Detroit evening times. (Detroit, Mich) 1921-1958, 1942-07-10
I942 Boogie
Just Echo Of
Les Copeland
Back Room Entertainer
a Brilliant Pianist
By DAMON RUNYON

EsS 1OfELANll, VINO uleu III
II San Francisco not long ago,
was a pioneer in a unique form
of American public entertain
ment once familiar and highly
popular in the big cities of the
land.
de played piano and sang
songs, many of them of his own
composition. He always worked
alone, generally in small cafes,
and he sometimes referred to his
occupation as that of back
room entertainer.
He was one of the greatest
single-handed entertainers Of his
type that ever lived.
I ES was the first white man of
IL my knowledge who devel-
oped that sort of rolling tech
nique on the piano which was
originated by Negro piano
players.
| am not good at describing
music in any terms, but the first
time l heard what is called
"boogie-woogie" a couple of years
ago as produced by a pair OF
Negro pianists, l Immediately
recognized Les Copelands old
style.
HE had a mean left hand"
remarked Monte Brice. song
writer and scenarist, musing on
Copeland's playing the other
day.
Les once worked in Jim
Sheedy's cafe on the east side of
Seventh avenue in New York,
between Forty-seventh and For
ty-eighth streets, and he was
giving out with his own Rocky
Mountain Rag" in those days
with that same "boogie-woogie"
technique.
He also used to sing "My
Landlady' and "Noah's Ark"
which i believe he also wrote.
He came from Fort Worth,
Tex, and must have been around
so years of age when he sue
cumbed TO a heart attack.
He was working in a cafe in
San Francisco. and Brice saw
him not long before he died.
lack NORWORTH, actor and
ID author of many of our Most
famous songs. who is working on
picture based on the life OF his
former wife, Nora Bayes. said of
Les:
"He sang a good SIS song
This is high praise in the
vefnaealaf. Jack added that he
thought Les had one of the
most soothing voices he ever
heard, and l think soothing is
just the word. i could sit all
night and listen TO Les.
His form was afterward
elaborated by various individu-
ais into a high society type of
entertaining, a school OF suave,
dapper, accented gentlemen pre-
senting themselves in swanky
establishments with risque
chants and ditties that charmed
the swells.
They specialized in "patter,
or a running fire of CAB, as
something new in cafe enter
tainment, though Felix Adler
had introduced the same thing
in Chicago cafes upwards OF 80
years ago.
/ ES played TO the mob. but he
II was regular social lion
for a spell. That was when he
succeeded the great Tommy
Lyman and Lynans accom-
PIANIST. Roy Barton, in Nell
Henry's New York Bar in
Paris.
Les became in great demand
as an entertainer at private
parties. and Bill Halligan. 1the
actor, who was around with
Les at the time. recalls that he
got as high as $500 a night.
/ think he did some stage
work, though that was not his
forte.
He was at his best in a small
room before an appreclative
audience, even though the au-
dienCe might be few.
l remember Irving Berlin,
who in his youth was an enter
tainer on Copeland's order in a
New York Chinatown cafe,
listening TO Les with rapt at
tention for hours in Paris.
I ES wrote some songs for
IL Bert Williams, the greatest
of all Negro entertainers Of his
day, but the titles escape me.
They were in ragtime, which
was perhaps Les best hold.
But he could also make you
bust out crying with a torch
song. especially if you had a
smoldering ember of your own
in your system.
His stage usually lacked the
tinSel and lights of proper
presentation of artistic effort.
but you take il from me that
in his way Les Copeland was a
great artist.
Copyright. 1912 by King Features
by International News Service