AudioMo Day 19 Lincoln Theodore Monroe Andrew Perry

You might not know the name of Lincoln Perry but you might recognize the name of Stepin Fetchit. Mr. Perry's career is the living proof of being between and rock and a hard place.

This is a brief look at his career and some of the challenges he faced. If you would like to know more:

Lincoln Theodore Monroe Andrew Perry, “Stepin Fetchit,” The Rise And Fall Of The First Black Super Star, 1902 – 1985

The “Stepin Fetchit” via the Actors Under the Stars website.

Turner Classic Movies did a review about the movie Judge Priest that had both Stepin Fetchit and Hattie McDaniel as featured players.

AudioMo is an international participation of folks that want to share what they can do with the audio format. This is a captioned audio for those folks that are deaf, hearing impaired or English is not their native language.

AudioMo Day 18 Start of Black Cinema

With the Hayes code and Jim Crow in effect, the ancestors decided to make their own movies. They started out with short films but soon were making full length films. 

 

AudioMo is an international participation of folks that want to share what they can do with the audio format. 

This is a captioned audio for those folks that are deaf, hearing impaired or English is not their native language.

AudioMo Day 17 The Hays Code

1930 was the creation of the Hays code, which dictated what you could and could not do in movies. 

One of those things was a reduction in the amount of love and sexuality that could appear in a Hollywood movie. TLDL, not much. 

AudioMo is an international participation of folks that want to share what they can do with the audio format. This is a captioned audio for those folks that are deaf, hearing impaired or English is not their native language. #AudioMo #History

AudioMo Day 16 The Decline of TOBA

There are forces that are causing the downfall of TOBA and black vaudeville. There is that pesky technology, the great depression and an audience that is exercising their right of choice.

AudioMo is an international participation of folks that want to share what they can do with the audio format. This is a captioned audio for those folks that are deaf, hearing impaired or English is not their native language.

AudioMo Day 15 Al Jolson and the Journey

Al Jolson is a time marker between the past and the future. He had extensive experience in vaudeville as well as traditional theater. He did that using his blackface persona on stage. In 1929 he appeared in the first sound movie, The Jazz Singer.

 

AudioMo is an international participation of folks that want to share what they can do with the audio format. This is a captioned audio for those folks that are deaf, hearing impaired or English is not their native language.

AudioMo Day 14 Bessie Smith

Many of the minstrels and vaudeville performers were poor or were born on the so-called wrong side of the tracks. 

Being able to sing and dance might help you and your family eat or have a place to live. And that could start in childhood or as a teenage. Survival was everything and with no social support system people did what they could do.

Bessie Smith lost her father and mother early in life. Some reports say an older sister took care of the siblings, other state it was an aunt. 

In either case, those who were old enough were expected to find ways to bring home some money.

Bessie, and two of her brothers Clarence and Andrew busked around the city getting those coins by singing and dancing on the street.

Bessie's life was complicated and I encourage you to check out the following resources:

Bessie Smith (ca. 1895–1937) was a blues and jazz singer from the Harlem Renaissance who is remembered at as the Empress of the Blues. 

From the Women and the American Story there is "Bessie Smith." The New York Historical, 

National Public Radio did a 2019 story about Bessie's influence on popular music.

AudioMo Day 13 Bessie Lamb and Her Genre of Music

This isn't getting any easier. There were multiple genres of music between 1870 to 1920. There was high brow, low brow, dirty also known as blue and then there is this specific genre which I really don't want to name. 

But I can show it to you on this blog.

And this is one of the more benign covers. Bessie is the means of introducing this type of songs that were popular and were sung on Vaudeville stages, bars and even in homes.

AudioMo is an international participation of folks that want to share what they can do with the audio format. This is a captioned audio for those folks that are deaf, hearing impaired or English is not their native language.

Day 12 - Shadow of the Crow

 This is an extract from a book about this time period:

During the post-Civil War era, black performers struggled with the dual burden of seeking paying roles in entertainment and presenting the black community with dignity. 

Minstrelsy was still a prominent form of entertainment in the early twentieth century. Black performers like Bert Williams and Ernest Hogan entered the space only to modernize and update it. 

They served as a bridge between the minstrel show and the growing popularity of vaudeville, an increasingly popular form of theater that included musical, dance, and comedic acts. Black stage entertainers like Williams and Hogan could blacken their faces, sing, and perform comedy revolving around ill-fated schemes.

But they also introduced performances which added a greater humanity into their characters. Productions by black producers like Bert Williams could also include discussions of anti-colonialism in Africa and critiques against further development of Jim Crow laws. 

This political critique was disguised as comedy for largely white audiences. These performances gave African Americans a fullness not often seen when white actors sought to “depict” African Americans in blackface.

Kenya Davis-Hayes, African American Representation on the Stage, Screen, and Airwaves (2025)

Audio Mo Day 10 and 11

 Just a quickie on the growing popularity of the two separate but unequal forms of vaudeville.

AudioMo is an international participation of folks that want to share what they can do with the audio format. This is a captioned audio for those folks that are deaf, hearing impaired or English is not their native language.