Eubie Blake - Biography
By J Poet
Eubie Blake was one of the most important African American composers of ragtime, jazz and popular songs. He wrote over 300 hits in his early days from 1989 to 1930, and wrote Shuffle Along the first Broadway musical written by and starring African Americans. He left show business in 1946, but John Hammond, Sr., legendary Columbia A&R man, talked him back into recording and produced The 86 Years of Eubie Blake (1969 Columbia). The album earned a Grammy nomination for Best Instrumental Jazz Performance and he became a star again. Blake’s piano playing was astounding and as the last living link between ragtime and jazz, he continued performing until shortly before his death in 1983. He was 100 years old. He was the first musician to say “If I’d known I was going to live this long, I would have taken better care of myself.”
Blake was born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1883. His parents were former slaves, but progressive thinkers who taught him that there were good and bad people of every race. He started playing organ at home and took lessons from his neighbor, Margaret Marshall, a church organist, and Llewelyn Wilson, sang in church, and later played cornet in a local bi-racial band.
As a teen he was playing piano in whorehouses without his parent’s knowledge. By 16 he’d dropped out of school to play professionally in nightclubs and had started composing. His first piano rag was “Charleston Rag,” and a piano roll of the song became popular. He toured the country for a year with Dr. Frazier’s Medicine Show, and then returned to Baltimore to play in bars and bordellos. He became famous for his ability to “rag” (play in ragtime style) popular songs and classical music. He could transpose to any key, and his inventive arpeggios and rhythmic idiosyncrasies made him popular up and down the eastern coast.
He wrote the hits “The Chevy Chase,” “Fizz Water” and “Troublesome Ivories.” In 1915, Blake met lyricist and singer Noble Sissle and wrote “It's All Your Fault” and “Have a Good Time Everybody,” a big hits for Sophie Tucker. He moved to New York to join James Reese Europe’s Society Orchestra the following year and was soon promoted to assistant orchestra leader.
Blake got drafted and served in the Army in France during WWI. When re returned home he joined with Sissle as The Dixie Duo and toured nationally. With writers Flournoy E. Miller and Aubrey Lyles, Blake and Sissle created Shuffle Along, the first all-black post-World War I stage production. The show included the hits “I'm Just Wild About Harry,” “Bandana Days,” and “Love Will Find a Way.” The show ran for 504 nights and made its composers about eight million dollars.
Blake wrote Shuffle Along Jr. in 1928 and starred in the review Lew Leslie’s Blackbirds - Glorifying the American Negro. During its run he began collaborating with lyricist Andy Razaf, famous for writing “Ain’t Misbehavin’” and “Honeysuckle Rose.” Their biggest hit was “You’re Lucky to Me,” later recorded by Benny Goodman. The Depression closed Blackbirds, but Blake bounced back with the music for Jack Scholl’s Broadway smash Loving You the Way I Do. During his Broadway years, Blake also made 78 RPM records with his own orchestra and many ragtime piano rolls.
Blake retired in 1946, but still made the occasional album. The Wizard of Ragtime Piano (1958 RCA) oddly had Black’s piano buried in the mix but he shines on The Marches I Played on the Old Ragtime Piano (1959 RCA) which includes his own “Ragtime Polish Dance,” “Ragtime Toreador,” and his signature tune “Charleston Rag.” In 1968 John Hammond produced The 86 Years of Eubie Blake (Columbia) on which Blake and Sissle performed hits like “If You've Never Been Vamped By a Brownskin, You’ve Never Been Vamped at All,” “Dixie Moon,” “Blues, Why Don't You Let Me Alone,” “Blue Rag in 12 Keys,” “Memories of You.”
The album got Blake a slot at the 1968 Newport Jazz Festival. Always a canny businessman, Blake launched his own label, Eubie Blake Music, and made Live Concert (1973 Eubie Blake Music) a solo recording of songs and stories, Eubie Blake and His Friends (1973 Eubie Blake Music) with vocalists Ivan Harold Browning and Edith Wilson, Eubie Blake Introducing Jim Hession (1973 Eubie Blake Music) which features one side of Blake and one of Hession, a young LA based stride piano player Blake discovered, Eubie Blake & His Protégés Eubie Blake Song Hits a live concert with Blake and his young friends Jim Hession, Mike Lipskin and Terry Waldo and Eubie Blake Song Hits (1976 Eubie Blake Music) with singers Mabel lee, Mary Louise and Emme Kemp doing obscure Blake tunes “Strange What Love Will Do,” “My Handy Man Ain’t Handy No More” and “Loving You the Way I Do” with Blake delivering a smooth vocal and his still astonishing piano skills. Other recordings from his revival period include 91 Years Young (1974 RCA), Piano Jazz: Marian McPartland and Eubie Blake (1979 Jazz Alliance), Memories of You (2003 Shout Factory), Piano Rolls of Early Blues and Spirituals (Biograph), Sissle and Blake: Early Rare Recordings, Vol. 1 (1973 Eubie Blake Music), Sissle and Blake: Early Rare Recordings, Vol. 2 (1973 Eubie Blake Music), Tricky Fingers (1883 Quicksilver) more early recordings, and Blues and Rags 1917-1921 (Biograph).
During the brief Ragtime Boom of the 1970s, Blake was on the cover of Time and Newsweek, and appeared on Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show. He made one last recording for Columbia, Wild About Eubie (1976 Columbia) which includes his compositions “Eubie's Classical Rag,” “Boogie Woogie Beguine,” “Dixie Moon” and a new tune “I’d Give a Dollar for a Dime.”
In 1981, Blake received Presidential Medal of Freedom. He died just after turning 100 in 1983. Later that year, he was inducted into the Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame, and his face appeared on a US postage stamp in 1995.
