Noble Sissle and his (Cowboy) Band

I recently came across this musical clip, a short film from 1933 with bandleader Noble Sissle and his band playing an instrumental medley that includes “The St. Louis Blues,” “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen,” and “Swanee River.” What’s particularly interesting, at least from the perspective of western studies, is to see the African American members of Sissle’s band decked out in what seem to be cowboy outfits—particularly their hats and vests.  The instrumental combination of saxophones and fiddles is also interesting, as the fiddles give the song a bit of a western swing sound in counterpoint to the jazzier sounds of the saxophones. There’s a similar effect created in the second song via the combination of someone playing a washboard and the vocalist’s skat singing.

The short, titled “That’s the Spirit,” begins with a comic interlude starring Flournoy Miller and Mantan Moreland as two night watchmen at a pawn shop. The material is stereotyped (the pawn shop is haunted, the night watchmen are horribly afraid of ghosts, and Miller performs the routine in blackface), but it is well performed by the two veteran black performers. Miller in particular is a central figure in terms of early twentieth-century African American performance, from his days as a vaudeville performer with partner Aubrey Lyles to his major role in the 1921 musical comedy Shuffle Along, a huge hit that some argue sparked the Harlem Renaissance, and one that also launched the career of Josephine Baker.

Mantan Moreland had a film, stage, and television career that stretched into the 1970s, although he may be best known as Charlie Chan’s chauffeur Birmingham Brown (a role he played in fifteen movies). He also played a small part in Two-Gun Man From Harlem, the black-cast western from 1938. And, he played other small parts in mainstream westerns (usually as the cook) in the 1930s and 1940s.

So, despite the stereotypical material, it’s good to see these two actors working together, and to see two individuals who both had long and storied performance careers on the screen together—there’s a lot of African American performance history in this short clip.

And, of course, there’s Noble Sissle, who collaborated with Eubie Blake on the music for Shuffle Along (with Sissle contributing, for example, the lyrics to the song “I’m Just Wild About Harry”). Sissle was a well-known singer in the 1930s, and here he contributes a tap dance routine to his bandleading duties.

The short begins with Miller and Moreland enduring various ghostly happenings, the last of which is when a miniature band comes to life and starts playing.

Favorite Western Songs

The Grammy Awards are coming up, on February 8, and thinking about the awards show also started me thinking about western songs and songs in western movies. I recently saw Rio Bravo (1959), starring John Wayne, Dean Martin, and Ricky Nelson, and was struck by the performance of the song “My Rifle, My Pony, And Me.” In the scene, the main characters are gathered in the jail, and, for two minutes or so, the plot is abandoned, and we have a nice little duet with Dean Martin and Ricky Nelson singing the song. The only real motivation that I can imagine is that, if you have Dean Martin and Ricky Nelson in a movie together, how can you not have them sing?

I don’t know if this my favorite song performed in a western, but it’s a pleasant and memorable moment in the film.

So, in honor of the Grammy Awards, I thought I would ask, what is your favorite song from a western film and/or  favorite western song (whether that song has been part of a film or not)?

You can use the comment link at the end of this entry to name your favorite western song (and say a little bit about it if you wish).