Nameless and Unremembered

John Lang, Jr. turned Boone's talent into a successful business. The show was among the most successful touring companies of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. 

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John William Boone, known by the professional name "Blind" Boone was a classical and ragtime pianist and composer from Missouri. He faced great uncertainty and dangers building a career in the Reconstruction and Jim Crow eras on his way to becoming one of America's most popular touring entertainers.

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Sweatman develops his vaudeville act and lands in New York City. He records for numerous record labels and works in music publishing, eventually representing the estate of Scott Joplin. Don't forget to join our Patreon to get access to a playlist for this episode and other exclusive content.

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Wilbur Sweatman, b. 1881 in Brunswick, Missouri was an important musician who connects ragtime, vaudeville and itinerant show bands to the birth of jazz. Depending on how one determines what jazz is, he was very likely the first artist to make an audio recording of this emerging style. Comparisons of Sweatman's style to better known O.D.J.B. recordings from the time after the release of Sweatman's 1916 Down Home Rag show them to sound more arranged and scripted, possessing less of the fire and spirit of improvisation found in Sweatman's work.

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Part 6 of 6. Smith organizes music groups for the Pullman Railcar Company and youth bands for the Chicago Defender newspaper. He has a work premiered by the St. Louis Symphony. Notable former students abound.

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Part 5 of 6. After his feud with Booker T. Washington, N. Clark Smith returns to the midwest. He composes an overture and arranges music for the epic pageant "Milestones of a Race," written and directed by Ada Crogman Franklin. 

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Part 4 of 6. N. Clark Smith returns from his 13 month world tour and embraces his future as an educator and composer. This leads him to Wichita, Chicago and eventually the famous Tuskegee Institute and Booker T. Washington. 

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Part 3 of 6. After a few years growing into prominence as a bandleader in Wichita and Kansas City, N. Clark Smith was recruited by Ernest Hogan to lead a youth band on a world tour of the M.B. Curtis All-Star Minstrel Company. 

Host Bill McKemy is joined by Toni Gates, Lisa Henry and Rich Wheeler.

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Part 2 of 6. After venturing away from his hometown of Leavenworth, Kansas, N. Clark Smith began leading a youth band for ragtime legend John William "Blind" Boone. He attends the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition where he brushes shoulders with many of the greatest black composers and political leaders of his time.

Host Bill McKemy is joined by Toni Gates, Lisa Henry and Rich Wheeler.

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Part 1 of 6 on band leader, composer and educator N. Clark Smith. A prolific but relatively unknown African American musical trailblazer of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

This episode discusses his family and upbringing in Leavenworth, Kansas from Smith's birth in 1866 through his marriage and departure from Leavenworth in 1890. 

Later in the episode, host Bill McKemy is joined by musicians, educators and activists Toni Gates, Lisa Henry and Rich Wheeler.

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