Harry Champion, born William Crump, was a music hall performer and comedy songwriter. He was mostly known for his great energy, rapid fire lyrics and songs about - wait for it - food.
With titles like Boiled Beef and Carrots, Arf a Pint of Ale and A Little Bit of Cucumber, not to mention lyrics like:
Don't live like vegetarians,you'd be hard-pressed not like the guy (at least, I would be). He also wrote rather cockney classics like I'm Henery the Eighth I Am, a reverse take on the well known historical character about a woman who takes eight husbands all called Henry.
On food they give to parrots,
Blow out ya kite from morning to night
With boiled beef and carrots!
If songs like Bon Bon Buddy represent racial tensions of the time, then surely performers like Harry Champion represent the average working class man; a cockney guy with a great love for homely foods and drink, he seems to be a caricature of the audience music hall performances were aimed at. Not to mention being covered by Chas & Dave (as in the Little Bit of Cucumber link above)!
More like this: As Boiled Beef and Carrots poo-poos vegetarians, let's hear the other side of the story! Try Vegetables by The Beach Boys, backed by the celery-crunching percussion of Paul and Linda McCartney.
Cesar Cui
Cesar Cui was one of the "Mighty Handful" (not the ducks..), a group of 5 nationalist Russian composers. They tried to compose music that was specifically Russian, and influenced by their own culture rather than what was found in European music schools.
During this decade, Cui was writing a bunch of one-act operas that sound great, but unfortunately seem very difficult to find. He also wrote in this time a four-act opera called The Captain's Daughter, which you can find an... interesting version of by the St Petersburg Rock Opera Theatre here. His main surviving work from this time is more freely available, however; 25 Preludes for the piano.
More like this: One of the other fingers of the Mighty Handful (get it?) was Modest Mussorgsky. Listen to his well known Pictures at an Exhibition here, or if you fancy going into the future a little, the Emerson, Lake and Palmer version.
Creole Belles
Creole Belles was a song written by J Bodewalt Lampe in 1900; you can hear it performed by the New Orleans Ragtime Orchestra here. I originally picked the song just because I really liked the sound of it; you can almost picture the lively dances people would do listening to it.
Little did I know how right I was - it's actually a cakewalk song. Cakewalks are a dance that originated from slaves in plantations; intended to mock the grand balls their white masters had, the slavemasters seemed to miss the point a bit and ended up giving up prizes of cake to the best dancers.
Cyclical mocking through dance!
Lampe himself was one of the most popular ragtime songwriters at the time, who sometimes used the pseudonym Ribe Danmark. A violinist and dance band leader, he produced other hits during this decade like Dixie Girl (1903) and Georgia Sunset Cakewalk (1908).
More like this: Try Darktown is Out Tonight (performed here by Dick Hyman) from "Clorindy; or, The Origin of the Cakewalk", a piece of theatre written by Will Marion Cook who you may remember from the 00B entry.
