Footnotes

March 1, 2021

In this well-researched compilation of behind-the-scenes stories and background, pop culture historian Gaines (Inside Pee-Wee's Playhouse) celebrates the 100th anniversary of the original staging of the all-Black musical comedy Shuffle Along. The author introduces the four men behind the musical--vocalist Noble Sissle, comedian partners Flournoy Miller and Aubrey Lyles, and conductor/pianist Eubie Blake--and their struggles to keep the show afloat. The quartet were determined to change the narrative of the Black experience in America by presenting Black performers in roles that were nuanced and fully developed. However, the show was also steeped in stereotypes, used blackface, and cast only women who passed the colorist "brown paper bag test." Still, Shuffle Along broke the taboo in American theater against depicting Black romantic love onstage, kick-started the career of a 16-year-old Josephine Baker, and gave us "I'm Just Wild About Harry," which eventually became Harry Truman's campaign song. And despite failures to revive the production owing to its racist tropes and stereotypes, Gaines persuasively argues that these four men shouldn't be relegated to the footnotes of history, as their work resulted in monumental gains for many Black performers. VERDICT Theater buffs and students of Black history will be pleased by this cogent defense of Shuffle Along.--Lisa Henry, Kirkwood P.L., MO

Copyright 2021 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 29, 2021
Journalist Gaines (The Dark Crystal) unearths in this energetic, meticulously researched survey the story behind the 1921 musical Shuffle Along, the first show on Broadway that featured an “all-Black creative team.” Gaines focuses on the show’s four creators—playwright-comedians Flournoy Miller and Aubrey Lyles, singer and lyricist Noble Sissle, and composer and ragtime pianist Eubie Blake—and traces their collaborations and conflicts to show how Miller and Lyles developed a showstopping comedic routine that was so successful it dwarfed what “either of them could have achieved alone,” according to Lyles’s obituary. After meeting in 1915 in Baltimore, meanwhile, Sissle and Blake formed a “musical partnership that would last a lifetime.” Gaines explores how Shuffle Along (and its creators) proved that white audiences would pay Broadway prices to see Black musicals, and helped initiate the Harlem Renaissance as the show played to sold-out crowds and its popular jazz tunes spread throughout the country. In Gaines’s hands, the artists come to life as groundbreakers—and later civil rights advocates (Sissle was president of the Negro Actors Guild in 1935)—who paved the way for artists to come. This vibrant history is well worth checking out. Agent: Peter Steinberg, YRG Partners.

April 1, 2021
A celebration of a groundbreaking musical that stands as a landmark in Black American cultural history. Journalist and historian of popular culture Gaines offers an animated, well-researched history of the creation, production, and long afterlife of Shuffle Along, a show that burst into the New York entertainment world in 1921 and was revived, in many iterations, as recently as 2016. Central to the story are four Black entertainers: composers and lyricists Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake and comedians Flournoy Miller and Aubrey Lyles. Multitalented and determined, the men managed to transcend the racial prejudice that dominated the entertainment world at a time when Black characters--even when played by Blacks themselves--habitually darkened their skin with burnt cork. "They would cover their faces until they were the color of tar," Gaines writes, "leaving just enough space for them to paint on a wide mouth with bright red or white exaggerated lips. The look would become complete with a natty wig, tattered clothing, white gloves, on occasion, and a heavy Southern drawl with English so broken, it was hardly intelligible." While all-Black musicals and vaudeville acts were popular with diverse audiences in the early 1900s, they were characterized by minstrelsy, much to the growing resentment of the Black community. Shuffle Along was revolutionary, featuring "a fast-moving syncopated jazz score with snappy lyrics, beautiful brown dancers, political satire," and a book that challenged social taboos. Opening at a time of intensified racial violence, particularly directed at Black soldiers returning from World War I, the musical's success surprised everyone who participated. Gaines recounts in thorough detail the show's performances, show-stopping songs, critical reception, financial woes and triumphs, and tours and singers, some of whom went on to stardom--e.g., Josephine Baker, who was hired for the chorus and, in 1925, found fame in Paris; and Florence Mills, who became one of the most popular Black entertainers in the world. A spirited, educative contribution to both theater history and Black history.

COPYRIGHT(2021) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

May 1, 2021
The remarkable story of the 1921 trailblazing, all-Black musical, Shuffle Along, is explored in this well-researched and engrossing new book by pop-culture historian Gaines. We meet the innovative creators Noble Sissle, Eubie Blake, Flournoy Miller, and Aubrey Lyles on the show's opening night as they nervously prepare to flee the theater, anticipating rioting crowds. With this tense opening chapter, the dichotomous experiences of Black artists on early-twentieth-century stages are exemplified perfectly; both dazzle and danger, and not always in equal measure. Through a well-paced and compelling narrative style, Gaines pays homage to the show that augured a new era for artists of color on Broadway. The book excels in describing the historical moment, seamlessly discussing a wide range of issues, including the role of African Americans in WWI and the racial violence in the country at large while also portraying the glamour of the time by introducing such Shuffle Along players as Josephine Baker, Paul Robeson, and Florence Mills, among others. Evocative and illuminating, Footnotes is an excellent addition to the canon of musical theater history.

COPYRIGHT(2021) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.