Jules Bledsoe
Encyclopedia
Jules Bledsoe was a once renowned, but now semi-forgotten baritone
, and the first African American
artist to gain regular employment on Broadway, subsequent to Bert Williams
, William Grant Still
, Ford Dabney and others.
Jules Bledsoe was born in Waco, Texas
in 1898. After graduating from Bishop College
he studied at Virginia Union College and Columbia University
. He debuted in New York's Aeolian Hall
in 1924 which resulted in his obtaining management from impresario Sol Hurok
.
Bledsoe performed in Frank Harling's opera Deep River in 1926 and he created the role of Joe in Jerome Kern
and Oscar Hammerstein II
's Show Boat
in 1927, after Paul Robeson
was unable to appear in it because of scheduling conflicts. (Robeson first played the role five months after the Broadway opening, in the 1928 London production. He eventually eclipsed Bledsoe in the role, and became world-famous for his rendition of Ol' Man River
. Robeson also played Joe in the 1932 Broadway production, in the 1936 film version
, and a 1940 Los Angeles stage production, and he made many recordings of Ol' Man River, as opposed to Bledsoe, who made only one.)
Between 1929 and 1930, Bledsoe appeared in three musical film shorts
- Old Man Trouble, On the Levee, and Dear Old Southland.
In Verdi
's opera with the Chicago Opera Aida
Bledsoe sang the role of Amonasro. In Louis Gruenberg
's The Emperor Jones
, he played the title character. Both aforementioned productions were at the Hippodrome
. In a Holland production, he sang the title character in Mussorgsky
's Boris Godunov
.
Bledsoe toured the concert circuit and was a member of the Roxy Theatre
's music staff as a part of Roxy's Gang. The 1935 BBC
program "Songs of the Negro" was programmed by Bledsoe who then sang in Blackbirds of 1936, a London production.
Bledsoe's only recording of Ol' Man River, which he sang in the original production of Show Boat, is occasionally played on the NPR
musical theatre
program, A Night on the Town. His rendition of the song, especially in comparison to those made famous by Paul Robeson
, William Warfield
(in the 1951 film version
), Bruce Hubbard
(on the 1988 3-disc EMI
album), and Michel Bell (in the Harold Prince revival of the show), is somewhat exaggeratedly melodramatic in the manner of early twentieth-century acting, and Bledsoe rolls all of his "r"'s, as a baritone might when singing his solos in an oratorio
. A recently released album of vintage spiritual recordings features Bledsoe singing Swing Low, Sweet Chariot
in that same exaggeratedly melodramatic style, which demonstrates that it was not unique to his performance of Ol' Man River. Bledsoe was also actually filmed singing the song - his rendition of it was included in the sound prologue
to the part-talkie
Show Boat
(1929 film version).
In November 1933, Billie Holiday
made her first record as vocalist for Benny Goodman
's studio orchestra doing a fairly popular song, "Your Mother's Son-In-Law", written by Nichols and Holiner
for Lew Leslie
's Blackbirds of 1934. In the song, there is a reference to Bledsoe - "You don't have to sing like Bledsoe. You can tell the world I said so."
Baritone
Baritone is a type of male singing voice that lies between the bass and tenor voices. It is the most common male voice. Originally from the Greek , meaning deep sounding, music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C Baritone (or...
, and the first African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
artist to gain regular employment on Broadway, subsequent to Bert Williams
Bert Williams
Egbert Austin "Bert" Williams was one of the preeminent entertainers of the Vaudeville era and one of the most popular comedians for all audiences of his time. He was by far the best-selling black recording artist before 1920...
, William Grant Still
William Grant Still
William Grant Still was an African-American classical composer who wrote more than 150 compositions. He was the first African American to conduct a major American symphony orchestra, the first to have a symphony performed by a leading orchestra, the first to have an opera performed by a major...
, Ford Dabney and others.
Jules Bledsoe was born in Waco, Texas
Waco, Texas
Waco is a city in and the county seat of McLennan County, Texas. Situated along the Brazos River and on the I-35 corridor, halfway between Dallas and Austin, it is the economic, cultural, and academic center of the 'Heart of Texas' region....
in 1898. After graduating from Bishop College
Bishop College
Bishop College was a historically black college, founded in Marshall, Texas, and later moved to Dallas, Texas, that operated from 1881 to 1988.-History:...
he studied at Virginia Union College and Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
. He debuted in New York's Aeolian Hall
Aeolian Hall (New York)
Aeolian Hall was a concert hall near Times Square in Midtown Manhattan, New York City located on the third floor of 29-33 West 42nd Street across the street from Bryant Park. The Aeolian Building was built in 1912 for the Aeolian Company, which manufactured pianos...
in 1924 which resulted in his obtaining management from impresario Sol Hurok
Sol Hurok
Sol Hurok was a world-famous 20th century American impresario.-Biography:...
.
Bledsoe performed in Frank Harling's opera Deep River in 1926 and he created the role of Joe in Jerome Kern
Jerome Kern
Jerome David Kern was an American composer of musical theatre and popular music. One of the most important American theatre composers of the early 20th century, he wrote more than 700 songs, used in over 100 stage works, including such classics as "Ol' Man River", "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man", "A...
and Oscar Hammerstein II
Oscar Hammerstein II
Oscar Greeley Clendenning Hammerstein II was an American librettist, theatrical producer, and theatre director of musicals for almost forty years. Hammerstein won eight Tony Awards and was twice awarded an Academy Award for "Best Original Song". Many of his songs are standard repertoire for...
's Show Boat
Show Boat
Show Boat is a musical in two acts with music by Jerome Kern and book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II. It was originally produced in New York in 1927 and in London in 1928, and was based on the 1926 novel of the same name by Edna Ferber. The plot chronicles the lives of those living and working...
in 1927, after Paul Robeson
Paul Robeson
Paul Leroy Robeson was an American concert singer , recording artist, actor, athlete, scholar who was an advocate for the Civil Rights Movement in the first half of the twentieth century...
was unable to appear in it because of scheduling conflicts. (Robeson first played the role five months after the Broadway opening, in the 1928 London production. He eventually eclipsed Bledsoe in the role, and became world-famous for his rendition of Ol' Man River
Ol' Man River
"Ol' Man River" is a song in the 1927 musical Show Boat that expresses the African American hardship and struggles of the time with the endless, uncaring flow of the Mississippi River; it is sung from the point-of-view of a dock worker on a showboat, and is the most famous song from the show...
. Robeson also played Joe in the 1932 Broadway production, in the 1936 film version
Show Boat (1936 film)
Show Boat is a 1936 film based on the musical play by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II , which the team adapted from the novel by Edna Ferber....
, and a 1940 Los Angeles stage production, and he made many recordings of Ol' Man River, as opposed to Bledsoe, who made only one.)
Between 1929 and 1930, Bledsoe appeared in three musical film shorts
Short subject
A short film is any film not long enough to be considered a feature film. No consensus exists as to where that boundary is drawn: the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes or less, including all...
- Old Man Trouble, On the Levee, and Dear Old Southland.
In Verdi
Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was an Italian Romantic composer, mainly of opera. He was one of the most influential composers of the 19th century...
's opera with the Chicago Opera Aida
Aida
Aida sometimes spelled Aïda, is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Antonio Ghislanzoni, based on a scenario written by French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette...
Bledsoe sang the role of Amonasro. In Louis Gruenberg
Louis Gruenberg
-Life and career:He was born near Brest-Litovsk , to Abe Gruenberg and Klara Kantarovitch. His family emigrated to the United States when he was a few months old. His father worked as a violinist in New York City...
's The Emperor Jones
The Emperor Jones
The Emperor Jones is a 1920 play by American dramatist Eugene O'Neill which tells the tale of Brutus Jones, an African-American man who kills a man, goes to prison, escapes to a Caribbean island, and sets himself up as emperor...
, he played the title character. Both aforementioned productions were at the Hippodrome
Hippodrome
A hippodrome was a Greek stadium for horse racing and chariot racing. The name is derived from the Greek words "hippos and "dromos"...
. In a Holland production, he sang the title character in Mussorgsky
Mussorgsky
Mussorgsky can refer to:*The Mussorgsky family of Russian nobility;*Modest Mussorgsky, a Russian composer belonging to that family.*Mussorgsky , a 1950 Soviet film about the composer...
's Boris Godunov
Boris Godunov (opera)
Boris Godunov is an opera by Modest Mussorgsky . The work was composed between 1868 and 1873 in Saint Petersburg, Russia. It is Mussorgsky's only completed opera and is considered his masterpiece. Its subjects are the Russian ruler Boris Godunov, who reigned as Tsar during the Time of Troubles,...
.
Bledsoe toured the concert circuit and was a member of the Roxy Theatre
Roxy Theatre
The Roxy Theatre is located in the historic downtown section of Clarksville, Tennessee in the United States. Standing on a corner of the Public Square it offers live theater shows to the public offering a wide variety of selection in the spirit of literary theater...
's music staff as a part of Roxy's Gang. The 1935 BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
program "Songs of the Negro" was programmed by Bledsoe who then sang in Blackbirds of 1936, a London production.
Bledsoe's only recording of Ol' Man River, which he sang in the original production of Show Boat, is occasionally played on the NPR
NPR
NPR, formerly National Public Radio, is a privately and publicly funded non-profit membership media organization that serves as a national syndicator to a network of 900 public radio stations in the United States. NPR was created in 1970, following congressional passage of the Public Broadcasting...
musical theatre
Musical theatre
Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...
program, A Night on the Town. His rendition of the song, especially in comparison to those made famous by Paul Robeson
Paul Robeson
Paul Leroy Robeson was an American concert singer , recording artist, actor, athlete, scholar who was an advocate for the Civil Rights Movement in the first half of the twentieth century...
, William Warfield
William Warfield
William Caesar Warfield , was an American concert bass-baritone singer and actor.-Early life and career:Warfield was born in West Helena, Arkansas and grew up in Rochester, New York, where his father was called to serve as pastor of Mt. Vernon Church. He gave his recital debut in New York's Town...
(in the 1951 film version
Show Boat (1951 film)
Show Boat is a 1951 Technicolor film based on the musical by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II and the novel by Edna Ferber....
), Bruce Hubbard
Bruce Hubbard
Bruce Hubbard was an African-American operatic baritone. He attended Indiana University. He was a music major and helped coach actors that appeared in musicals.-Biography:...
(on the 1988 3-disc EMI
EMI
The EMI Group, also known as EMI Music or simply EMI, is a multinational music company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the fourth-largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry and one of the "big four" record companies. EMI Group also has a major...
album), and Michel Bell (in the Harold Prince revival of the show), is somewhat exaggeratedly melodramatic in the manner of early twentieth-century acting, and Bledsoe rolls all of his "r"'s, as a baritone might when singing his solos in an oratorio
Oratorio
An oratorio is a large musical composition including an orchestra, a choir, and soloists. Like an opera, an oratorio includes the use of a choir, soloists, an ensemble, various distinguishable characters, and arias...
. A recently released album of vintage spiritual recordings features Bledsoe singing Swing Low, Sweet Chariot
Swing Low, Sweet Chariot
"Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" is a historic African-American spiritual. The first recording was in 1909, by the Fisk Jubilee Singers of Fisk University....
in that same exaggeratedly melodramatic style, which demonstrates that it was not unique to his performance of Ol' Man River. Bledsoe was also actually filmed singing the song - his rendition of it was included in the sound prologue
Prologue
A prologue is an opening to a story that establishes the setting and gives background details, often some earlier story that ties into the main one, and other miscellaneous information. The Greek prologos included the modern meaning of prologue, but was of wider significance...
to the part-talkie
Part-talkie
A part-talkie is a partly, and most often primarily, silent film which includes one or more synchronous sound sequences with audible dialog or singing. During the silent portions lines of dialog are presented as "titles" -- printed text briefly filling the screen -- and the soundtrack is used only...
Show Boat
Show Boat (1929 film)
Show Boat is a film based on the novel by Edna Ferber. This version was released by Universal in two editions, one a silent film for movie theatres still not equipped for sound, and one a part-talkie with a sound prologue...
(1929 film version).
In November 1933, Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday was an American jazz singer and songwriter. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and musical partner Lester Young, Holiday had a seminal influence on jazz and pop singing...
made her first record as vocalist for Benny Goodman
Benny Goodman
Benjamin David “Benny” Goodman was an American jazz and swing musician, clarinetist and bandleader; widely known as the "King of Swing".In the mid-1930s, Benny Goodman led one of the most popular musical groups in America...
's studio orchestra doing a fairly popular song, "Your Mother's Son-In-Law", written by Nichols and Holiner
Alberta Nichols
Alberta Nichols was a popular songwriter of the 1930s and 40s. Together with her husband, lyricist Mann Holiner, they composed over 100 songs, of which their most famous were "Until the Real Thing Comes Along" and "A Love Like Ours".-Biography :Nichols was born in Lincoln, Illinois on December 3,...
for Lew Leslie
Lew Leslie
Lew Leslie was a Broadway writer and producer. Although white, he was the first impressario to present black artists on stage...
's Blackbirds of 1934. In the song, there is a reference to Bledsoe - "You don't have to sing like Bledsoe. You can tell the world I said so."