Eileen Southern

S = Standifer
ES = Eileen Southern

S We're in Ann Arbor, Michigan with Dr. Eileen Southern and are in the process of beginning an interview with her about her experiences in music and about anything that she wishes to share with us. There's an understanding that the tape will ultimately go into the official archive at the University of Michigan Eva Jest(?) collection. Good evening, Dr. Southern.
ES Good evening.

S Tell us something about your experiences so far here in Ann Arbor; just to sort of introduce the viewer to what you're doing here and your own impressions of Ann Arbor so far.
ES Well, to begin with, I should say I've had very pleasant impressions of Ann Arbor. I'm here attending the annual meeting of the American Uthocological [sounds like uthocological] Society, and I attended the first session at which one of my colleagues spoke, John Ward of Harvard University. Then, the next thing was I found my way to the Clement Library which, I believe, is a Library especially noted for its Americana collection, and I have been there quite a few hours. It's a fascinating place. It concentrates on literature, history, especially history, I should imagine manuscripts and papers up to about 1850. So, I have found it quite fascinating.

S Did you find anything there of particular interests in mind which could lead to a current research?
ES Oh, yes. One of my young colleagues helping me write and I have a NEH grant to investigate folk culture in the 19th Century. And recently, at least for the past two or three years I have been reading 19th Century literature, particularly travel literature of European, French, English, Scottish -- we even have a Swedish woman. These persons who came to the United States and wrote down their impressions later in their travel book and in their view they talked about Blacks. So, what we've tried to do is to isolate those passages that refer to any kind of folk arts -- the singing of the Blacks or the dancing of their folk sermons, etc., and we're compiling an annotated bibliography. So, what I've found here at Clements are a lot of books, well, not lots, but several books that belonged to that period, before 1850, in which I can find information about the Black cohorts.

S Now, I guess it would be almost entirely impossible if not terribly difficult to find any oral history. You mentioned the books and the manuscripts, for example, but does there exist materials such as that?
ES Very few. But, we did run into something in the Library of Congress -- now, I don't remember the name of this man -- but can you imagine, he kept a diary in the first half of the 19th Century, and his children, his son had the presence of mind to save it. And the son of that son had the presence of mind to save it, so now it's in the Library of Congress in the manuscript division. So we have at least one manuscript that has come from a Black person. But, what we have been doing is investigating a lot of slave narratives which essentially are the same things.

S Well, where have you found the most rich resource for that?
ES Well, in various places. Harvard had quite a few, actually you had some here. You have some here in Ann Arbor, and there are some in the Schaumburg collection. And I suppose the largest collection is that slave narrative collection in the WPA project of the 1930s which, by the way, have finally been published almost in its entirety.

S Who published it? Carrico Brush, maybe?
ES Warwick. Do you know that name? It consists of 41 volumes.

S My God.
ES And he started off where _______, I think the first publication was 10 volumes, and then it went up to 21, and now, I think the entire collection is complete with 41 volumes of just slave narratives. Some of them are a page, some might be 3 or 4 pages.

S Well, who was there to collect this and get this material together for publication, which is a mammoth task.
ES Oh, I believe his first name is George -- George Warwick. The project became so big that he finally had to have help, but he started by himself. Greenwood Press has published all of them.

S Oh, I see. That's the publisher that did your book on the biographical sketches of ___ ____.
ES And it's a relatively new thing. When I was writing the musical Black Americans I used some of the slave narratives, but at that time I could consult only in the microfilm edition, you know, from the Library of Congress. But, it's just very convenient to have all of these things published and you can use the credit in the book form.

S Well, you're quite fortunate though to be, first of all in the East where a lot of that exists now in archival situations, moreover it to be an _______, but assume that you can have access to quite a few of the materials that are accessible almost anywhere in the world are they not? Or am I mislead to believe that on Blacks?
ES Well, Harvard has rich collections in everything but the collections in Afro American, or shall I say, Afro Americana are not as rich as you might think. Or, if they are, and no one is going to the trouble to identify them.

S Why would you think that for ____ the general disinterest and maybe even at Harvard?
ES Yes. You know, for example, if you want to study African - anything in African culture, anything - you go to one section in Widener. The things in Widener Library -- all the books on Africa are right there. But if you want to study Afro Americana, they're scattered here and here, etc. So, I had some concern about this when I first went there and I spoke to the Dean and he was adamantly against putting all of these things in one section because he said, "Afro American" is America. We don't want to make any distinction. Which I think is not such a good idea.

S I hate to admit, but we have the same problem here in Michigan,
ES Oh, you do?

S Well, in the sense that the Center for African-Afro American Studies probably has more material on Africa and Africans than it does. Well not "probably", it "does" in Afro American, and maybe the University has been not inclined to collect Afro Americana than it was to collect African -- for maybe some of the same reasons that Harvard had.
ES Well, I was the chairman -- my first year there -- I reactivated a special room that we had. It's true it's in an undergraduate library, but I wanted to have in that one place all of the books -- as many books as possible -- belonging to the Afro American literature that did not circulate. So that people would always know they could go there to find anything. So, we do have this Afro American Studies reading room, which I think is a step in the right direction.

S This is only a digression, but it really isn't and it's the follow up of what you've just begun. Could you tell us more about your work at Harvard, since you just mentioned how you have a section on Afro American literature, etc.? Maybe give us sort of a picture of what you do, and the components of your responsibilities at Harvard.
ES Well, the picture is so different now than it was when I first went there. When I first went there I was - I went there as the Chairman of Afro American Studies and I think I told you today I was Chairman for actually 3-1/2 years. So there I found myself as a position of organizing things, bringing materials together, bringing the right people together. I had quite a problem getting librarians to order books belonging to the field of Afro American Studies. They just didn't think it was that important. So, I persuaded the Dean to give us a special fund to buy books solely for that purpose. And I noticed after a while that whenever I would order a book for the Afro American Studies reading room, the librarian in charge of ordering materials for the American collection would order a book also. So I think what had happened is that we have enriched the Afro American collection tremendously since I've been there, because for every book that I've ordered there's another one ordered for the general collection. When I first came there was very little, very, very little. Of course, the slave narratives and things have been there quite a little while, but I mean the modern publications in Afro American Studies.

S And there a lot more of these coming out and reissued that...
ES Oh, yes. Yes.

S ...can contribute to the riches.
ES And I think now that Harvard is keeping up with it. It's just like any other thing. For the libraries to be interested in something you have to have faculty members who are interested and more enthusiastic. This you have to have built for you has to have that.

S You don't have a significant number of faculty who are interested at Harvard?
ES I don't think there was anyone before I went there who cared very much about the library collections in Afro American. The reading room was not operating when I got there. Someone had started it and then it just dropped and no one was using it. So, in addition to ordering books, we put a person up there to take charge of the books -- not a librarian -- I call them my baby. It happens to be a woman this year, but just someone to keep an eye on the books so that they don't disappear.

S Currently, what is your position at Harvard?
ES Now what I am doing now is totally teaching. I'm totally in the teaching field.

S And research?
ES But generally I teach -- we teach four courses a year. Four half courses a year, two full courses, so I'm supposed to teach one course in music and one course in Afro American Studies. So I decided by teaching a course in Renaissance Music -- well, this past year I taught the Music History course, then I usually do something with Afro American music. For the last two or three years I've been teaching a course called "The Afro American Folk Arts" where I talk about music and dance and ceremonies of which they're all in one course. And then, I usually do a Freshman Seminar course. And there, I concentrate on Black culture in the 19th Century.

S Now, are all these courses - you do two per term? Or Four?
ES Yes. Two per term.

S I see. That's pretty much our system here, too.
ES So that gives you plenty of time to do research.

S And again you're current research project has to do with what?
ES Currently, I'm working on an annotated bibliography of the Black Folk Art in the 19th Century. I just completed a revision of the musical "Black Americans". And that was quite...

S When will that come out? The revision that is.
ES I should imagine it will be out by next Spring. I've just done my part, but at the present time the copy editor is going over it again, and I imagine I'll have another meeting with her when she gets finished.

S And this is still Norton?
ES Yes, yes, yes.

S Tell me something about your background. Where were you born and how did you get from there to wherever you are now?
ES That sounds very interesting. When I was completing the biographical dictionary that you had mentioned earlier, if you will remember I identified the birth places of various people and had statements of what ... . I'm the only person in the book who was born in Minnesota.

S Really?
ES Minneapolis, Minnesota.

S Well, I'll be darned.
ES It's really funny.

S Well, they deserve ------------.
ES Somebody insisted that I put myself in the book. They said, "you've got to be in there." So I did.

S Well, I think it would have been a terrible disappointment not to have you there because, again, people like to know some of the minutia of one's life and you don't get it unless you go to a biographical dictionary.
ES I guess that's true. I'm trying to think -- I think someone else must have been born in Minneapolis. Oh, the name escapes me now, but it seems to be that of a woman who later became an actress who was born in Minneapolis. But at the time I was born, not too many blacks were there. I'm the only one in the book, but I grew up in Chicago. My family moved to Chicago when I was about 5 years old.

S How many were in your family.
ES Three girls.

S Where are you in the lineage? Are you the oldest? Youngest?
ES I'm the kind of person that would go into the dime store with my sisters and they would drop things on the floor and I'd come by and pick them up, and get the blame for everything. My parents separated when I was very young and I was the one who had to comb my sister's hair. Sometimes we lived with my father and sometimes we lived with my mother, but I was the home maker. I was in charge of everything.

S Well, if you were the one that had to comb your sister's hair, you deserve an award for that. I remember that happening in my family. My older sister says the gray hair she has now came from the fact that she combed my sister's hair and helped her dress and her screaming in the process.
ES Yes.

S So, you deserve something for that alone. Are your sisters still relatively close in terms of location to you? Or are they pretty well dispersed?
ES In Chicago. Everybody is in Chicago but me. So they didn't leave. In fact, my mother was in Chicago until about 2 or 3 years ago.

S Oh, I see. Do they get up to St. Albus to see you then?
ES Not very often. One sister has daughters and grandchildren. Another sister has one son and a grandchild she has just gotten -- about 2 or 3 months old.

S What was your maiden name.
ES Jackson.

S Jackson!
ES I was glad to change that.

S Well, that's a very good name.
ES Everybody is named Jackson. That's a good old common name.

S Were you early into music. In other words, did your parent give you private lessons?
ES I think so. At the time you take these things for granted. I'm sure the same thing happened to you. But, my father bought me a grand piano when I was about 6 years old. You know, I thought everybody had a grand piano. And he had me taking piano lessons and I recall when I was about 7, I played in a concert in our concert hall in downtown Chicago, Lyon & Healy. I don't know if they have that in Detroit. And I played a Bach piece - a little Bach dance Gavotte. And I thought nothing of it, but you know, since then I guess it was an accomplishment because I've tried to teach college students to play the little Bach piece. But whether I was living with my father or mother, and there were times when I would stay a year with this one and two years with that one -- both parents insisted that we take music lessons.

S What about church? Did you have music in the church or were you involved with church music at all?
ES Oh yes, from the time I was at least 8 or 9 years old, I played for Sunday School. One period of my life - I lived in Sioux Falls, SD - that was when I was with my father. And I traveled with, I guess today you would call it a gospel group, but then they called them Jubilee. Quartets.

S I can remember that.
ES And you know what I know about tenors. I was 8 years traveling around with these 4 people. They sang quartet style and somebody played a guitar and I played the piano. And I can't imagine what kind of _____ Art(?) played.

S Or Dr. Iams.(?)
ES I could read music see? That was the important thing.

S But you also obviously able to improvise, depending on the type of Jubilee group. I guess you had to.
ES I have the feeling I probably read the music. And it wasn't gospel in those days. It was singing of spiritual _________. I don't remember having to do anything jazzy at all.

S Oh, I see. So all you had to do was to prove a straight line, then, you were one of those straight musicians at that time.
ES Now, when I came back to Chicago - I guess I was 11. I was away 3 years, we lived in Minneapolis one year and Sioux Falls, SD one year, and then I came back to Chicago and I was still taking piano lessons all of this time. At school, people in my class were - why Nat Cole sat behind me.

S Really?
ES And Johnny Johnson went to my school. Quite a few famous people from Chicago were going to Linda Phillips at the time I was there. And somehow, some of the fellows got interested in my playing and wanted to know if I could play with the Jazz group. And my mother said, "No. My daughter will not play Jazz." I never learned how to play Jazz.

S Well, Chicago, having grown up - did you grow up in Chicago?
ES Yes. Yes. By the time I was 5 I went to Chicago schools.

S Let me mention some interesting names then, did you know Adda Moton?
ES Yes, I've met her.

S Well, I just passed by her house on Martin Luther King Drive just this past Saturday and, of course, you know of Edith Wilson who is, of course, much older - she was in her 80s when she died.
ES Yes. So Adda Moton is in the older generation, too. In fact, she wasn't there much on the scene when I was there.

S How old would you say Adda was
ES See, I left when I was 21.

S Well, Adda was in your book in the biographical sketches.
ES Yes. Oh, yes.

S I think, did you have her as about 80? Or
ES No, I think she's about 70.

S She looks very, very much younger.
ES I saw her in Baltimore. She came to the Association for the Study of Negro Life in History meeting, but I didn't get to speak to her because she was so far away, but she looked so good from a distance.

S Well, she dedicated - at the dedication for the Eva Jesse Collection, she spoke, and you know she's very eloquent.
ES Oh, yes, I've heard her.

S And she also was here for the Black Women Composers.
ES Oh, she was?

S So we've had her and she's done one of these interviews that you've done. In fact, she's done several.
ES Well, the way I got to know Adda Moton was when I left Chicago I went South to teach because I wanted to teach in a college and that was just unheard of in those days. So, Adda Moton used to make the rounds at the black colleges.

S What, performing? Was she singing at the time?
ES Yes. Yes. So that's how I got to know about her. I was teaching - first I taught at Prairie View College in Prairie View, Texas.

S When were you there?
ES Do you actually want to know the year?

S Yes.
ES I got my Masters from the University of Chicago in 1941, and I didn't know what to do with myself. And I was at kind of at loose ends. This is an interesting story. There was a young woman at the University of Chicago who had come from Texas and she invited me to see a play because she said the President of the Institution where she had taught or something, was in Chicago and she was going to treat him to a play. His name was W. R. Banks. And I never will forget. We went to this play, it was the Richard Wright play about bigatology(??) - native boy.

S Really. Or Native Son?
ES Native Son, yes. And I met this man - this was in November. December 1st I got a telegram, "Come to Prairie View. Am offering you a job." So, I'm only 21 years old and I get on this train and ride all the way to Prairie View, Texas. It seemed as if I would never off. And when I got there, here's this school which was literally out in the prairie. I mean, nothing. It's grown up now.

S I know. ____ _____ type students?
ES Yes. Have you ever been there?

S I have 2 or 3 brothers who graduated from Prairie View.
ES They were there? Well, I was there a long time ago, but I had never been in such an isolated place. I'm a big city girl. Oh, I just thought I would never get there. And when I got there, half the students were older than I was, because, you see, the war - I got there December 1st and war was declared December 7th.

S Oh, I see.
ES But something was going on before that time, because many of, some of the students at the University of Chicago entered into the Air Force. You know, this first Air Force unit that they established at Tuskeegie?

S Yes. Right.
ES Well, the Air Force came on the campus to recruit and I remember several of my very good friends left to go into the Air Force. Now, this was before War was declared. So I don't know what was going on, but now that I think about it, obviously the United States was prepared for this war before December 7th.

S I wonder. Was a woman by the name of Suardez there when you were there?
ES Oh, yes, Ms. Suardez, of course! I remember this because she decided I was too young to be treated as if I were real faculty, so it was her job to look after me. (laughter) I stayed in the dormitories with lots of little women teachers who stayed in the dormitories.

S In fact, the old Suardez home, I think. I believe.
ES Oh, is that right? Because she's dead, isn't she?

S Yes. Right.
ES Oh, Ms. Suardez, oh yeah, do I know her.

S That's probably like, well, Mr. Poindexter -- I don't know if he was there when you were there.
ES I remember the name.

S But, I taught there two summers ago and saw these people and my oldest brother did graduate from Prairie View.
ES When did he graduate?

S It must have been about in the late 40s.
ES Oh.

S Yes. He got his B.A. in chemistry.
ES It wasn't too much later than me. I left in 42 because I fell in love. Now, my husband came from the North, too.

S That'll take you out of the country.
ES W.R. Banks sent for him January 1st. He was living in Detroit. He was so cold there. It was the coldest place he had ever been in his life.

S Now, where was he from originally?
ES He was from Indianapolis.

S And he ended up coming to Detroit?
ES Yes. He had graduated from Lincoln University in Florida. And he couldn't get a job anywhere. You know, he had this bachelor's degree in Business Administration. So he got a job in Detroit. I think he said he was parking cars or doing something. He was so delighted when they sent for him to work in the Business Office at Prairie View.

S And that's where you met him?
ES Yes.

S Oh, and he was ready to take this girl out of the country, huh?
ES In those days they didn't let husbands and wives stay on the same faculty.

S Oh, it was sort of a nepotism law.
ES Yes. So, when we decided to get married, we decided to leave, because we knew both of us couldn't work at Prairie View. So that started my career in the South, and I stayed South for at least 10 years, I think.

S Where would you go on to get your highest degree that you have now?
ES Well, I moved to New York in 1951. I had decided I wanted to get a Ph.D. I was not having problems with the Masters, because in those days very few teachers -- and most teachers didn't even have Masters in those days. The Master's degree was an unusual degree. But I had heard about this book by Gustav reads music in the middle ages, and it was so fascinated. And I said, "Let me see. I would like to study some more." By this time, I was at Southern University and there were only a few people there who were working on their Doctorate, but it just sounded like a fascinating thing to do.

S That's Southern in Houston, or Louisiana?
ES In Louisiana.

S Oh, in Baton Rouge.
ES Yes. Yes, I was there 4 years altogether.

S I see.
ES And in-between my husband and I we had ______ in South Carolina. But we had just about decided we were finished with the South anyway because I had had a little girl and I wanted her to have some of the privileges that I had had growing up and I didn't like very much the idea of her growing up in a segregated place. So, to make a long story short, my husband was teaching at Kentucky State College in Frankfort, I think. And I went to Harvard in New York and I started in the summer session. I'll tell you something that's very funny. I first applied to Harvard and I was turned down.

S Was it because of race?
ES Well, I don't know. They never did actually say. What actually happened is that there were two of us from Southern University who applied to Harvard. The other young woman had a Ford Foundation grant. I didn't have any grant. I was just going. And I got the impression they didn't want two blacks at the same time. Because, when I came there, at first they had kind of admitted me. In those days, you went to ____, you really didn't go to Harvard. Women couldn't get into Harvard. And all of a sudden, something happened and I didn't hear from them. Everything was going along smoothly, so I went up there for a personal interview and then at that time I was told that Gladys Childress had already applied, as if to say well we can't - and she has a Ford Foundation, so we think we should take her. And that was the best thing that ever happened to me, but I think it's very funny now that I'm teaching there when they would not even accept me as a graduate student.

S I hope that every now and then you will remind them. I'm not sure how, but
ES Oh, I did remind them. When I first went to Harvard I was on the faculty counsel and something was coming up-- oh, we had this problem with our admitting Black students to the Graduate program. Black students have a difficult time getting into Harvard, at least on the Graduate level. And I was saying how you can't always tell about a black student whether or not he's going to make good. I don't know what standard you were using to make this discretion. We had a free for all, and then I said, well I, myself, was denied admission to Harvard and here I am teaching these same students.

S What was their response to that?
ES Well, you know, they were kind of dumbfounded and didn't know what to say, and no one took me up on it. That's the place for males. It's a male ...

S Even now?
ES Oh, yes. But I'm thinking about that faculty counsel. I think at the time there was only one other woman on the faculty counsel. But the men really - it's not such a good place for a woman. You have to be very, very, aggressive to get along with Harvard if you're a woman, and to be a Black woman, I mean it's just a rough life.

S Well, I can imagine Harvard - well I can imagine that. Let me ask you another thing. Now, really, you've done a great deal of work in music research and musicology which coincidentally, began to be more directed toward Black music. How did you make the bridge, or did you make the bridge, or did you intentionally do what you did in the way that you did it?
ES Well, you know, I was in renaissance music because I had worked with Gustav Reese(?) and I still find it fascinating, in fact, I published a book just last year in renaissance music, so I haven't given it up totally.

S I see.
ES I had been working on it for about 10 years, but I don't give it up. But I was teaching at Brooklyn College in 1968 or 1969. Anyway, it was at the time when the Black students were becoming very perturbed about the fact that there was no Black studies programs on the various campuses and we were having these sit-ins. And Brooklyn College was almost Lilly white in those days. I think if they had one half of one percent Black students they couldn't _______. Well, I was the only permanent member of the music faculty. Among other demands that the Black students made was that each department should come up with a course in Black Studies, and they were going to give us 24 hours or some short time to get this course together. So, all the departments took this very seriously and we had plenty departmental meetings, and I was the only Black person, so everybody kind of turned around to look to me to see what they had to say. And we had a discussion about it and one of my colleagues who had a Ph.D. from Oxford University, so you can't say he's an ignoramus. Oxford in England.

S Oh, I see.
ES There's really not that much to be taught about Black music. I mean, there's really nothing of substance to deal with this. I was so furious, I stomped out of the meeting.

S What was his field?
ES Musicology. This is only the music department discussing this now. I'm saying that to say he was not an ignoramus in some other field. He had a Ph.D. in musicology. So, I said to myself "I'll show them." And I went to the Library to look for something and the latest thing I found was published in 1920.

S Something like _________??
ES Yes. I didn't have much to show them. So the next couple of days the Chairman called me to his office and he said, "Eileen, you have to work out some kind of course for this course, because nobody else here knows about it." I was determined to work out something that would show the broad range of Black music because I think they more or less admitted there was something to the Jazz but after that there wasn't. And that's really how I got involved. And the course outline turned out to be so elaborate that - and one of my friends who attended today - one of my teachers from NYU, we later became friends. She suggested that I think of publishing a book. And I said, "Oh, that has never occurred to me." But I had done all of this work making the syllabus and I decided that might have it all ____. And I didn't know where to get the book published. So, I sent it to W. P. Brown or somebody in Kansas and I got it back and the general gist of their rejection was that we don't want anything scholarly.

S My God!
ES I didn't know what to do, so my friend said, "Well, why don't you try Norton." I said, "Nope. They have never published anything Black that I know of." But Norton knew me because I had published a renaissance publication. So, I sent it to Norton and to my surprise they were interested.

S And they treated you very well or had they not it seemed they were _____ so.
ES I don't know what "very well" means.

S Well, in terms of they seem to advertise and yet so often you can get something published, but it sits somewhere.
ES I don't think that -- even at the time, I didn't think they did a very good job with the book, you know? They published it cheaply as they possibly could, etc. And I have been working this past year with the editor - a different editor.

S This is a hard back, too, isn't it.
ES Yes. It was published simultaneously in hard back and paper back, but most of the libraries bought the hard back. And she confirmed my ideas, you know, that no one really hadn't put that much into it, because they had no idea that they could make any money on it. They thought surely it was going to be a money loss, so they used cheap paper and they put all the pictures in the center as you will note. They kept me limited in the number of pages and this time, the approach of an ordinance was totally different. I'm to have as many pictures as I want, they are to be inserted in the text and not just all put in the center.

S Isn't that sickening though that you have to prove yourself even at your stage of
ES Yes. I knew that I was not given a good deal with that first one. But I guess they felt that they were taking a chance. They had no idea that they would be able to market it they way they had. But I think people will be much happier with this book. I may have my footnotes which I was not allowed on the first one, and a bibliography. In fact, my editor is so enthusiastic she's made me enthusiastic too.

S Do you have the same editor that you had? The editor that's done the revision, is that the editor that you had?
ES No, no, no. This editor has a totally different attitude about the book. She wants it to be very out there. I think she feels that it reflects on her as a music editor as well as editor.

S So, that's a personal as well as a profession.
ES Yes. And she's done some very beautiful books. She's did the Jazz book. Do you know the "Terro Jazz Book".

S Yes. Frank Terro. I have that.
ES And she did a recent one by Charles Ham called "Yesterdays". Popular music.

S I haven't seen that one.
ES But she has been responsible for the very beautiful books there. If she just makes mine half as beautiful as the others, I'll be very pleased with it. Now, going back to Norton, I don't think they were so helpful with me. They didn't enter my book in any competition whatsoever.

S They didn't?
ES No, and my husband entered it in one competition -- the AFCAP Competition, and I won a prize.

S I thought that the book clubs have an obligation to do this, do they not?
ES No. No. Even Greenwood -- Greenwood is entered in only one competition. But when I got to the ASCAP, I found that all the other authors had their books entered by their editors and their publishers. I was the only one who didn't. And I would not have done it, my husband did it. I was the only one who had to enter my own. B R
ES A K

S We're back with Ms. Eileen Southern in a room at the Campus Inn in Ann Arbor, Michigan on November 5th. She's been signing checks all day November 4th. November 5, 1982.
ES Yes, I want to hold the years back.

S We all do, believe me. I'm going to stop. We were talking about your upcoming revision that's going to be published pretty soon of the Music of Black Americans. And that she is quite pleased with this revision. Much more pleased than you were with the original edition.
ES Yes. Well, of course, I had a lot to learn. And that was the first book I had written where it was so difficult to get the material, you know? When you're working with European music, you can consult manuscripts, etc., but it's almost impossible tracking down all of that material.

S Now you went out to quite a few original sources.
ES That's right. But now, in the past 12 years, you would be surprised how many of these sources have been published and reprinted, which were not available to me at that time.

S It hasn't been much easier. Have you used computer searches in retrieval systems to get this information.
ES There aren't that may retrieval systems with Black material. Oh, that thing is - research in Black music is in its infancy. I tell you what was very, very useful to me and I know there're other people have found it -- the Black newspapers. I spent hours pouring over the New York Age which started about 1883 and the Chicago Defender which didn't start until 1905. It might have started earlier, but you can't get copies until them. And the Indianapolis Freeman is a gem of a paper. It was the most valuable of all and it started at about 1887.

S Now was this on microfiche, too?
ES Microfilm.

S Microfilm.
ES Which is much easier than Microfiche and the basement of Harvard's Wagner(?) Library. So, in a way, I found that it was easier to do the research for two reasons in the first place. You know, my home was kind of broken up. I'm in Cambridge 4 days a week, and then I'm with my husband the other 3 days. So, every night I would go into the Library and read music from about 6 until 10 at night. I didn't have to cook meals, I had no responsibilities.

S So you have an office both in St. Albin's at your home as well as the University campus.
ES I have 3 offices. That is such a big mess. I have 4 offices. I have a music department office, an Afro American Studies department office, a kind of an office in my apartment at Harvard and a study at home. Actually, I use two rooms with all the junk I've accumulated. So you can be sure when I want something it's in one of those places. So, most of the time I have two copies of important things. One copy I leave in New York, and one copy in Boston.

S Now, what about manuscripts in gathering this material, do you try to get copies so that you have access to them at your leisure, or do you actually go into the libraries as I saw you were doing here?
ES For a manuscript?

S Well, like for example, you mentioned that you have to spend time looking at Microfilm, for example, but occasionally, you might want, you'll go and purchase a book or a manuscript or copy of something that has a lot of dates and a lot of facts.
ES There's no such animal. No. Recently, if you're dealing with music, let's say in the last 40 years, there are books and things. So, generally, I try to keep two copies of things like that. But the manuscripts and the factual materials are not there. That's why I feel that this biographical dictionary is going to be helpful. It will be helpful to me if to no one else.

S Well, it's going to be very helpful.
ES Because I have used it already. I'll tell you what. In doing BPIM, I try - the Black perspective in editing that. I try to give a list of obituaries each year so that we can keep our record of our musicians of the past. I think that's very important. Don't you?

S Very much so. I've become very sensitive about that.
ES Yes. Because if you realize how old someone is or something you were making efforts to preserve their heritage.

S Right.
ES And it's so difficult to find materials about these people when they died. So, already I find myself going to the dictionary to find out when someone was born or what his contribution was when he made his first appearance or something like that.

S Well, I think this is one of the greatest contributions that your biographical book has made, because already I see people at our Library running to it to find out...
ES You do? Already?

S Especially with our people coming to the campus and they want to know a lot about them or more about them and appear more knowledgeable than really are. So, it's already _______...
ES Oh, that makes me feel good, because it's so annoying to go to a book and find out that there's an article on a person, but you don't know when he was born or where he was born. You just know the ordinary. All you know is that he's great, he's beautiful, he's this and that. Nothing specific - nothing factual.

S Well, there's another thing that you ought to know that your book has done. It used to be that at a place such as Michigan would have these, but I don't know that person exists or I don't know this person does this. We don't know. We didn't go to Black schools and Black colleges. Have you taken a chance to go upstairs and look in Dr. Southern's book? And this happens very often. I'm not sure it's just an excuse, but sometimes our Anglo-Saxon colleagues are intended to use that as one reason they haven't recommended Blacks to do certain things. And now, you know that excuse is kind of empty because they can go in and look it up if you know who's available by area.
ES And I can feel that a little, too. I don't know if you've noticed it, but recently the books that are coming out in Music Appreciation and Music History have begun to include Blacks, which they never did before. I can usually tell they've consulted my book because it always mentions the people that I have mentioned. And there are some people that are not mentioned in my book. Probably I didn't know about them in 1969. For example, Coderro?

S Coderro Roketafill(?)
ES Yes. And people like that, but you always get the same names mentioned and those are the names that I have in that chapter, you know, who were the Black composers.

S Do you have a collection of the Detroit Symphony Special Collection of Music? Roke Coderro was on that. You know they performed all this music of Black Composers and this is what I mentioned...
ES Oh, do you mean that collection, the CB

S Records? The Columbia records?

S Yes. Columbia. Yes, Columbia, right. Yes that's that. Because they do have some very interesting things that don't exists in a lot of places.
ES And it's too bad it's out of print. But I think, Delerma(?) told me he thought that the Smithsonian might take it over.

S Oh, that would be great.
ES I understand that Columbia Records is willing to give them a Master. Give, not sell.

S You're kidding.
ES Yes. So, then it would be very - it's still expensive, but it would be relatively inexpensive for a Smithsonian to publish it.

S Let me ask you one other thing. Did you find - I find the Smithsonian very difficult to use and I've tried using it for about the past 4 years, especially during the ____ street. When you did research did you consult the Smithsonian a great deal?
ES Not at all.

S I found it very difficult to get the kind of material that I wanted. I find that the Shumberg is much easier than the Smithsonian in terms of Black material which really makes more sense.
ES No. I've never used them at all. I notice they're very interested in Gospel Music, but I think that's one of our problems. I think that our White colleagues or White Americans, let me put it that way - is very much interested in the "exotic". So, yeah, no problems if you're dealing with Jazz or Blues or Gospel, but if you tried to do anything else, well then you'll have severe problems. And I think it's very important for all of us to try to constantly point out that Black musicians are functioning in a wide range of musical activities and we just can't be pinned down to one little tiny corner of this big field.

S What do you think, then, should collections such as the Eva Jesse Collection, Black professors such as me, and such as you, what should we be doing on that same line then in terms of Black Music. You mentioned that we should increase the perspective. One would be in research, I guess, and performance, but can you give some more specifics along that line in terms of maybe directions we should all be doing in terms of the preservation of Black Art and Black Music? If you had to talk to individuals to give them advice.
ES Well, I think the important thing is - I think the research is very important and I think the oral histories are very important. And I think it's very important to keep in mind that the major purpose of all of this research should be to find out something about the music. I'm so kind of disgusted, now, you can see I was reading a book on Miles Davis, and it's so - you read these books about these famous Black musicians and you know these men are very talented. In fact, they're referred to as being "men of genius", but when you read the books you don't learn very much about that. You simply learn that the person likes women, or he likes to drink or he's into this heroine. I never will forget how badly I felt when I had read a book about Charlie Parker, and I said it's the last time I'll learn about Charlie Parker. But, I had finished this very thick book, I think it was by Ross Russell. I had not the slightest idea what made Charlie Parker great, because the man spent the whole book talking about what made him a tramp and nothing about his talents. And the same thing with Bingus. Now, Bingus wrote his own book, but I guess he devoted maybe one or two pages out of what, 300 or 400, telling what his music was all about and what he was trying do and the rest had to do with his sex life and all this stuff that we aren't interested in. So, what I think is that if Blacks have the opportunity to define their music, they will concentrate on the music itself and not on all these extra things that really are not that important. I mean, we don't go around and talk about what a great homosexual or a Jack Ass he was. We're interested in the music, not so much the man. And I'm sure there are other European musicians who have careers that are much more exotic than was Charlie Parker.

S Yes. That's an interested quote that you pointed out. We don't go around thinking about the sex lives of Tchaikowski or these other ostensibly great, very great composers, but we seem to get into some of the great Blacks and that's a little more into their personal life and know very little about what made them tick.
ES And all of our attention is given to that aspect of it. Talking about Miles Davis. I'd like to know for example what he thinks of when he's doing this music and what he does to his tone production that results in such beautiful tones and how he perceives the music, and what is he thinking about when he draws a group together. What is he looking for?

S This is by Nelson you think?
ES This is by Eric Neeses. But it's a typical book. I mean, I don't want to point this out as being any worse than the others.

S Well, do you find that - are there more Blacks now coming and beginning to talk about these things in music? About the person or the musician? In books, publications?
ES I cannot say that there are. I don't know. I'm thinking about the meetings at ___ ____.

S Each summer now we've had some very interesting seminars that fits, that the Black research...
ES But have you noticed that only the Whites that do all the talking?

S Why would say it. Is it because that none of us Blacks who are equally as aggressive, or? I mean you have to give a person what he has and if the Whites are more interested in talking and we're just sitting back and not doing anything, so we really can't complain about that.
ES I think that you need experience. I think this is one of the great; I hope this is one of the contributions of the Black perspective is to become a writer, particularly in the field of musicology. You need to write, you need the opportunity to publish and have it not so good and to improve the next time and to improve the next time. And you see, Whites have had these opportunities all along. So Blacks have not been able to publish. Now, I think some of the young people who sent articles to the Black Perspective in Music need to be encouraged to speak. I don't know if you've noticed it, but we have a very talented young man named George Starks who does interviews for the Jazz Book. He's very articulate and very talented, but he's not the kind of person that would stand up and give a talk, but he has a lot to talk about. He needs to be encouraged. In fact, he has not even published an article yet. But, I think that we have these young people who are interested in saying something. They are not aggressive, they are shy, they haven't had experience, and I was hoping that the Sam Floyd's place would be the kind of place where they would feel encouraged to speak out.

S You don't think they are?
ES I don't think so.

S Are they intimidated?
ES I think so. Because their life is so very articulate and they talk so smoothly.

S Well, this, perhaps says something about education of Blacks then. Or it says something about the experience of Blacks.
ES This is not a matter of education, this is having the opportunity, having the forum available to stand up and say something...

END OF SIDE A

ES ____ could, but you know if you keep this you become better and better, and pretty soon you become articulate.

S Exactly. In other words, you're saying that you have to be able to do in order to do..
ES Correct. Yes.

S And if you don't do -- you might have the potential, but
ES I mean no one would ever think that a person could get to be a very good concert pianist because I have an opportunity to give concerts, right? And I feel it's the same way with speaking. I think that I have improved in my lectures over the past 10 years. I shutter to think how I must of done when I first started talking.

S Well, Eileen, it's like everything else. Like my parents used to tell me and I hated it, "you're going to get better with age." And I said, "I want to be better now. I want to be good". But with experience and with doing it you say you do that better.
ES Yes, but we need this forum. We need a place where people are encouraged to stand up and give talks and I don't know what the solution is. Maybe there's something your organization can do.

S What about the future of the Black Music Research Center. Do you think this has a good future?
ES I don't think so.

S Why?
ES I hear very discouraging reports. I even hear reports that Sam might be trying to leave. So, that's very discouraging. Now, don't forget, this is the second time, remember? Indiana had one.

S Right.
ES And it failed. And if this fails as this is at a Black school, I don't know what the solution is.

S What do you feel about Black emphases at a White school? You might wonder why would Eva Jesse have a collection at the University of Michigan which is 90% White.
ES I think the important thing is that these materials be preserved, particularly the oral histories and I think in many Black schools there is not enough money to have a curator, to have a room given over to it to give the kind of financial support that is necessary. Otherwise, the material gets lost. I'm thinking for example Paul Johnson. I don't know where his stuff is. I think it's probably packed up in somebody's basement or something, because the people who had charge of it - in the first place, they over estimated its value and they think somebody is going to give them lots of money for it. But the tragedy of it is that nobody is using this material. And if it had been left to the Schaumberg or to some institution that had the money to give supportive services, it would have been so much better. Now, no matter how romantic they may feel about the average Black school, there is probably only one or two of them are interested and can afford it to support it, and that would be Hollak University and ________.

S Yes. That's a very interesting statement and it's a statement that needs to be said and I'm glad you said that. Let me get a few facts and I know it's getting late and I don't want to ruin my welcome. 1) You mentioned something today about the same old faces in terms of Black music. Can you mention a few fresh faces perhaps that we should begin to explore?
ES I don't know how good I am with this, but I, myself, am criticizing myself when I say the same old faces, but I've heard that Primus Fountain is a very talented young composer.

S Where is Primus Fountain?
ES He's located somewhere around here. His music has been performed in Minneapolis, Chicago and Detroit.

S And Cleveland I think, too.
ES Do you know the name?

S I know the name. Right.
ES He's the youngest person ever to get a Guggenheim Fellowship for compositions.

S Yeah. I know his name. In fact, he was featured at Claiborne Institute, I believe.
ES Yes. And then there's Roger Dickinson down in New Orleans. There's a young man named Alvin Singleton who lives in Europe, but he's back and forth all the time. I met a young man in Norfolk State College. His name escapes me now. But there are several young composers, let's say between the ages of 20, maybe 30 and 40 who are very...

S Adolphus Halestorp.
ES Yes, yes. Halestorp. So, those are the young people that I mean. I think that they should have a turn.

S What should we do about people who are still very vibrant and still have a lot to say like Dizzy Gilespy or Roy Eldridge or Sarah Vaughn or Carmen McRae. These commercial Black musicians, if you will?
ES I think it's their turn to help the younger people. You know, if they would help. You know, I read Dizzy Gilespy's biography and he was helped along the way.

S This is to Bop to Bee Bop...
ES Did you read that?

S Yeah.
ES I thought that was very good. By the way, that young man is Black, Al Frazer, and I think that that's the kind of person we should encourage to write about our Black musicians. I know Whites can do it if they wished, but so frequently they don't. And if you read the book very carefully you'll see it kind of concentrates on the music and on music making and how people feel about their music and how the musicians feel about each other.

S I didn't know Frazer was Black.
ES Yes. He doesn't leave out any dirt, but I mean he just manages to focus on the important thing and brings along the dirt just to give it a little thing. I saw him a couple of weeks ago. He always attends the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, and he teaches at Chaney State. He teaches college. He's a very exciting young man. I think also that I wish that we could give more support to that Association for the Study of Negro Life and History.

S How would say, for example, what should we do
ES You know what, I think, for example, if Sam is having problems with Fisk, perhaps one way to keep this music forum alive is to make it a part of the association, because that thing has been moving along since 1916, so apparently, it's going to be here. And it's something that is totally under Black control. It's not something that depends on whether some Whites are going to approve it.

S Where's his headquarters office? In Washington?
ES Yes. But you see, each year it changes its meaning and it manages to stumble along, you know, so it's something that's already here instead of our starting something new. I think we should attach ourselves to something that's already there. You see, we could arrange it so that every time there was a meeting, there would be a music component.

S I see.
ES Maybe with 3 or 4 sessions where people would give lectures on various aspects of Black music. Now, the young women have done that. They have organized Association of Black Women Historians, and they meet with the parent organization, except it's not a parent, and they are part of the bigger thing, but they have their own sessions and their own banquet and their own awards dinner, etc., at the same time. I would love to see the Black musicians do something like that.

S Well, maybe the Jesse Collection could do something about having something. We're trying to get people like Sam Floyd here to talk to me about potential and possibilities in reference to the collection and the relationship the collection could have with Fisk. And now that we have you interested, maybe we can... I feel that we have some potential here at Michigan to do a lot of things, and I think if you just need the kinds of advise and the kind of direction, I feel that you can give it that. Before we close off, there are 2 things. 1) You are currently married to?
ES Joseph Southern.

S Joseph Southern, and 2) you live in?
ES St. Albins.

S St. Albins, New York.
ES I have a daughter.

S You have one daughter. What is her name?
ES April Southern Riley.

S Is April living in... Does she have children?
ES No.

S Is she married?
ES She's married and she and her husband live in San Diego.

S Beautiful San Diego, my goodness.
ES He's a college teacher. His Ph.D. is in Literature, but he's interested in Black Literature, too.

S Is he, by any chance, at San Diego State or University of San Diego? Any of those schools?
ES Well, they just moved there and I think at the present time he's divided between two schools.

S Oh, I see.
ES And she's with computer sciences. She's with Graphics.

S I see. Well, she didn't follow in Mother's footsteps, or maybe with Dad.
ES And I find it very exciting to have someone who is working with industry, I guess that's what you call it. She's been with computers ever since all of her career. She started off with IBM and stayed with them a long time.

S IBM. Well, the whole computer business is being very aggressive in recruiting young, bright women -- Black women.
ES Oh, yes. Yes. She went with IBM immediately after leaving college. She was a math major, so they grabbed her.

S Very quickly, I can imagine that.
ES And while she was with them she got her Masters in Computer Sciences. So, she's totally in their field. But she loves Music.

S What do you want to happen to your materials, to your work, and what do you want to say in a word to conferences like the American Musicological Society that's going on here in Michigan?
ES Well, you know, I'm sorry you asked that question. I think I'm getting old and rather cynical and I've kind of given them up. I feel that it's there for them and I'm not trying to impress them. If they aren't interested, I couldn't care less. I think what I would like to do now is to be sure that this material is made available so that those who are interested will have something to find. And those who aren't interested I think they're missing something very rich and important in the musical life of the world. If they ignore the subject of Black Music which is what has happened at this meeting. I think I told you there was only one session given over to that.

S Well, that's a very interesting comment that you make about the American Musicological Society.
ES I hope my colleagues don't hear it.

S And they probably will.
ES They won't [will?] care.

S Well, they should hear this kind of comment, and I'm delighted that you said it. Maybe it'll make them think a little more carefully about what direction that the Society is going and the fact that there weren't large numbers of Eileen Southerns at this conference. It's been a delight talking with you, Eileen. I hope this is the beginning of something, actually. We're going to have you back down here, and we hope we can be much better for you and with you when you come and I hope you're enjoying yourself. Are you enjoying yourself?
ES I'm having a marvelous time and I enjoyed talking to you via this instrument, this machine.

S Well, it was delightful. Thank you again.

END OF TAPE