Category Archives: – Artists

– How criticism helped the vaudeville: The spotlight on Franklin “Baby” Seals

Read the print-friendly version here   I have always had a soft spot for persons and events which for whatever reason have fallen out of grace in history books. Often, their story discloses much more of their environment than the historic relics which have been promoted on a pedestal, for the historic aura of the […]

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– The Whitman Sisters: why we may never silence them.

For the colored PDF-version, click here _______________________________ “Black Voices, White Visions.” Such was the subtitle Marybeth Hamilton (2007) reserved for her book “In Search of the Blues”, in which she argues that the concept of the Delta Blues emerged in the late twentieth century mainly as the product of a longstanding white fascination with the […]

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– The preacher they called the “Blues King”

Read the article in e-format here Acknowledgement: The bulk of the information comes from Dr. David Evans (°) who traced Ruben Lacy in 1966. I sincerely thank Dr. Evans for reading a draft of this essay and formulating very useful comments to it. The final version with its shortcomings remains of course my sole responsibility. […]

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“Ragtime Texas”: a hobo songster goin’ up the country… A tribute to Henry Thomas

In 1993, the Scottish pop band Deacon Blue issued their CD “Whatever You Say, Say Nothing” that contained as its sixth track : “Last night I dreamed of Henry Thomas”. None of us will probably ever have dreamed of Henry Thomas. How could we? We hardly have an idea how Henry Thomas looked like. All […]

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– They all know me and all want to hear the same tune

In his biography on Deford Bailey, D.C. Morton quotes the former: “”A white barber asked me one time how I could mix them (eb : white and black customers) up in my shoeshine shop and using the same seat. He said they’d run him out of town if he did that. Well I said, ‘They […]

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