BACK TO AB
HENRY CROWDER
1890–1955
An exploratory article first published in Shuffle Boil in 2003 and posted with some
amendments on this site was removed 1 May 2007 because it is now out of date
It is superseded by the advanced research in the book Listening for Henry Crowder
Beware
A photo posted online at art-is-life purporting to show Crowder and Cunard
in a dance clinch does not show Crowder
Scroll down for corrections and supplementary materials to the new book
Anthony Barnett
LISTENING FOR HENRY CROWDER
Henry Crowder, consort of Nancy Cunard, was Eddie South’s pianist 1927–1928
He made roll and other disc recordings apart from those with South
*
NEW BOOK + CD
128 page, royal 8vo format, monograph with previously undocumented materials published December 2007 by Allardyce Book
including essay, roll/discography, some 90 photos, documents, music, CD insert AB Fable XABCD1-X017
with rolls and recordings including the Cunard–Crowder composition Memory Blues aka Bœuf sur le toit and new
recordings by New York vocalist Allan Harris of six compositions by Crowder including his collaboration with Samuel Beckett
read publisher back cover blurb here
Price £45 trade or £36; Euro55; US$66 (surface); US$72 (airmail)
to individuals if ordered direct from the publisher
Payment by PayPal, sterling cheque, dollar or other check (enquire)
or by direct transfer to our Euro account (enquire)
ISBN 978-0-907954-36-1
place your order or ask for more info here
don’t forget to write Crowder in the subject heading
Also available at our USA distributors
Book Trade
SPD INC
Berkeley, CA
www.spdbooks.org
Music Trade
CADENCE-NORTHCOUNTRY
Redwood, NY
www.cadencebuilding.com
Read Review Extracts Here
CORRECTIONS AND SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIALS
Copyright © Allardyce, Barnett, Publishers 2007–2008
Research assistance courtesy
Alan Black, Christian Van den Broeck, Nigel Burwood, Alain Délot, Seán Lawlor,
Bo Lindström, Rainer Lotz, George Lukes, Mark Miller, Hans Pehl, Howard Rye, Val Wilmer
Notification of further corrections will be gratefully received
The content of this page is Copyright © Allardyce, Barnett, Publishers 2007–2008 and may not be
reproduced in print or further posted online without the written permission of the Publisher
except for fair use quotation accompanied by a link to the Publisher website
IMPORTANT CD CORRECTION
We are mortified to discover that tracks 1–6 rolls do not play in the chronological
release number order as intended and shown in the track listing on p.128 of the book
Here is the erroneous order heard on the CD
1. I Found a New Baby / 2. Meadow-Lark / 3. Looking at the World (Thru Rose Colored Glasses)
4. I’m Walking Around in Circles / 5. Precious / 6. I’m Happy, You’re Happy, They’re Happy Too
It’s that ol’ devil in the detail called toon
Reminiscences by George Lukes and others of life in the POW camp where Crowder was interned
p.11, l.7, read Gérard [not Géard]
p.11, 128, read Yan Pevzner [not Yvan]
p.19, Grand Hôtel Luna
another period illustration and corrected orthography
Grand Hôtel Luna, Venezia, Propr. Domenico Ruol
postcard, 1920s or 1930s, AB Fable Archive
pp.24, 25 [see also p.117 fol.], “From the Only Poet to a Shining Whore” dating
Overlooked is an undated 1930 letter, just headed Thursday, from Beckett in Paris to
Thomas MacGreevy, extant in Trinity College Dublin Library. The relevant part reads:
The 14th was all right because I was drunker than either Nancy or Henry. There were other people there,
God knows who, but they went off early for a little Cochon de Lait supper. God knows also what I said & did, but
I think it was all right. I was so tired in the end that I could hardly climb into a taxi. They liked the Rahab tomfoolery,
God help them. Henry said several times that it was ‘vey, vey bootiful & vey vey fine in-deed.’ He was very nice &
behaved very well, and played the piano at the Cigogne where I described Arabesques of an original pattern.
I heard from Nancy from London. She has given me [. . .]
Seán Lawlor logically dates the letter 17 July 1930, possibly 24 July 1930, in which case Beckett
wrote “From the Only Poet to a Shining Whore (For Henry Crowder to Sing.)” before 14 July 1930.
If the squeezing in of Beckett’s name on the cover of Henry-Music does indeed denote an afterthought to
his inclusion, then Man Ray’s photomontage may first have been prepared before the summer of 1930.
The letter is briefly quoted in Knowlson, Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett (1998) though
part of Beckett’s colorful transcription of Crowder’s speech is accidentally normalized therein.
A word about Cigogne:
Cigogne has been posited as an earlier, and familiar, name for Le Bœuf sur le Toit on rue Boissy d’Anglais.
It was not, though there was a tenuous address connection. Cigogne opened at 17 rue Duphot following
closure of La Gaya after a year at that address. The owner of La Gaya decamped to rue Boissy d’Anglais
where he opened the first Bœuf sur le Toit. From 1928 to 1934, during the period of most of Crowder’s
Paris sojourns, Le Bœuf sur le Toit was located at 26 rue de Penthièvre, the second of its four locations
p.24, l.12, read together [not to get her] oh dear, those typos
p.25, last two ll., read the presence of [not the presence]
pp.31, and footnote, 33, 35, 48, 71, index correct orthography Adelaide Willoury [not Willowry]
Adelaide Charlotte Birmingham married Herbert Henry Willoury in 1921
at which time their address was 88 Hampstead Road, NW London
p.31, l.31, read sailing for Calais or sailing from Dover [not sailing from Calais]
pp.22,32, Bayfield Evans clarification
R. Bayfield Evans was a European-resident Jamaican singer, songwriter and drummer
He wrote the lyrics to songs with music by Belgian Sylvain Hamy and Belgian trumpeter Peter Packay and others
published by Felix Faecq’s International Music Company in Brussels in the late 1920s
During the same period Evans sang and played drums with Jack Hamilton and sang with Arthur Briggs on Paris recordings for Azurephone
Evans also recorded in Paris and London with Belgian and English orchestras. Later, in England, he was a film and television actor
For much more information consult Val Wilmer’s entry on Evans in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
p.36, Arthur Briggs clarification
Briggs liked to say that he was American but he was resident in USA for just two years before first visiting Europe in 1919
He was born in Grenada and held a British passport which would explain his arrest in 1940 before USA entered the war
p.36, footnote read see bibliography Green (1985) [not see Green (1985) p.96]
pp.37, 38, 70–77, 95, Repatriation
A report of the repatriation of African-Americans on MS Gripsholm appeared in Pittsburgh Courier
Add to bibliography
Evelyn Sherrer, “Authorities Hold Three Repatriates / Thirteen Return from German Prison Camps”,
Pittsburgh Courier, vol. 35, no. 13 (Pittsburgh, 25 March 1944), incl.
information, interview quotes, photos; no Crowder photo
The part specifically referring to Crowder reads
Henry Crowder, formerly of Washington, D.C., has lived abroad for 12 years, most of which was spent in Brussels, Belgium.
He is a musician who has seen most of the European cities. Crowder was interned for 22 ½ months, first in Begium
and later in Germany. But for the Red Cross food packages, Crowder said, they would have had to subsist on potatoes
and thin soup. And, although living quarters were not comfortable, he continued, he received no worse treatment than
did white prisoners. The Gestapo and the German guards never took action in the camps on an exclusively racial issue. In
traveling from camp to Lisbon, where the Gripsholm was birthed, Crowder said that the cities of Augsburg and Stuttgart, in
Germany, were “flattened out” by Allied planes. Besides the fact that German morale was very low, Crowder said,
many civilians with whom he had spoken expressed a desire to see American parachutists land in Germany.
German guards in the Tittmoning camp told Crowder that a month before the repatriates left Lisbon, five Negro fliers
of the American Air Force were brought down by German anti-aircraft fire: three were killed and two were captured.
p.46, l.33, read decision [not discussion]
p.49, read Duke Ellington Mondays and Thursdays [not Mondays and Fridays] and
Doc Perry Wednesdays and Fridays [not just Wednesdays]
p.60, Second incarnation of the Alabamians
There exists a photo, dated c.spring 1929, depicting twenty-nine African-American musicians in Paris, without instruments
The photo includes the second Alabamians’ personnel of South, King, Spaulding, Conaway and Bourke
p.94, Gordon (1929) read see p.30 in the present volume [not p.94]
p.96, Green (1985) read essentially Green (1984) [not (1983)]
p.100, l.6, read unnumbered [not nnumbered]
p.100, Further identified copies of Henry-Music
Unnumbered copy inscribed: “For Augustus John, an artist that belongs very much to us all.
A real genuine person. I appreciate him very highly and honestly.” sold at auction in USA in 1977
Unnumbered copy [?inscribed] from library of Constance Bullock-Davies sold at auction in UK in 2001
Copy no. ?, sold at auction in USA in 1966; Copy no. ?, sold at auction in UK in 1995
Copy no. ?, sold at auction in USA in 1996; Copy no. ?, sold at auction in UK in 1996
Copy no. 33 offered for sale in USA as at 2008
p.117, and other refs., From the Only Poet to a Shining Whore (For Henry Crowder to Sing.)
There exists, among variants of other early Beckett poems, an unpublished
revision of this poem entitled To Be Sung Loud which may date from 1932
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