MUSI 1530 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: My Old Kentucky Home, Stephen Foster, George Washington Dixon
Document Summary
Featured mainly white performers who artificially blackened their skin and carried out parodies of african american music, dance, dress, and dialect. The first white performer to establish a wide reputation as a blackface entertainer. Made his new york debut in 1828. His act featured two of the earliest ethiopian songs, long tail blue and coal black. White actor born into a poor family in new york"s seventh ward. Demonstrated the potential popularity and profitability of minstrelsy with the song jim. Daddy rice"s jim crow character: spoke and sand in a dialect that was based partly on pre-existing white rural characters. Shortly after rice"s jim crow became famous, george washington dixon performed as zip coon. Jim crow was supposed to be a southern slave, dressed in rags; zip (derived from the name scipio) was supposed to be a northern, urban, dandified black.