Great Blog fortinian, and really interesting post. Well done.
Some notes on early Black entertainers in Liverpool: Charles Dickens, when he was a Special Constable in Liverpool, visited, what he describes as a 'singing-house', in 'Poor Mercantile Jack', featured in the 1860 publication of, The Uncommercial Traveller.
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Y...page&q&f=false
In the book, we are introduced to a 'fiddle and tamborine band ... [noting that] the male dancers were all black ... The sound of their flat feet on the floor was unlike the sound of white feet as their faces were unlike white faces'.
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Travelling on to another drinking den, he also records that, in this house, there are two 'professionals'; who he introduces as: 'Mr Banjo Bones, looking very hideous with his blackened face and limp sugar-loaf hat; besides him, sipping rum-and-water [grog], Mrs. Banjo Bones, in her natural colours - a little heightened.'
It appears that this is an early example of minstrel comic variety. Although the woman in the duo, may have been black? Her male companion was white, with make-up applied. 'Mr Banjo Bones', I assume, is a character Dickens invented from a Banjo and Bone duo. Here's an example of playing from an American civil war revival (but without the make-up).
I wonder did Seth Davy play the Bones, when he tapped away on his puppet, dancing board? Perhaps, he was a young boy/man when Dickens came to town, if he was born in Liverpool?
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