Eubie Blake

James Hubert "Eubie" Blake was born on February 7, 1887, at 319 Forrest Street in Baltimore, Maryland, the only child of former slaves Emily "Emma" Johnstone and John Sumner Blake to survive childhood. His father worked as a stevedore on the Baltimore docks. Though Blake later claimed a birth year of 1883, U.S. Census records, military records, Social Security records, and his own passport documents consistently establish 1887 as the correct year.

Blake's introduction to music came at age four or five, when he wandered into a Baltimore music store during a shopping trip with his mother and began playing an organ on display. The store manager encouraged his mother to nurture the talent, and the family subsequently purchased a pump organ for $75, paid off at twenty-five cents per week. At seven, Blake began formal lessons with Margaret Marshall, a neighbor who served as organist at a local Methodist church. By age fifteen he was playing piano at Aggie Shelton's Baltimore bordello, without his parents' knowledge. In 1907, world champion boxer Joe Gans hired him to perform at the Goldfield Hotel, the first Black-and-tan club in Baltimore, where Blake played winters from 1907 to 1914 while spending summers performing at clubs in Atlantic City. During this same period he studied composition with Llewellyn Wilson in Baltimore.

Blake began his professional career in vaudeville in 1912, performing with James Reese Europe's Society Orchestra, which accompanied the ballroom dance act of Vernon and Irene Castle. He made his first recordings in 1917 for the Pathé label and for Ampico piano rolls, later recording for the Victor and Emerson labels in the 1920s. During World War I, Blake worked in partnership with singer, drummer, and comedian Broadway Jones, and the two toured a vaudeville music and comedy act in 1918. Blake later became a regular performer at a Harlem nightclub owned by Jones in 1923 and 1924.

Following the war, Blake formed a new vaudeville act called the Dixie Duo with performer Noble Sissle. The two then collaborated on a full musical revue, Shuffle Along, incorporating songs they had written together alongside a book by F. E. Miller and Aubrey Lyles. When it premiered in June 1921, Shuffle Along became the first hit Broadway musical written by and about African Americans, running for 504 performances and spawning three years of national tours. The production introduced songs including "I'm Just Wild About Harry" and "Love Will Find a Way." In 1923, Blake and Sissle appeared together in three short films produced by Lee de Forest using his Phonofilm sound-on-film process: Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake, Sissle and Blake Sing Snappy Songs, and Eubie Blake Plays His Fantasy on Swanee River. These films are preserved in the Maurice Zouary collection at the Library of Congress.

When Sissle relocated to Europe in 1927, ending their partnership, Blake resumed his collaboration with Broadway Jones. The two performed at Loew's State Theatre in November 1927, followed by an extended engagement at the Royal Poinciana Hotel in Palm Beach, Florida. They formed their own theatre troupe and toured a production called Shuffle Along Jr. through the Orpheum Circuit, then appeared together in several musical revues in the early 1930s, including the Broadway revue Blackbirds of 1930. Blake also played in a band founded by Jones until financial pressures during the Great Depression brought the collaboration to a close in 1932 or 1933.

Blake's Broadway career as both performer and composer spanned from 1924 to 1952 and encompassed productions including Andre Charlot's Revue of 1924, the musical Elsie, The Chocolate Dandies, and Blackbirds, among others. In 1932, he appeared in the Warner Brothers short film Pie, Pie Blackbird alongside the Nicholas Brothers, Nina Mae McKinney, and Noble Sissle, and he and his orchestra provided much of the music for the film Harlem Is Heaven that same year.

Blake and Sissle briefly reunited in 1932 as authors and stars of Shuffle Along of 1933, though the production failed to turn a profit during the Depression. The pair worked together again during World War II through the United Service Organizations. Their 1921 song "I'm Just Wild About Harry" later became the campaign theme for Harry S. Truman during the 1948 presidential election.

In his personal life, Blake married Avis Elizabeth Cecelia Lee in July 1910; the two had first met around 1895 as students at Primary School No. 2 in Baltimore. Avis was diagnosed with tuberculosis in 1938 and died that same year at the age of 58. While serving as a USO bandleader during World War II, Blake met Marion Grant Tyler, widow of violinist Willy Tyler, and the two married in 1945.

The 1978 Broadway musical Eubie! brought renewed attention to Blake's body of work, showcasing compositions that included "Bandana Days," "Charleston Rag," "Love Will Find a Way," "Memories of You," and "I'm Just Wild About Harry." The production earned Blake a Tony Award nomination for Best Original Score in 1979. In 1981, President Ronald Reagan awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Blake died on February 12, 1983, five days after his ninety-sixth birthday.