Time/Date
11-13-2009 10:00 AM
Abstract
In 1936, Johnny Mercer visited Britain for the first time as part of Lew Leslie's "Blackbirds of 1936" – a revue with an all-African American cast for which Mercer wrote many of the lyrics. Mercer was surprised to learn of the transatlantic popularity, not only of his own songs, but also of southern-themed popular culture more generally. A decade earlier another "Blackbird," the brilliant singer-dancer Florence Mills, had been similarly amazed by the British fascination with things both southern and black. Focusing primarily on the Blackbirds revues, this paper considers how British understandings and misunderstandings of the South – and, in particular, of its race relations – were largely constructed from the popular songs, plays, radio shows, and films of the period. It also examines how diverse British responses to these forms of "southern" and "black" popular culture reveal at least as much about British attitudes towards race, gender, sex, class and generational tensions as about the realities of southern life, black or white, between the wars.
Blackbirds in Britain: Florence Mills, Johnny Mercer and British Imaginings of the American South Between the Two World Wars
In 1936, Johnny Mercer visited Britain for the first time as part of Lew Leslie's "Blackbirds of 1936" – a revue with an all-African American cast for which Mercer wrote many of the lyrics. Mercer was surprised to learn of the transatlantic popularity, not only of his own songs, but also of southern-themed popular culture more generally. A decade earlier another "Blackbird," the brilliant singer-dancer Florence Mills, had been similarly amazed by the British fascination with things both southern and black. Focusing primarily on the Blackbirds revues, this paper considers how British understandings and misunderstandings of the South – and, in particular, of its race relations – were largely constructed from the popular songs, plays, radio shows, and films of the period. It also examines how diverse British responses to these forms of "southern" and "black" popular culture reveal at least as much about British attitudes towards race, gender, sex, class and generational tensions as about the realities of southern life, black or white, between the wars.
Comments
Presented in the First Plenary Session: American Popular Music and the South
Video footage of presentation