The Phrenologist Coon

"The Phrenologist Coon" is a 1901 song written by African-American entertainer Ernest Hogan with music by Will Accooe.[1][2][3] Bert Williams recorded it[4] on Victor Records and sheet music was published for it.[5][6] It was produced by Williams and Walker Co. and published by Jos. W. Stern & Co. in New York City.[7]

The song's lyrics describe a "conjureman" ironically engaging in phrenology – the pseudoscientific study of human characteristics according to the shape of the skull.[8] "In what is at first glance a demeaning stereotype, 'The Phrenologist's Coon' might, indeed, be something much more involved, because it suggests that black artists were self-consciously dialoging with political context prior to the modernist explorations of affirmative black identity by the Harlem Renaissance writers," suggests Paula J. Massood in Making a Promised Land: Harlem in Twentieth-Century Photography and Film (2013).[9]

The tune as a schottische was used for the 1902 song "Maiden with the Dreamy Eyes" by Cole and Johnson.[10]

References

  1. ^ Wonham, Henry B. (June 17, 2004). Playing the Races: Ethnic Caricature and American Literary Realism. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-803664-7 – via Google Books.
  2. ^ Covey, Herbert C.; Eisnach, Dwight (November 24, 2020). Daily Life of African Americans in Primary Documents [2 volumes]. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 9781440866654 – via Google Books.
  3. ^ Rowland, Mabel (January 13, 1923). "Bert Williams, Son of Laughter: A Symposium of Tribute to the Man and to His Work". English Crafters – via Google Books.
  4. ^ Hoffmann, Frank; Cooper, B. Lee; Gracyk, Tim (November 12, 2012). Popular American Recording Pioneers: 1895-1925. Routledge. ISBN 9781136592294 – via Google Books.
  5. ^ "The phrenologist coon". NYPL Digital Collections. Archived from the original on July 11, 2021. Retrieved August 7, 2021.
  6. ^ Ernest Hogan (lyricist); Will Accooe (composer) (August 7, 1901). "The Phrenologist Coon". jscholarship.library.jhu.edu. Johns Hopkins Sheridan Libraries.
  7. ^ Performing Arts Encyclopedia. August 7, 1901 – via memory.loc.gov.
  8. ^ "Lyrics The Phrenologist Coon by Bert Williams | LyricsLand". www.lyrics.land. Archived from the original on August 7, 2021. Retrieved August 7, 2021.
  9. ^ Massood, Paula J. (2013). Making a Promised Land: Harlem in Twentieth-Century Photography and Film. Rutgers University Press. p. 13.
  10. ^ "Maiden with the dreamy eyes". Library of Congress. January 1, 1902.