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363 Opal Cooper passed away on December 9, 1974, in the Bronx, New York, at the age of eighty-three and was buried in Long Island National Cemetery, Pinelawn, Long Island, New York. Through the generosity of his widow, Cora, his papers are now at the Schomburg Center in New York.35 27 Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake Among African Americans who recorded prior to 1920, two of the best remembered are the team of Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake. In their day they were major stars of vaudeville and the Broadway stage, but probably the chief reason their names live on is the extraordinary success (as a composer) and longevity of Eubie Blake. Blake became a major media celebrity in his eighties and nineties, playing and talking about the ragtime music he loved to a generation far removed from the era in which it was created. He lived to the age of one hundred, and his death in 1983 made national headlines. Sissle and Blake each first recorded in 1917, making them pioneers among black recording artists. Although they would at times have substantial independent careers, their lives were so intertwined that they will be considered together here. Pianist James Hubert “Eubie” Blake, the older of the two, was born on February 7, 1883, in Baltimore, Maryland.1 His was a rough upbringing, the kind guaranteed to make a survivor of any lad able to outlast it (ten brothers and sisters all died before reaching adulthood). His father, John, was a stevedore on the Baltimore docks and his mother, Emily, a laundress. Both were former slaves who took the name “Blake” from their former master. Emily in particular was a stern, domineering parent , but her attempts to instill solemnity and religion in fun-loving little Eubie were futile. “Mouse,” as he was nicknamed, was constantly getting into trouble with white ruffians in their tough, lower-class East Baltimore neighborhood. “Don’t mess with the white folks’ business,” his father warned him, but it was a difficult admonition to heed. “Mouse” learned to defend himself, one suspects, with the glibness and humor for which he would later become famous; if that didn’t work, a sharp right hook to the solar plexus and swift feet would suffice.2 Eubie always had an interest in music, and at the age of six persuaded his hardstrapped parents to buy an organ on the installment plan. Emily was determined that it would be used only for godly music and was incensed when she caught her son using it to summon the devil himself into their home. “Take that ragtime out of my house! Take it out!” she would bellow. So Eubie slipped out and began warming the keyboard wherever he could. His fingers were long and spindly, but strong. At the age of fifteen he landed his first paying job playing at Agnes Sheldon’s fancy whorehouse, for lavish tips. When his mother found out she was furious. It was almost the end of a career for Eubie, until the boy showed his father the nearly $100 in earnings that he had stashed under the carpet in his room. John Blake, who made $9 per week (“when it wasn’t raining”), paused for a moment, scratched his grizzled chin and murmured, “Well, son . . . I’ll have to talk to your mother.” Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake 05.335-496_Broo 12/22/03, 1:43 PM 363 364 lost sounds Eubie began composing as a teenager, although it would be a few years before he could get his work published. Some of his early compositions, such as 1899’s “Sounds of Africa” (later known as “Charleston Rag”), would be recorded many years later.3 After about three years at Aggie Sheldon’s he traveled for a while with Dr. Frazier’s Medicine Show, then found a job at a Baltimore saloon located at Chestnut and Low (where he composed “Corner of Chestnut and Low,” also recorded years later). More gigs followed in the early 1900s in assorted Baltimore dives, until in 1907 he was hired to play at the newly opened Goldfield Hotel, built by black boxing champion Joe Gans. Around 1906 or 1907 he began playing summers in Atlantic City, where he met many of the great ragtime pianists of the day. Some, like Willie “the Lion” Smith, James P. Johnson, and Luckeyeth Roberts influenced him greatly, and became close friends. Roberts was instrumental in helping Blake get...

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