Ben Harney
Encyclopedia
Benjamin Robertson "Ben" Harney (6 March 1872 – 2 March 1938) was a United States of America
songwriter
, entertainer, and pioneer of ragtime
music
. His 1895 composition "You've Been a Good Old Wagon but You Done Broke Down" is regarded as one of the first published ragtime songs. In 1924, the New York Times wrote that Ben Harney "probably did more to popularize ragtime than any other person." Time Magazine termed him "Ragtime's Father" in 1938.
. Although some sources put his birthplace as Nashville, Tennessee
, according to his father's military records he was born in Memphis, Tennessee
http://genforum.genealogy.com/harney/messages/66.html. In the past some have claimed that Harney was African-American and early in his career he is said to have played with African American
theater troupes. But, W.C. Handy correctly referred to him as "white". All photographic and contemporary accounts show that Harney was light skinned with red hair. He married and lived in white society and always represented himself as White
. Furthermore his well-documented family background (See the Harney Family website) conclusively proves his ethnicity. Harney was the son of Benjamin Mills Harney, a veteran of both the Mexican-American War and the Civil War
, and his second wife Margaret Wellington Draffin, daughter of a prominent Kentucky
lawyer. His grandfather was John Hopkins Harney
, the first mathematics
professor at Indiana University
and author of the first algebra
textbook ever published in the United States
. His uncle William Wallace Harney was a renowned journalist and author. And, he counted two prominent U.S. generals as distant cousins: Lew Wallace
and William Selby Harney.
Harney's tunes "You've Been a Good Old Wagon but You Done Broke Down", "Mister Johnson, Turn Me Loose", and "Cake Walk In The Sky" were big hits in the late 1890s.. In 1896, the cover of Ben Harney's song "You've Been a Good Old Wagon but You Done Broke Down", originally published in Louisville, Kentucky in 1895 by the Greenup Music Company, stated that Harney was the "Original Introducer to the Stage of the Now Popular 'Rag Time' in Ethiopian Song." This was one of the earliest known references to ragtime on sheet music and the composition itself is regarded as the first published rag. The sheet music version of "Cake Walk in the Sky" provided the first written out example of vocal ragging (early scat). A recording of Harney singing "The Wagon" (see below), although recorded many years later, in 1925, fits early accounts of Harney's, then, very remarkable vocal style and suggests that Harney was singing very authentic sounding blues back in the 1890s. "Cake Walk in the Sky" was published by M. Witmark & Sons in New York in 1899. On the cover to the sheet music, "Cake Walk in the Sky" is described as a "March A La Ragtime" and as "A Rag-Time Nightmare".
In January 1896 Ben Harney moved to New York City
, where he appeared regularly at Tony Pastor
's Music Hall. That same year Harney was referred to in print as "the rag time pianist". Harney's appearances in New York, such as at the Weber and Fields Music Hall, the Metropolitan Opera House, and Tony Pastor's Music Hall, promoting ragtime music, did much to create widespread popular and commercial enthusiasm for ragtime as a new genre of American music. He also organized and directed a variety show called Ragtime Reception.
In 1897 Harney published his book Ben Harney's Rag Time Instructor, the first description of how to rag: how to improvise rag time music by syncopating unsyncopated popular tunes. His "Rag Time Instructor" was arranged by ragtime composer Theodore H. Northrup and included written-out examples of 'ragged' popular tunes including light classics and opera songs.
Also in 1897, Harney married Edyth Murray of Streator, Illinois
. They later divorced, and he married an actress, Jessie Boyce, whose stage name was Jessie Haynes.
Harney toured widely on the Vaudeville
circuits in the USA
, as well as tours of theaters in Europe
and Asia
, Australasia and the South Pacific. Once ragtime became popular he started billing himself as The Originator of Ragtime or "The Father of Ragtime", which most (but not all) of his contemporaries thought was an overstatement for the sake of advertising. Harney's act included him ragging tunes at the piano
, vocal ragging scat singing
), and dancing. Theatrical photographs from his Australasia tour (1911) show him dancing in blackface.
Harney quit touring after suffering from a heart attack
in 1928.
Ben Harney died of a heart attack at the age of 66 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
in 1938. In an appreciation that appeared in Time Magazine on March 14, 1938, a week after his death, he was described as "Ragtime's Father". Time wrote that "the first man to write ragtime down on paper was a slick-haired Kentuckian, Ben Harney."
1890s
1896
1897
1898
1899
1899
1901
1902
1913
1914
1925
s during his lifetime, in 1925 a folklorist, Robert Winslow Gordon, recorded Harney singing an example of an early ragtime or rag-blues song, "The Wagon", on a dictaphone
phonograph cylinder
, and this recording has survived. Harney stated on the recording: "This is absolutely the first song published in ragtime; the first song ever written in ragtime. The idea was conceived by Ben Harney, in Louisville, Kentucky."
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
songwriter
Songwriter
A songwriter is an individual who writes both the lyrics and music to a song. Someone who solely writes lyrics may be called a lyricist, and someone who only writes music may be called a composer...
, entertainer, and pioneer of ragtime
Ragtime
Ragtime is an original musical genre which enjoyed its peak popularity between 1897 and 1918. Its main characteristic trait is its syncopated, or "ragged," rhythm. It began as dance music in the red-light districts of American cities such as St. Louis and New Orleans years before being published...
music
Music
Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...
. His 1895 composition "You've Been a Good Old Wagon but You Done Broke Down" is regarded as one of the first published ragtime songs. In 1924, the New York Times wrote that Ben Harney "probably did more to popularize ragtime than any other person." Time Magazine termed him "Ragtime's Father" in 1938.
Life and Career
Ben Harney is generally said to have been born in Louisville, KentuckyLouisville, Kentucky
Louisville is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kentucky, and the county seat of Jefferson County. Since 2003, the city's borders have been coterminous with those of the county because of a city-county merger. The city's population at the 2010 census was 741,096...
. Although some sources put his birthplace as Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville is the capital of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat of Davidson County. It is located on the Cumberland River in Davidson County, in the north-central part of the state. The city is a center for the health care, publishing, banking and transportation industries, and is home...
, according to his father's military records he was born in Memphis, Tennessee
Memphis, Tennessee
Memphis is a city in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of Tennessee, and the county seat of Shelby County. The city is located on the 4th Chickasaw Bluff, south of the confluence of the Wolf and Mississippi rivers....
http://genforum.genealogy.com/harney/messages/66.html. In the past some have claimed that Harney was African-American and early in his career he is said to have played with African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
theater troupes. But, W.C. Handy correctly referred to him as "white". All photographic and contemporary accounts show that Harney was light skinned with red hair. He married and lived in white society and always represented himself as White
White people
White people is a term which usually refers to human beings characterized, at least in part, by the light pigmentation of their skin...
. Furthermore his well-documented family background (See the Harney Family website) conclusively proves his ethnicity. Harney was the son of Benjamin Mills Harney, a veteran of both the Mexican-American War and the Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
, and his second wife Margaret Wellington Draffin, daughter of a prominent Kentucky
Kentucky
The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. As classified by the United States Census Bureau, Kentucky is a Southern state, more specifically in the East South Central region. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth...
lawyer. His grandfather was John Hopkins Harney
John Hopkins Harney
John Hopkins Harney was a Kentucky legislator native of Bourbon County, Kentucky. He was a distant cousin of General William Selby Harney....
, the first mathematics
Mathematics
Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
professor at Indiana University
Indiana University Bloomington
Indiana University Bloomington is a public research university located in Bloomington, Indiana, in the United States. IU Bloomington is the flagship campus of the Indiana University system. Being the flagship campus, IU Bloomington is often referred to simply as IU or Indiana...
and author of the first algebra
Algebra
Algebra is the branch of mathematics concerning the study of the rules of operations and relations, and the constructions and concepts arising from them, including terms, polynomials, equations and algebraic structures...
textbook ever published in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. His uncle William Wallace Harney was a renowned journalist and author. And, he counted two prominent U.S. generals as distant cousins: Lew Wallace
Lew Wallace
Lewis "Lew" Wallace was an American lawyer, Union general in the American Civil War, territorial governor and statesman, politician and author...
and William Selby Harney.
Harney's tunes "You've Been a Good Old Wagon but You Done Broke Down", "Mister Johnson, Turn Me Loose", and "Cake Walk In The Sky" were big hits in the late 1890s.. In 1896, the cover of Ben Harney's song "You've Been a Good Old Wagon but You Done Broke Down", originally published in Louisville, Kentucky in 1895 by the Greenup Music Company, stated that Harney was the "Original Introducer to the Stage of the Now Popular 'Rag Time' in Ethiopian Song." This was one of the earliest known references to ragtime on sheet music and the composition itself is regarded as the first published rag. The sheet music version of "Cake Walk in the Sky" provided the first written out example of vocal ragging (early scat). A recording of Harney singing "The Wagon" (see below), although recorded many years later, in 1925, fits early accounts of Harney's, then, very remarkable vocal style and suggests that Harney was singing very authentic sounding blues back in the 1890s. "Cake Walk in the Sky" was published by M. Witmark & Sons in New York in 1899. On the cover to the sheet music, "Cake Walk in the Sky" is described as a "March A La Ragtime" and as "A Rag-Time Nightmare".
In January 1896 Ben Harney moved to New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, where he appeared regularly at Tony Pastor
Tony Pastor
Tony Pastor was an American impresario, variety performer and theatre owner who became one of the founding forces behind American vaudeville in the mid-to-late nineteenth century...
's Music Hall. That same year Harney was referred to in print as "the rag time pianist". Harney's appearances in New York, such as at the Weber and Fields Music Hall, the Metropolitan Opera House, and Tony Pastor's Music Hall, promoting ragtime music, did much to create widespread popular and commercial enthusiasm for ragtime as a new genre of American music. He also organized and directed a variety show called Ragtime Reception.
In 1897 Harney published his book Ben Harney's Rag Time Instructor, the first description of how to rag: how to improvise rag time music by syncopating unsyncopated popular tunes. His "Rag Time Instructor" was arranged by ragtime composer Theodore H. Northrup and included written-out examples of 'ragged' popular tunes including light classics and opera songs.
Also in 1897, Harney married Edyth Murray of Streator, Illinois
Streator, Illinois
Streator is a city in LaSalle and partially in Livingston counties in the U.S. state of Illinois. The city is situated on the Vermilion River approximately southwest of Chicago, Illinois in the prairie and farm land of north-central Illinois. It is the center of the geographic region known as...
. They later divorced, and he married an actress, Jessie Boyce, whose stage name was Jessie Haynes.
Harney toured widely on the Vaudeville
Vaudeville
Vaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. Each performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill...
circuits in the USA
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, as well as tours of theaters in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
and Asia
Asia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...
, Australasia and the South Pacific. Once ragtime became popular he started billing himself as The Originator of Ragtime or "The Father of Ragtime", which most (but not all) of his contemporaries thought was an overstatement for the sake of advertising. Harney's act included him ragging tunes at the piano
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
, vocal ragging scat singing
Scat singing
In vocal jazz, scat singing is vocal improvisation with wordless vocables, nonsense syllables or without words at all. Scat singing gives singers the ability to sing improvised melodies and rhythms, to create the equivalent of an instrumental solo using their voice.- Structure and syllable choice...
), and dancing. Theatrical photographs from his Australasia tour (1911) show him dancing in blackface.
Harney quit touring after suffering from a heart attack
Myocardial infarction
Myocardial infarction or acute myocardial infarction , commonly known as a heart attack, results from the interruption of blood supply to a part of the heart, causing heart cells to die...
in 1928.
Ben Harney died of a heart attack at the age of 66 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Philadelphia County, with which it is coterminous. The city is located in the Northeastern United States along the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. It is the fifth-most-populous city in the United States,...
in 1938. In an appreciation that appeared in Time Magazine on March 14, 1938, a week after his death, he was described as "Ragtime's Father". Time wrote that "the first man to write ragtime down on paper was a slick-haired Kentuckian, Ben Harney."
Compositions
Ben Harney's compositions included:1890s
- The Sporting Life is Sure Killing Me
- Tomahau
- Wissahickon
1896
- You've Been a Good Old Wagon but You Done Broke Down, arranged by Johnny Biller
- Mister Johnson, Turn Me Loose
- I Love My Honey
1897
- There's A Knocker Layin' Around
- You May Go, but This Will Bring You Back
- Ben Harney's Ragtime Instructor, arranged by Theodore H. Northrup
1898
- Draw That Color Line: A Decision of Color
- If You Got Any Sense You'll Go
1899
- The Hat He Never Ate, with Howard S. Taylor
1899
- The Cake Walk in the Sky: Ethiopian Two Step, arranged by F.W. Meacham
- The Cake Walk in the Sky: Song
- Tell it to Me: A Coontown Expression
- I Love My Little Honey, arranged by W.H. Mackie
- The Black Man's Kissing Bug: An Interrupted Osculation in Darktown
- I Love One Sweet Black Man
1901
- The Only Way to Keep A Gal is to Keep Her in a Cage
- I'd Give a Hundred if the Gal Was Mine
1902
- T.T.T. (Treat, Trade or Travel)
1913
- There's Only One Way to Keep a Gal, arranged by W. R. Dorsey
1914
- Cannon Ball Catcher
1925
- The Wagon, recorded by Ben Harney on a phonograph cylinder, U.S. Library of Congress
Listen
While Harney was neglected by commercial recording studioRecording studio
A recording studio is a facility for sound recording and mixing. Ideally both the recording and monitoring spaces are specially designed by an acoustician to achieve optimum acoustic properties...
s during his lifetime, in 1925 a folklorist, Robert Winslow Gordon, recorded Harney singing an example of an early ragtime or rag-blues song, "The Wagon", on a dictaphone
Dictaphone
Dictaphone was an American company, a producer of dictation machines—sound recording devices most commonly used to record speech for later playback or to be typed into print. The name "Dictaphone" is a trademark, but in some places it has also become a common way to refer to all such devices, and...
phonograph cylinder
Phonograph cylinder
Phonograph cylinders were the earliest commercial medium for recording and reproducing sound. Commonly known simply as "records" in their era of greatest popularity , these cylinder shaped objects had an audio recording engraved on the outside surface which could be reproduced when the cylinder was...
, and this recording has survived. Harney stated on the recording: "This is absolutely the first song published in ragtime; the first song ever written in ragtime. The idea was conceived by Ben Harney, in Louisville, Kentucky."
External links
- Benjamin Robertson Harney, "Father of Ragtime"
- Ben Harney In Context
- Harney Genealogy
- MIDI file of "You've Been a Good Old Wagon but You Done Broke Down (1896): http://www.armory.com/~keeper/1/OldWagon.mid
- "Ragtime's Father", March 14, 1938 obituary in Time Magazine: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,759313,00.html