By the 1870s, minstrelsy as it had been known was fading fast and entering yet a new phase: the cakewalk. Cakewalking was a dance that started on the Southern plantations in the days of slavery. It was also called chalkline-walking or a walk-around. On a certain day, usually Sundays, the slaves would dress up in their best finery—almost always hand-me-downs given to them by the master and his family—and form two columns. The columns were divided into male and female. On one end, a man from one column and a woman from the other would meet in the middle and strut down the between the lines of the dancers while everybody moved up and then the next couple came down the line and so on. This was done to the music of a fiddler, a banjoist or both. Other times, an ensemble would play on other instruments as cowbell, jug, bones, comb, harmonica, cigar-box guitar (or diddly-bow), kazoo, Jew’s harp, washtub bass and the like.
The music was of the type that helped to spawn ragtime—a spry, jumpy melody and rhythm. The music and dancing would attract the master or his family and they would be given the honor of picking the best dancing couple. The winners would win an enormous cake—usually with coconut topping—but it was so huge that everybody would help them eat it. These dances generally lasted all night long especially during the winter months while the fields lay fallow.
While many of the instruments used for the cakewalk can be traced back to Africa—bones, banjo, kazoo, diddly-bow, washtub bass—cakewalking itself has no African antecedent. When native Africans witnessed the dance, none recognized it as anything akin to the dances they knew of.
Some statements of cakewalking celebrants tell us why:
“Us slave watched white folks' parties where the guests danced a minuet and then paraded in a grand march, with the ladies and gentlemen going different ways and then meeting again, arm in arm, and marching down the center together. Then we'd do it too, but we used to mock 'em every step. Sometimes the white folks noticed it, but they seemed to like it; I guess they thought we couldn't dance any better.”
Ragtimer Shep Edmonds recalled in a 1950 interview:
“They did a take-off on the manners of the white folks in the ‘big house’, but their masters, who gathered around to watch the fun, missed the point. It’s supposed to be that the custom of a prize started with the master giving a cake to the couple that did the proudest movement.”
The cakewalk dance became popular across the ocean as this European illustration shows. Whites did not seem to realize that they were lampooning their own dances but thought that they were doing some authentic African dance even though the cakewalk has no African roots.
This is perhaps the first published cakewalk from 1877—Harrigan’s & Hart’s “Walking for Dat Cake.” It shows its ties to early minstrelsy as the celebrants are dancing in the kitchen (note the cupboards and chairs). The cakewalk is the origin of the phrase “take the cake.”
Cakewalker Doc Brown who danced on the streets for tips became famous after rag composer Charles L. Johnson saw him perform and composed a piece for him.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BoPB9uciJo
The very talented old-time pianist Morgan Siever, shown here performing “Doc Brown’s Cakewalk” at age 11.
The joining of the cakewalk dance and the musical form also called cakewalk has been the source of some debate. Purists insist that cakewalks are not rags and yet some of the pieces pronounced cakewalks by some purists are pronounced rags by other purists and vice-versa. I really don’t know the difference myself because I often classify some pieces as cakewalks only to find some music scholar classifying them as definite rags.
According to some sources, though, cakewalk pieces are more march oriented and, in fact, were often used by John Philip Sousa and also by his former sideman, Arthur Pryor.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaINuigGTGg
“Frozen Bill Cakewalk” by the Arthur Pryor marching band.
Bert Williams and George Walker of the very famous Williams & Walker vaudeville comedy song and dance team made cakewalking a huge phenomenon. Bert Williams became one of the three highest paid performers in the country. If he was refused admission to a bar for his color, he’d offer to buy everybody in the place a drink if they’d let him in and they usually did. When Williams & Walker learned that Teddy Roosevelt was even practicing cakewalking in the White House, they sent him a telegram challenging him to a face-off as a publicity stunt. The White House never responded.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcFQjG3TiBw
1903 cakewalk clip featuring real African-Americans rather than Whites in blackface. The cakewalk dance never died but was cannibalized by such dances as the foxtrot and the lindy-hop.
Joplin’s 1902 piece “The Ragtime Dance” depicts a cakewalking couple on the cover. The clothing of cakewalking couples was deliberately ostentatious and gaudy and often mismatched showing a clear connection to Zip Coon from decades before. What was different about Joplin’s piece was that it had aspirations of turning rags and cakewalking into legitimate art forms rather than a folk expression at the mercy of the racist mood of the times. Unfortunately, most of the country was not onboard with him.
This Christy’s Minstrels handbill shows what appears to a cakewalking couple at the bottom decades before cakewalking became a fad. The woman is, of course, played by a man in drag (once again reinforcing the idea that minstrelsy descended from mumming plays). In fact, women did not get involved with onstage cakewalk productions until after the turn of the century. Before then, all female roles were played by men in drag.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUIXq-taPhg
“At a Georgia Camp Meeting,” a cakewalk by Frederick Allen Mills (who went by the name Kerry Mills) from about 1897 recording on an Edison brown wax cylinder said to be the best recording wax.
Cakewalks were almost entirely a White phenomenon and some White composers specialized in them. The three tops cakewalk writers were Kerry Mills, Abe Holzmann and J. Bodewalt Lampe. Not all cakewalks were written by White composers however. The first piece Joplin released after “Maple Leaf Rag” was a cakewalk he co-wrote with Arthur Marshall called “Swipsey Cakewalk” (although, predictably, some say it is a rag) published in 1901.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQnCT9HnMNA
What we can be certain of is that the term “cakewalk” preceded the term “ragtime” (believed by some to have been coined by Ernest Hogan whom we covered earlier). So we can conclude that the early rags as “Mississippi Rag” would have been cakewalks because the Missouri style of rag that became classic simply did not yet exist or at least it was not very well known until 1899 when Joplin put it on the map followed by James Scott. The cakewalk began to decline after 1904 when classic ragtime became the rage.
Part of the problem over the confusion of rags and cakewalks is likely because of the publisher. If cakewalks were big sellers, he might buy a rag from a composer but title it a cakewalk in order to maximize sales. We know this is true in Joplin’s case because John Stark actually titled the piece “Swipsey Cakewalk” as he titled virtually everything Joplin turned into him. Because of this kind of thing going on, the debate over what constitutes a rag or cakewalk will likely never fully be resolved.
Blackface minstrelsy moved from ragtime into jazz. Even Fred Astaire danced in blackface once as a tribute to Bill Robinson whom he greatly admired. Not until the 1940s did blackface start to fall out of favor by which time even the most premier blackface performer, Al Jolson, dropped it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6dXrm1YjBE
Ned Haverly’s blackface act. In spite of all politically correct sentiments over this kind of thing, he was quite a good performer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ybf9s-gVnjg
Emmett Miller was one of the greatest blackface artists forgotten by history. Although he was jazz (his band, the Georgia Crackers, contained the Dorsey brothers and guitarist extraordinaire Eddie Lang), he was the primary inspiration of Hank Williams (who lifted “Lovesick Blues” from him) and Bob Wills not to mention David Lee Roth (who lifted “I Ain’t Got Nobody” and “Big Bad Bill Is Just Sweet William Now”). Jimmie Rodgers was a contemporary but borrowed a lot of Miller’s vocal techniques for which Miller hated him referring to him as “that damned hillbilly.” This was recorded about 1928 or 9.