Burke, Billy

Description

Songster entitled Billy Burke's Jumbo Songster. The cover, printed in color, features a clown hanging onto a balloon and blowing an instrument. Billy Burke was a well known clown, and it is likely both the clown and the portrait depict him. There is a small biography of Burke at the start of the songster, before the lyrics for the various songs in the book begin. Included in the book are the songs, "Jumbo", "Charleston Blues", "I Never Drink Behind the Bar", "Peke-A-Boo!", "The Old Feather Bed", "We Never Speak As We Pass By", "Paddy Duffy's Cart", "The Market on Saturday Night", "Over the Garden Wall", "Barney McCoy or Come to My Arms, Norah Darling", "Mary's Gone with a Coon", "Wait Till the Clouds Roll By", "Emett's Cuckoo Song", "Miss Brady's Piano-Fortay", "I'd Like it All Over Again", "Come Back", "The McIntyres", "The Baby's Got a Tooth", "I Had but Fifty Cents", "I'm Just Going Down to the Gate", "John Riley's Always Dry", and "Maloney is the Man". At the end are advertisements for other books produced by New York Popular Publishing. Only one song is specifically about Jumbo the elephant. Songsters were booklets of popular song lyrics meant to be carried around, usually in the pocket, and were published as sheet music was. The booklets share a name with a type of traveling musician called a songster, an occupation usually held by African Americans traveling and playing music during the Reconstruction era (after the Civil War). These artists had a...

Record Contributed By

Bridgeport History Center, Bridgeport Public Library

Record Harvested From

Connecticut Digital Archive