Racial and cultural stereotypes abound on this recording, as they did in the entire Minstrel Show genre, but back at the turn of the 20th century (and through much of the 19th) this was a very popular form of entertainment. Recorded examples of Minstrel Shows
that survive today are usually of the first part of the program, but this was a "sketch" that would have been presented later in the show. This is the last part of a miniature Minstrel Show that Edison produced on a series of six 2-minute cylinder records in
January of 1906, with a vocal group consisting of Billy Murray, Len Spencer, Harry MacDonough, Albert Campbell and William F. Hooley. This example is in very nice shape and only needed a small amount of noise reduction. (The other parts of this series are on-line
at the UCSB Special Collection, and it will be noted that they have only posted samples of the first five cylinders so, between this
site and that one, this Minstrel Show series is complete: also, there is some very interesting reading about Minstrel Shows and their cultural impact at
Pat Sweeney's website and at "ParlorSongs.com".)
