Eubie Blake

From Harlem Renaissance

1 JAMES HUBERT BLAKE

JAMES HUBERT BLAKE

Birth and Life

Eubie Blake, a great musician, was born February 7, 1887 and he passed away five days after his one hundredth birthday. He was born in Baltimore, Maryland. Blake was a slave, out of eight children he was the only to survive in his family. In 1894 Blake and his family moved to 414 North Eden Street and later to 1510 Jefferson Street. John Blake, his father, worked for earnings of $9.00 weekly as a stevedore [[1]]on the Baltimore docks. Blake's mother was a wonderful and religious woman who spent a large amount of time in church and she would not accept bad behavior.

One important thing that Blake's father wanted him to have was a good education. John Blake was taught to read as a slave, from there he found out how important it is to study and understand literacy. Eubie Blake was one of the finest composers, lyricists, and pianists of ragtime. Blake's training began when he was four or five years old. His enjoyment in music started when he first went into a music store. There he found and organ and just started playing it. From that day he received an organ and began taking music lessons at the age of seven. When he turned fifteen he began to play a piano. He composed his first song was when he was 12, but he could not commit it until 1915.

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Eubie's Great Start

At age 15 Eubie started playing in clubs and eventually hooked up with another artist named Noble Sissle who worked on a piece called the shuffle along which brought together all the songs his band has played in the past that are put together to make a great song with all of the past songs. It became a great musical hit in Broadway. This music played Eubie's great hits "I'm just wild about mary" and "Love will find a way". In 1923 Eubie started to make fantastic films.

In July 1910, Eubie married his wonderful wife Avis Elizabeth Cecelia Lee. Avis and Eubie met in 1895 both attending school. Eubie and his wife decided to go to Atlantic City, New Jersey. Avis was diagnosed with tuberculosis[3] She passed away at the age of fifty-eight. After his loss, Eubie said "In my life I never knew what it was to be alone." When Avis first got sick they both thought it was just a cold. But as it worsened Eubie took her to the doctor. That is when they found out that she had TB.

Avis Lee was a wonderful pianist. Four years after Eubie and Avis got married Eubie published his first song called "Chevy Chase". Eubie also looked up to his father who was a minister and organist. Blake and Sissle became partners to write songs in 1915.

Sissle and Blake became really famous and successful in there band called "The Dixie Duo." Their hit song that they wrote was called "I'm Glad I'm From Dixie," their opening number.

Later Blake decided to team up with his old friends to make a production. Their names were Flournoy E. Miller and Aubrey Lyles. Together they were having a great business of writing, directing, managing and making their own musical comedy.

His Music and Work

The most popular song that came out of the show was written as a waltz. The dancing in Shuffle Along was great and everyone was happy to dance to this great music. Eubie's wonderful band that created some of the best music had broken up. After Blake and Sissle Wrote a dozen songs they decided to make an early sound-on-film recording. In 1924, Sissle and Blake decided to join and make a production with another band named The Chocolate Dandies. With a lot of anger the show did not work out because it didn't fit the stereotype of "fast dancing and Negroid humor."

In 1925, Sissle and Blake took an amusing tour to Europe. As they took there long and enjoying trip there they wrote songs for a British revue and as they were dong that they started to have some arguments about the direction of there work. One part of there argument was that Blake wanted to work back in America, and Sissle kept on wanting to work in Europe. They had gone back to America, but Sissle still went back to Europe afterwards, and there great team had been broken up. "During the early 1930s, Blake collaborated together with Andy Razaf and wrote the musical score for Lew Leslie's Blackbirds." From doing this work he got a hit called "Memories of You." Blake was eventually asked to be a musical conductor for the United Services Organizations. [[4]]

The Last Album Together

Later on Sissle put together a great orchestra, and Eubie still proceeded in his song-writing edibility's working with Henry Creamer and Andy Razaf. With all this success he wrote a interesting song-for a beer commercial. In 1933, a great thing happened the group of Sissle, Blake, and Flournoy Miller got back together and tried to do there business again of the Shuffle Along, but it didn't work.

In 1968, Sissle and Blake together recorded on an album called "86 Years of Eubie Blake." With a great life of music Noble Sissle died on December 17, 1975. Blake kept on living on his dream of music and different recordings,but In 1946 he decided to take a brake and he lived happily. After a 20 year brake from show buisness he does his last public performance in the eighties. A couple days after his one-hundreth birthday he passed away. His music was made not just from playing piano but from pure musical effort, determination, and an incredible talent.