What exactly is a "coon song"?

[marcapra]

I was talking to my brother the other day and mentioned that I have some old records with "coon song" as the description on the disc or cylinder. Then he said I should throw any records with that away because it's a racial slur. I explained that 90 years ago it was just considered a genre of music that came down from old minstrel shows from the 19th century. I said that often it had no ill intent apart from stereotyping and often had a white man in black face telling jokes and singing a song. My question is would this song from "Whoopee" 1930 still be considered a "coon song", or am I missing something in the definition?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BXRGTBLVuA

[edisonphonoworks]

Political correctness and record collecting don't go hand in hand. It is akin to book burning, or revisionist history. very . We must remember our past, and look towards the future. A coon song is usually though a white person imitating a person of color, on most of these records and they were produced from 1890 all the way into the 1930's. However a cylinder like the Laughing Coon by George W Johnson, he was actually an African American singer, and his career started at the start of the industry about 1890 he was a pioneer. Collectors in kind of a of hush hush way don't talk about these cylinders and discs however they are highly prized by collectors.

[Lucius1958]

As I would define it, a "coon song" generally had lyrics portraying racial stereotypes (e.g., "Under the Bamboo Tree", "Won't You Come Home Bill Bailey", "Moving Day", "Good-Bye Eliza Jane", and many others), and often a ragtime-flavored melody.

The Cantor clip just seems to be a standard fox-trot song - but performed in blackface.

Bill

[marcapra]

Yes, I would agree that "My baby just cares for me" by Walter Donaldson/Gus Kahn could not be described as a coon song. It's just a popular late 20s style foxtrot. What about a song like "Mandy" (1919) by Irving Berlin? It's almost always performed in black face when they have a minstrel show in old movies. Would Mandy be a coon song or just popular song? I read the Wikipedia article on Coon Songs and it described the genre as lasting from about 1880 to 1920. My Mammy (1921), another song composed by Walter Donaldson, I guess could be described as one of the last coon songs? I don't think coon songs were still being written by the 1930s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coon_song

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SuCgmX7Dcwc

[Roaring20s]

Don't focus so much on the dates. It's in the content and presentation.
From the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia
http://www.ferris.edu/jimcrow/coon/

[Curt A]

I have known black collectors who focus on memorabilia and records that are specifically of this genre and consider it just a part of past history...

If you are wondering about the various types of "coon" songs, check out Two Black Crows, Amos and Andy and most recordings by Collins and Harlan or Golden and Hughes, along with many other examples...

Also, note that racial slurs did not only apply to African Americans - almost all other ethnic groups were included - Jews, Irish, Italians, Polish, etc.

[gramophone-georg]

Yes, I would agree that "My baby just cares for me" by Walter Donaldson/Gus Kahn could not be described as a coon song. It's just a popular late 20s style foxtrot. What about a song like "Mandy" (1919) by Irving Berlin? It's almost always performed in black face when they have a minstrel show in old movies. Would Mandy be a coon song or just popular song? I read the Wikipedia article on Coon Songs and it described the genre as lasting from about 1880 to 1920. My Mammy (1921), another song composed by Walter Donaldson, I guess could be described as one of the last coon songs? I don't think coon songs were still being written by the 1930s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coon_song

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SuCgmX7Dcwc

Then there are songs like "Mississippi Mud", "Without A Song", "Dusky Stevedore", etc. in the late 1920s that could qualify as "coon songs" due to the lyrics, as well as the original lyrics to "Shakin' The Blues Away" which contains the lines "Do like the darkies do listenin' to a preacher way down south- they shake their bodies so, to and fro- with every shake, a lucky break". Someone silently changed "darkies" to "voodoos" somewhere along the line.

Then there is the song "Shine", and don't forget "That's Why Darkies Were Born" from 1932...

Then there's "If The Man In The Moon Were A Coon" revived into a hit by Tommy Dorsey (of all people- probably one of the least racist guys out there in those days who was known for pummeling innkeepers for refusing to allow black musicians to bunk with the rest of the band!) as late as 1937!

[Curt A]

Here is a good example... The Virginian Judge by Walter Kelly

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MX_5bfUX1rQ

[Curt A]

Here is a collection of songs that epitomizes the definition of "Coon Songs"...

https://archive.org/details/GoldenHughes

[edisonplayer]

It's a song sung in black dialect.Yesterday I was playing my record of "Swing Along'/My Lady Clo'"by the Binghamton Kiwanis Quartet on Columbia 229-D.Has anyone seen that record by the Binghamton Kiwanis Quartet? In my area(NY Southern Tier)when I first started collecting in the 1970's it used to be quite common.I guess those songs would be in the "coon song"category."Swing Along"was composed by black composer Will Marion Cook.edisonplayer