Wauwatosa news. [volume] (Wauwatosa, Wis.) 1900-1948, 1908-07-10
.BL IND TOM s FRIEND
Pays HIS TRIBUTE
HENRY WATTERSoN RECALLS
MEMORIES OF ODD MUSICAL
GENIUS.
ENCHANTED PRINCE.
Dixie Editor Enumerates Touchingly
Scenes from Life of Half Demented
Negro Pianist.
HE DID NOT MAKE A FORTUNE.

Tidiugs of the death of blind Tom"
lat Hoboken, where he had been living
| IN retirement" the wires tell us, and
subssting on Charity reach at least one
heart that loved and pitied him, ana
summon from the land of shades and
dreams many a ghost of days and dear
ones long since departed. | must be his
oidest living friend, says Henry Waiter
son, in his Louisville Courier-Journal
1t Is not true, as | have sometimes seen
i stated, that | taught him what little
he knew of music; but | was in at the
outset of his strange career and am
familiar with all its beginnings.
| 4 first heard of him through Robert
Heller-William Henry palmer-best
known IN his day as a popular magician,
! but most accomplished pianist Ii was
/ at Washington and IN the autumn Of
lS60. Palmer had just come up with
Blind Tom in Louisville. l think. and
had been, of course, and at once per-
picked and amazed by his extraordinary
charaeteristics His crude, often gro
tesque, attempts TO initiate whatever fell
upon his ear, either vocally, or on the
Keyboard, We're startling. He had heard
judge Douglas speak and graphically r..
produced few sentences. He had heard
relgnlng prima donna sing and repeat
eel her soprano in few bars The
Bethune girls, daughters of Gen. Be
fhnne of Columbus, Ga, his old master,
had taught him few iingles, which he
ratified off upon the piano. He knew
nothing very complicated. or very well.
! But he was blind and clearly an idiot:
IN short, he was a prodigy.
Palmer gave him several ''lessops,'
that is, he played over and over for him
such pieces as Thalberg's Home. Sweet
Home Mendelssohn's Spring Song"
anu the salient passages out of some of
Lizts prescriptions. Excepting n few
additional lessons" of this kind had
| later along from Eugene Baylor. who
| taught him his famous "Margrave
Danse, Tom made little further prog
ress and learned nothing new.
Would Spin Around Piano.
He would spin about the piano, like a
! balloon, mumbling to himself whilst
Palmer or Baylor played and if they
/ stopped he would rush headlong to the
instrument and try to follow after them
precisely as they had phrased. Two or
/ three Of such lessons" suffieed and
though he learned nothing accurately, nor
played with any other expression than
they had rendered, what be did was
surprising, even TO those who knew the
process and the limitation.
The notion that the Bethunes had a
/ gold mine in his performances was not
/ true. They made at the height of his
popularity hardly much more than Il liv.
| iBg, and | suppose that eventually this
1 failed them. They must be all of them
dead now. How Tom came to live in
/ want at Hoboken Just how he was sepa.
/ FOL ~ a. Gria ~ 4
/ dropped out of public notice | cannot
say. His mother was alive as late as
/ the early SOS. but | doubt if she or any
of the Bethune family survive
The last time saw Blind Tom was
| in London, away back in 1866. Gen.
| Pinkney Howard and one of the Bethune
| boys had brought him over. 1t had
been then nearly three years since had
been with him in Atlanta. From the be
ginning Of our intimacy Tom had been
| greatly impressed that. with n manned
hand, / could still strike a few chords
and run an octave on the keyboard. To
! his poor, half-hit mind Ii seemed mir
acle. Upon a Sunday afternoon | came
! into the little hall on or near Leicester
square, where Tom was to appear. He
was back of the scenes spinning as usual
| hand over heel, and mumbling to him
| self. As we came upon the stage Gen
! Howard said, Let us see whether ne
knows you" ! called him He slowly
uncoiled himself and listened. | called
him again. He stood irresolute. then ran
across the boards. seized my hand, as
sured himself of the withered stump and
! joyously called my name.
Initiated the Children.
" hat was il? Memory? Yes. il was
memoir without doubt; but what elset
Whence the hand power that enabled
| him to manipulate the keys, the vocal
power that enabled him to initiate the
voice?
When he was tot Of four or FIVE
| years old he Strayed from the negro
cabin into the parlor of the mansion aud
| hid himself whilst the children were hay
| ing concert. When they had gone
| leaving the room, as tE"y supposed
quite empty, they heard the piano tiukle
| They ran back, and there, 10 their
amazement. sat the chubby little black
monkey on the stool. banging away for
/ dear life, yet not without sequence and
| rhythm, trying to repeat what they had
| JUST been singing and playing. From
that time onward he was the pet Of the
family.
Like a Well Loved Mastiff.
| cannot trust myself TO write Of him
as / feel 1t is as If some trusty, well
| loved mastiff-mute but affectionate--
closely associated with the dead and
/ g0ne--had been suddenly recalled to be
as suddenly taken away. The wires
that fash his death tighten picture gal
| lery for me of the old. familiar faces.
What was he? Whence came he? Was
he the prince Of the fairy tale held by
| the wicked enchantress; nor any beauty
not even the heaven born maid Of IAel~
ody-tO relense him. Blind. deformed,
and black-as black even as Erebus-
| idiocy the idiocy Of q mysterious, per
petnal frenzy. the sole companion Of bis
waking visions and his dreams-whenee
came he, and was be. aud wherefore ?
That there was a soul there, be sure,
| imprisoned chained. in that little black
bosom, released at last; gore TO the an.
gels. not to initiate the seraph songs Of
heaven. but 10 join the choir invisible
forever and forever.
Hardy Phlox.