HAPPY HUNDREDTH BIRTHDAY, MARJORIE MOORE!!!!!

On April 6th, 2016, Marjorie Moore is 100 years young! Through much of her life Margie was intimately involved with the big band scene during the jazz and the dance era, and then with the country music scene after World War II. The Moore name was attached, as co-author, to the first recording of "St. James Infirmary" (aka "Gambler's Blues") in 1928.

Marjorie and I have enjoyed several telephone conversations over the years. We have exchanged letters. She was most helpful when I was deeply into researching the first edition of "I Went Down to St. James Infirmary." There cannot be a more warm, welcoming, and dynamic woman.

Interested readers can find out more about Margie by searching her name on this blog.

For now, I simply wish to extend my thanks and admiration to Marjorie Moore on her one hundredth birthday. Congratulations. You have all my respect and all my love.

Looking for a new topic to research. Maybe Charley Case???

Since the publication of the second (and final) edition of I Went Down to St. James Infirmary, I have been searching for another topic to write about. Perhaps Charley Case?

Case (1858-1916) was a blackface comedian I encountered while researching the history of SJI; he makes a brief appearance in the book.

Charley Case would stand alone on a stage and recount elaborate tales while twirling a bit of string between his fingers. His comedy was subtle; his audience often "got" the joke after Case had already launched into his next narrative, interrupting it with gales of laughter. Extremely popular in his time but forgotten now, he was, I think, the original American standup comic.

From a writer's perspective, the problem with Case is that very little is known about him. The most complete history is documented in twenty pages of the book Lost Sounds: Blacks and the Birth of the Recording Industry 1890-1919. This is not much to base an entire book upon.

So ... can anybody out there help? Case died tragically, unaware of his importance in the evolution of popular entertainment. Without Charley Case in the background, Richard Pryor (or Milton Berle) would have been an entirely different comedian. He was that significant.