#704 Cold- John Keene

#704 Cold- John Keene

You have to know a little about American Music history to get the full meaning of this one. This piece is a tribute to a great and tragic musician around the turn of the 19^th century. 

Bob Cole was a composer/songwriter/entertainer with much success, having written and published a couple hundred songs. His music was known to the general public but outside of the black communities he would not have been as recognized physically or by name as well as he should have been. He and his partners, brothers James Weldon and J. Rosamund Johnson wrote minstrel music, some of which has been used to perpetuate negative black stereotypes. After gaining success and creating his own black production company, he used his position to change the entertainment industry, trying to stop the use these stereotypes, of black characters as villainous or aggressive. 

He killed himself in 1911 while staying at a Hotel in the Catskills. The “Cold” of the title represents the creek water in which he drowned himself. This story is the last day of his life. We see his embarrassment at having to change rooms because a white guest requests it, we see his mental anguish at realizing some negative messages in his own songs, and we see the torture of his songs haunting him as they fight to be let loose.

“Then somewhere along the way after the first terrible blues struck you tried to hum a new tune, conjure one, you thought it was just exhaustion, your mind too tired to refresh itself as it always had, that’s why the old ones wouldn’t go away.”

Fantastic story. I love both the music and the history here, and the artistic manner in which Keene delivers a lecture on both.  It’s a shame that Cole’s memory is lost to most people, but I am grateful to Keene for reviving the name in such a meaningful way.  Knowing the reference helps, but even without it, this story stands as masterful.

Notable Passage: “I’m coming until the music breaks into a screaming silence that if you could describe it in a word would be no word or no note or sound at all but fleetingly, fleetingly cold…”

Rating: 10-10-10-10 Total= 40