My father is 88 years old, the last member of his generation in our
family, and he likes to listen to my 1915 Aeolian player piano and the
many vintage rolls I have acquired for it.  Sometimes there will be a
roll without words that he will recognize from his youth and he can
still sing the words, which he just did, in fact, for "In The Baggage
Car Ahead" (I think it was called), which he says his mother sang.
He says that he remembers the boys going "Over There" in World War One,
although he and his brothers were pretty small, and he also remembers
when they came home and how scary some of them looked when they put on
their gas masks.

Anyway, one of the songs that Dad and his brothers used to sing during
the Great War was called "Chief Bugaboo," and Dad says they had it on
an Edison phonograph record, a platter rather than a cylinder, I believe.
They played the record so often that he can still sing every word of
the song eighty years later.  The song is about an Indian chief who
decides to "do his bit" for the American war effort, singing at one
point: "Me much like to kill, scalp old Kaiser Bill."

Dad would be thrilled if I could find any record of this silly song
today, but although I have watched for it from time to time on eBay
piano roll and record lists, I have never seen it.  Yet the fact that
a rather poor family in the Midwest had this recording suggests that it
was probably mass produced along with many other Tin Pan Alley songs
(if that's what it was) that I have seen, so it seems like there might
still be a few copies of it around, and I would sure like to find one
for Dad.

A recording of some sort would be the best find, of course, a record or
a piano roll, but I'd even be happy with sheet music of it that I could
play un-mechanically.  Since so many people on this list seem to have,
or have seen, old recordings, may I ask if anyone has ever seen "Chief
Bugaboo," and if not, where might be a likely place to search for the
old fellow?

Thanks much,

Tom Baker
Albuquerque, New Mexico

 [ I believe the song title is "Indianola", music composed in 1917
 [ by S.R. Henry and D. Onivas.  Lyrics by Frank H. Warren were added
 [ in 1918.  One piano roll version is QRS Word Roll 560.  Andy Taylor
 [ wrote about it in 980406 MMDigest: "Chief Bug-A-Boo can't make his
 [ war paint fit!  Classic Kortlander/Baxter with some nifty 'Indian'
 [ effects."  -- Robbie