Melville Gideon plays Coal Black Mammy (1922 piano roll)

Coal Black Mammy by Ivy St Helier and Laddie Cliff was written for the hit Revue 'The Co-Optimists' in London. Both writers were performers in the show, and Cliff went on to direct a film of it. Both were British and for this song picked up a then-fashionable American stereotype. The song was successful worldwide and was widely recorded by dance bands in the 1920s, and Minstrel shows up to the late 1960s - and offered here for its historical interest. The roll was played by Melville Gideon, an American singer-songwriter who spent much of the 1920s in The Co-Optimists, so presumably performed in this song when it was new.

I'm tired and I'm footsore and I'm weary
I ache from my head down to my toes,
This world seems to be Mighty dreary to me,
How I'll finish my journey Lordy knows!
But I know where I go that all is peaceful,
I'll lay on my pillow tonight, An' I've pray'd how I've pray'd for that moment, Now the end of the long trails in sight,

Cause I'm goin', yes, I'm goin' with a love that's ever growin'
To that coal-black mammy o' mine,
Not a cent, not a cent, An' my clothes are only lent,
All the same she'll think I'm just fine,
How I've dream'd, how I've schem'd,
An' at times it almost seem'd
That the sun would never, never shine;
That's why I'm goin', yes, I'm goin', Mighty soon I'll be hulloin',
To that coal-black mammy o'mine.


The Aeolian Company clearly liked Gideon because they recorded his performances a number of times for their piano rolls - in 1912 for the (then new) Metro-Art series, and again in 1921-2 for the Duo-Art system when it was formally launched on the UK.

Duo-Art 052 was recorded in London and probably only sold in the UK. Played on my Weber grand.

Видео Melville Gideon plays Coal Black Mammy (1922 piano roll) канала Julian Dyer