Classic banjo in the Music Hall

[Russ Chandler]

I'm interesting in researching the role Classic banjo played in the Music Hall.

There are a few referenced in the standard literature, and a search of the BMG archive pulls up some interesting stuff (God bless text indexed PDF's!)

But does anyone on here have or know of any additional resources that might help me out?

[carrie horgan]

I did some digging on Madeline Rossiter - it was interesting to find out about a black female performer in British music hall (who also played banjo and composed some tunes including Romping Rossie and The Douglas Cakewalk and some songs like On the Promenade: https://bhbmt.org/2021/09/10/madeline-rossiter-millar-known-as-made...

https://footlightnotes.wordpress.com/2013/10/05/madeline-rossiter-1...

[Steve Harrison]

Hi Carrie, I've been a member of the British Music Hall Society for many years and your article is the first time that I've seen any reference to Madeline Rossiter. It would make an interesting feature in one of the BMS quarterly magazine...Steve.

carrie horgan said:

I did some digging on Madeline Rossiter - it was interesting to find out about a black female performer in British music hall (who also played banjo and composed some tunes including Romping Rossie and The Douglas Cakewalk and some songs like On the Promenade: https://bhbmt.org/2021/09/10/madeline-rossiter-millar-known-as-made...

https://footlightnotes.wordpress.com/2013/10/05/madeline-rossiter-1...

[carrie horgan]

There is a feature about her in the Nov 1954 BMG.  

Here are some more photos: 

Steve Harrison said:

Hi Carrie, I've been a member of the British Music Hall Society for many years and your article is the first time that I've seen any reference to Madeline Rossiter. It would make an interesting feature in one of the BMS quarterly magazine...Steve.

carrie horgan said:

I did some digging on Madeline Rossiter - it was interesting to find out about a black female performer in British music hall (who also played banjo and composed some tunes including Romping Rossie and The Douglas Cakewalk and some songs like On the Promenade: https://bhbmt.org/2021/09/10/madeline-rossiter-millar-known-as-made...

https://footlightnotes.wordpress.com/2013/10/05/madeline-rossiter-1...

[carrie horgan]

Olly Oakley playing her tune: Romping Rossie  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOPCjxHP0oI

[Russ Chandler]

Me too, and I totally agree!

How about it, Carrie? 

Steve Harrison said:

Hi Carrie, I've been a member of the British Music Hall Society for many years and your article is the first time that I've seen any reference to Madeline Rossiter. It would make an interesting feature in one of the BMS quarterly magazine...Steve.

carrie horgan said:

I did some digging on Madeline Rossiter - it was interesting to find out about a black female performer in British music hall (who also played banjo and composed some tunes including Romping Rossie and The Douglas Cakewalk and some songs like On the Promenade: https://bhbmt.org/2021/09/10/madeline-rossiter-millar-known-as-made...

https://footlightnotes.wordpress.com/2013/10/05/madeline-rossiter-1...

[Mike Bostock]

The banjo appeared in the context of the very earliest cellar bars and tavern hall venues in the 1840's that were the precursors of the later music halls. It is quite a wide period, with many, many performers in all regions. To research that whole period in depth is a big task. Which dates and locations are you looking to research? 

Music hall was certainly influential culturally including in relation to the narrative of the English banjo. One study area you may find fruitful is to look at the growth of (vocalist/banjoist) talent agents who coached and claimed to secure their paying clients with music hall contracts. However, the banjos more typical role within music hall setting was as song accompaniment.  The evolution of solo banjo performance and composition that has more in common with what we understand as 'classic banjo' was more a product of cohorts of non-professional musicians within the amateur social settings of smoking concerts, local benefits, bohemian concerts and club entertainments. These non-professional banjoists often acquired significant popularity and were a hot ticket within their local area.

Be prepared that almost certainly any research linked to a tightly pre-defined context will quickly widen as connections are found beyond those surface genre boundaries. The Victorian music culture was highly diverse and complex. I'm currently involved in research into the social contexts of early English banjo playing. To give you an idea this project is five years in and we've only just scratched the surface. We're always open for researchers who will focus on specific areas and contribute to that growing narrative.

[Mike Bostock]

In regard to resources the British Newspaper archive is a good starting point. Your follow-up sources will very likely be prompted and dictated by initial print references:

https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk

With the usual reminder about secondary sources and a crucial awarenesses of confirmation bias. We have to take especial care to not simply extract by searching easily extractable 'key' words. Much of the detail of early English banjo playing does not register on top-level searches for 'banjo' etc.

[Mike Bostock]

I would love to be able to provide an off-the-peg list of resources that will unlock the narrative of all aspects of the early English banjo or even just the banjo in a music hall setting. The hard fact is that no large cache of banjo primary sources exist within any one archive. This is a major reason why this area of banjo development and vernacular music has been continuously neglected and instead a thread-bare, partial 'narrative' constructed by relying only on what is easily accessible. The task is to look for references and mine those references out by original (and creative) research.

I'd be delighted to help you in any way that I can. That help is more likely to be where it is possible to follow up specific references. There is no general template. In my research area local history societies and specific university libraries have been as productive as the official public archives such as the British Library. Gradually building and accessing a reading list of out-of-print contemporary books written from first-hand experience is also a useful strategy.

[carrie horgan]

Hi Mike - wouldn't it be great to have more of a documented history of the banjo in Britain (and the broader British Empire).  As a banjo player, I feel we have a forgotten history and there is so much to learn about performers in music hall and the repertoire for banjo (songs and instrumentals...)  I am not much of a singer so tend to gravitate towards instrumentals - am focusing on tunes by Olly Oakley at the moment.

Mike Bostock said:

I would love to be able to provide an off-the-peg list of resources that will unlock the narrative of all aspects of the early English banjo or even just the banjo in a music hall setting. The hard fact is that no large cache of banjo primary sources exist within any one archive. This is a major reason why this area of banjo development and vernacular music has been continuously neglected. The task is to look for references and mine those references out by original (and creative) research.

I'd be delighted to help you in any way that I can. That help is more likely to be where it is possible to follow up specific references. There is no general template. In my research area local history societies and specific university libraries have been as productive as the official public archives such as the British Library. Gradually building and accessing a reading list of out-of-print contemporary books written from first-hand experience is also a useful strategy.

[Joel Hooks]

My copy of her cakewalk has a different title sheet.

https://archive.org/details/douglas-cake-walk-madeline-rossiter

[Mike Bostock]

Hi Carrie, we are slowly but surely gaining an increasingly nuanced and detailed understanding of the banjo shaped by it's diverse Victorian contexts and influences. Interesting that you widen that and mention the British Empire - we know that the banjo was actively enjoyed in British India by the administrators, soldiery and the vast employ that oversaw British governance. It was served not just by implant white-run businesses, but also by indigenous businesses who responded to opportunity. A keen banjo player in late 1870's Lahore or Calcutta could access material with virtually no time-lag when compared with a keen banjo player in London at the same period.

Our modern genre 'templates' tend not to be relevant or applicable to Victorian activity. Our modern cultural assumptions in regard to ambition and motive tend not to be relevant or applicable in the same way to Victorian society. Through research we meet the shadows of people and their patterns of behaviours that do not conform to modern norms and consequently require understanding in relation to that different cultural milieu. People who, when brought into the light, are superficially like us; but who conducted themselves in ways we have to make a concerted effort to recognise and contextualise.

I feel passionately that all available evidence of these people should be pieced together as the beautiful and descriptive prose it is. Not the rough shorthand that has glossed over the vitality of these people for too long.

carrie horgan said:

Hi Mike - wouldn't it be great to have more of a documented history of the banjo in Britain (and the broader British Empire).  As a banjo player, I feel we have a forgotten history and there is so much to learn about performers in music hall and the repertoire for banjo (songs and instrumentals...)  I am not much of a singer so tend to gravitate towards instrumentals - am focusing on tunes by Olly Oakley at the moment.

Mike Bostock said:

I would love to be able to provide an off-the-peg list of resources that will unlock the narrative of all aspects of the early English banjo or even just the banjo in a music hall setting. The hard fact is that no large cache of banjo primary sources exist within any one archive. This is a major reason why this area of banjo development and vernacular music has been continuously neglected. The task is to look for references and mine those references out by original (and creative) research.

I'd be delighted to help you in any way that I can. That help is more likely to be where it is possible to follow up specific references. There is no general template. In my research area local history societies and specific university libraries have been as productive as the official public archives such as the British Library. Gradually building and accessing a reading list of out-of-print contemporary books written from first-hand experience is also a useful strategy.

[Mike Bostock]

Russ, my (hopefully helpful) inclination would be to not predetermine the nature and parameters of your research. I'm not sure I understand a meaning for the 'role of classic banjo played in the music hall'? We can too easily go down an Alice in Wonderland rabbit hole of our own making when seeking to 'identify' modern concepts in historic contexts.

There is certainly potential for discovery in researching music hall and it's relationship with the banjo. The excitement (and purpose) is finding what evidence is there and how that adds to what we know.