Edited by Azizi Powell
This pancocojams post presents excerpts from online discussion threads and online articles about "Shine" as a pejorative referent for Black people*, as an early 20th song about Black people, and as a folk character in Black "toasts".
*Black people" in this post means "African Americans".
The content of this post is presented for socio-cultural, and folkloric purposes.
All copyrights remain with their owners.
Thanks to all those who are quoted in this post.
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PANCOCOJAMS EDITOR'S NOTE
I was motivated to publish this post as a result of reading comments in the YouTube discussion thread for a "video" (1943 movie clip) of Fats Waller and Ada Brown singing "That Ain't Right". Here's the link to a pancocojams post about that movie clip (with selected comments from its discussion thread) https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2019/01/fats-waller-ada-brown-performing-that.html.
Here's what I wrote about several comments in that discussion:
"The comment exchange starting at #7 to #16 refers to demeaning Black stereotypes in the 1943 movie "Stormy Monday".
Several comments referred to the "shine' aspects of this clip.
I did some online research on the term "shine aspects" related to Black movies. That research led me to this 2006 Mudcat folk music discussion that I had participated in: https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=97381 "Folklore: Who's this 'Shine' guy?"
That discussion began with information about the 1936? song "Shine" that was composed by African American Cecil Mack.
[...]
My guess is that the waiter's excessive smiling in the beginning of this song is at least partly what the commenters' meant by "the shine aspects of this movie".
Another example of derogatory Black stereotypes that I noticed in this 1943 movie was near the end of that clip when Bill Robinson (in the role of a janitor) is shown putting on a "Sambo"-like slow moving, sad sack demeanor saying "I wish someone would book me someplace".
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I. THE SONG "SHINE" (THAT'S WHY THEY CALL ME SHINE) & "SHINE" AS A REFERENT FOR BLACK PEOPLE
Numbers are added to these quotes for referencing purposes only.
1. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shine_(1910_song)
Shine (originally titled That's Why They Call Me Shine) is a popular song with lyrics by Cecil Mack and Tin Pan Alley songwriter Lew Brown and music by Ford Dabney. It was published in 1910 by Gotham-Attucks and used by Aida Overton Walker in His Honor the Barber, an African-American road show. According to Perry Bradford, himself a songster and publisher, the song was written about an actual man named Shine who was with George Walker when they were badly beaten during the New York City race riot of 1900.[1]
It was later recorded by jazz and jazz influenced artists such as The California Ramblers (their version was very popular in 1924),[2] Louis Armstrong (recorded March 9, 1931 for Okeh Records, catalog No. 41486),[3] Ella Fitzgerald (recorded November 19, 1936 for Decca Records - catalog. No. 1062)[4], Benny Goodman, Harry James, and Frankie Laine (1947 and 1957 - the 1947 version reached No. 9 in the Billboard charts),[5] usually without the explanatory introduction.
Bing Crosby & The Mills Brothers recorded the song on February 29, 1932 with Studio orchestra conducted by Victor Young.[6] It was issued on Brunswick Records 11376-A, a 78 rpm record[7] and it is assessed by Joel Whitburn as reaching the No. 7 position in the charts of the day.[8]
As a member of The Hoboken Four, Frank Sinatra sang this song in 1935 on Major Bowes Amateur Hour.
[...]
Louis Armstrong version
The song was performed in a film short A Rhapsody in Black and Blue by Armstrong. The 1931 recording by Armstrong with his Sebastian New Cotton Club Orchestra is a subset of the complete lyric of the 1910 version and the expanded later version, with added scat singing and long instrumental ending:
[Instrumental opening ~35 sec.]
Oh chocolate drop, that’s me
’Cause, my hair is curly
Just because my teeth are pearly
Just because I always wear a smile
Like to dress up in the latest style
’Cause I’m glad I’m livin’
Take troubles all with a smile
Just because my color's shady
Makes no difference, baby
That’s why they call me "Shine"
[repeat words with scat and straight jazz instrumental ~2 min.]
SHINE (That's Why They Call Me Shine) (Cecil Mack, Lew Brown)
Ry Cooder version with original introduction
On his 1978 album Jazz, Ry Cooder performed the song in a "52nd Street" small band setting, with the introductory verse that explains what the song is all about. He noted that it had been written in 1910 near the end of the "Coon song era", and described it as a unique comment on the black face sensibilities of that genre.
INTRODUCTION:
When I was born they christened me plain Samuel Johnson Brown
But I hadn't grown so very big, 'fore some folks in this town
Had changed it 'round to "Sambo"; I was "Rastus" to a few
Then "Chocolate Drop" was added by some others that I knew
And then to cap the climax, I was strolling down the line
When someone shouted, "Fellas, hey! Come on and pipe the shine!"
But I don't care a bit. Here's how I figure it:
Well, just because my hair is curly
And just because my teeth are pearly
Just because I always wear a smile
Likes to dress up in the latest style*
Just because I'm glad I'm livin'
Takes trouble smilin', never whine
Just because my color's shady
Slightly different maybe
That's why they call me shine.
ALTERNATIVE LINE:
Wear my jeans like a man of means (he always dresses in the latest style)."...
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#2-#6: from https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=97381
2.
Subject: RE: Folklore: Who's this 'Shine' guy?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 20 Dec 06 - 10:35 PM
"Cecil Mack (R. C. McPherson) was an African-American songwriter and music publisher, born 1883. Gotham-Attucks Publishing was the first Af-Am owned publishing company in New York. Mack wrote the words and Ford Dabney composed the music for "That's Why They Call Me 'Shine.'
The Miller and Lyle's show, "Runnin' Wild," featured the music of Cecil Mack and James P. Johnson. Johnson had composed the "Charleston" in 1913, and this was the hit of the show, starting the "Charleston" craze. Mack was one of the first Black members of ASCAP."
**
3.
Subject: RE: Folklore: Who's this 'Shine' guy?
From: Seamus Kennedy
Date: 20 Dec 06 - 11:55 PM
"Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grapelli recorded a song called Shine with the Quintet of the Hot Club of Paris and an African American singer back in 1936.
Just because my teeth are pearly,
Just because my hair is curly,
Just because I always wear a smile,
Like to dress up in the latest style,
'Cause I'm glad I'm livin',
Take my troubles all with a smile,
Because my color's shady, baby,
That's why they call me Shine.
I think it's from the days of the shoeshine boys
when men would say "Boy, shine!"
Just one man's opinion of course."
**
4.
Subject: RE: Folklore: Who's this 'Shine' guy?
From: Azizi
Date: 21 Dec 06 - 12:25 AM
"The referent "shine" for Black people comes from the fact that some people feel that some Black people have skin so dark that it shines. The blue black skin was said to shine as much as polished black shoes.
I hasten to say that to call a Black person "Shine" was [and among some people still is] considered to be very insulting [even post the "Say it loud, I'm Black and I'm proud" 1970s."...
**
5.
Subject: RE: Folklore: Who's this 'Shine' guy?
From: Seamus Kennedy
Date: 21 Dec 06 - 12:27 PM
"Thanks, Azizi!
In a lot of advertising from the early days of the 20th century there were the black stereotypes with the black shiny skin - Aunt Jemima, Uncle Ben, e.g., as well as the blackface minstrel shows with the same,
lending credence to your thoughts.
Even toys had the Little Black Sambo effect."
**
6.
Subject: RE: Folklore: Who's this 'Shine' guy?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 21 Dec 06 - 02:23 PM
..."The song "That's Why They Call Me Shine" by Cecil Mack (1910) is the basis for the word 'Shine' in most later compositions; this song was extremely popular throughout the period 1910-1930, with black musicians. Seamus Kennedy quotes a part of it (more or less correctly), but misses the intent of the singer, who turns the definition to the Old English (in print from AD 900): to be conspicuous or brilliant in ability, appearance; found applied to people with a sunny disposition (18 c.), flamboyance (c. 1800), etc.
Also in the period c. 1910 (in print but probably older), 'shine' was applied to Blacks by the criminal class (OED), but also by lower class urbanites- here, one of the meanings cited by Seamus Kennedy comes into the picture- a shoeshine, and the ubiquitous 'shoeshine boys' who plied their trade on city streets, and eventually set up portable stands with seats (discussed in print in 1870's, the shoeshine stand appearing soon after the Civil War if not before in major cities. Their call, 'Shine,' led to that word being applied to them and to all Blacks (including some dark-skinned but not African-American).
Cecil Mack, an educated African-American who at one time hoped to be a doctor but dropped out because he had no money, played these two meanings very cleverly in his little song; I am sure that most Whites failed to catch the interplay."
[...]
Seamus Kennedy mentions the characters in advertising- these, I think, were worse than the minstrel material of an earlier (mostly pre-emancipation) period. These advs., common through the 1930's, not only firmly placed the African-American in the servant class, but the text often made remarks about their supposed inferior intelligence. This material, in Colliers, Sat. Eve. Post and other widely read magazines and papers, affected white thought long after the minstrels were mostly forgotten and references (such as the Encyclopaedia Britannica following the 1911 edition) updated their essays on the Negro to remove discussion of their lower intelligence, pugnacity, etc."
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II. INFORMATION AND COMMENTS ABOUT THE FICTIONAL CHARACTER "SHINE" IN BLACK (AFRICAN AMERICAN) TOASTS
(These quotes are given in no particular order and are numbered for referencing purposes only)
1. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1997/12/20/the-toast-of-the-titanic/fb3a2e52-3aa0-41ec-b649-76a2c9c14d78/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.80b2b1eb3451 THE TOAST OF THE TITANIC
By Dana Hull December 20, 1997
"Titanic hoopla is upon us: the documentary, the musical, now the movie. Yet buried deep in the mythology of the doomed voyage is the story of Shine, a fictional character who lives on through the folk traditions of the African American community.
Legend has it that the only black man on board the Titanic was a laborer called Shine -- "shine" being a derogatory term for blacks. Because he worked below deck, Shine was the first to realize that the Titanic was sinking, and thus was able to escape while more than 1,500 passengers perished in the April 14, 1912, disaster.
Most stories about Shine take place in the form of "toasts," an improvisational oral narrative popular in black communities from the 1920s to the early 1960s. A form of street poetry, toasts were usually performed in the male provinces of pool halls and street corners, and were passed on from friend to friend.
Often as profane as they were misogynistic, the raplike verses reveal a different perspective of the event that currently is being celebrated in the Hollywood blockbuster starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet. The Shine toast revels in sharing a smug satisfaction that the Titanic -- a symbol of white European arrogance and affluence -- sank on its maiden voyage. The irony that African Americans were not allowed to make the crossing -- thus sparing their lives -- inspired a wealth of jokes, toasts and ballads.
Numerous verses of the various Shine toasts, particularly those that refer to the female anatomy, are not suitable for a family newspaper. But the rhyming verses, which could last for up to 10 minutes, go something like this:
Up stepped a black man from the deck below that they called Shine.
Hollerin, "Captain! Captain! Don't you know?
There's forty feet of water on the boiler room flo'."
The captain said, "Go back, you dirty black!
We got a thousand pumps to keep this water back."
Because Shine exists solely in the oral tradition, verses would vary from teller to teller. Roger Abrahams, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, was one of the few folklorists to record them.
"Most versions of the Titanic fit into the same general pattern," he wrote in his 1963 book "Deep Down in the Jungle: Negro Narrative Folklore From the Streets of Philadelphia." There's a "prologue about the terrible day on which the ship sank; the introduction of Shine, the mythical Negro stoker on board the ship; a description of his argument with the captain about whether the ship was sinking; his jumping into the water and his amazing swimming ability described; the captain's offer of money to save him, which he refuses; the offer of the captain's wife and/or daughter of sexual relations with him, which he likewise refuses; a conversation with the shark and/or whale where he claims to be able to out-swim them (which he apparently does); and a final ironic twist in which it is mentioned that Shine swam so fast that by the time news of the sea tragedy arrived, Shine was already inebriated in some specific location."
When the news got around the world that the great Titanic had sunk,
Shine was in Harlem on 125th street, damn near drunk. Or:
When all them white folks went to Heaven,
Shine was in Sugar Ray's Bar drinking Seagram's Seven.
"Shine is the clever black," says Bruce Jackson, a professor of American culture at SUNY-Buffalo who traveled around the country recording toasts in the 1960s and '70s. "He's the only one on board smart enough to save his life, and he's the only one strong enough to physically swim to shore."...
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2. http://disastersongs.ca/shine-titanic/ Shine and The Titanic
"Shine and the Titanic is a spoken-word performance (in a form called a Toast) written in metre and rhyme that tells the story of Shine, an old Black stoker on the Titanic, who repeatedly warns the white captain of the impending disaster and is ignored and insulted. Throughout the song Shine humbly gives updates on the sinking ship. In his heroism, Shine refuses money from millionaires, sexual favours from white women and finally abandons the ship and manages to swim to shore. He is found drinking in a New York bar when news of the Titanic‘s demise arrives. His advice – “get your ass in the water and swim like me” – is well remembered.
Fair warning -the song contains lots of sexual innuendo and is definitely NSFW (Not Suitable For Workplace).
The fact that African-Americans were not allowed on board the luxury liner, except as workers, engendered some complicated feelings when the ship sank and so many drowned."...
-snip-
Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2019/01/two-clean-versions-of-african-american.html for Part I of a two part pancocojams series that presents "clean" examples of the African American toast "Shine And The Titanic". The hyperlink for Part II of that series is included in that post.
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