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Born in Flushing, New York, James A. Bland attended Howard University and began his career at age 19.2 Specializing in sentimental ballads, and was advertised as "The World's Greatest Minstrel Man" and "The Idol of the Music Halls."3 He performed with the Primrose Minstrels, Bohee Brothers Minstrels, Georgia Minstrels, Haverly's Colored Minstrels and Black Patti's Troubadours.
After high school, Bland enrolled at Howard University where he came to appreciate spirituals and other folksongs. He taught himself to play the banjo and began to play for private engagements. Gradually, his reputation grew and he was hired as a hotel entertainer. From there, his popularity soared and he was soon in constant demand among blacks and whites alike for parties, weddings, and social gatherings.
Like Gussie L. Davis, Bland was known for sentimental ballads. His songs, however, evoked nostalgia for plantation life rather than love or family. In the 1880s, while on tour with Haverly's Colored Minstrels, he decided to remain in England touring as a banjoist. There he was able to expel the blackface from his act; he became a huge success in Europe, giving command performances before Queen Victoria and the Prince of Wales. He returned to the United States at the turn of the century to find his career halted by an overall decline in minstrelsy's popularity. He toured with the famous vaudeville company Black Patti's Troubadours, but his career proved unsalvageable. Despite writing an astounding seven hundred songs, he died in poverty in Pennsylvania in 1911. The state of Virginia adopted his Carry Me Back to Old Virginny, which was published in 1878, as the official state song in 1940.4
1 James Weldon Johnson. Black Manhattan. p. 111-112.
[this footnote applies to the quote in the image above]
2 Arnold Shaw. Black Popular Music in America. New York: Schirmer Books, 1986. p. 32.
3 Op. Cit.
4 Eileen Southern. The Music of Black Americans: A History. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. p. 266.
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