The Cakewalk was the first American dance to cross over from black to white society as well as from the stage (minstrel shows) to the ballroom.
The Colored Aristocracy was strictly for dancing, but Whistling Rufus had lyrics. Below are Kerry Mills' original lyrics (slightly edited to remove offensive language).
Whistling Rufus
Ole Rufus would go to a ball or a party,
Rainy weather or shine,
And when he got there he was handsome
After the chicken and the wine.
When he got through with the chicken and the wine,
Then he whistled and he sung so grand
That they thought the angels' harps was a-playing.
And they called him the one-band man.
(Chorus):
Don't make no blunder, they couldn't lose him,
For perfect wonder they had to choose him;
A great musician with a high position
Was whistling Rufus, the one-band man.
Variations of this song were widely recorded in the 1920's with blatantly racist lyrics. The melody has survived as an Old Time fiddle tune. Thankfully the lyrics have not.
see also Minstrel Show Notes
*Some anecdotal references claim that The Young Man Who Would Not Hoe Corn is an alternative title for the Colored Aristocracy. As far as I have been able to determine they are unrelated tunes. In New England the politically correct title Southern Aristocracy is often substituted for the traditional title.
The familiar version of fiddle tune, *Colored Aristocracy, is credited to Sanford Rich of Arthurdale, West Virginia. It dates to 1936. However, both the Colored Aristocracy and a tune called Whistling Rufus first appeared in 1899 as popular commercial music written specifically for a dance known as the Cakewalk.
This was a dance craze that swept the U.S. in 1889 and survived well into the 1920's.
It grew out of the dancing of plantation slaves who did a dance known as the Chalk Line Walk. This consisted of a couple promenading in an exaggerated manner with high stepping and kicking. Many of the movements such as bending back the body and dropping the hands at the wrists, were features of African Kaffir dances.
The Cakewalk also has roots in the minstrel shows that toured the country beginning in the 1840's. Minstrel shows always ended with a Grand Finale called a walk-around. This started out as a way to showcase individual performers, but grew into elaborate and stylized routines which included exaggerated dancing often mocking society's elite.
These routines eventually made their way to the ballroom and became the Cakewalk. At its peak (1895-1905) the Cakewalk was a grand promenade with dignified walking, bowing, waving canes, doffing hats, etc.
Department of Special Collections Davidson Library, University of California, Santa Barbara
Listen to a period recording of
Vess L. Ossman,
banjo solo with piano accompaniment.
Columbia Phonograph Company (1904)
Hetzler's Fakebook
a
resource
for
fiddle, banjo,
guitar, mandolin and dulcimer players who want to learn traditional
music
Vess L. Ossman (1868 - 1923)
