Silas Leachman - Go Way Back and Sit Down (1901)
- el año pasado
Old Sam Jones runs and owns
A cafe on Easy Street,
But a ______ hangs 'round that he calls down
That will never ever treat.
He likes his gin and will "butt in"
To every argument,
But when Sam's there, he doesn't dare;
He acts much different.
He ain't got nothin', won't do nothing'.
There's nothing he will try,
But humiliates and aggravates
The customers that buy.
'Twas left to Sam, the proprietor man,
To find this darkey out,
And when he did, there was nothing hid.
Everybody heard Sam shout:
"Go way back, and sit down.
Coons in your class are easy found.
You seldom have money. You never treat.
Get in your place and take a back seat.
Go way back and sit down."
"Go Way Back and Sit Down"
Words by Elmer Bowman
Music by Al Johns
Silas F. Leachman was born on August 20, 1859.
He was a Chicago-based vaudevillian who made recordings because he had the right voice at the right time in the right place--he was loud and versatile, which was needed for the technology of the time.
He was born in Louisville, the son of two native Kentuckians, William and Lettie Field Leachman (perhaps his middle initial stands for "Field"). He grew up in a family with two sisters and six brothers. In his early adult years he was a minstrel, singing and playing piano.
His approach to recording was documented in the April 8, 1895, edition of the Chicago Tribune, an account that was repeated in the April 27, 1895, issue of Scientific American. The Chicago Tribune article is titled "He Sings For The Phonographs":
"Away out in the extreme northwestern part of the city [Chicago], near the Milwaukee Railroad tracks, Silas Leachman puts in four or five hours every day singing at the top of his lungs, though not a soul is in hearing but his wife. When he gets tired of singing he varies the proceedings by preaching a Negro sermon, or gives an imitation of an Irish wake, and altogether conducts himself in a way that would lead the neighbors to consider him a fit subject for a lunatic asylum--if there were any neighbors, but there are not. This is the reason Mr. Leachman chose the lonely spot for his residence. No one ever goes there to hear him sing, and yet he is getting rich at it. He earns something over $50 every day, though he never sees one of his auditors."
Frank Dorian, a Columbia executive for decades (at one point he became assistant to the Columbia Phonograph Company's president), noted, "Silas Leachman was a local Chicago singer whose records were quite popular for a few years. He was not much of a musician, but he had an agreeable voice and a pleasing way of singing." He went on to tell Jim Walsh in a letter that he believed Leachman confined cylinder making to "brown waxes" marketed by the Talking Machine Company of Chicago (105-107-109 Madison St.) in the 1890s.
A cafe on Easy Street,
But a ______ hangs 'round that he calls down
That will never ever treat.
He likes his gin and will "butt in"
To every argument,
But when Sam's there, he doesn't dare;
He acts much different.
He ain't got nothin', won't do nothing'.
There's nothing he will try,
But humiliates and aggravates
The customers that buy.
'Twas left to Sam, the proprietor man,
To find this darkey out,
And when he did, there was nothing hid.
Everybody heard Sam shout:
"Go way back, and sit down.
Coons in your class are easy found.
You seldom have money. You never treat.
Get in your place and take a back seat.
Go way back and sit down."
"Go Way Back and Sit Down"
Words by Elmer Bowman
Music by Al Johns
Silas F. Leachman was born on August 20, 1859.
He was a Chicago-based vaudevillian who made recordings because he had the right voice at the right time in the right place--he was loud and versatile, which was needed for the technology of the time.
He was born in Louisville, the son of two native Kentuckians, William and Lettie Field Leachman (perhaps his middle initial stands for "Field"). He grew up in a family with two sisters and six brothers. In his early adult years he was a minstrel, singing and playing piano.
His approach to recording was documented in the April 8, 1895, edition of the Chicago Tribune, an account that was repeated in the April 27, 1895, issue of Scientific American. The Chicago Tribune article is titled "He Sings For The Phonographs":
"Away out in the extreme northwestern part of the city [Chicago], near the Milwaukee Railroad tracks, Silas Leachman puts in four or five hours every day singing at the top of his lungs, though not a soul is in hearing but his wife. When he gets tired of singing he varies the proceedings by preaching a Negro sermon, or gives an imitation of an Irish wake, and altogether conducts himself in a way that would lead the neighbors to consider him a fit subject for a lunatic asylum--if there were any neighbors, but there are not. This is the reason Mr. Leachman chose the lonely spot for his residence. No one ever goes there to hear him sing, and yet he is getting rich at it. He earns something over $50 every day, though he never sees one of his auditors."
Frank Dorian, a Columbia executive for decades (at one point he became assistant to the Columbia Phonograph Company's president), noted, "Silas Leachman was a local Chicago singer whose records were quite popular for a few years. He was not much of a musician, but he had an agreeable voice and a pleasing way of singing." He went on to tell Jim Walsh in a letter that he believed Leachman confined cylinder making to "brown waxes" marketed by the Talking Machine Company of Chicago (105-107-109 Madison St.) in the 1890s.