to things
9:52
Speaker 1: that I care about, like you know, the Harlem Renaissance
9:55
Speaker 1: and storytelling and music. Um, so yeah, excited to talk
10:01
Speaker 1: about her today. Yeah, yeah, me too, Me too. And
10:04
Speaker 1: there's a lot to go over because, as you said,
10:06
Speaker 1: she had her hands in a lot of pots. She
10:08
Speaker 1: had quite the life and quite the impact. So why
10:13
Speaker 1: don't we get started. Let's let's so first, I guess
10:17
Speaker 1: we'll talk about her first, which was that ninety nine
10:20
Speaker 1: she became the first female comedian to appear as a
10:23
Speaker 1: solo act at the Apollo Theater. It was in Harlem,
10:27
Speaker 1: and it was really noted for all of the black
10:29
Speaker 1: performers who launched their careers there early on, and she
10:34
Speaker 1: did a lot of work in advocating for civil rights
10:36
Speaker 1: through her comedy. Um really kind of merged social issues
10:40
Speaker 1: and political issues with the comedy that she was doing.
10:44
Speaker 1: First first was really catering to black audiences, and then
10:49
Speaker 1: later on moved on into white audiences, and that's kind
10:52
Speaker 1: of where her mainstream I guess you would call it
10:55
Speaker 1: success came into play. And then the other big thing
10:58
Speaker 1: about her story was the speculation around her sexuality, around
11:03
Speaker 1: her queerness, around her like being gay. I think some
11:07
Speaker 1: people have called her the first out lesbian comedian, but
11:11
Speaker 1: it's reported that she had relationships with men and women,
11:14
Speaker 1: and she wasn't really open about her personal life a
11:17
Speaker 1: ton and interviews, although she did reference sex a lot,
11:23
Speaker 1: like sex and sexuality and her performances, and it's something
11:28
Speaker 1: that was really subversive in many ways. So that's one
11:33
Speaker 1: of those things in her story that has been speculated about.
11:36
Speaker 1: And I think it's really nice to try to put
11:38
Speaker 1: a label on things and and and make it, you know,
11:41
Speaker 1: something that is a standout in her biography. But I
11:46
Speaker 1: will note that on the subject of sexuality, just to
11:50
Speaker 1: put a content warning here, because there is mention of
11:52
Speaker 1: sexual violence in today's episode, so um, just wanted to
11:56
Speaker 1: make note of that up front. Yeah, and I I
12:00
Speaker 1: can't wait till we talk about because I'm always so
12:02
Speaker 1: fascinated when people are able to kind of have these
12:06
Speaker 1: juxtapositions that they embody and make into art. And you know,
12:10
Speaker 1: one of hers was she kind of like the as
12:14
Speaker 1: the name's moms might imply. She kind of presented this
12:17
Speaker 1: very like what we would say is, you know, almost
12:21
Speaker 1: desexualized motherly figure, and she would be very sexual her
12:29
Speaker 1: in her performance, which yeah, I mean comedy I find
12:33
Speaker 1: I find really fascinating and powerful in a lot of ways.
12:35
Speaker 1: In the commentary, it can make so Yeah, I'm excited.
12:39
Speaker 1: I'm excited to dig into that. Yeah. So we'll start
12:57
Speaker 1: when she was born, which was some time between eighteen
13:00
Speaker 1: ninety four and eighteen nineties seven in Brevard, North Carolina.
13:04
Speaker 1: There's a year discrepancy because we don't know when she
13:07
Speaker 1: was exactly born, but she did say in an Ebony
13:10
Speaker 1: article that when it comes to her age, moms is
13:13
Speaker 1: as evasive as a hostile Watergate witness. Signs of the times.
13:17
Speaker 1: There are a lot of signs of the times in
13:18
Speaker 1: her performances, obviously because she was performing a specific time,
13:22
Speaker 1: but she was also talking about so much topical, so
13:25
Speaker 1: many topical things in her work that you know, it's
13:27
Speaker 1: often dated like that. But she she didn't tell specific
13:33
Speaker 1: details of her life to a lot of interviewers, and
13:36
Speaker 1: her parents died when she was really young. She was
13:39
Speaker 1: mostly raised by her grandmother, and she was raped by
13:44
Speaker 1: two men in her community, and by age fifteen she
13:46
Speaker 1: had given birth to children whom she placed for adoption,
13:50
Speaker 1: and later in life she did have more children. So
13:55
Speaker 1: she began her performance career at age fourteen. She was
14:00
Speaker 1: helping her family out. She joined a minstrel troupe which
14:03
Speaker 1: was that toured across the United States, which was a
14:05
Speaker 1: big thing at the time. Um she first started for
14:09
Speaker 1: black performers and what was available to them where they
14:12
Speaker 1: could actually go to perform and make money for it.
14:14
Speaker 1: Um was within these black spaces. So when she first
14:17
Speaker 1: started performing, she included singing and dancing in her ax
14:22
Speaker 1: Um and she performed with people like blues singer Bessie
14:26
Speaker 1: Smith multiple times and growing up, she moved up the
14:31
Speaker 1: Eastern Coast and moved to Ohio. She met a performer
14:34
Speaker 1: there named Bonnie Bell Drew and she encouraged her to
14:38
Speaker 1: go into show business. She ended up going to Pittsburgh
14:41
Speaker 1: got a role in a traveling play called The Rich
14:44
Speaker 1: from Utah. It's kind of like the rest is history.
14:46
Speaker 1: She started her career and performance pretty early and just
14:49
Speaker 1: never stopped. Never Um and she had a really long career.
14:54
Speaker 1: Like that's another big part of her story. So she
14:58
Speaker 1: changed her name to Jackie Maybe when she went to
15:01
Speaker 1: show business. The story is that a family member didn't
15:05
Speaker 1: want the family name Akin to be attributed or associated
15:08
Speaker 1: with show business, so that's why she changed her name
15:11
Speaker 1: to Jackie Mayblei. But obviously from there she later went
15:14
Speaker 1: on to be called Moms but there's a lot of
15:17
Speaker 1: her work that is from before that that is not
15:19
Speaker 1: within that persona to which she's attributed Jackie Babley. But um, yeah,
15:25
Speaker 1: that and that name is said to be attributed to
15:27
Speaker 1: the performer Jack Maybley, who was an acquaintance of hers,
15:30
Speaker 1: and she once said about him, he took a lot
15:32
Speaker 1: off me. The least I could do was take the name,
15:36
Speaker 1: which that is time very funny. I'm gonna figure out
15:39
Speaker 1: how how I can be repaid, and naming is so important,
15:42
Speaker 1: and I'm just like, well, that's that's actually very meaningful
15:45
Speaker 1: because her name is a big deal. That's true. And
15:49
Speaker 1: especially I mean at the time there wasn't like Google,
15:51
Speaker 1: but now he was Googling. You might help them boost theirselves,
15:58
Speaker 1: thinking like a true millennial. That's right, not a shame
16:05
Speaker 1: shouted the Google era, that's right. Um. She moved to
16:10
Speaker 1: New York in the early twenties and in the nineteen
16:14
Speaker 1: thirties and forties. This is when she was performing Voughtville
16:17
Speaker 1: sketches and monologues on the Chipland Circuit, which was a
16:21
Speaker 1: group of performance venues where black entertainers were welcome to
16:24
Speaker 1: perform in the gym curl era, so She was a
16:28
Speaker 1: regular in black theater reviews in Harlem in the nineteen thirties,
16:33
Speaker 1: and she was putting in work, so she opened for
16:36
Speaker 1: orchestras at places like the Cotton Club and the savoy Um.
16:40
Speaker 1: She worked with is Ra'neil Harston on the nineteen thirty
16:43
Speaker 1: one Broadway show Fast and Furious, a colored review in
16:47
Speaker 1: thirty seven scenes. It would take forever if we just
16:49
Speaker 1: sit here and listed all the things that she did,
16:51
Speaker 1: But she did a lot of work in that right now.
16:55
Speaker 1: She was also featured in films, so the all black
16:59
Speaker 1: cast films really popular at the time that were kind
17:01
Speaker 1: of catered to black audiences. Some of those films were
17:04
Speaker 1: the big timers, Boarding House Blues and Killer Diller. In
17:09
Speaker 1: the forties, and by that decade she was also performing
17:12
Speaker 1: stand up comedy, and like we said it talked about
17:15
Speaker 1: the top like she really helped builds the genre. Like
17:19
Speaker 1: she was very integral and a pioneer in terms of
17:22
Speaker 1: the growth of the genre and the type of stand
17:25
Speaker 1: up that she was doing, where she had this social
17:28
Speaker 1: and political commentary. Under the guidance of the Vauteville team
17:32
Speaker 1: butter Beans and Susie, she developed Moms as a solo act,
17:36
Speaker 1: and this was the act that she's the most famous for.
17:40
Speaker 1: She became the only woman on the TOBA circuit, and
17:43
Speaker 1: TOBA just stands for Theater Owners Booking Association. That was
17:47
Speaker 1: a vaulteville circuit that a lot of black performers went to.
17:50
Speaker 1: So she was the only woman on the Toba circuit
17:52
Speaker 1: to perform comedy without a male counterpart. And as her
17:57
Speaker 1: mom's act, she wore a house stress. This is this
18:01
Speaker 1: is you. So you can see this in a lot
18:03
Speaker 1: of places. You'll see it on her album covers. You
18:07
Speaker 1: can go and listen to her work right now. It's
18:10
Speaker 1: on streaming, you can go watch it, you can watch
18:11
Speaker 1: her film. So a lot of the fortunate thing is
18:14
Speaker 1: that there's a lot of her worker is out there
18:16
Speaker 1: for us to like be witness to today, which is
18:19
Speaker 1: not always the case. So that's a big privilege. But
18:22
Speaker 1: she wore a house dress, floppy shoes, nick cap as
18:27
Speaker 1: her persona that was mom's. And she once said about
18:31
Speaker 1: the name moms that I'm just a mom. A child
18:34
Speaker 1: is born and it ain't no good nowhere, no how
18:37
Speaker 1: without a mom. I'm that mom. People talked about how
18:42
Speaker 1: it's said that her the nickname Moms came from the
18:44
Speaker 1: fact that she was super protective of the performers that
18:48
Speaker 1: she was surrounded with, and so she kind of had
18:50
Speaker 1: that caring persona, which was just a persona. It was.
18:55
Speaker 1: It was just that. And I know that you mentioned
19:00
Speaker 1: the Annie the kind of the discrepant fees are dichotomies
19:05
Speaker 1: between these roles that she was playing, just out of curiosity,
19:09
Speaker 1: like what did you think when you saw the role
19:12
Speaker 1: that she was playing and knowing I guess a little
19:15
Speaker 1: bit about how that wasn't It was completely a persona
19:17
Speaker 1: made up and it wasn't who she was necessarily in
19:19
Speaker 1: that moment. Right. So when I I my first memories
19:23
Speaker 1: of this, I was pretty young, and her acts, for
19:26
Speaker 1: people who haven't listened to it, can get quite what's
19:29
Speaker 1: the word a lot of people use, ribald, Like I
19:32
Speaker 1: can get pretty. H I don't want to say scandalous,
19:36
Speaker 1: but that is a word that people would use, is like, oh,
19:39
Speaker 1: this older woman, this older black woman is talking about
19:42
Speaker 1: like how she wants to have sex with younger men
19:46
Speaker 1: or whatever. So I think a lot of that went
19:49
Speaker 1: over my head as a young person, but I remember
19:54
Speaker 1: thinking that I I really loved there was something about
19:59
Speaker 1: like this just willingness to embrace that and too, and
20:05
Speaker 1: people laughing at it, and me knowing like, this isn't
20:09
Speaker 1: like I haven't seen something like this, or this isn't
20:11
Speaker 1: quote unquote like regular lady like behavior, but she's going
20:16
Speaker 1: against it and people think it's funny. And so for
20:19
Speaker 1: that I found that That's one of the things, Like
20:21
Speaker 1: it's not like I remember particular act necessarily, but I
20:25
Speaker 1: just remember watching it and feeling like almost oliberated, almost
20:30
Speaker 1: like wow, this is somebody who's doing this and getting
20:33
Speaker 1: laughs and it's not what women usually do, and it
20:38
Speaker 1: felt I don't want to attribute this necessarily to her,
20:42
Speaker 1: but to me it felt like a really like brave
20:44
Speaker 1: and kind of I don't know, like inspired. I don't
20:47
Speaker 1: know it was weird. I just remember watching it and
20:49
Speaker 1: thinking it was funny, even though I didn't get it
20:52
Speaker 1: because because it felt so new to me. I guess
20:56
Speaker 1: maybe I don't know if I'm explaining it well, but yeah,
20:59
Speaker 1: I follow you. Yeah, that's that's what I remember the most,
21:02
Speaker 1: is thinking like she shouldn't be talking about that she is, yes,
21:08
Speaker 1: and it was disarming. She did go on later talk
21:11
Speaker 1: about how much of her life she spent as this persona,
21:15
Speaker 1: so she started it before she was the age that
21:18
Speaker 1: she was portraying, which was on the more elderly side.
21:21
Speaker 1: She was playing in her younger and middle aged years,
21:26
Speaker 1: and she later does talk about how she didn't regret
21:31
Speaker 1: how long she played it, like she was fulfilled by it,
21:36
Speaker 1: but it did feel a little weird when she all
21:38
Speaker 1: actually got to the age that she was portraying and
21:40
Speaker 1: she was still doing act. But it was disarming to
21:44
Speaker 1: a lot of people. Initially it was she was performing
21:47
Speaker 1: as moms for black audiences and she was still challenging
21:51
Speaker 1: what was deemed appropriate for a black woman to say
21:54
Speaker 1: in public and on stage. And you know this, it was,
21:58
Speaker 1: it was created. It was is a creative persona. Her
22:01
Speaker 1: her comedy was often fictionalized, so the story she was
22:06
Speaker 1: we're telling were stories and she made. She did satirical songs,
22:12
Speaker 1: so based on real songs, she would insert her own
22:16
Speaker 1: narratives about uh, you know, younger men a lot of
22:20
Speaker 1: the time and not liking older men. Um these fictional
22:24
Speaker 1: relationships that she had, fictional events and occurrences like dealings
22:29
Speaker 1: that she had with the White House. UM. So a
22:32
Speaker 1: lot of her stories as well that she was telling
22:35
Speaker 1: on stage and her performances just were made up. She
22:40
Speaker 1: was never married, but the persona of Moms was in
22:43
Speaker 1: her routines. Um. But she credited her sense of humor
22:47
Speaker 1: to her grandmother on the nineteen sixty four album The
22:50
Speaker 1: Funny Sides of Moms Mablie. She did talk a lot
22:54
Speaker 1: about um, like she didn't after she began performing on
22:58
Speaker 1: the Toba circuit. She didn't live but low the Mason
23:00
Speaker 1: Dixon line again. Um. She would say things like she
23:04
Speaker 1: would refer to the South as that other country or
23:07
Speaker 1: a foreign country. Is clear and for obvious reasons. You
23:11
Speaker 1: know why she would derive the region like that, after
23:14
Speaker 1: her background and what she went through herself, and knowing
23:17
Speaker 1: also being so conscious of the civil rights issues and
23:22
Speaker 1: clearly the type of person to take a very vocal
23:24
Speaker 1: stand against them, why she would have that kind of
23:28
Speaker 1: portrayal of the South. Even in her work, and she
23:32
Speaker 1: a lot of her work with satire, she would talk
23:34
Speaker 1: about gender and race and war. And she even said
23:38
Speaker 1: in one interview, the things I record, very few of
23:41
Speaker 1: them are jokes. And then what's funny though, like if
23:45
Speaker 1: you go I still laugh at them today because you know,
23:48
Speaker 1: stuff can stuff can get dated, and you know, everybody
23:53
Speaker 1: since the humor isn't for every person. But I genuinely
23:56
Speaker 1: find myself laughing out loud to a lot of her
23:59
Speaker 1: jokes and just thinking of how some of them were
24:03
Speaker 1: coded into where they were insular jokes. They were inside
24:06
Speaker 1: jokes for a lot of black people. But she was
24:08
Speaker 1: also able to have such a widespread audience, like so
24:13
Speaker 1: many different type of people in her audience over time,
24:15
Speaker 1: and that that was, you know, a testament to the
24:19
Speaker 1: work that she was doing. She her criticisms and her
24:22
Speaker 1: challenges were really layered into her humor and her songs,
24:25
Speaker 1: and a lot of them may have seemed really absurd
24:29
Speaker 1: and ridiculous on their face, and also including her delivery.
24:32
Speaker 1: So I can't do her delivery right now for you,
24:35
Speaker 1: but like, after listening to this, you can go and
24:38
Speaker 1: check out some of her work and just you know,
24:42
Speaker 1: see how her delivery was, what her vocal quality was.
24:45
Speaker 1: She had kind of this raspy voice on the deeper side,
24:49
Speaker 1: but you know her, she had a very specific way
24:52
Speaker 1: of of delivering the messages, and her messages were often
24:56
Speaker 1: ones of protest and yeah, so that was that was
25:01
Speaker 1: a through line in her work. She first appeared on
25:16
Speaker 1: Final in the nineteen fifty six, Van Guard Records released
25:19
Speaker 1: A Night at the Apollo, and this was around the
25:24
Speaker 1: time that she really blew up in the nineteen sixties.
25:26
Speaker 1: That was a time when comedy albums were also garnering
25:29
Speaker 1: a lot of steam, and she became a household name.
25:33
Speaker 1: So she signed with Chess Records and she released her
25:36
Speaker 1: first solo comedy album, Mom's. Mainly on stage, she was
25:42
Speaker 1: famous for her live shows and mostly northern U. S. Cities,
25:47
Speaker 1: and she appeared on a lot of TV shows like
25:50
Speaker 1: The Smothers Brothers Comedy Our, The MERV Griffin Show, The
25:54
Speaker 1: Sullivan Show, on ABC's Music Scene and and others. So
26:00
Speaker 1: her audiences were becoming a lot more white, and her
26:04
Speaker 1: non threatening persona as this matron lee person who was
26:09
Speaker 1: dressed a certain way, who didn't appear to be sexualized,
26:13
Speaker 1: um and you know, but was saying a lot of
26:18
Speaker 1: sexual things. It was an approachable persona for a lot
26:21
Speaker 1: of people. So it was a way of easing a
26:27
Speaker 1: lot of the messages that she was actually talking about.
26:31
Speaker 1: And it's like things like segregation and war, and she
26:36
Speaker 1: was saying stuff that was so heavy and loaded and political,
26:43
Speaker 1: and people were laughing like they were hysterical. They were
26:48
Speaker 1: you know. Her audiences responded really well to the things
26:51
Speaker 1: that she was saying, and she got a lot of
26:52
Speaker 1: love and a lot of applause when she would come out.
26:55
Speaker 1: And that's even though she did become more overtly political
27:00
Speaker 1: in the later years of her career. She did speak
27:04
Speaker 1: out about how little progress there have been for the
27:08
Speaker 1: visibility of black comedians and black representation on television, so
27:14
Speaker 1: things that are still being talked about to this day.
27:16
Speaker 1: She talked about the consciousness of that that so many
27:20
Speaker 1: of us black folks have in the US. Of that
27:23
Speaker 1: going back to that duplicity, that dichotomy of being both
27:28
Speaker 1: like the the state of being desired and shunned at
27:32
Speaker 1: the same time. Is a lot that went into it.
27:34
Speaker 1: And she did say once a white man loves the
27:37
Speaker 1: negro until he gets what he wants from him. But
27:41
Speaker 1: she was popular. She acknowledged how much heart, work and
27:46
Speaker 1: practice that she put into it. It wasn't just about
27:49
Speaker 1: her talent. She talked about how much training she had,
27:52
Speaker 1: how many theaters she was in, how much she rehearsed.
27:56
Speaker 1: You know, she acknowledged how much work that you put
28:00
Speaker 1: into her getting to the place where she was, even
28:03
Speaker 1: if some of the things that she may have wanted
28:05
Speaker 1: to happen didn't happen as soon as she wanted them to,
28:08
Speaker 1: so she had She released a lot of albums over
28:12
Speaker 1: the course of her career. She did things like she
28:14
Speaker 1: performed at the Sing Sing Correctional Facility in nineteen seventy
28:20
Speaker 1: and her last album was I Like Them Young, which
28:24
Speaker 1: was released in nineteen seventy two. Her last TV appearance
28:28
Speaker 1: was as a prisoner at the nineteen seventy three Grammys,
28:31
Speaker 1: which was pretty funny. And there are, like I said earlier,
28:34
Speaker 1: there are a bunch of recordings of her work that
28:37
Speaker 1: are available today, so you can go watch her TV
28:40
Speaker 1: appearances and films and stand up and she was also
28:45
Speaker 1: on the cover of the January three, nineteen seventy four
28:48
Speaker 1: issue of Jet magazine and a future called Mom's Maybe
28:51
Speaker 1: Raps about old Women Young Love. And she was also
29:01
Speaker 1: in the film Amazing Grace in nineteen seventy four, which
29:03
Speaker 1: was very near the end of her life, but it
29:07
Speaker 1: was her first starring role in a major film. She
29:11
Speaker 1: had a heart attack while she was filming Amazing Grace,
29:14
Speaker 1: and she got a pacemaker, and she returned to filming
29:17
Speaker 1: after having that during the course of filming, but it
29:20
Speaker 1: did lead to her declining health. That said, she had
29:25
Speaker 1: no plans of slowing down, and she wanted to stay
29:27
Speaker 1: in show business. She died in nineteen seventy five in
29:31
Speaker 1: her home and great plans New York and Dick Gregory
29:34
Speaker 1: gave ulogy at her funeral. Was beloved like she people
29:39
Speaker 1: did recognize the work and her importance in the field,
29:43
Speaker 1: and she set the stage for future black feminist comics.
29:46
Speaker 1: Like she really emerged joy and resistance in her performance.
29:51
Speaker 1: I think those were, like you said earlier, any like
29:53
Speaker 1: perfect way to put it, Like there were so many
29:55
Speaker 1: things that were that may have seemed antithetical that she
29:59
Speaker 1: did in her work. There is a quote by the
30:02
Speaker 1: author Caitlyn hell Would in the book Cracking Up Black
30:05
Speaker 1: Feminist Comedy in the twentieth and twenty first century United
30:08
Speaker 1: States that um I wanted to share. She said in
30:12
Speaker 1: the book, Moms was funny to audiences because she spoke
30:15
Speaker 1: the kinds of truths characteristic of older family and community members,
30:19
Speaker 1: and because she strayed from the many other roles that
30:22
Speaker 1: older women are expected to occupy. In white ages, in
30:25
Speaker 1: hetero sexist frameworks. So she was she was really subversive
30:30
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways. But she was also a
30:32
Speaker 1: lot of fun. You know, she was full of joy.
30:34
Speaker 1: You can just tell in her interviews, the written ones,
30:38
Speaker 1: and in her work itself that she just had so
30:40
Speaker 1: much she was full of so much life, and that
30:44
Speaker 1: she was having fun and doing what she was doing.
30:46
Speaker 1: And of course that's a huge joy to watch and
30:49
Speaker 1: to listen to and to be able to bear witness
30:51
Speaker 1: to today. Yeah, long, long, very long career. Yeah, for sure.
30:55
Speaker 1: And I I'm just so impressed whenever anybody can find
31:01
Speaker 1: a way to to combine, like I really do think
31:08
Speaker 1: comedy can be something very powerful in a way to
31:12
Speaker 1: get people to listen more and to have these like
31:16
Speaker 1: deeper edgeyer conversations and and have like these forms of protests.
31:21
Speaker 1: And the fact that she was able to make it
31:24
Speaker 1: look easy, even though, as you said, she practiced a
31:26
Speaker 1: lot and really put her time into it and had
31:29
Speaker 1: fun doing it and then was making people laugh and
31:33
Speaker 1: people were connecting with her, and that she had this
31:38
Speaker 1: long lasting impact, I just think it's so impressive. I
31:43
Speaker 1: really really think that's amazing. Yeah, she influenced a lot
31:46
Speaker 1: of comedy. I was the first thing I thought of,
31:48
Speaker 1: and it makes so much more sense to me. Is
31:50
Speaker 1: like the Carol Burnett Show and The Mama's Family Show,
31:54
Speaker 1: which was based on a comedy a woman who was
31:57
Speaker 1: fairly young dressing up as a grand mom majorn league
32:01
Speaker 1: character and just being sassy essentially, and that's the whole thing.
32:06
Speaker 1: And she started that. She began that. I can't imagine
32:09
Speaker 1: her having to figure out the best persona for her
32:13
Speaker 1: to fit, but at the same time, as you said,
32:15
Speaker 1: kind of have that dichotomy in order to kind of
32:18
Speaker 1: shock and make it seem unassuming of what she's going
32:20
Speaker 1: to talk about or what she's going to bring out,
32:23
Speaker 1: and then doing it as one of the first females,
32:25
Speaker 1: first women to be in this industry, which is still
32:28
Speaker 1: hard to break into. It's still hard to get any
32:31
Speaker 1: respect that today, and doing that and breaking the mold
32:35
Speaker 1: and being on all of these huge shows during a
32:38
Speaker 1: time unfortunately, I hate to think what she would think
32:41
Speaker 1: of where we are today when we talk about women
32:43
Speaker 1: in comedy, black women in comedy, the respect for black
32:46
Speaker 1: people in general, and black lives altogether. I'm so sad
32:50
Speaker 1: to think about that. But just in general breaking through
32:53
Speaker 1: in these huge shows that were for white audiences when
32:57
Speaker 1: oftentimes black talent there but heal was being stolen at
33:01
Speaker 1: that point and done and she was able to maintain
33:04
Speaker 1: and make a name for herself. That's amazing. Yeah, yeah,
33:08
Speaker 1: she her legacy is definitely very apparent. There are so
33:11
Speaker 1: many things that are still relevant to conversations today, like
33:14
Speaker 1: when it comes to how black women are viewed and
33:17
Speaker 1: how they speak about sex and women in general and
33:21
Speaker 1: comedians and how we speak about sex and what we're
33:23
Speaker 1: allowed to say, how explicit we're allowed to be. When
33:26
Speaker 1: we're explicit, we're not fitting within a mold of appropriateness
33:30
Speaker 1: and what is expected of a woman. And yeah, it's
33:35
Speaker 1: just and speaking out about social issues and it being
33:39
Speaker 1: something that maybe needs to be more tame, you know,
33:43
Speaker 1: for audiences to be able to consume it. Um, there's
33:46
Speaker 1: I mean always been issues like that that are at
33:49
Speaker 1: the forefront with black comedians in general and are still
33:53
Speaker 1: still present today. And and payment of people, like you said, Samantha,
33:58
Speaker 1: like recognizing people for their work and then on top
34:00
Speaker 1: of that paying them adequately. Yeah. So I am glad
34:06
Speaker 1: that she chose the career path that she did you know.
34:10
Speaker 1: As with so many people we talked about in these
34:12
Speaker 1: first it's like who's to say, what where we be
34:16
Speaker 1: now or what people would have, you know, launched their
34:22
Speaker 1: own careers if these people did not exist, And it
34:26
Speaker 1: definitely seems that way from Moms maybely like she has
34:28
Speaker 1: such a huge influence on comedy and theater and black
34:35
Speaker 1: performance and glad that we could talk about her today. Yeah,
34:40
Speaker 1: I really want to go check out her sets now.
34:42
Speaker 1: I need to. I need to find them. Yeah, fun homework,
34:51
Speaker 1: delve into that. Yes, yes, yes, I'm very glad that
34:54
Speaker 1: that exists, but that that is still around and we
34:56
Speaker 1: can still find it. Um Wow always Eaves. Thanks you
35:01
Speaker 1: so much for being here. It's always a delight. Where
35:05
Speaker 1: can the good listeners find you? So? You can find
35:08
Speaker 1: me on Instagram at Not Apologizing, I'm on Twitter at
35:13
Speaker 1: Eve's Jeff code Um on many many episodes of Female
35:17
Speaker 1: First right here, on Stuff Mom Never Told You, and
35:22
Speaker 1: on the podcast Unpopular and episodes of This Day in
35:27
Speaker 1: History class talking about more people in history and more
35:31
Speaker 1: events in history, people that broke the mold, were subversive.
35:34
Speaker 1: All of those things you can find if you're interested
35:37
Speaker 1: in more on those podcasts. Yes, and definitely go check
35:41
Speaker 1: that out all of that. If you haven't already, Thank
35:44
Speaker 1: you again, Eaves, you can't wait for the next installment,
35:49
Speaker 1: and thank you listeners for listening. You can email us
35:53
Speaker 1: at Stuff Media, mom Stuff at iHeart media dot com.
35:56
Speaker 1: You can find us on Twitter at mom Stuff podcast
35:58
Speaker 1: or on Instagram and Stuff I've Never Told You. Thanks
36:00
Speaker 1: as always to our super producer Christina, Thank you, and
36:03
Speaker 1: thanks to you again for listening. Stephone ever told you
36:06
Speaker 1: his production of I Heart Radio. For more podcast on
36:08
Speaker 1: my heart Radio, visit the heart Radio app, Apple podcast,
36:11
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.