The record changer (Mar-Dec 1947)

HOW I BECAME . . . A Phneet tflan OF THE 1890s S. Brun Campbell tells R. J. Carew There is an old proverb, Arabian I believe, to the effect that a man's fate is hung around his neck like a collar that cannot be removed. All of which amounts to the proposition that we all have a destiny, which at times seems to turn upon trivial incidents, and at other times is the result of momentous decision. It was S. Brun Campbell's destiny to become one of the pioneer ragtime pianists of the 1890's, most of whom have now passed on. Mr. Campbell, however, we still have with us, and he can relate a chain of interesting incidents which finally landed him at the keyboard with his active hands moving rhythmically over the blacks and whites to demonstrate that exciting novelty of the late 1890's and early 1900's — RAGTIME. "How did I happen to take up piano playing?" comments Mr. Campbell in a reminiscent mood. "Well, I guess it was because my mother and father were musically inclined. My mother picked a banjo and my father strummed a guitar, and they both sang for their own amusement. We also had an old square piano which interested me, and at an early age I learned to play a one-fingered version of 'The Old Gray Goose Is Dead.'" Here we have an ideal setup for a musical career,— musical parents, a piano and natural aptitude. The fond parents, seeing what young Brun could do with a dead goose, decided to put matters on a more lively basis, so at the age of ten, lessons with a professor were arranged for. "Well," continues Mr. Campbell, "when the professor called at the house a couple of times, and found out how much the old piano needed tuning, he refused to continue with my lessons until the instrument was tuned up. Everything was all right then and we went ahead. In a couple of years I was playing popular songs of the 'gay nineties,' and at the age of fourteen I could play the more difficult music." With this preliminary training and natural interest in music, young Brun was almost certain to become familiar with ragtime, just then beginning to come into popularity. It was in 1898 that fate introduced S. Brun Campbell to real ragtime. He relates that "At about this time a doctor's son and myself ran away from our homes in Kansas, and went to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma Territory, to attend a celebration that was taking place there. We became separated and I wandered into the Armstrong-Byrd Music Store, where I began 12 to play over some of the popular tunes of the day. A crowd began to gather in the store and about the entrance, to listen to the music, and they began to encourage me with applause, and to ask for more. After a time there emerged from the crowd a young mulatto with a light complexion, dressed to perfection and smiling pleasantly. He came over to the piano and placed a pen and ink manuscript of a piece of music in front of me, and asked if 1 would play it over for him. The manuscript was titled the MAPLE LEAF RAG by Scott Joplin. I went over the piece for him, and he seemed to be struck by the way I played it. (He afterwards told me that I had made just two mistakes.) It turned out that the mulatto was Otis Saunders, a fine pianist and composer of ragtime music, and one of its first great pioneers. From Saunders I learned that Scott Joplin, also a Negro, was located at that time in Sedalia, Missouri." After the Oklahoma episode, young Campbell got back to his home in Kansas, but a roaming propensity and a newly awakened interest in ragtime prompted him to run away again, this time to Sedalia, Missouri, where he lost no time in seeking out Scott Joplin, then playing piano in a tavern there. Joplin and Saunders were piano playing pals, and the town seemed to be a sort of a Mecca for Negro players, probably because of its convenient location between St. Louis and Kansas City. Campbell relates "I persuaded Joplin to teach me ragtime, and with his coaching I was the first white pianist to play his MAPLE LEAF RAG and other early rags. I became a kid ragtime pianist, and met almost all of the early Negro pianists and composers of ragtime of the 1890's, such great musicians as Tom Turpin, Scott Joplin, Otis Saunders, Scott Hayden, James Scott, Arthur Marshall, Louis Chauvin, Tony Williams, Tony Jackson, Melford Alexander, Jelly Roll Morton, Ida Hastings (a Negress), and 'Ink' Howard. I am 63 years old and I seem to be the last of the original 'rag men' alive. I am very proud of the fact that I could call these Negro musicians my friends, and to recall that I was the first white ragtime pianist, pioneering with the Negro rag men in those early ragtime days." In the lusty rough and ready days around the turn of the century there was a demand for lively music, and a good ragtime pianist could travel where he pleased. Touching on this point, Mr. Campbell states : "I played all through the Midwest and Southern states: in honky tonks, road houses, pool haHs, saloons, confectioneries, stores, theatres, hotels, restaurants, steamboats on the Ohio and Mississippi, and about every place a pianist could play. I was known by many nicknames, such as 'The Ragtime Kid,' 'The Original Ragtime Kid,' 'The Dude,' 'The Indian Kid,' 'Kid Campbell' and 'Brunnie Campbell.' In my travels as an early ragtime pianist up to the year 1908, I played for many notable persons, such as Governor Ferguson of the Indian Territory in 1900, at his home in Watonga; Buffalo Bill (W. C. Cody) at Guthrie, Oklahoma, and Wichita, Kansas; Pawnee Bill (Gordon Lillie) at his ranch at Pawnee, Oklahoma, and at El Reno, Oklahoma, in 1900; Bat Materson at Wichita, Kansas (the old United States Marshal of the roaring Dodge City days) ; Al Terril, old stage coach driver of the old Wild West days, who later owned a saloon in Kansas. I also had the interesting experience of playing fo'r these notorious outlaws after they had been released from prison: Cole Younger of the Younger and James gang, for whom I played twice, once at Tulsa, Oklahoma, and at Independence, Missouri, where he got religion and died a Christian gentleman; Emmet Dalton, last of the Dalton gang, at Tulsa, Oklahoma; and also the Indian outlaw, Henry Starr." Minstrel shows were still going strong in the early 1900's, and it is not surprising that Brun Campbell had his opportunity in that field also. He has satisfaction in recalling that "I had auditions with Honey Boy Evans and Lew Dockstader, and would have been a featured Ragtime Act with their great minstrels if we could have got together on my salary." Brun can't surmise at this late date what might have happened had he come to terms with the minstrels; perhaps it might have been "The Ragtime Kid," instead of Les Copeland, who was to play Joplin ragtime for the King of England. Be that as it may, he has no regrets, and tells us "I want to assure you that my life as an early ragtime pianist was exciting in more ways than one." Well, the free and easy days of the old rag men are gone forever, but the music they developed and spread throughout the country remains a vital element in American music. It can be distorted and diluted, but it can't be suppressed. It is a pleasure to note that, here and there, we find a group of earnest musicians who have discovered that simon pure ragtime is mighty enjoyable and well worth playing. At the Dawn Club in San Francisco, Lu I Watters and his Yerba Buena Jazz Band have demonstrated that genuine ragtime is a paying proposition. Not long ago Brun. Campbell taught Tom Turpin's HARLEM RAG to Lu Watters' outfit, and that early St. Louis classic has now been recorded. Better still, Watters and Campbell have collaborated on a RAGTIME ALBUM, which at this writing is just about to be issued. In the piano solos by Campbell and band numbers by Watters' boys, we feel sure that we have some mighty good listening coming.