* Warning!  The following may contain lyrics that include words that
  are presently taboo and considered politically incorrect! *

I am not a bigot and I harbor no prejudice against any ethnic
minority.  However, I have several rolls in my 88-note collection
that are presently not playable in polite company 1998.

The largest contribution to player piano and its music was made by
African Americans including one black man who is said to have invented
the device.  Scott Joplin invented the Ragtime form.  Jelly Roll Morton
claimed to have invented jazz.  James P. Johnson invented stride piano
and wrote Charleston, Running Wild, Old Fashioned Love.

Many of the artists of rolls were black, along with the one man who is
most associated with the sound of the player piano in the modern day,
J.  Lawrence Cook.  There are many rolls that are themed about colored
people that I have run across time and again.

Considering their contribution and the probability that they
contributed to the rolls in question, I find it amazing that African
Americans made no complaint about the rolls when they came out.  At
least, I have not heard of such complaints.  It believe that these may
have been made for the African American market since although they are
funny today, they convey some strong emotions that may have been on the
serious side when they were new.

My collection includes:   "Pickaninnies on Parade",  "Pickaninny
Paradise",  "My Mammy", "Good Bye Alexander", "Mammy's Little Coal
Black Rose". "I wish I was in the Land of Cotton Now", and "It Takes
a Long Tall Brown Skinned Gal to Make a Preacher Lay his Bible Down".

The lyrics include: "I wish I was in the land of cotton now, where the
darkies spend their time jassing (sic) under neath the Jass-imine(sic)";
"Coon, Coon, Coon,  how I wish my color would fade"; " Goodbye
Alexander, good bye honey boy." (about a young black man being sent off
to war---the first one); "You lay your black kinky head on a bed with a
pillow of white" (as mammy sings to her child about Pickaninny
Paradise.)

African heritage is not all that is mentioned in ways that would,
today, be politically incorrect.  In fact, there is no ethnic group
that is not mentioned in a jokingly half serious, possibly derogatory
way.  The only group I do not remember being mentioned was Jewish
ethnicity.  There was "Chong, he come from Hong Kong" and "Old
limehouse, where yellow chinkies love to play," as well as mentions of
Micks (Irish) Wops (Italians).  The native American seems to have fared
better than others, as they are usually portrayed as noble or in love.

So friends, are these songs derogatory, good natured ribbing, or made
for the ethnicity that is mentioned to somehow make them feel good
about themselves?  What is your view of these pieces of history?

D. L. Bullock  --  Piano World  --  St. Louis