The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1901-07-13
COON SONG AND RAG TINE
HONOLULU is GETTING THE VERY
LATEST.
Something of Lee Johnson Who Wrote
Them and Josephine Gassman Who
Helps Make Them Popular.


Gassman and her Louisiana picknni-
MES sing are the very latest work of
one of the most successful song writer's
in America. These songs are Mann
mas China Twins" an oriental lullaby
and "Close Your Dreamy Eyes" a
Southern lullaby.
Lee Johnson is the man who wrote
my Honolulu Lady" Ma Angelina"
Belle of Honolulu" Your Moneys No
Good" and lot of other coon songs"
"rag-time" melodies, lullabies and bal
lads.
Lee Johnson is the professional name
of John Donigan, whom number of
the San Francisco colony here know
very well. Lee Johnson has a good deal
of confidence in himself as writer of
songs that have the quality to become
popular, but he also has a good deal
of confidence in Miss Gassman's ability
to make a song popular. In a letter
received by the last mail he speaks in
the most complimentary terms of Miss
Gassman of whom he says, She is a
big hit in this country and will posi-
lively be the same in Honolulu and
Australia"
How Lee Johnson came to write coon
songs and some of the other highly
successful work he has done is thus
told:
THE Bully song was the first coon
song l ever wrote out" he says, land
that wasn't originated by me. l caught
the melody of an old psalm tune the
darkeys sang. I've heard them singing
it in the cotton fields of Alabama and
I've heard it ringing through the long
shed of a tobacco factory in Virginia.
Oh, what voices they have! They
would start a song at one end of the
building, and one and then another
would take it up and join in and so
it would be passed along until every
worker for the length of the building
would be singing, all in perfect har-
mony. They are 'nachel-bohn' sing
ers; they all take to music like ducks
to water. There's a kind of wall in the
tone; it sounds sad and weird, too
when you hear it at night.
"The chorus of the Bully song is
like the Maid of Athens'-don't you
see?" and Mr.. Johnson hummed it
softly
II never was in the South except on
that one trip with the Haverleys, but
the music took hold of me somehow
and I've kept at it ever since. Later
wrote Ma Caroline and Ma Ange-
line. They were among the earliest.
IT took a rest from coon songs long
enough to compose the music for the
First Born Night after night l went
to Chinatown and listened to the tom
toms and cymbals until l was full of
the twang Then 1 reproduced it as
best l could according to our laws of
harmony"
When Mr.. Johnson returned to rag
time he wrote MY Honolulu Lady"
The first part of it that occurred to
him was the title. He mentioned it to
Carroll Johnson in a street car and it
struck the black-white gentlemans
fancy Immediately. Write a song for
that title and I'll sing it next week in
Los Angeles" said he. So the COM
poser set to work late on the night be-
fore the singers departure, and in
thirty minutes he had the song done.
He hurried over to the hotel where his
cousin was staying and knocked for
chilly without getting a response. The
hour was very wee and sma' indeed and
the cousin was sleeping as only pros
perity knows how to sleep. So Lee
tucked the manuscript under the door,
doubling whether it would ever be
found
1t was. The next week Los Angeles
heard the first of my Honolulu Lady"
and it has now gone as far as Lon
don. New York is listening to Anna
Held lisp it in "Papa's Wife" and to
Nat and Maxine closing a cakewalk
with IL IN Inc COWBOY anu tne Lduy'
London hears it in THE Belle of New
York" Japan, even, knows it; trav-
eler from there reports the geisha girls
in the tea houses were tinkling their
own words to it's air.
Letters from John p. Sousa state that
in the concert tours of Sousa's Band
throughout this country and Europe,
he has given many of the Lee john
son" compositions great prominence
and attention, second only to his own
works as they are so well received by
his large and appreciative audiences
Lee Johnson will shortly begin work
on the music of a comic opera, for
which negotiations have been pending
for some time with the management of
one of the best known and most pop
ular comedians in the United States.
THE BLIND POOL.