[78-L] Cab Calloway and 58 years.

[Joe Scott]

Hi Earl,
Eubie was really born in 1887, and he apparently said he wrote "Charleston Rag" when he was 16, would give us about 1903, although he put it on paper years after that (and in any case unpublished in 1903 doesn't give him much claim to significance as one of the earliest ragtime composers, which may be what he was aiming for). In general if a book says Furry Lewis was doing such-and-such in about 1910, that may well have resulted from adding a false year of birth to a possibly true anecdote about age. (Furry was born in 1899, not 1893. Fiddlin' John Carson in 1873, not 1868. Gus Cannon may have been born as late as about 1889. Broonzy was born in 1903.) Nice when the stories check out, like John Hurt's about how old he was when he got excited about the song "Hop Joint," or when the guy Mance Lipscomb or Dock Boggs says he learned the song from is in the census living nearby.
Joseph Scott
----- Original Message -----
From: OKIN EARL
Sent: 09/01/13 07:41 AM
To: 78-l at klickitat.78online.com
Subject: Re: [78-L] Cab Calloway and 58 years.

[...]Eubie Blake, composed Charleston Rag in 1899, recording it in 1921 and again in 1971. He performed regularly until his premature death in 1983 when he was just over 100yo.[...]