"My Little Zulu Babe" Silas Leachman GREAT QUALITY (1901) W. S. Estren & Jas. T. Brymn song LYRICS

Описание: The voice comes across wonderfully!

This disc from 1901 sounds better than any other disc from 1901.

Williams and Walker recorded this song, too, but give a tedious delivery due to excessive clowning.

Silas Leachman does it "straight," which is better.

Odd for lyrics to say coconut trees are in Zululand.

Down in sunny Africa among the jungle and the burr there lives
a Zulu gal close by the Nile, and I’ve named her Sadie Lee, and
she’s goin’ to marry me, and the wedding will be in the Zulu style.

How the kings and queens will celebrate this ostentatious fete.
‘Twill be the grandest meet of Africa’s elite.
There’ll be no gorgeous constumes, but the leaves
worn will be fine the day I make this little Zulu mine.

She is my little Zulu baby
A perfect lady although she’s shady
Fresh from the jungle is my Sadie
A full fledged foreign gal is she
My little Zulu babe

She’s the Princess Talmajoes--sports the royal blood,
you know. And when I marry her, I’ll be a king.
Then you’ll hear the people say “Been a ruler made
today.” In Africa I’ll be the only thing.

Then when I sit upon my throne up in a cocoanut tree,
‘twill be a sight to see--when my babe make love to me.
I know that there’ll be an awful time down in Zulu
land the day my babe and I will take command.

"My Little Zulu Babe"

Silas Leachman

Victor 1127

1901

Lyrics by W. S. Estren

Music by Jas. T. Brymn

Silas F. Leachman was born on August 20, 1859.

He was a Chicago-based vaudevillian who made recordings because he had the right voice at the right time in the right place--he was loud and versatile, which was needed for the technology of the time.

He was born in Louisville, the son of two native Kentuckians, William and Lettie Field Leachman (perhaps his middle initial stands for "Field"). He grew up in a family with two sisters and six brothers. In his early adult years he was a minstrel, singing and playing piano.

His approach to recording was documented in the April 8, 1895, edition of the Chicago Tribune, an account that was repeated in the April 27, 1895, issue of Scientific American. The Chicago Tribune article is titled "He Sings For The Phonographs":

"Away out in the extreme northwestern part of the city [Chicago], near the Milwaukee Railroad tracks, Silas Leachman puts in four or five hours every day singing at the top of his lungs, though not a soul is in hearing but his wife. When he gets tired of singing he varies the proceedings by preaching a Negro sermon, or gives an imitation of an Irish wake, and altogether conducts himself in a way that would lead the neighbors to consider him a fit subject for a lunatic asylum--if there were any neighbors, but there are not. This is the reason Mr. Leachman chose the lonely spot for his residence. No one ever goes there to hear him sing, and yet he is getting rich at it. He earns something over $50 every day, though he never sees one of his auditors."

Frank Dorian, a Columbia executive for decades (at one point he became assistant to the Columbia Phonograph Company's president), noted, "Silas Leachman was a local Chicago singer whose records were quite popular for a few years. He was not much of a musician, but he had an agreeable voice and a pleasing way of singing." He went on to tell Jim Walsh in a letter that he believed Leachman confined cylinder making to "brown waxes" marketed by the Talking Machine Company of Chicago (105-107-109 Madison St.) in the 1890s.

Leachman was versatile. The 1899 Talking Machine Company catalog shows him covering "the new rag time" (which is how "All Coons Look Alike To Me," 063, is characterized), sentimental ballads ("Mother Is In The Baggage Coach Ahead," 056), patriotic numbers ("When Johnnie Comes Marching Home," 0105, and "My Boy Was a Sailor on Board the Maine," 0147), and hymns ("Nearer, My God, To Thee," 090).

Further evidence of the singer's versatility is in the March 1898 issue of The Phonoscope: "Silas Leachman, the 24th ward politician, is the fortunate possessor of a voice ranging from bass to first tenor, and he has made a number of quartet records in Chicago. The singer puts on the cylinder first whatever part is easiest from the song, sings the second part, then third and fourth."

At the turn of the century, litigation forced the Babson Brothers to close down the Talking Machine Company, after which Leachman became one of the first artists associated with Eldridge R. Johnson's new Victor Talking Machine Company.

Victor had no Chicago studio, so the singer evidently made special trips to Camden, New Jersey, where he recorded enough each time to justify long distance travel. His first Victor session was on May 13, 1901. Titles issued on seven-inch discs include "A Big Fat Coon" (788), "I've Got Money Locked Up In The Vault" (789), and "Just Because She Made Dem Goo-Goo Eyes" (792).