 | The Laughing SongGeorge Washington Johnson |
Writer(s): George W. Johnson (see lyrics here) First Charted: April 4, 1891 Peak: 110 PM (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 0.65 video, 0.005 streaming |
Awards:Click on award for more details. 
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About the Song:“The music of black America did not make a major impact on mainstream recorded music until the blues and jazz explosion of the 1920s, but African-Americans played an important role in the recording industry from its very beginning.” NRR However, as far back as 1877, PM George Washington Johnson – a man who was born into slavery in Virginia in October 1846 – NRR made recordings on tin foil and became “the recording industry’s first widely-known star.” PM He was making a marginal living as a street singer in New York City, displaying “a special talent for whistling and for laughing songs.” NRR In the spring of 1890, Johnson recorded two songs he had sung “for coins on the streets.” NRR The two songs – “The Laughing Song” and “The Whistling Coon” – “were most likely the two best selling recordings of the entire decade of the 1890s.” NRR His songs were “full of slurs and dropped ‘g’s.’” NRR They were considered “catchy and amusing, but they basically mocked blacks, playing on the novelty of a genial black man making fun of his own race. Some of the language used would not be acceptable today…This was what a black man had to sing in order to be allowed to record in the segregated America of the 1890s.” NRR Johnson was credited with writing the song when the sheet music was published in 1894 although “some of the verses suggest a person with greater education.” NRR Frank Banta, a well known white pianist, was listed as the arranger. Sadly, because artists didn’t received royalties at the time, when he died in his sixties in 1914, he had fallen into poverty “in a roach-infested tenement room in Harlem, alone and forgotten.” NRR Resources:
First posted 6/25/2024. |
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