Edited by Azizi Powell
Latest revision -April 30, 2026
This pancocojams post presents information about African American composer, pianist, and musical director Will Marion Cook.
This post also presents an excerpt of a 2017 University of Nebraska school of music paper about Will Marion Cook's late 19th century/early 20th century Black American musicals entitled "The Cannibal King".
Part of that excerpt includes the storyline for many of these "The Cannibal King" musical productions.
The content of this post is presented for historical and socio-cultural purposes.
All copyrights remain with their owners.
Thanks to Will Marion Cole for his cultural legacy. Thanks to the other people who were associated with "The Cannibal King musical productions that are documented in this university paper. Thanks also to Peter
M. Lefferts, University of Nebraska for his research and writing, thanks to the University of Nebraska for publishing this paper online.
-snip-
Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2022/09/the-cannibal-king-also-known-as-zulu.html for a 2022 pancocojams post entitled " "The Cannibal King" (also known as "The Zulu King") Children's Camp Song (videos, information, & lyrics)".*
* Pancocojams Editor's Note: The late 19th century/early 20th century musicals (that were referred to as "Negro operas") with the title The Cannibal King may have inspired the creation of 20th century children's camp songs with that title. However, those musicals had different themes and different lyrics than the 20th century "The Cannibal King" camp songs. Here's part of the lyrics to a versions of "The Cannibal King" children's song:
"Oh the cannibal king with the big nose ring
Fell in love with the dusty maid
And every night by the pale moonlight
This is what he said .
Baroom (Make kissing sound 2 x's)
Baroom (Make kissing sound 2 x's)
Honey won't you marry me
Baroom (Make kissing sound 2 x's)
Baroom (Make kissing sound 2 x's)
Under the bamboo tree?"...
-snip-
Those camp songs inspired the 20th century children's rhymes entitleded "Under The Bam Bush", "Under The Bamboo Tree" or similar tiles.
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INFORMATION ABOUT WILL MARION COOK, THE WRITER OF MANY OF THE LATE 19TH CENTURY/EARLY 20TH CENTURY "tHE CANNIBAL KING" PRODUCTIONS
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_Marion_Cook
"William Mercer Cook (January 27, 1869 – July 19, 1944),
better known as Will Marion Cook, was an African-American composer, pianist,
orchestrator, lyricist, violinist, and choral director.[2] Cook was a student
of Antonín Dvořák. In 1919 he took his New York Syncopated Orchestra (Southern
Syncopated Orchestra) to England for a command performance for King George V of
the United Kingdom, and tour. Cook is probably best known for his popular songs
and landmark Broadway musicals, featuring African-American creators, producers,
and casts, such as Clorindy, or The Origin of the Cake Walk (1898) and In
Dahomey (1903). The latter toured for four years, including in the United
Kingdom and United States.
Cook served as musical director of the George Walker-Bert
Williams Company, working with the comedy partners on Clorindy, In Dahomey, and
several other musical successes."...
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A LIST OF SOME OF THE NOTABLE BLACK AMERICANS WHO ARE MENTIONED IN THIS FEATURED UNIVERSITY PAPER ABOUT "THE CANNIBAL KING" SHOWS
Here's a list of some of the notable Black Americans who are mentioned in this paper.
These names are given in alphabetical order (in most cases) based on their last name)
Black Patti (Matilda Sissieretta Joyner Jones) - singer
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sissieretta_Jones
Harry T. Burleigh- composer, arranger, singer, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Burleigh
Will Marion Cook - pianist, orchestrator, lyricist, violinist, and choral director
.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_Marion_Cook
Bob Cole (Robert Allen Cole Jr)- composer, actor, and playwright who produced and directed stage shows.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Cole_(composer)
Paul Laurence Dunbar-poet, novelist, short story writer, and composer
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Laurence_Dunbar
James Weldon Johnson - writer, composer, civil rights activist
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Weldon_Johnson
Abbie Mitchell, opera singer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbie_Mitchell
George Walker, part of musical duo Williams & Walker https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Williams_and_Walker_Co.
Bert Williams-part of musical duo Williams & Walker
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Williams_and_Walker_Co.
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EXCERPT FROM A UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA PAPER ABOUT THE BLACK AMERICAN "CANNIBAL KING" MUSICAL PRODUCTIONS
From https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1067&context=musicfacpub
Faculty Publication school of music
10-17-2017
Chronology and Itinerary of the Career of Will Marion Cook:
Materials for a Biography
[by] Peter M. Lefferts, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
..."COOK’S “[THE VISIT OF THE] CANNIBAL KING”
[page] 44
The first glimpse of the long-running Cannibal King project
(A). Mattie Wilkes is singing Cook's "Cannibal King" song in
late October [1896] in Isham’s production (Washington Bee, October 31 , p. 8),
which would presumably have to be during the second part (the variety
segment).
She "sings very charmingly the composition of Prof.
Will M. Cook, entitled "The Cannibal King"; right now, it is a
song, not a show. When Isham's troupe returns to a city, it needs fresh
material, especially if returning in the same season (the ads say "Presenting
NEW SELECTIONS"). The troupe's newest opener, apparently
its third or fourth mini musical skit of the fall, appears in November,
at the time of its return engagement in DC at the Academy of Music in (Monday, November
23-Saturday November 28);
It is Cook's new opus, [The Visit of the] Cannibal King
(Washington Post, Sunday, November 22, 1896, p. 19; Washington Bee,
November 28, 1896, p. 5); "See the Cannibal King and His
Secretary" (DC Morning Times, November 22, 1896, p. 12).
[...]
From Abbie’s memoirs and a song title page, Cook was
working on an "opera," The Cannibal King, as early as 1896;
further, he had three songs published this year, and Riis says the covers tie
them to The Cannibal King (Riis, Dahomey edn., p. xviii, and notes 7
and 8). At least one does: WorldCat reports "Love is the
tendrest of themes: From the Negro opera The Cannibal King," words and
music by Cook (NYC, 1896). This song is identified with Cook in a
list of colored song writers and their songs published in an
article, "Colored Song Writers," in Iowa State Bystander, August 13,
1897, p. 4, which also says "One of the most beautiful sentimental
songs in this valued collection of negro music is written by William M. Cook
of
[page] 46
Washington, D.C., who is an educated musician and a
teacher of music.
[...]
NB: Cook consistently called his shows operas, but this is
not, technically speaking, their genre.
[...]
NB: Bob Cole was going to do King Eat 'Em All for Black
Patti's troupe before he broke with them (Indianapolis Freeman, December
19, 1896, p. 5), and this topic may have been inspired by Cook;
possibly the cannibal king thread goes the other way, and back even
before, i.e., even before Cook, to the earliest days with Cole at
Worth's, as one of the mini musical comedies for that venue. Cole's
announced venture was probably intended to be ready for the next
season (1897-1898), but it seems to have been set aside because At Jolly
Cooney Island was going too well to shelve, and then Cole broke
with Black Patti. In any event, it surely was, or would have been,
another playlet. Cole rejoins Cook in a Cannibal King project in
1901, after A Trip to Coontown closes for good (see below).
1896 SONGS
"Love is the tendrest of themes: From the Negro opera
The Cannibal
King," words and music by Cook (NY: Howley, Haviland,
1896)
[…]
[page] 72
The roots of this project clearly go back in some way to
the 1896 Isham show, and also to the James Whitcomb Riley project of
1898; not part of Williams and Walker enterprise. The gestation of this
Cannibal King surely began in 1896 with the mini in the Isham
show, but exactly what form it was in in 1898 or 1899 projects is
unknown; looking down the road, it was reworked into Jes Lak White
Folks of 1900 (Cook-Dunbar), then into the Cannibal King(s) of
1901, and then into In Dahomey of 1902 (see below); continuities of later
material are discussed in Graziano and Riis, who do not mention this
version at all; relationship to King Eat Em All also needs exploring.
Finally, note that the two plot line streams or basic scenarios (Dollar
Bill and Silver King, and Cannibal King) that play out over the entire
period of the Cook/Dunbar collaboration.
[…]
1901, early: THE CANNIBAL KING
The Cannibal King again [Version E], announced with music
by
[page] 82
Cook, but now with a book by Dunbar rather than by Riley or Morton; the precise relationship to the earlier 1896 or 1898
or 1899 shows of this name (or to King Eat 'Em All below) is not
known;
This version of the show was probably being worked on by
Dunbar in late 1900 and early 1901, before the end of the run of
Bob Cole and Billy Johnson with A Trip to Coontown, and thus before any
idea of making it a vehicle for them (see below). Rather, it might
have been thought of as the next vehicle for Williams and Walker, who
had up to now been on the pace of a new show each season; they
instead decided on pursuing a second year of Sons of Ham, which
could have derailed this new project in the late spring or early
summer months; Dunbar reportedly was the original librettist and
then backed out; perhaps Dunbar was working to expand Jes
Lak/Eph; perhaps this is the moment described by J. W. Johnson when
Dunbar is irritated by Cook and won't work with him, which is
exactly Armstead-Johnson's reading of JWJ autobiography passage (NB: Cook and Dunbar worked a year later on In Dahomey)
NB: Helen Armstead-Johnson quotes from an unpublished 1978 conference paper by Mercer Johnson (.rec.. Mercer Cook??),
which itself is reportedly quoting or paraphrasing from Will
Marion Cook's unpublished memoirs. "Conceived as an operetta for
Williams and Walker, the first half of the libretto for The Cannibal King
[Cook's title] was written by Paul Laurence Dunbar. Then Dunbar
became involved in writing a novel and lost interest in the
operetta. Cook then called in Cole and the Johnson brothers to complete the
libretto."
This sounds more or less right (but see below in October
1901).
[...]
Cannibal King began as Cook production, and if under his own management, this may be part of the problem; he was not a
good manager; perhaps the show advertised in October (see below) represents fresh, new professional management of Ed H.
Lester, who was primarily a show manager, but this did not seem to help.
[page] 86
… SCENARIO:
The plot has essential elements that go back to earliest
stages of "Cannibal King" material (but not Harry Smith
and/or South Pacific island Eatemall):
"The plot of the comedy hinges upon the ludicrous
attempts of a colored headwaiter at a fashionable Florida hotel, who has
suddenly become wealthy, to elevate the tone and mend the manners of
his race and make them eligible to society" (Indianapolis
Freeman, November 9, 1901, p. 5).
The father is still "Pompous Johnson" but now the
daughter is Parthenia, and there are additional new characters. Krasner
(1997, 64-65) gives a fuller description: it "is essentially the
same as that of Jes
[page] 87
Lak White F'lks . . . . two new elements are added . . . .
[and] the text was enlarged," by including two schemers who could have
been "intended for either Cole and Johnson or Williams and
Walker." This insight offers the possibility that the play was being
revised before Cole and Johnson split, or before Williams and Walker were
out of the picture. …
1901, in October: Not again mentioned in newspapers until
advertised as available in late October (NY Dramatic Mirror, October 19,
1901, pp. 19, 20); Cole is no longer an author, and Dunbar’s name gets
top billing as author; possibly this is a re-write to feature
Cole in a solo star role; in an article entitled DUNBAR’S COMEDY/ “The
Cannibal King” Soon to be Produced in New York/ (Lexington (KY)
Leader, October 23, 1901, p. 7), the book is said to have been
written by Dunbar and J. W. Johnson; “most of the music is founded on
purely plantation melodies”; and the cast will be headed by Cole
and Abbie Mitchell; the article provides an elaborate scenario that
goes beyond the LoC Act I libretto to tell the story of Act II, without
the cliffhanger theft of Pompus’ trunk:
“The plot is as unique as the music is said to be catchy.
It tells of Pompus Johnson, who, for a number of years, has
held the position of head waiter at a fashionable Florida hotel, and, having accumulated a snug sum of money, wishes to become a factor
among the Florida Negro aristocracy. He has sent his daughter,
Parthenia, a beautiful quadroon, to Vassar College, where she graduates
with honors, having kept her Negro parentage a secret. Pompus has heretofore countenanced the aspirations of Jerry Jenkins, an under waiter at the hotel, to his daughter’s
hand, but now he begins to look with disfavor upon his suit. Jerry must
gain a higher position in the wor[l]d; he must become a butler in
some rich family, or second waiter in a hotel, or at least approach
near the
[page] 88
dignity of a head waiter before Pompus will agree for him to
marry his daughter.
A couple of dark schemers, hearing of the prosperity of Pompus, concoct a plan to swindle him out of a large sum of
money by playing upon his credulity and vanity. Disguised as a
conjure man one of them informs Pompus that many years before Capt. Kidd
had buried a vast treasure in an old well located on Pompus’
place. Pompus falls an easy victim to the scheme and readily gives
them the amount of money asked for the secret, and to the great
chagrin of the schemers digs and really finds an old chest filled with gold
and jewels in the very place indicated by the fakirs.
Being now wealthy Pompus seeks a wider field of social
action than Florida affords, and moves to New York, where he beings
a series of lavish entertainments in his magnificent South
Fifth avenue residence.
Jerry Jenkins, being discarded—for Pompus, like his paler brother, now seeks a scion of nobility or royalty to wed his
daughter- --enlists in the army as a common soldier and goes to the
Philippines.
Pompus enters into negotiations with Eat ‘Em All, the
Cannibal King, who has been residing in Paris, to marry his daughter,
Parthenia. Eat ‘Em All on his way to America has caused a panic on the ship
by breaking into the store room and devouring all the raw
provisions, and on his arrival is locked up in jail.
One of the schemers, who is being released from jail just as
Eat ‘Em All is being locked up, and, learning from him the
reason for his presence in America, impersonates the Cannibal King at the
house of Pompus, where elaborate preparations are being made for the approaching marriage. The actions of the fakir disgust
Pompus, and everybody else, with royalty; so Jerry, who returns from the Philippines as a Captain and who informs Pompus that he has inherited the wealth of an uncle who made a fortune in trips
as a railroad porter, marries Parthenia.
An attempt is made in “The Cannibal King” to keep both play and music true to the nature and characteristics of the
Southern Negro. Most of the music is founded on purely plantation
melodies.
The company, composed of the best Negro singers to be found in America, has been engaged and will be headed by Bob Cole
and Abbie Mitchell.
[...].
Armstead-Johnson (1981, pp. 135-37) gives more details.
1901, in August: This show never got to the
stage,
[...]
[page] 96
1903, in April: short profile of Cook (The Theatre Magazine, 3/3, no. 26
(April 1903), p. 96-97), about the time In Dahomey leaves for
England: "Mr. Cook is not proud of "In Dahomey," but thinks that his
new opera, "The Cannibal King," on which he has been at work for
several years, will entitle him to serious critical consideration. The
libretto, written by a colored man, is said to be exceedingly clever
and the score to contain some fine bits of composition. This opera
will be presented early next season with a company composed
entirely of colored singers. In the cast will be Miss Abbie Mitchell . . .
and Harry T. Burleigh . . . . He is also at work in collaboration with
Harry B. Smith on a musical play in which one act is laid in the
South." [So he is looking to Fall 1903 for Cannibal King, and the
Smith show must refer to A Girl From Dixie.]
NB: Bob Cole writes an article for Colored American Magazine which
appears in March 1902, in which he says he is writing the libretto for
Cook ("The Negro and the Stage," Colored American Magazine 4/11
(March 1902), pp. 301-306 at p. 306); the Indianapolis Freeman picks
up on this, and reports in May that Mr. Cole is writing a libretto for
Mr. Cooke's "The Cannibal King" and Dunbar is out of the business
(Indianapolis Freeman, May 24, 1902, p. 5); in light of 1901 perhaps
this is way late and the article was written and submitted long before
it appeared in print. Or else Cole is still involved in 1902, and when
Cook says the libretto is written by a colored man he means Cole and
not, for example, Dunbar.
My suspicion is that if there is a Cannibal King variant that is still viable
after In Dahomey, then it centers on the return of the Vassar Girl
theme, i.e., going back to the Clorindy element of an educated black
returning to the student's point of origin but feeling out of place.
1903, in May: on the day of the London premiere of In Dahomey, an
interview with Cook appeared in the London Daily News, May 16,
1903, p. 6, and in it Cook says that in September 1903 he is "going to
produce a little musical melodrama of my own, conducting it myself"
(Green, "In Dahomey in London"); it is not known which if any
subsequent show is what he had in mind at this time, but it could be
Lucille, and from the Christmas 1902 and April 1903 items above, it
could have been a variant of Cannibal King."...
-snip-
The paper continues with a chronology of other plays by Will Marion Cook.
I gather from reading this paper that Will Marion Cook's "The Cannibal King" show was never fully produced, although some songs from "The Cannibal King" were sung in portions of "The Cannibal King" that were produced and/or in other Will Marion Cook shows.
Please correct me if I am wrong about this by adding a comment in this pancocojams discussion thread below. Thanks!
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