Out On The Stoop is my exploration about things to know, talk about or experience these amazing times. The Stoop mantra is Think, think, it ain't illegal yet.
I had to race up to 2026 but that doesn't mean that we are free and clear of minstrel's influence on American culture.
It is embedded. It is transmitted. It is encoded in a lot of things. Even a 2026 food commercial. This is my subjected look at how the past is influencing the present.
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.
According to the Britannica website, Fannie Hurst was an author who was concerned about romance and also social issues.
Fannie, to the best of her abilities, wanted to know what real people experienced. She took low wage jobs, she traveled with the common folk and made an effort to inject those experiences in her writing.
This is a quick look at two film version of one of her works, Imitation of Life.
A little more personal than I would like, but I do mention some of the cartoons that have links to minstrel and vaudeville.
Most animators were not intending to harm but they repeated what they knew or saw on stage. If all you know is snow, how can you recognize the green grass?
There are times when the fiction is simple but the reality behind it is complex. Such is the case with the radio and television shows eventually called The Beulah Show.
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.
In movies, there wasn't just blackface. There was yellowface too. The Charlie Chan movies always had the character Charlie Chan performed by a white man.
There various sons and daughters were portrayed by Asian actors. At some point, someone at Monogram Studios decided it was a good idea for Mr. Chan to have a driver called Birmingham Brown.
Before Charlie, we have to talk about Mantan Moreland.
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.
The history of the Amos and Andy radio show is all about uncomfortable history. But uncomfortable history doesn't exempt you from knowing about it.
This team pioneered a form of storytelling and method of syndication. On the other hand, they brought every trope that was in minstrel and vaudeville performances to a national audience.
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.
You might know Dooley Wilson from the movie Casablanca. But there is a lot more to learn about this performer.
He started and worked with the first professional black theater group. That he traveled across the county and to Europe as a singer and had his own band.
Wilson was under contract with Paramount Pictures. Who the proceeded to cast him as the porter, the driver and characters with one word names that spoke no more than two or more lines.
But in 1942 that changed with the movie, Casablanca.
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:
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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,
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.
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.
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.
Butterbeans and Susie worked for over 40 years with their comedy routine of marriage, jokes and dance numbers.
They also had hit records that could have never been played on the radio.
This is a moment with pioneers of comedy.
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.
There were segregation rules. There were theaters that did not allow black performers and certainly not black audiences.
Sherman Dudley thought there has to be a better way. And then he created it.
This is an introduction to The Theatre Owners Booking Association aka TOBA and some of the pros and cons about the theater circuit for black performers and audiences.
If you like to know more, there is a 2023 book by Michelle R. Scott 2023 book about TOBA called Get the show on the road and ABS History video about Black Vaudeville on YouTube.
The American version of vaudeville grew out of beer halls. This is how it got started and the links to known performers and minstrel connections.
If you want to know more, the University of Arizona has an excellent page on Vaudeville
The online version of Britannica has info about vaudeville, burlesque and the UK Tavern version of performing in alcohol establishments.
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.
