Eubie Blake

Eubie Blake (born February 7, 1887, Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.—died February 12, 1983, Brooklyn, New York) was an American pianist and composer of ragtime music, popular and vaudeville tunes, and scores for musical theatre—most notably Shuffle Along (1921), his groundbreaking collaboration with singer and lyricist Noble Sissle.

Blake was raised by parents who were formerly enslaved, and he was involved with music from a very young age. When he was four or five he began to play a pump organ at home. As a teenager he played piano in brothels and saloons, and by his mid-20s he had secured steady engagements at the Goldfield Hotel in Baltimore as well as at several clubs in Atlantic City. In 1915 Blake teamed up with the singer and lyricist Noble Sissle, and the duo began composing songs. Their career was given a great boost when one of their songs, “It’s All Your Fault,” was featured in the performances of the popular vaudeville and nightclub singer Sophie Tucker.

In 1916 Sissle introduced Blake to New York bandleader James Reese Europe, known not only for having established the Clef Club, an organization that provided hundreds of Black musicians with well-paying jobs playing for New York’s white high-society clientele, but also for supplying music for such entertainers as the ballroom- and popular-dance duo Vernon and Irene Castle. Europe subsequently employed Blake as an assistant conductor and composer. During World War I (1914–18), Europe formed and led the band of the 369th Infantry Division (“Harlem Hellfighters”), which was the first African American infantry unit to serve in the war. Blake, however, did not perform in the band; although he informally claimed that he was too old to serve in the military, he officially filed for exemption on the grounds that his mother and his wife were dependent on him alone for support. Consequently, Blake stayed stateside and ran Europe’s musical business operations.

After the war (and after Europe’s death in 1919), Sissle and Blake went into vaudeville, becoming the first African American musical act to perform professionally neither wearing blackface-minstrelsy makeup nor using an exaggerated dialect. The duo collaborated with writer-performers Flournoy Miller and Aubrey Lyles to produce Shuffle Along, the first all-Black Broadway show to play for full Broadway prices. The musical opened on May 23, 1921, and became a groundbreaking long-running production, closing after some 500 performances. Shuffle Along yielded Sissle and Blake’s best-known song, “I’m Just Wild About Harry,” as well as the romantic ballad “Love Will Find a Way,” the performance of which was revolutionary in that it allowed African Americans to express feelings of love on the American stage in a context other than that of caricature. Ultimately, Shuffle Along made a major contribution to the Harlem Renaissance, most significantly by opening the way for a number of other Black shows that laid a foundation for the “Jazz Age” of the 1920s.

Part of Sissle and Blake’s early act was recorded for posterity in pioneering sound films produced by Lee De Forest in 1923, making them among the first African American acts to appear in talking pictures. Blake subsequently continued to write music with Sissle and several other lyricists for a number of shows. His efforts culminated in Lew Leslie’s Blackbirds of 1930, featuring the classic melody “Memories of You” (with lyrics by Andy Razaf), which became a hit for many popular performers (including clarinetist and bandleader Benny Goodman) and found a place in the so-called Great American Songbook of popular-music standards.

After a comparatively inactive period during the 1930s, Blake reunited with Sissle to write scores for a number of United Service Organizations (USO) shows during World War II (1939–45). Following the war, the two attempted unsuccessfully to put together a new version of Shuffle Along. In the late 1950s, however, in the midst of a ragtime revival, Blake began to be recognized (or rediscovered) as a ragtime pioneer. He was featured on several albums of ragtime music, and in 1960 he appeared on the NBC special “Those Ragtime Years.” Blake’s popularity grew throughout the decade, and in 1969 Columbia Records issued The Eighty-six Years of Eubie Blake, a double album of his still-vigorous performances. Meanwhile, he became a touring sensation, appearing in festivals and concerts all over the United States and Europe.

Until his death, Blake maintained supercelebrity status. He appeared on major TV variety programs such as Johnny Carson’s The Tonight Show, where he became somewhat of a regular, and Saturday Night Live. Eubie!, a hit Broadway show in 1978–79, showcased the octogenarian’s music. In 1981 Blake was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.