James Hubert Blake (February 7, 1887 – February 12, 1983), better known as … Read Full Bio ↴James Hubert Blake (February 7, 1887 – February 12, 1983), better known as Eubie Blake, was an American composer, lyricist, and pianist of ragtime, jazz, and popular music. In 1921, Blake and long-time collaborator Noble Sissle wrote the Broadway musical Shuffle Along, one of the first Broadway musicals to be written and directed by African Americans. Blake's compositions included such hits as, "Bandana Days", "Charleston Rag", "Love Will Find A Way", "Memories of You" and "I'm Just Wild About Harry". The musical Eubie!, which opened on Broadway in 1978, featured his works.
Blake was born at 319 Forrest Street in Baltimore, Maryland, to former slaves John Sumner Blake (1838–1917) and Emily "Emma" Johnstone (1861–1927). He was the only surviving child of eight, all the rest of whom died in infancy. In 1894, the family moved to 414 North Eden Street, and later to 1510 Jefferson Street. John Blake worked earning US$9.00 weekly as a stevedore on the Baltimore docks.
In later years, Blake claimed to have been born in 1883, but his Social Security application and all other official documents issued in the first half of his life list his year of birth as 1887. Many otherwise reliable sources mistakenly give his year of birth as the earlier year, reprinting the false information that had been printed before these official documents and census records came to light.
Blake's musical training began when he was just four or five years old. While out shopping with his mother, he wandered into a music store, climbed on the bench of an organ, and started "foolin’ around". When his mother found him, the store manager said to her: "The child is a genius! It would be criminal to deprive him of the chance to make use of such a sublime, God-given talent." The Blakes purchased a pump organ for US$75.00, making payments of 25 cents a week. When Blake was seven, he received music lessons from their neighbor, Margaret Marshall, an organist from the Methodist church. At age fifteen, without knowledge of his parents, he played piano at Aggie Shelton’s Baltimore bordello. Blake got his first big break in the music business when world champion boxer Joe Gans hired him to play the piano at Gans' Goldfield Hotel, the first "black and tan club" in Baltimore in 1907.
According to Blake, he also worked the medicine show circuit and was employed by a Quaker doctor. He played a Melodeon strapped to the back of the medicine wagon. Blake stayed with the show only two weeks, however, because the doctor's religion didn't allow the serving of Sunday dinner.
Blake said he first composed the melody to the "Charleston Rag" in 1899, when he would have been only 12 years old. It was not committed to paper, however, until 1915, when he learned to write musical notation.
In 1912, Blake began playing in vaudeville with James Reese Europe's "Society Orchestra" which accompanied Vernon and Irene Castle's ballroom dance act. The band played ragtime music which was still quite popular at the time. Shortly after World War I, Blake joined forces with performer Noble Sissle to form a vaudeville music duo, the "Dixie Duo." After vaudeville, the pair began work on a musical revue, Shuffle Along, which incorporated many songs they had written, and had a book written by F. E. Miller and Aubrey Lyles. When it premiered in June 1921, Shuffle Along became the first hit musical on Broadway written by and about African-Americans. The musicals also introduced hit songs such as "I'm Just Wild About Harry" and "Love Will Find a Way."
In 1923, Blake made three films for Lee DeForest in DeForest's Phonofilm sound-on-film process. They were Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake featuring their song "Affectionate Dan", Sissle and Blake Sing Snappy Songs featuring "Sons of Old Black Joe" and "My Swanee Home", and Eubie Blake Plays His Fantasy on Swanee River featuring Blake performing his "Fantasy on Swanee River". These films are preserved in the Maurice Zouary film collection in the Library of Congress collection. He also appeared in the short film Pie, Pie Blackbird (1932), with the Nicholas Brothers, Nina Mae McKinney, and Noble Sissle, and released by Warner Brothers.
In July 1910, Blake married Avis Elizabeth Cecelia Lee (1881–1938), proposing to her in a chauffeur-driven car he hired. Blake and Lee met around 1895 while both attended Primary School No. 2 at 200 East Street in Baltimore. In 1910, Blake brought his newlywed to Atlantic City, New Jersey, where he had already found employment at the Boathouse nightclub.
In 1938, Avis was diagnosed with tuberculosis and died later that year at 58. Of his loss, Blake is on record saying, "In my life I never knew what it was to be alone. At first when Avis got sick, I thought she just had a cold, but when time passed and she didn’t get better, I made her go to a doctor and we found out she had TB … I suppose I knew from when we found out she had the TB, I understood that it was just a matter of time."
While serving as bandleader with the United Service Organizations (USO) during World War II, Blake met and married Marion Grant Tyler, widow of violinist Willy Tyler, in 1945. Tyler, also a performer and a businesswoman, became his valued business manager until her death in 1982.
In 1946, as Blake's career was winding down, he enrolled in New York University, graduating in two and a half years. Later his career revived again, culminating in the hit Broadway musical, Eubie!.
In the 1950s, interest in ragtime revived and Blake, one of its last surviving artists, found himself launching yet another career as ragtime artist, music historian, and educator. Blake signed recording deals with 20th Century Records and Columbia Records, lectured and gave interviews at major colleges and universities all over the world, and appeared as guest performer and clinician at top jazz and rag festivals.
He was a frequent guest of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson and Merv Griffin. Blake was featured by leading conductors such as Leonard Bernstein and Arthur Fiedler. By 1975, he had been awarded honorary doctorates from Rutgers, the New England Conservatory, the University of Maryland, Morgan State University, Pratt Institute, Brooklyn College, and Dartmouth. On October 9, 1981, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, awarded by President Ronald Reagan.
On March 10, 1979, Blake performed with Gregory Hines on Saturday Night Live.
Blake claimed that he started smoking cigarettes when he was 10 years old, and continued to smoke all his life. The fact that he smoked for 85 years was used by some politicians in tobacco-growing states to build support against anti-tobacco legislation.
Eubie Blake continued to play and record into late life, until his death February 12, 1983, in Brooklyn, just five days after celebrating his (claimed) 100th birthday (actually his 96th—see below). He was interred in the Cypress Hills Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York. His head stone, engraved with the musical notation for "I'm Just Wild About Harry", was commissioned by the African Atlantic Genealogical Society (AAGS). The bronze sculpture of Blake's bespectacled face was created by David Byer-Tyre, curator/director of the African American Museum and Center for Education and Applied Arts, in Hempstead, New York. The original inscription indicated his correct year of birth, but individuals close to him insisted that Blake be indulged; and paid to have the inscription changed.
“ If I'd known I was going to live this long, I would have taken better care of myself. ”
— Eubie Blake
While Blake was reported as having said this on his birthday in 1979, it has been attributed to others, and appears in print at least as early as 1966 (where it is attributed to an anonymous 90-year-old golf caddie).
In later years, Blake listed his birth year as 1883; his 100th birthday was celebrated in 1983. Most sources, including the Encyclopædia Britannica, and a U.S. Library of Congress biography, incorrectly list his birth year as 1883 based on his word. Every official document issued by the government, however, records his birthday as February 7, 1887. This includes the 1900 Census, his 1917 World War I draft registration, 1920 passport application, 1936 Social Security application, and death records as reported by the United States Social Security Administration. Peter Hanley writes: "In the final analysis, however, the fact that he was only ninety-six years of age and not one hundred when he died does not in any way detract from his extraordinary achievements. Eubie will always remain among the finest popular composers and songwriters of his era."
Timeline
1887 Birth
1900 US Census – Hubert Blake, Baltimore
1907 Boxer Joe Gans hires Blake, Goldfield Hotel, Baltimore
1910 US Census – Hubert Blake, Baltimore
1910 Marriage to Avis Elizabeth Cecelia Lee
1915 Meets Noble Sissle May 16
1917 World War I draft registration card
1920 US passport application
1920 US passport
1920 US Census – James Blake, New York City
1921 Shuffle Along debut
1925 US passport
1930 US Census - Hubert Blake, New York City
1938 Avis dies of tuberculosis
1973 The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson on January 27
1978 Eubie! Broadway debut
1979 Saturday Night Live: musical guest for the episode hosted by Gary Busey on March 10
1981 Awarded Medal of Freedom
1983 100th birthday celebration
1983 Death
Honors and awards
1969: Eubie Blake's nomination for a Grammy Award for The 86 Years of Eubie Blake in the category of "Best Instrumental Jazz Performance, Small Group or Soloist with Small Group".[10]
1972: Omega Psi Phi Scroll of Honor
1974: Diploma, Rutgers University Doctor of Fine Arts
1974: Diploma, Dartmouth College, Doctor of Humane Letters
1978: Diploma, University of Maryland Doctor of Fine Arts
1979: Diploma, Morgan State University Doctor of Music
1980: Received the Johns Hopkins University's, George Peabody Medal
1981: Received the Presidential Medal of Freedom on October 9, 1981, awarded by President Ronald Reagan.
1982: Diploma, Howard University Doctor of Music
1983: Inducted in the Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame
1995: The United States Postal Service issued a stamp in his honor.
1995: Inducted into the New York's American Theatre Hall of Fame.
1998: James Hubert Blake High School was built in Cloverly, Maryland in his honor. Eubie Blake HS has a strong focus on the performing arts.
2006: The album The Eighty-Six Years of Eubie Blake (1969) was included by the National Recording Preservation Board in the Library of Congress' National Recording Registry. The board selects songs in an annual basis that are "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."
Blake was born at 319 Forrest Street in Baltimore, Maryland, to former slaves John Sumner Blake (1838–1917) and Emily "Emma" Johnstone (1861–1927). He was the only surviving child of eight, all the rest of whom died in infancy. In 1894, the family moved to 414 North Eden Street, and later to 1510 Jefferson Street. John Blake worked earning US$9.00 weekly as a stevedore on the Baltimore docks.
In later years, Blake claimed to have been born in 1883, but his Social Security application and all other official documents issued in the first half of his life list his year of birth as 1887. Many otherwise reliable sources mistakenly give his year of birth as the earlier year, reprinting the false information that had been printed before these official documents and census records came to light.
Blake's musical training began when he was just four or five years old. While out shopping with his mother, he wandered into a music store, climbed on the bench of an organ, and started "foolin’ around". When his mother found him, the store manager said to her: "The child is a genius! It would be criminal to deprive him of the chance to make use of such a sublime, God-given talent." The Blakes purchased a pump organ for US$75.00, making payments of 25 cents a week. When Blake was seven, he received music lessons from their neighbor, Margaret Marshall, an organist from the Methodist church. At age fifteen, without knowledge of his parents, he played piano at Aggie Shelton’s Baltimore bordello. Blake got his first big break in the music business when world champion boxer Joe Gans hired him to play the piano at Gans' Goldfield Hotel, the first "black and tan club" in Baltimore in 1907.
According to Blake, he also worked the medicine show circuit and was employed by a Quaker doctor. He played a Melodeon strapped to the back of the medicine wagon. Blake stayed with the show only two weeks, however, because the doctor's religion didn't allow the serving of Sunday dinner.
Blake said he first composed the melody to the "Charleston Rag" in 1899, when he would have been only 12 years old. It was not committed to paper, however, until 1915, when he learned to write musical notation.
In 1912, Blake began playing in vaudeville with James Reese Europe's "Society Orchestra" which accompanied Vernon and Irene Castle's ballroom dance act. The band played ragtime music which was still quite popular at the time. Shortly after World War I, Blake joined forces with performer Noble Sissle to form a vaudeville music duo, the "Dixie Duo." After vaudeville, the pair began work on a musical revue, Shuffle Along, which incorporated many songs they had written, and had a book written by F. E. Miller and Aubrey Lyles. When it premiered in June 1921, Shuffle Along became the first hit musical on Broadway written by and about African-Americans. The musicals also introduced hit songs such as "I'm Just Wild About Harry" and "Love Will Find a Way."
In 1923, Blake made three films for Lee DeForest in DeForest's Phonofilm sound-on-film process. They were Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake featuring their song "Affectionate Dan", Sissle and Blake Sing Snappy Songs featuring "Sons of Old Black Joe" and "My Swanee Home", and Eubie Blake Plays His Fantasy on Swanee River featuring Blake performing his "Fantasy on Swanee River". These films are preserved in the Maurice Zouary film collection in the Library of Congress collection. He also appeared in the short film Pie, Pie Blackbird (1932), with the Nicholas Brothers, Nina Mae McKinney, and Noble Sissle, and released by Warner Brothers.
In July 1910, Blake married Avis Elizabeth Cecelia Lee (1881–1938), proposing to her in a chauffeur-driven car he hired. Blake and Lee met around 1895 while both attended Primary School No. 2 at 200 East Street in Baltimore. In 1910, Blake brought his newlywed to Atlantic City, New Jersey, where he had already found employment at the Boathouse nightclub.
In 1938, Avis was diagnosed with tuberculosis and died later that year at 58. Of his loss, Blake is on record saying, "In my life I never knew what it was to be alone. At first when Avis got sick, I thought she just had a cold, but when time passed and she didn’t get better, I made her go to a doctor and we found out she had TB … I suppose I knew from when we found out she had the TB, I understood that it was just a matter of time."
While serving as bandleader with the United Service Organizations (USO) during World War II, Blake met and married Marion Grant Tyler, widow of violinist Willy Tyler, in 1945. Tyler, also a performer and a businesswoman, became his valued business manager until her death in 1982.
In 1946, as Blake's career was winding down, he enrolled in New York University, graduating in two and a half years. Later his career revived again, culminating in the hit Broadway musical, Eubie!.
In the 1950s, interest in ragtime revived and Blake, one of its last surviving artists, found himself launching yet another career as ragtime artist, music historian, and educator. Blake signed recording deals with 20th Century Records and Columbia Records, lectured and gave interviews at major colleges and universities all over the world, and appeared as guest performer and clinician at top jazz and rag festivals.
He was a frequent guest of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson and Merv Griffin. Blake was featured by leading conductors such as Leonard Bernstein and Arthur Fiedler. By 1975, he had been awarded honorary doctorates from Rutgers, the New England Conservatory, the University of Maryland, Morgan State University, Pratt Institute, Brooklyn College, and Dartmouth. On October 9, 1981, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, awarded by President Ronald Reagan.
On March 10, 1979, Blake performed with Gregory Hines on Saturday Night Live.
Blake claimed that he started smoking cigarettes when he was 10 years old, and continued to smoke all his life. The fact that he smoked for 85 years was used by some politicians in tobacco-growing states to build support against anti-tobacco legislation.
Eubie Blake continued to play and record into late life, until his death February 12, 1983, in Brooklyn, just five days after celebrating his (claimed) 100th birthday (actually his 96th—see below). He was interred in the Cypress Hills Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York. His head stone, engraved with the musical notation for "I'm Just Wild About Harry", was commissioned by the African Atlantic Genealogical Society (AAGS). The bronze sculpture of Blake's bespectacled face was created by David Byer-Tyre, curator/director of the African American Museum and Center for Education and Applied Arts, in Hempstead, New York. The original inscription indicated his correct year of birth, but individuals close to him insisted that Blake be indulged; and paid to have the inscription changed.
“ If I'd known I was going to live this long, I would have taken better care of myself. ”
— Eubie Blake
While Blake was reported as having said this on his birthday in 1979, it has been attributed to others, and appears in print at least as early as 1966 (where it is attributed to an anonymous 90-year-old golf caddie).
In later years, Blake listed his birth year as 1883; his 100th birthday was celebrated in 1983. Most sources, including the Encyclopædia Britannica, and a U.S. Library of Congress biography, incorrectly list his birth year as 1883 based on his word. Every official document issued by the government, however, records his birthday as February 7, 1887. This includes the 1900 Census, his 1917 World War I draft registration, 1920 passport application, 1936 Social Security application, and death records as reported by the United States Social Security Administration. Peter Hanley writes: "In the final analysis, however, the fact that he was only ninety-six years of age and not one hundred when he died does not in any way detract from his extraordinary achievements. Eubie will always remain among the finest popular composers and songwriters of his era."
Timeline
1887 Birth
1900 US Census – Hubert Blake, Baltimore
1907 Boxer Joe Gans hires Blake, Goldfield Hotel, Baltimore
1910 US Census – Hubert Blake, Baltimore
1910 Marriage to Avis Elizabeth Cecelia Lee
1915 Meets Noble Sissle May 16
1917 World War I draft registration card
1920 US passport application
1920 US passport
1920 US Census – James Blake, New York City
1921 Shuffle Along debut
1925 US passport
1930 US Census - Hubert Blake, New York City
1938 Avis dies of tuberculosis
1973 The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson on January 27
1978 Eubie! Broadway debut
1979 Saturday Night Live: musical guest for the episode hosted by Gary Busey on March 10
1981 Awarded Medal of Freedom
1983 100th birthday celebration
1983 Death
Honors and awards
1969: Eubie Blake's nomination for a Grammy Award for The 86 Years of Eubie Blake in the category of "Best Instrumental Jazz Performance, Small Group or Soloist with Small Group".[10]
1972: Omega Psi Phi Scroll of Honor
1974: Diploma, Rutgers University Doctor of Fine Arts
1974: Diploma, Dartmouth College, Doctor of Humane Letters
1978: Diploma, University of Maryland Doctor of Fine Arts
1979: Diploma, Morgan State University Doctor of Music
1980: Received the Johns Hopkins University's, George Peabody Medal
1981: Received the Presidential Medal of Freedom on October 9, 1981, awarded by President Ronald Reagan.
1982: Diploma, Howard University Doctor of Music
1983: Inducted in the Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame
1995: The United States Postal Service issued a stamp in his honor.
1995: Inducted into the New York's American Theatre Hall of Fame.
1998: James Hubert Blake High School was built in Cloverly, Maryland in his honor. Eubie Blake HS has a strong focus on the performing arts.
2006: The album The Eighty-Six Years of Eubie Blake (1969) was included by the National Recording Preservation Board in the Library of Congress' National Recording Registry. The board selects songs in an annual basis that are "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."
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Sounds Of Africa
Eubie Blake Lyrics
No lyrics text found for this track.
The lyrics are frequently found in the comments by searching or by filtering for lyric videos
The lyrics are frequently found in the comments by searching or by filtering for lyric videos
Andrew Barrett
This recording is one of the greatest things of all time, Mr. Blake's playing is so flawless and his feel is so incredibly funky and sophisticated, especially for 1921!!!
AT first listen his eighth notes SOUND straight, but NO!!!
They're not always widely swung, neither, it is a very tight, subtle, sly form of swing, very flexible and totally in the service of the phrasing, of the syncopation, and also in service of the MUSIC (as all swing should be), and you have to have a rather hip ear to "get it".
That's not to imply that I have a hipper ear and that you won't be able to hear it, now that I've hipped you all to the 'secret'... LISTEN AGAIN... :D
Bourg Productions
Years later, this song would be recognized as "The Charleston Rag." Even in his 90s, Blake could play it like a B.A.M.F.
jazzwatch64
Early stuff...LOVE it-3 1/2 stars.....
Andrew Barrett
And yes, just so everyone's clear, the title of this piece on the original 1921 Emerson 78 rpm record (which I do not have, but have seen before on eBay) is given as "Sounds of Africa". Again, the earlier and later title given this piece by Mr. Blake is "Charleston Rag" so the title "Sounds of Africa" appears to have been a one-off for this Emerson session only (of which I believe two takes were made, does anyone know which take this one is, and have the alternate take to post? :) )
kafenwar
Will Marion Cook retitled this composition "Sounds of Africa" when he allegedly tried to get G. Schirmer to publish this piece around 1907 or so.
mark borowsky
This is Take 4, the one normally found on jazz re-issues. I have put take 6, the one normally found on ragtime re-issues ( as Charleston Rag ), on Sound Cloud.
Keith Otis Edwards
The name of this tune is "The Charleston Rag."
Andrew Barrett
@***** Nick, I'm sorry man, I normally agree with what you write, because it is generally very well-informed, but here I must dispute this. Mr. Blake's first known document of this piece, the 1917 Rythmodik / Ampico piano roll (of which I think only one known original copy of the Ampico version exists, the basically identical Rythmodik version not having turned up to my knowledge), indeed titles this piece "Charleston Rag" and claims that it was copyrighted in 1917 by M. Witmark & Sons, arguably the largest published of popular music in New York at the time.
Mr. Blake, later in life, told a story of going into the G. SCHIRMER & SONS (not Witmark) offices in New York at some point to get this piece published, and famous conductor and composer Mr. Will Marion Cook accompanied him.
Apparently, the gentleman there in the Schirmer office was friendly and it looked like they were interested in publishing the piece
(remarkable, since Schirmer was, and IS, mostly known as a US publisher of the very heaviest / most serious European and American classical music, and they were NOT known as a publisher of popular music,
*although, in the late 'teens and early '20s, Schirmer did have a brief fling at trying to promote some semi-popular type works, both songs and instrumentals, possibly because they may have thought they would be more "accessible" to the general public than the normally very difficult classical music they were (and continue to be) publishing.
I should point out, though, owning original sheet music copies of a few of these rare Schirmer "popular" works...
(including a couple of nice instrumental things by none other than Mr. Rudolf Friml, who was, believe it or not, a song plugger /sheet music demonstrator for this publishing house at this time; you'd have to be a virtuoso classical pianist on the scale of Liszt to be able to demonstrate ALL of Schirmer's virtuosic published wares, and Mr. Friml WAS!!!),
...that they are not NEARLY as simple to play as the majority of the simplified popular sheet music being published and peddled by other big publishers like Remick, Feist, Shapiro, Harris, Haviland, etc. and also Stern and Witmark (although the latter two firms usually left a bit more musical meat on the bone of their published instrumental pieces, for pianists to savor).
So in other words, had Schirmer actually published "Charleston Rag" in 1917, or whenever the meeting took place (earlier or later, but probably earlier), then they probably would have published it in full score unsimplified form, in the original keys (6 flats!!!), and it would have REALLY given pianists something to chew on!!!
Only a few publishing houses had the balls to do this back in the original old days, such as Stern (publishing a few of the masterpieces of Mr. Scott Joplin and others), Stark (publishing more), and Witmark (who, for example, in 1915 published the remarkable, very classic, romantic, difficult, and utterly wonderful "Texas Fox Trot" of Mr. David Guion).
Most other publishing houses did not bother trying to publish ragtime anywhere near the way the pianists (even the composers) actually played it, or envisioned it (Mr. Joplin's pieces, though difficult, and almost certainly published as he must have intended them to be played, are not nearly as difficult as some of the things ragtime pianists were playing by the mid-teens, as evidenced by audio recordings and piano rolls!!!). Instead, they published simplified versions of everything, for the amateurs at home buying the sheet music, and the professional pianists were expected to learn from these and fill out the music to sound more rich and full, according to their own style and manner, or risk losing their jobs to someone with more musical chops. (Of course, you know this already, I'm posting the above paragraph for others to read here on YouTube).
Anyway, long story short, Mr. Cook got mad at some question the Schirmer folks asked Mr. Blake, and ended up spoiling the whole publishing deal due to his temper, so "Charleston Rag" had to wait about 60 years before finally being published (in a version very close to the way Mr. Blake played it, so pretty darn near full difficulty) by Edward B. Marks Music in the wonderful folio "Sincerely, Eubie Blake" which I recommend. Mr. Terry Waldo did this transcription/adaptation with Mr. Blake's advice and numerous tips, and I believe some manuscripts of Mr. Blake were consulted in addition to the 1921 recording heard in this video and also the 1917 piano roll.
However, the 1917 Witmark copyright listed on the piano roll of "Charleston Rag" is a curious thing, since I have not YET found a listing of the actual copyright registration in the Library of Congress records, although it might be there.
It is possible they were second in line after Schirmer to get the rights to this, and must have meant to register it for copyright, yet forgot to (this is not unusual; I have seen several other instances of this failure with other songs and instrumentals that were supposed to have been copyrighted...oops!).
I am almost (not quite, until I finish listing all of the plate numbers in order) positive Witmark did not actually publish "The Charleston Rag", at least I have never seen or heard of this vintage sheet music, nor has any sheet music collector with whom I've ever talked, and no known ad page on a Witmark sheet advertises it for sale or even mentions its existence (such as a title page or first page on some contemporary other tune by Mr. Blake which could have theoretically read "Music by Eubie Blake, composer of "Charleston Rag", "Baltimore Blues" etc., if it existed).
The reason I'm blathering on and on about the Witmark publishing house and the copyright for "Charleston Rag", is because I firmly believe it is the REASON for the alternate title "Sounds of Africa"; I think that since Witmark owned the copyright (or at least claimed it), and Mr. Blake may have sold it outright, or perhaps did not have permission to record it from the publisher (a rather stupid thing for a composer to have to get at any time, but these things sometimes happened back then!!!), he then would have had to re-title it to avoid detection and some sort of a (financial?) penalty. Anyway, I have not seen or heard anything published or recorded by Mr. Blake before or after the 1921 recording titled "Sounds of Africa", so I think he may have just made up this title for the one recording session only, and "Charleston Rag" was the REAL title of the rag the entire time.
At least, this is my theory; what do you think?
Keith Otis Edwards
@*****
When did this name change occur? There are many recordings posted here of "The Charleston Rag," including one from a 1917 piano roll, but not one titled Sounds of Africa. But you're a better musician than I, so out of respect, I'll defer to your opinion.