Mills was always a song plugger at heart. Also, listen to a test recording of "Everything is Hotsy Totsy Now" with Duke Ellington on piano, Irving Mills on vocals and kazoo.

Irving Mills and the New York skyline in the 1920s

Even as vice-president of Mills Music, president of Gotham Music Service, and music impresario extraordinaire, Irving Mills remained a song plugger at heart. He was a teenager when he first got into the music business and, together with his brother Jack, spent his early years pushing for the success of newly published songs. In 1919 Jack received a $500 bonus for his efforts in publicizing the song Dardanella (and creating, in the process, possibly the first sheet music million-copy seller). This became the seed money for Mills Music, Inc.

In the late 19th century pluggers were known as "boomers," for their ability to belt out a song that could be heard over long distances. They would often sing through megaphones, with racks of sheet music for sale in front of them. Or sit at pianos behind 40 foot counters at the back of a department store, where shoppers could ask to hear samples of the sheet music on sale. By Mills' day the boomer had become a plugger. A good one would become a sort of advertising whirlwind who, in the words of Isaac Goldberg, "by all the arts of persuasion, intrigue, bribery, mayhem, malfeasance, cajolery, entreaty, threat, insinuation, persistence and whatever else he has, sees to it that his employer's music shall be heard." A plugger might go to a concert and start singing loudly along with a song’s chorus, with the hope that the audience will pay attention, maybe sing along … and then go out to buy the record.

One of the tools at Mills' command was the recording studio and radio. In 1925 he became probably the first to advertise a song over the radio when he and his co-writer for the song, Jimmy McHugh, calling themselves "The Hotsy Totsy Boys," performed "Everything is Hotsy Totsy Now." Song plugging for the new electronic age.

In 1925 alone, “Everything is Hotsy Totsy Now” was covered by Gene Austin, The California Ramblers, Coon-Sanders Nighthawks, The Keystone Serenaders, Eddie Frazier and his Plantation Orchestra, and others. They made the song into a really big hit. Here is Mills’ client, Duke Ellington, on piano, and Irving Mills on vocals and kazoo.

Once he secured the copyright to "St. James Infirmary" Mills ensured that it received the widest possible airplay - the greater the number of recordings out there the more likely it would be played, the more popular it would become, and the more copies it would sell. (Mills looked at popular music as having a very short shelf life.) So, between his copyright in March of 1929 and the end of 1930, at least 19 versions of the song were recorded. These included two by Duke Ellington and his Orchestra - managed by Mills. For these recordings they were known as the Ten Black Berries, and the Harlem Hot Chocolates. Irving Mills served as vocalist for that last one. Mills Merry Makers (created for recording purposes only), with musicians including Charlie and Jack Teagarden, Harry Goodman (brother of Benny), and Ruby Weinstein recorded a version. Mills could not have had any idea how eternally popular the song would become.

The Original Lyrics for "I Wish I Was in Dixie" (you might be surprised)

The lower half of page 29 of the Atlanta Constitution
newspaper, Sunday, July 14, 1895.

(Reprised from a 2018 entry)

I wish I was in Dixie; Hooray hooray!
In Dixie Land I'll take my stand
To live and die in Dixie
Away, away. away down south in Dixie

"Dixie" was a Confederate battlecry in the march against the Union. It had not been composed as a battle song, though.

Daniel Decatur Emmett (1815-1904) premiered this song for a minstrel show a couple of years before the American Civil War broke out. As I documented in I Went Down to St. James Infirmary, while he was not the first blackface minstrel, Dan Emmett created the minstrel show (with his Virginia Minstrels) around 1841. At that time he wrote what is probably the United States' first homegrown popular hit, "Old Dan Tucker."

 Audiences usually assumed that minstrel songs were either original "negro songs," or written in the "negro style." Really, most were probably modified Irish ballads and jigs. The lyrics were printed in a sort of vernacular, to reflect speech patterns of the slaves. For instance, "I wish I was in the land of cotton / Old times there are not forgotten ..." was written as, "I wish I was in de lan ob cotton / Ole times dar am not forgotten ..."

Emmett's Virginia Minstrels toured Europe (to great reviews) but were short-lived, and by 1859 Daniel Emmett was working with Bryant's Minstrels as songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. For a rousing close to their show the Bryant's asked him for a stirring melody, "a regular whopper that would wake things up." Emmett quickly composed "Dixie" (aka "Dixie's Land," "I Wish I Was In Dixie," etc.).

Two years after its composition, Confederate forces attacked Fort Sumter and the Civil War was underway. The song, already popular, caught on like wildfire. Confederate soldiers, inspired by the thrilling strains of the chorus, rushed into battle "to live and die in Dixie."

Much of the lyric had changed in those two years. Racial references were erased, four-line stanzas became two-line stanzas, and the song's comic patter became racially indiscriminate.  It had migrated from a "comic" minstrel stage performance into a folk song.

Regarding this, the July 14, 1895 edition of the Atlanta Constitution newspaper explained that, "the words of the song have undergone many additions and modifications during the thirty-six years of its existence, but a pencil copy in the author's own hand gives the following as the original version, as sung in New York in 1859."

And so we read, in one of the original verses, "In Dixie lan' de darkies grow / 'Ef  white fo'kes only plants der toe / Dey wet the groun' wid 'backer smoke / An' up de darkie's head will poke / I wish I was in Dixie, etc."

Incredibly (a sad comment on the times they lived in) the article praised the lyrics as having considerable value: "Those who seek for literary excellence in the homely rhymes will be disappointed, but recognition of the author's design gives the key to their merit, and one sees in them unsurpassed reproduction of negro thought and versification."

"Unsurpassed reproduction of negro thought and versification." How could anyone, reading the lyrics, have even thought that, much less published it in a newspaper??

Although Emmett could be an absurdist (as illustrated by these lines from "Old Dan Tucker:" "Old Dan Tucker was a mighty man / Washed his face in a frying pan / Combed his hair with a wagon wheel / Died with a toothache in his heel"), his lyrics were often uncommonly denigrating (again, from "Old Dan Tucker": "Tucker on de wood pile - can't count 'lebben / Put in a fedder bed - him gwine to hebben / His nose so flat, his face so full / De top of his head like a bag ob wool").

Here, as reproduced by the Atlanta Constitution newspaper in 1895, are the first verses of Dixie's original lyrics. There are many more. The full lyric can be found in my book, I Went Down to St. James Infirmary.

I wish I was in de lan’ ob cotton;

Ole times dar am not forgotten —

In Dixie lan’ where I was bawn in,

Early orn ne frosty mawin.’

I wish I was in Dixie — Away! away!

In Dixie Lan’ I’ll take my stan’,

To lib an’ die in Dixie.

Away! away! away down souph in Dixie!

Away! away! away down souph in Dixie!

In Dixie lan’ de darkies grow,

Ef white fo’kes only plants der toe;

Dey wet de groun’ wid’ ’backer smoke,

An’ up de darkey’s head will poke.

I wish I was in Dixie, etc.

_____________________________________________
Here are two contemporary (and necessarily sanitized) versions of the two songs mentioned here. First, Bob Dylan, from his film Masked and Anonymous:

And Bruce Springsteen, from a 2006 tour:



In each case, double-click to receive the full-frame video.

Evolution Mama - Carl "Deacon" Moore's strangest recording

 

In an earlier entry I wrote about Carl Moore, a fascinating personality who became a central character in my book, I Went Down to St. James Infirmary. In 1938 he made his only four records. The sound files for three of those can be found here: 3 songs by Carl “Deacon” Moore and his orchestra.

I felt that his strangest record, “Evolution Mama,” deserved its own entry. The song was written by pianist and jazz orchestra leader Terry Shand (1904-1977) . . . according to the credit on Moore’s record label, anyway. It has rarely been recorded, most notably by the short-lived but influential Even Dozen Jug Band, whose members included Maria Muldaur, John Sebastian, Peter Siegel, and Steve Katz. That was in 1964. It was credited as a traditional tune.

Referring to the controversy over evolution vs creation ("Evolution Mama, don't you make a monkey out of me"), the song was probably a response to the “Scopes monkey trial” of 1925 (sixty-six years after Darwin’s Origin of the Species was published, fifty-four years after his Descent of Man). The trial took place in Tennessee, which had made the teaching of evolution illegal. Mississippi and Moore’s home state of Arkansas had similar legislation. Although the trial ruled that banning the teaching of evolution was unconstitutional, challenges continued into the late 1960s. A timeline of the trial can be found via this link.

During the trial, held in Dayton, Tennessee, the courtroom was packed (proceedings eventually moved outdoors due both to the heat and the fear that the courtroom floor would collapse), the streets became lively with souvenir stands; some events were akin to performance art - for example, a chimpanzee dressed in a three-piece suit, fedora, and spats, and a local man, short of stature and with a sloping brow, presented as a missing link. The main concern of the Creationists, of course, was the challenge to the long-established belief that man - and, indeed, every being - was created whole, through divine intervention.

In the song, Moore chants “I ain’t half man and I ain’t half beast / But I can do you more good than this here store-bought yeast / ‘Cause Evolution Mama, sweet smellin’ mama / Don’t you make a monkey out of me.”

Many of the references would be lost today; from the perspective of the 21st century, the song wouldn’t make much sense. Regardless of the time, though, it is a peculiar piece of work. One of my contacts, trumpeter Joseph Bennett, wrote this about a 1939 performance by Moore:
“When the Deacon was building to the climax of his show, and came to the final chorus of ‘Evolution Mama,’ his voice rose as he half-spoke, half-sang the words, “I’ve got a knife / and I’ve got a gun / I’m gonna cut you / if you stand still / and shoot you if you run / Evolution Mama / don’t you make a monkey out of me!” The audience roared approval, while the band rose in an FFF ending to close with a grand flourish. It was a boffo performance.”

Moore delivers those disturbing final lines with the relaxed good humour of an Arkansas hillbilly sitting on his front porch while recounting fond childhood memories. A strange song in more ways than one.

By clicking on the song title below, you can hear Carl “Deacon” Moore and his orchestra perform "Evolution Mama" - the song is courtesy of Moore’s wife, Marjorie Moore, and was transferred to cassette tape for me by the big band historian Joseph E. Bennett.

You can find the full lyric for "Evolution Mama" by clicking here.

Seasonal wishes to everyone

The Redpoll is a tiny bird, about 10 cm (5 in) long and weighing around 13 grams (0.46 oz). I have held them in my hands a couple of times when I found them in distress, and it was like holding air. Oddly (to me, anyway), they winter in cold places like Saskatchewan, where the temperature can dip beyond -40C, and spend their summers, their breeding season, in the arctic.

They are always a delight to see - one never knows whether they will show up here or elsewhere.

Lively and enduring, they are Pam and my icons for this Christmas - as well as the coming year.

photograph RwHarwood 2025

Porter Grainger gets a music festival!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Legendary (and forgotten) songwriter of "Dyin' Crapshooter's Blues," "Ain't Nobody's Biz-ness If I Do," "Song From A Cottonfield," "One Hour Mama," and many others, finally receives attention.

Porter Grainger is one of the central characters in my book, an exploration into the origins of the song “St. James Infirmary.” My research entailed a deep plunge, and I came to consider Grainger as a force whose contributions to popular music have been so underrated that I wondered if this was more a racial than a musical bias. There was so little interest in him that, until I looked into it, both the dates and places of his birth and death were unknown.

Now, in 2025, we know that Porter Grainger was born in 1891 (seven years, for instance, before George Gershwin) that he died in 1948 (eleven years after George Gershwin). Bits and pieces of his life come into view, but they quickly fade due to lack of interest. One has to be alert in order to catch and document them.

This recognition of Grainger is past due. Many thanks to the folk in Grainger’s birthplace of Bowling Green for bringing deserved attention to this artist who has been an invisible cornerstone in the development of American popular music.

Politics do not define us. Popular Culture is our essential reference. Porter Grainger, even with the myriad mysteries that envelop his biography, remains a subterranean contributor to our sense of continuity, or even community.

Porter Grainger, as so many songwriters before and after him, revealed some of the illusions imposed by the powers of the time.

Here, as an example, is his Song From A Cottonfield, pretty adventurous for a black composer in 1927.

Grainger wrote hundreds of songs. “Dyin’ Crapshooter’s Blues” might be his most famous. It was recoded three times in 1927 (Martha Copeland - with Grainger on piano, Viola McCoy, and Rosa Henderson) and lay dormant until 1940, when McTell made the first of his three recordings. (Until recently it was assumed that Blind Willie McTell wrote the song; while researching the first edition of this book, about fifteen years ago, I uncovered this error.)

     

You can find the original, 1925, recordings on YouTube. There were three of them that year, no others until Blind Willie McTell. The first featured Martha Copeland.

The Golden Grail - found! Gambler's Blues (aka St. James Infirmary), the first sheet music

 Ahhhh.

I had been looking for this sheet music for years. Dare I say, for over a decade?! It escaped me. It was as if it did not exist. I mean, I found evidence that it was locked in the archives of the New York State judicial library, as evidence in a 1930s lawsuit. But it was rare as the Dickens and I could never find the actual thing.

But eventually I did.

I found it on eBay. The starting price was ninety-nine cents (plus postage), and there were two weeks left in the bidding. "Oh dear," I thought, "this is such an important historical document, one that has eluded me for a decade, and I am sure many people will be bidding for this, waiting for the last possible moment before entering a bid. There is no chance that, with my meager resources, I shall be able to actually get my hands on this item." But, as you can see, I did win it.

For ninety-nine cents (plus postage).

What an odd thing!! This was something of considerable historical importance. And I was the only one to enter a bid. Nobody else in the world cared. It was my golden grail. Nobody else cared. There were no other bids. And so I now possess a great historical document at a cost of ninety-nine cents (plus postage).

I must be deluded. I had been pursuing this story, this history of "St. James Infirmary," for a very long time. One of the critical links in the saga of this song appeared for sale, and . . . well . . . it sold for ninety-nine cents.

I shall have to ponder this.

Maybe history depends upon who writes the story.

The year on this music sheet is 1925. It was published by Phil Baxter in Little Rock, Arkansas. My earlier research had informed me that "Harry D. Squires, Inc." was the original publisher of this song, and that Squires was the person who convinced Fess Williams to record it (the first recorded version). So it is likely that Baxter released this edition of the sheet music before finding a bona fide publisher. Also, I had noted that Baxter and Moore neglected to copyright the song (thereby leaving the way open for "Joe Primrose" to take ownership of it). But "International Copyright Secured" is printed on these pages. I had found no evidence of this when I contacted the U.S. copyright offices, so I am not sure what this means.

The 1925 sheet music with lyrics can be found here - the pages should expand when you click on them. I leave it to you to compare this music with the second oldest publication of this song in Carl Sandburg's "American Songbag," published in 1927. Whatever this comparison tells you, it will be clear that neither Phil Baxter nor Carl Moore nor Joe Primrose nor anybody else, wrote "St. James Infirmary."

Again, here is the sheet music for Baxter/Moore’s “Gambler’s Blues.”

Maria Muldaur, Harry Belafonte, Victoria Spivey, Carolyn Hester, Porter Grainger, Bob Dylan, etc.... Links in a chain

Well, it seems I'm on a Porter Grainger (or maybe a Bob Dylan) run.

So ... here's the latest. 

In March, 1962, about the same time his first album was released, Bob Dylan served as a backup musician, playing harmonica, for an album featuring blues legends Victoria Spivey (b. 1906), Big Joe Williams (b. 1903), Roosevelt Sykes (b. 1906), and Lonnie Johnson (b. 1899). The album was titled Three Kings and a Queen. Young guy, aging legends; Dylan fit right in.

1962 was a busy year for Dylan the session player. He was twenty years old, and had already served as harmonica backup for Harry Belafonte on Belafonte's 1962 release of "Midnight Special."

Harry Belafonte (Dylan, 20 yrs old, on harmonica) "Midnight Special" 1962. 

He had also played harp for three songs on Carolyn Hester's self-titled third album. On the one below, Hester's interpretation of Walter Davis' (1911-1963) "Come Back Baby," Dylan's harmonica has a subdued subterranean pulse. But at around 1:50 he holds a note for twenty seconds before modulating. This young man was a creative, well-practiced instrumentalist, sensitive to the nuances of a song, sensitive to how he contributed to the whole.


Carolyn Hester, "Come Back Baby," 1961.

So, back to Porter Grainger.

The back cover of Dylan's New Morning CD features a photograph of him (standing with a guitar) beside Spivey (sitting at a piano). Spivey had often recorded with Porter Grainger accompanying on piano and occasionally backup vocals. They wrote songs together. In 1937 she recorded Porter Grainger's "One Hour Mama."

Victoria Spivey "One Hour Mama" 1937

Written by Grainger, this is a woman talking about sex. Porter Grainger was extraordinary in this way; he had an ability to emulate another's point of view. 

I've always heard that haste makes waste
So I believe in takin' my time
The highest mountain can't be raced
It's something you must slowly climb

I want a slow and easy man
He needn't ever take the lead
'Cause I work on that long-time plan
And I ain't a-lookin' for no speed

Etc.

Grainger did this again and again. He could grasp a female point of view and make it universal (from  "Sing Sing Prison Blues," written for Bessie Smith: "Judge, you ain't no woman / And you can't understand"). He could take the perspective of a slave, and make you feel it (from "Song From A Cotton Field:" "All my life I been makin' it / All my life white folks takin' it ' / This ol' heart they jus' breakin' it...") He could communicate pride (with maybe a touch of cynicism) in black engagements in war (1919's "When Our Brown Skin' Soldier Boys Come Home From War" ... can you recall any other WW1 patriotic song with black Americans as the focus?). 

He often wrote in a cabaret style popular in the '20s, but he could could take on the blues (music, rhythm, lyric), he could take on spirituals, he could take on popular music.

Porter Grainger has been forgotten.

How do we forget the composer of "Dyin' Crapshooter's Blues" and "Tain't Nobody's Business If I Do?" How do we dismiss almost everything else he wrote? (Until I wrote I Went Down to St. James Infirmary, it was assumed that Blind Willie McTell wrote "Dyin' Crapshooter's Blues.")

2025.
Maria Muldaur, possibly first coming to public awareness as a member of the early 1960s Even Dozen Jazz Band, interprets songs as if she was living the lyric - this is a signal of a great singer, as it is of a great actor. Her contributions to the Americana canon are exemplary.

She released an album of Victoria Spivey songs in 2025. The title song is Porter Grainger's "One Hour Mama." Muldaur reaches deeply into formative blues throughout the album, her vocals are evocative, drawing out the nuance of the lyric, and the instrumental underpinnings could not be more sympathetic. It's also a whole lot of fun!

Maria Muldaur "One Hour Mama" 2025

So thank you, Maria Muldaur, from both me and, I am sure, Porter Grainger. (Spivey would have loved this!!)

You can find more selections from Three Kings and the Queen on-line. The LP was originally released on Spivey Records, co-founded by Victoria Spivey and jazz historian Len Kunstadt. Spivey died in 1976, and the label ceased production after Kunstadt's death twenty years later. Occasionally reports emerge that the music has been re-engineered, and the label is about to be revived, but nothing materializes. Used copies can be found via sites like Discogs.