Eubie Blake

Happy Birthday Eubie Blake 1887-1983...Born in Baltimore, Maryland to former slaves, Blake showed very early musical promise prompting his mother to buy him a $75 pump organ for 25 cents a week. At the age of 7 he was taking music lessons, at 12 he composed the "Charleston Rag" and by the age of 15 he was sneaking out of the house to play piano at a local bordello. His first big break came when world champion boxer Joe Gans hired him to play piano at his Goldfield Hotel, the first "black and tan" club in Baltimore in 1907. Blake soon joined forces with Noble Sissle as a vaudeville act duo and began working on a musical revue which would become the ground breaking "Shuffle Along", the first hit musical on Broadway written by and about African-Americans. Songs from the musical, including "I'm Just Wild About Harry", "Love Will Find a Way" and "Charleston Rag', would become standards and many of the actors, dancers and musicians in the show would go on to greater fame. The duo also made three short films in 1923 now preserved by The Library of Congress. Blake served as a bandleader for the USO during WW2 and as his career began to wind down, went to New York University, earning his degree in 2 1/2 years. The fifties saw a revival in interest in Ragtime music and Blake saw himself launching another career as ragtime artist, music historian and educator. In 1978 his early life and music became the subject of the Broadway hit, "Eubie!". He made numerous television appearances and continued to play and record late into his life up until his death at 96 (Apparently Eubie fudged his birthday to appear even more remarkable than he was . His real birth date has been identified by various documents as four years younger than the 100 he claimed to be at his death. But who really cares)

Eubie Blake and Noble Sissle