Eubie Blake

Maryland Historical Society

"Eubie" Blake was one of the most famous early ragtime pianists and a composer of popular songs, including "Memories of You," "I'm Just Wild About Harry," and many others.

Blake was born in Baltimore on February 7, 1883. He began his musical education at age six when his family bought a home organ and arranged music lessons with a church organist. He began playing professionally at age fifteen in a local Baltimore nightclub. In 1915 he began a partnership with Indiana native Noble Sissle (1889-1975). The songwriting team of Sissle and Blake had immediate success with "It's All Your Fault," which was performed first by the famous vaudeville singer, Sophie Tucker. The team journeyed to New York in 1916 and began playing with the James Reese Europe Society Orchestra.

The team's greatest success was with the production of Shuffle Along, one of the greatest black productions on Broadway. Although Blake in 1927 ended his partnership with Sissle and moved on to work with other collaborators, the Shuffle Along team was reunited once more to write Shuffle Along of 1933. Unlike its predecessor, which had toured nationally for over a year after closing on Broadway, Shuffle Along of 1933 was a failure. For the rest of the 1930s, Blake's primary collaborator was lyricist Milton Reddie, with whom he wrote a series of shows, including one, Swing It, produced by the works Progress Administration in 1937. During World War II Blake became a musical director for the USO.

Blake in sculpture

Maryland Historical Society

In 1946, having retired as an active entertainer (which was not to last) he began studying musical composition at New York University, examining the Schillinger system of musical composition.

Blake first made a recording in 1917 and continued recording throughout his career. With the revival of ragtime music in the 1950s, attention was focused on Blake as one of the remaining early ragtime pianists and thus he began his career again, this time remaining a performer until the last days of his life. His early musical style brought together the elements of ragtime music and the swing style of piano playing that led to new styles of playing jazz piano.

Blake became a legend in his own time and continued to be seen giving concerts and appearing on leading television programs of the day. He was a frequent guest on the "Tonight Show," "Jack Parr," and many others. He received numerous awards from the music industry and from civic and professional organizations, notably the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1981 and honorary degrees from Rutgers, Brooklyn College, Dartmouth College, the New England Conservatory of Music, and the University of Maryland. Eubie Blake died in New York on February 12, 1983.

Blesh, Rudi and Harriet Janis. They All Played Ragtime. New York: Oak Publications, 1950.

Bordman, Gerald. American Musical Theatre. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986.

Levin, Floyd. Classic Jazz: A Personal View of the Music and the Musicians. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000.