Shelton Brooks

Happy Birthday, Shelton Brooks 1886-1975...Brooks wrote some of the biggest hits of the early 20th century. His compositions fueled the era's dance craze and were performed by some of it's best known white singers including Al Jolson and Sophie Tucker. The songs were also popular among the musicians who introduced jazz to this country and the world making them standards that are still played today.

Brooks was born in Ontario, Canada to Native American and African-American parents. As a child he played the pipe organ in his father's church while his older brother pumped the bellows for him. The family moved to Detroit when he was 15 and it was there he began his career as a self-taught rag time piano player, playing in local clubs and cafes.

He developed into an accomplished vaudeville entertainer, primarily doing Bert Williams imitations, traveling throughout the U.S., Canada and England. In 1909 he began to compose his own material. His first big hit was "Some of These Days", which by his account came from overhearing an argument between a couple at  a cafe. When the woman told her lover, "Some of these days, you're gonna to miss me, honey." Brooks realized the rhythm of the words fit a tune he had been working on and the song was born.

Brooks was introduced to Sophie Tucker by her maid,  presenting the song to her backstage in a Chicago theater. Tucker had a reputation for being very open to African-American talent. She incorporated  it into her act the next day, making it an overnight sensation and claiming it as her signature song for the rest of her life. She wrote, "I've turned it (the song) inside out, singing it every way imaginable, as a dramatic song, as a novelty number, as a sentimental ballad and always audiences have loved it and asked for it." Brooks and Tucker became lifelong friends which benefited other talented black artists through their association. Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake would be among them when their first song "It's All Your Fault" was published as a result of their connection with Brooks and Tucker. Tucker would benefit from the connection as well, adding creative new songs to fuel her career.

Brooks was a popular performer, singing, playing the piano and doing comedy routines.  He also traveled  with Danny Small's Hot Harlem Band as a trap drummer and around 1915, led a large syncopated orchestra for Chicago's Grand Theater where he would be inspired to write another huge hit, "The Darktown Strutter's Ball", published in 1917 and introduced on a recording by the Original Dixieland Jass Band.

The ball in the song was a real event in early 1900's Chicago. Once a year there was a dance put on by the black prostitutes and their associates. Formal attire, gowns, gloves, tuxedos and top hats were required and it was a big occasion looked forward to by thousands-to be a guest was a point of pride. Some of the most famous African-American bands and entertainers would fill the stage. It was the one night when denizens at the bottom of the social ladder could rise to the top.

In the 20's when blues recordings fueled the record industry, Brooks became interested in using the new medium, recording one of the first comedy records, "Darktown Court Room". He also performed and toured with many African-American musical reviews  including "Dixie to Broadway" pairing with the extremely popular Florence Mills. When Mills died unexpectedly in 1927 he left the stage and began appearing in nightclub acts, touring one last time with Lew Leslie's Blackbirds of '32. He had a popular radio show during the 30's and in the 40's he was a regular in Ken Murray's salute to burlesque, "Blackouts".

Among the popular and jazz standards contributed by Brooks are, "Some of These Days", "At The Darktown Strutter's Ball", "Wonder Where My Easy Rider's Gone", "All Night Long", "Swing That Thing", "That Man of Mine" and "Walkin' the Dog" which sparked it's own dance craze.