The Ragtime Fool (30 page)
May 29, 2009
By all accounts, Brun Campbell led a bang-up ragtime life. The catch is that most of the accounts were Brun’s, and a good deal of later research has shown that The Kid was, to put it mildly, an embellisher. The story about Scott Joplin’s funeral, with its long procession of carriages bearing the names of Joplin’s rags, seems to have been a complete fabrication, probably based on Brun’s desire to see his old mentor receive proper recognition and honor.
Brun claimed in his autobiography that after he left Sedalia in 1899, he worked as an itinerant pianist throughout the midwest, playing for all manner of celebrities from Buffalo Bill to Billy the Kid, until 1908, “when I married and retired from music.” Then, in the late 1920s, he moved his family to Venice, California, and opened the barber shop at 711 Venice Boulevard, where he worked for the rest of his life. But as his friend and interviewer, Paul Affeldt, pointed out after Brun’s death, this information was inconsistent: it would have made Brun’s wife eight or nine years old at the time of their marriage. Brun told Affeldt privately that he had in fact retired from music performance in 1908, but had then spent some time as the piano-playing pet of a famous madam, until he married in 1921. Affeldt thought this account more plausibly explained Brun’s reluctance to talk publicly about a period in his life he did not want to come to his wife’s attention.
In doing research for the three books in this trilogy, I uncovered some new information regarding Brun’s early years. The 1895 and 1905 Kansas mid-decade censuses show Brun and his brother Harold residing in Arkansas City, Kansas, with their parents, L. E. and Lulu Campbell. A little arithmetic shows that Brun’s parents were seventeen and fifteen at the time of his birth, so Brun would seem to have come honestly by his impulsiveness. Mr. Campbell was listed as a salesman, but he was also an inventor, holding a number of patents for farm-related devices.
By 1910, Brun was in Tulsa; there are two U. S. Census listings for him. One has him living with a woman named G. Ethel Campbell; another places him in a rooming house several blocks distant from the first address, and states he is single. In both listings, he is said to be a barber. I could find no other information on G. Ethel.
In 1914, Brun, now 27 and still in Tulsa, married 18-year-old Lena Louise Burrough of Ft. Smith, Arkansas. G. Ethel and/or Lena Louise might explain Brun’s statement to Affeldt that he married in 1908. I could find no record of children born to Brun by either woman.
Brun’s World War I draft registration card shows he was still living in Tulsa in 1918, married to “Mrs. Sandford (sic) B. Campbell, and working as a barber. Under conditions that might have prevented him from serving in the armed forces was written, “Shot through joint of big toe on right foot.” Probably that was neither the first time nor the last that Brun was shot in the foot.
Brun claimed that after he returned home from his 1899 jaunt to Sedalia, his father went to drink, and his parents separated. But according to the 1905 Kansas census, the family was intact, and in the 1920 U. S. census, Brun’s name appears with those of his parents and brother, but in Los Angeles. Brun is listed as married and a barber, but no wife’s name is specified. This entry was made during the first week of the year, so it’s possible Brun was not actually living there, but might have been visiting his family over the holidays.
The 1930 U. S. census places Brun, still a barber, in Venice, Los Angeles District, with his wife May, and three daughters, Dorothy, Louise, and Patricia, aged eleven, nine, and five. The Campbells had been married for twelve years, and according to the census, May and all three daughters had been born in Oklahoma. If that information is correct, Brun did not move to Venice before 1925. Reportedly, the reason for the move was to provide a better climate for one of the daughters who suffered from severe asthma. Aside from the census form, the earliest record I have so far been able to find which places the Campbells in Venice is the 1930 Voter Census. Brun registered as a Republican, his wife as a Democrat.
Mrs. Campbell reportedly disapproved of ragtime, so Brun was forced to play piano either in the garage behind his house or in his barber shop. Affeldt wrote, “…I was met at the door by his wife, and informed that his family didn’t wish to be bothered by the trashy crowd interested in his ragtime past.” Neither Mrs. Campbell nor Brun’s offspring would talk to historians, so details of his life in California are almost as sketchy as those of his earlier existence.
As the ragtime revival of the 1940s took off, Brun began to play during intermissions at clubs in and around Venice and Santa Monica. Before long, musicologists and historians took note of him, and like Joe Lamb on the opposite coast, Brun became better known than he’d ever been during the heyday of ragtime. Since he hadn’t played professionally for twenty-five or thirty years, musicologists came to regard him as a living time capsule, someone who had not needed to adjust his playing style to suit changing times and tastes, and so was playing ragtime the way it had sounded in the rough bars and barrelhouses of the early twentieth century. Fortunately, an extensive body of remastered acetate-disc recordings of Brun playing and speaking is available in CD form as
Brun Campbell, Joplin’s Disciple
, Delmark DE-753.
Brun was never one to overlook an opportunity, and as he realized he had developed an audience, he began to write newsletter and magazine articles about ragtime, Scott Joplin, and Brun Campbell. He cut some 78rpm ragtime records, one of them “Maple Leaf Rag,” and donated the proceeds to Lottie Joplin, who was ill and in need of money. He tried to promote interest in a movie, possibly featuring Ethel Waters, on Scott Joplin’s life. Wherever there might have been a chance to further ragtime, Brun was the man on the spot.
He began work on a book to be called
When Ragtime Was Young
, and when Rudi Blesh and Harriet Janis interviewed him for
They All Played Ragtime
, he turned his material over to them. Later, he came to regret that, and in his letters to the ragtime pianist, Jerry Heermans, warned the young man to be very careful about giving anything to Blesh and Janis. He claimed that Blesh had appropriated the material in
When Ragtime Was Young
, such that Brun would no longer be able to get his own book published; he also told Heermans that Blesh would not respond to Brun’s
post-facto
requests for “25 books for the use of my manuscript and fifteen percent of the motion picture rights.” I doubt that Blesh was guilty of any skulduggery. More likely, Brun had acted in his characteristic haste, then regretted at leisure.
Despite Brun’s personal shortcomings, historians appear unified in their overall assessment of him, concluding that he was a real character, at times crotchety, not always accurate in his storytelling, but possessed of honorable intentions and genuine dedication.
Brun died of arteriosclerosis and congestive heart failure, on November 23, 1952. I can only wonder about his state of mind in his last days. Was he depressed, both at his own clearly-imminent mortality and his perceived failure to return Scott Joplin to the exalted position he’d held fifty years earlier? I’d rather think that, like Joplin, Brun had faith his efforts would in time bear fruit. The picture I painted of him at the end of my trilogy may or may not be true to fact, but the way I told it, that’s what Mr. Campbell deserved. That’s how it
should’ve
been.
Brun is buried in Valhalla Cemetery in Los Angeles. His gravestone reads:
In loving memory, Sanford Brunson Campbell, 1884-1952
. Rest easy, Brun. A man who’s never been a fool is one of God’s sorriest creations.
***
Tom Ireland was born December 8, 1865, and so, missed by eight days being born a slave. His father, a member of a prominent white family, named him George Thomas, after his own brother, who became governor of Texas in 1872. The family provided support to the governor’s nephew and the boy’s mother for some years.
Mother and son came to Sedalia in 1867, and young Tom attended school there. In the 1880s, he went to Central Tennessee College in Nashville, finished his high school education, and took college courses. His major occupation was as a newspaperman, but he also was part-owner of a saloon, a storekeeper, custodian of the Pettis County Courthouse, an employee of the Missouri Pacific Railroad, and Chairman of the Queen City Republican Club. He built his own house at 1001 North Osage Street, reportedly in 1882, and lived there until just a few years before his death at 97, in 1963.
For nearly all his life, Ireland enjoyed excellent health and vitality. He was a cyclist of note, regularly riding the bicycle he bought in 1903 on trips as long as sixty or seventy miles. Each year on his birthday, he took a bike excursion. On December 8, 1949, he rode to Georgetown and back, a distance of about seven miles. “The wind was against me today, and I had trouble getting up the Georgetown hill,” he told the staff in the
Sedalia Democrat
newsroom. “But I made it.”
Ireland moved comfortably among both Blacks and Whites. An indication of the regard in which he was held throughout Sedalia is that while city directories still printed (col) after the names of Blacks, this opprobrious designation did not appear after Tom Ireland’s name.
Ireland was a musician, primarily a clarinetist. He did in fact own the Kimball upright piano that Alan Chandler played in
The Ragtime Fool
. He was a member of the famous Queen City Band, where he met and became friends with Scott Joplin. After his death, his daughter-in-law said of him, “He knew Joplin and he knew ragtime and he knew Sedalia. Yes, I guess he knew as much first-hand about Joplin and the old times as anybody.”
***
Rudi Blesh was both scholar and gentleman. Born in Oklahoma, he came to San Francisco as a young man, worked in Interior Design, then moved to New York in the 1940s. After he’d become a jazz critic and interpreter, his friend, Harriet Janis, persuaded him to turn his attention to ragtime. The result was the collaboratively-researched and written book,
They All Played Ragtime
, a history more social than musical. It took Blesh and Janis only about a year to find and interview large numbers of surviving ragtime pioneers and their close relatives. Since its publication in 1950,
They All Played Ragtime
has been reprinted several times. Though subsequent research has uncovered factual errors, the book is still regarded as the most influential work on ragtime history, and is often referred to as “The Bible of Ragtime.”
Blesh went out of his way to make certain that people knew of his associate’s key roles in undertaking the project, conducting the interviews, taking photographs, and keeping notes. Mrs. Janis’ absence as a character in
The Ragtime Fool
should in no way be taken to imply that she was unimportant in the real-life story. Simply put, she did not step forward with something to contribute to my tale. Let’s assume she was out of town during mid-April of 1951, so Blesh had to proceed on his own.
Blesh’s communication skills and his store of knowledge were legendary; in addition, countless numbers of ragtimers have praised his personal qualities, particularly his generosity and kindness. Max Morath, the dean of ragtime composers, performers, and historians considers him “one of the most civil and civilized people I have ever had the pleasure of knowing.” But the man could be difficult. Morath wrote that
Shining Trumpets
, Blesh’s earlier (1946) book on jazz, “bristled with denigration,” and the work excited considerable controversy. Many of the vituperative comments that came the author’s way can be easily found on the Internet. In addition, Blesh was stubborn and unshakable in support of his principles. His 1947 radio show,
This Is Jazz
, was a huge hit, but was canceled after less than a year because Blesh featured music by racially-integrated bands. According to Morath, who had talked with Blesh’s grandson, “…the network ‘suits’ would come to the broadcasts, begging him to change his open-race stance. ‘We have
sponsors
! Please reconsider.’ The usually courtly Rudi gave them…a rude gesture from the control room. The show was canceled.”
In 1946, with Harriet Janis, Blesh founded and operated the independent firm, Circle Records, to record and preserve jazz performances that commercial companies would not touch. Circle’s most prominent product was a twelve-volume Jelly Roll Morton set, featuring selections from Jelly’s Library of Congress recordings. The company also recorded many other significant performances, none of which otherwise would ever have been heard beyond the moment.
After Harriet Janis died in 1963, Blesh seemed to lose a great deal of his energy and drive. He continued to work, turning out several significant pieces on ragtime, as well as the first biography of Buster Keaton. In the mid-seventies, when
The Sting
was at its height of popularity, Blesh was offered the opportunity to write a biography of Scott Joplin, but couldn’t summon the energy for the task. As time passed, his mental state progressed to frank depression. He needed constant medication, and from time to time had to be hospitalized. He died on August 25, 1985.
***
Lottie Joplin hung on until March 14, 1953, when she died of “natural causes” at 79. What became of the huge store of Scott Joplin music in her basement is uncertain. As described in Chapter 13 of
King of Ragtime
, by Edward A. Berlin, much of it passed through the hands of executors, trustees and lawyers, some scrupulous, others careless, still others possibly dishonest. A jazz historian and writer recalled seeing “a duffle bag full of Joplin manuscripts, including a piano concerto.” But in the end, it all vanished, and ragtime enthusiasts still dream that one day, they’ll be going through an old trunk in an attic or an antiques store, and…
***
Richard Curd, Sr., aka Sassafras Sam, known for his wide-brimmed hat and friendly smile, pursued his trade in and around Sedalia until one day in 1933, when he walked onto a highway from between two parked cars, into the side of a Ford V-8 coupe, and was killed. He was 62 or 63 years old.