Precursors of Ragtime 2
Many consider Ernest Hogan's compositions to be the precursors of ragtime.
Listen to a brief history of Hogan's ragtime song "La Pas Ma La."
Listen and read the song facts surrounding "All Coons Look Alike to Me."
This is perhaps the most famous and infamous of all the coon songs and the one that has become the archetype of them all. It was composed by Ernest Hogan, himself African American. Such was the song's notoriety that in later years he bitterly regretted composing it. The interesting thing about this song is that the text is innocuous, as these things go. It concerns a young woman who already has a boyfriend and, therefore, is uninterested in any other men: They "all look alike" to her. The cover illustration, most unfortunately unsigned, takes this notion and extends and amplifies it. The individuals portrayed, while wildly caricatured, are nevertheless quite clearly physically differentiated.
The title phrase entered the language, having as its subtext the unwillingness of society to perceive the African American as an individual. It is the culmination of sixty years of stereotyping and caricaturing of Blacks in musical theatre; it is an essential piece both socially and culturally (Meyer n.d.).
The vaudeville coon songs of the post-Reconstruction era of the 1890s-the time of their greatest popularity-display a more overtly negative image of Blacks than had been the case in minstrelsy. These songs frequently depicted African Americans as belligerent, violent, and lustful, in addition to the stock ignorance and tackiness of early minstrelsy. It is a paradox that Black performers, finally free to pioneer a new music theater, participated in this tendency toward vilification.
While many coon songs were written by Whites and performed by Whites in blackface, some of the crudest examples were written or introduced by African Americans, including Bob Cole, Ernest Hogan, Irving Jones, Bert Williams, and George Walker. Indeed, the standard of the racist image, the song " The Coon's Trademark: A Watermelon, Razor, Chicken, and a Coon," was written by the Black entertainer Tom Logan. At the same time, "Coon, Coon, Coon" by Gene Jefferson and Leo Friedman acknowledges a sense of racial inferiority with its line, "I wish my color would fade" and the front covor of the song consists of the colors of a watermelon which is another steryotype for Black people.