Skidmore Fancy Ball, The

DESCRIPTION: "Oh, here we go so nobly, oh, de colored Belvederes, A number one, we carry a gun, we beat the fusileers." "Every coon's us warm as June, at de Skidmore fancy ball." "We're bon ton darkies all: Sweet Caledone, it gives a tone to de Skidmore fancy hall."
AUTHOR: Words: Edward Harrigan / Music: David Braham
EARLIEST DATE: 1879 (The Mulligan Guard Ball)
KEYWORDS: dancing nonballad Black(s)
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (4 citations):
Finson-Edward-Harrigan-David-Braham, vol. I, #23, pp. 79-82, "The Skidmore Fancy Ball" (1 text, 1 tune)
Spaeth-ReadEmAndWeep, pp. 114-115, "The Skidmore Fancy Ball" (1 text, 1 tune)
ADDITIONAL: Richard Moody, editor, _Dramas from the American Theatre, 1762-1909_, World Publishing Company, 1966; the play "The Mulligan Guard Ball" is on pp. 549-565 (this is the first printed edition, taken from the manuscript filed with the Library of Congress in 1879, and may not have matched the actual performances perfectly); this song is at the end of scene 4, on pp. 559, apparently led by Captain Sim Primrose
Edward Harrigan, _The Mulligans_ , G. W. Dilingham, 1901, pp. 127, 142, "(no title)" (2 fragments)
Roud #V15479
NOTES [326 words]: For background on Harrigan and Braham, see the notes to "The Babies on Our Block."
This does not seem to have been collected in tradition, but it was very popular at the time it was composed; Spaeth, p. 187, refers to "musical hits [such] as The Skidmore Fancy Ball (a satirical treatment of a colored company)." I wonder if this (and another popular Skidmore song, "The Skidmore Guard") might not have been suppressed by liberal collectors -- because the Skidmore Guards were a Black target company, whose utterances were marked by strong dialect and who fought with razors. They and the Mulligan Guard, the company that Edward Harrigan made the subject of his most famous plays, had both rented the same hall for a ball, resulting in conflict over who would use the space (Franceschina, p. 118). Eventually the proprietor put the Mulligans downstairs, the Skidmores upstairs -- and the Skidmores broke the floor and fell on the Mulligans (Moody, pp. 5, 87-89), resulting in one of Harrigan's beloved Big Loud Spectacles.
According to Franceschina, p. 118, the song was sung by John Wild and Billy Gray, in blackface, with Wild playing Sam Primrose and Gray playing the Reverend Palestine Puter, who seem to have been allies in running the Skidmore Guard for their own benefit (although Harrigan eventually made Puter a criminal and Primrose an honest barber; HarriganMulligans, p. 450).
Spaeth, p. 187, lists a full catalog of Skidmore Guard songs: "Skidmore Guard" (1874; Finson-Edward-Harrigan-David-Braham, vol. I, #4), "The Skidmore Fancy Ball" (1878;Finson-Edward-Harrigan-David-Braham, vol. I, #23), "The Skids Are on Review" (1879; Finson-Edward-Harrigan-David-Braham, vol. I, #31), "The Skids Are Out Today" (1879; Finson-Edward-Harrigan-David-Braham, vol. I, #28), "The Skid Are Out Tonight" (1880; Finson-Edward-Harrigan-David-Braham, vol. I, #52), and "The Skidmore Masquerade" (1880; Finson-Edward-Harrigan-David-Braham, vol. I, #51). - RBW
Bibliography

Franceschina: John Franceschina, David Braham: The American Offenbach, Routledge, 2003
HarriganMulligans: Edward Harrigan, The Mulligans, G. W. Dillingham, 1901
Moody: Richard Moody, Ned Harrigan: From Corlear's Hook to Herald Square, Nelson Hall, 1980
Spaeth: Sigmund Spaeth, A History of Popular Music in America, Random House, 1948

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