February 24, 2024 • 40 mins
In this classic episode, Yves joins us to shine a light on the compelling and storied life of Sissieretta Jones, the first Black American woman to headline a concert at Carnegie Hall.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Anny and Samantha and.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Welcome to stuff I never told you pro Actually iHeartRadio,
and welcome to another classic For today, we are bringing
back another female first about Cinciretta Jones, who is a
singer that we talked about with Eves on Female First
(00:30):
and I thought it was a great conversation.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Have you done any karaoke? Have you done any singing lately?
I haven't.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
The only in my car that makes me.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Say I have a karaoke machine.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
No, we have yet to use this.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
I should bring it. Hello.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Yeah, it has like lights does, but we would not
get to the range and the amazing things that Cinciretta
Jones accomp but still we could have fun. Yes, well,
please enjoy this classic episode. Hey, this is Annie and Samantha.
(01:12):
I'm welcome to stuff I've never told you, protection of iHeartRadio,
and it's time for another female first, which means we
are once again thrilled to be joined by the amazing,
fantastic Eves.
Speaker 4 (01:31):
Welcome Eves. Hello, Hello, Hi, how are you? How have
you been?
Speaker 5 (01:37):
I am doing very well. I don't know what to say.
It's hot outside. I'm trying to stay, you know, outside
as much as possible without melting.
Speaker 4 (01:47):
Mm hmmm. It has been possible so far, so I'm
excited about that.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
But you know, wow, that's a skill.
Speaker 5 (01:53):
Have you been off pretty well? You know, I mean
staying in the shade a lot.
Speaker 4 (02:00):
I was.
Speaker 5 (02:01):
I was like outside in the car yesterday saying, how
if this feels impossible, Like I am not even that
close to the equator and the sun is that far
away from me, and it's this hot. Doesn't really make
any sense, but you know, I was gonna. I was
just say, I prefer this to being cold. But I
feel like that also that has a little bit more
(02:21):
meaning because of climate change, things are in a certain direction,
so I had to double I had to think about
that again for a second.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Yeah, I mean true, true, I've been like the opposite.
I prefer the colds, and I've gone outside very very little,
which makes me sad because I do love going outside.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
I mean, I'd be out there for like a minute
and I know, what.
Speaker 4 (02:44):
Is this go back and does not compute?
Speaker 1 (02:48):
Mm mmmmm mmm.
Speaker 4 (02:50):
What about you, Samantha, what are your.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
Oh yeah, well, I'm on the same lines with Eaves.
I don't want to say it too loudly either, because
I feel like when we do, especially in Georgia, the
climate's really test you, Like, yeah, you think you want
to be warm, but as we speak, I'm a little
cool right now, to the point that I'm like, where's
my blanket? Which I have all year long in my office,
(03:13):
so you know. But yes, it's definitely been one of
those times where it's like, yeah, but I don't love
sweating either, So.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
Which is it? It's a delicate balance. It's a delicate
balance for sure. Well.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
I am very, very excited to talk about who brought today.
He's this very compelling story. But before we get into it,
I'm just curious where you both lie on like the
singing scale, Like how do you rate yourself?
Speaker 1 (03:40):
Do you enjoy singing? Did you ever think you're going
to be a singer, Samantha?
Speaker 4 (03:44):
Do you want to go?
Speaker 3 (03:46):
That's funny, as our listeners pretty much know, I do
love to just randomly sing.
Speaker 4 (03:52):
Do I think I'm great at it?
Speaker 3 (03:53):
No? Do I think I can hit a tune? And
am I okay with harmonizing? Yes, that's how I would
keep it. Did I think I could be a star
once upon a time, especially when you know Whitney came
out with her Bodyguards soundtrack. I'm like, yeah, I definitely
could hit these notes, by the way, I could not.
I could not, but I really wanted to try at
that point in time and had those small dreams like
(04:17):
maybe I could be a singer. At least I could
do the harmony the background vocals, but that's about it.
And yeah, now that I'm getting older, I'm like, oh no, yeah,
I definitely couldn't do that.
Speaker 5 (04:28):
I think singers are really amazing, and I'm honestly just
so often astonished at how many people can sing, but
it's not their careers. But I can blow people out
of the water when it comes to singing. I am
not one of those people. I took chorus for about
a year or something like that in elementary school, and
I honestly have no idea why I was in it.
(04:50):
I think it was probably just because my mom put
me in it. But I wasn't particularly great at singing,
and I think that I can hold a note decently well.
Speaker 4 (05:00):
But I know that I don't have.
Speaker 5 (05:03):
It because I've heard people plenty of people who have
it and.
Speaker 4 (05:06):
I ain't got whatever that is. I am so yeah, I.
Speaker 5 (05:10):
Sing in the shower, I sing along with songs like
I sing in the car.
Speaker 4 (05:14):
I love singing like.
Speaker 5 (05:15):
It feels great, it feels expressive, and I like the
way it makes me feel. And sometimes I will even
record myself singing and listen back to it and say,
how do I sound like I think I sound, because
I'm always very curious because I feel like I sound okay,
but do I have reading?
Speaker 4 (05:30):
So I'll do that. Sometimes I'm like, oh, okay, that's
how I feel about. It's basically okay, and then I
move a line.
Speaker 5 (05:37):
So no, definitely not any significant or noteworthy history of
singing in my life.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
I love that. I too.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
I like singing like in the car, around the house.
I love a good karaoke. I don't think I'm very good,
but I have fun. I used to think. I used
to think when I was a kid that I was
a good singer and I was singing in the shower
and a bit like, oh this melodious voice. Now I
don't think that, So I'm wondering if that's a shift
(06:08):
in confidence or like perception. Like when I was a kid,
I was like, oh, yeah, I'm good, and.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
Now like, let's temper the truth. Temper with the truth.
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
I mean, I but I never I used to think
I could be like a big time actor. I never
thought I could be a singer. There was never a
moment where I was like, I'm that good, but I did.
I was jealous of it. I was really jealous of
people who could sing. And I had friends who just, yeah,
they would nail it, and they made it look so easy, Like.
Speaker 4 (06:37):
Why can't I do that.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
It's a talent, it's a skill. Yeah, but yeah, I
do enjoy it.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
Well, all right, now that we've got our past and
experiences out of the way, who did you bring for
us to discuss today?
Speaker 1 (06:52):
Eves.
Speaker 5 (06:53):
Today we will be talking about Cissi Aretta Jones, And
that's why we were talking about singing, because she was
an amazing singer. And even so, there were still a
lot of people who criticized the way she sang or
her ability and singing. But she was the first Black
American woman to headline a concert at Carnegie Hall.
Speaker 4 (07:12):
So we'll be.
Speaker 5 (07:12):
Going through her history. It was long, it lasted many decades,
and it was very storied, and she traveled a lot.
She toured a lot, so I'm excited to talk about
her today. She is like so many of the people
we talk about on other episodes of Female First, a
person whose popularity or interest has waned over the years
(07:33):
posthumously after her death. During the time she was alive,
she had a lot of fame in many places around
the world, but her notoriety after she died did wane
a little bit, and then she came back into the
view of the mainstream in certain ways. So yeah, I'm
(07:53):
excited to talk about her and share her story with everyone.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
Yes, yes, we're very excited to to hear it too.
And I'm glad she's getting more attention lately because it
was just she did so much and it was just
kind of tragic that yes, disappeared and you can't find
any recordings yeah of her. So I'm glad people are
some people have been just fighting for so long, like,
(08:18):
do not forget this person, do not forget what she did.
I'm glad more and more people are like catching on
and hearing this story and you have brought it to
share even more. So Yeah, thanks me happy, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (08:29):
Shout out to all the biographers who do the hard
work of making sure that these people's names stand people's
minds and in people's hearts over the years, so really
grateful for all of them obviously, So.
Speaker 4 (08:41):
Yeah, we'll get into her story.
Speaker 5 (08:43):
She was born Matilda Ciciaretta Joiner in Portsmouth, Virginia, not
long after the end of the Civil War in eighteen
sixty eight or sixty nine. She was the oldest of
three children born to her parents, but her siblings died
when they.
Speaker 4 (08:57):
Were very young. Her father was Jera Maya.
Speaker 5 (09:00):
Malchai Joiner, and he was born into slavery in North Carolina,
and when she was born, he was a carpenter and
a pastor as well as a choir leader at a church.
Her mother was named Henrietta, and she did laundry and
she sang in the choir as well, and she was
also from North Carolina. In her early life, Ciciaretta was
(09:22):
called Matilda her first name, and also called Sissy, and
they moved to Providence, Rhode Island, to the east side
of the city. Not long after they moved to Providence,
though Henrietta and Jeremiah did stop living together, Henrietta was
played a huge role in Ciciretta's upbringing and they made
(09:43):
money by doing laundry and she would iron in her home,
and around eighteen eighty nine, the Ciciretta's parents divorced, but
she was already singing at a young age. She sang
at school and at work, and as a teenager she
began attending the Providence Academy of me Pretty early on,
she married David Richard Jones, who was a hotel porter.
(10:04):
That was eighteen eighty three when they married, and marriage
records said that she was eighteen and he was twenty four,
but they were likely both a few years younger than that,
and in April of eighteen eighty four, their daughter, Mabel
was born, So she Cincioretta began singing at more church
concerts and performing with groups here and there. In eighteen
(10:28):
eighty five, she performed with Flora Batson, who's another big
name in the singing community. She was a well known
black concert singer, and Jones also sang a solo in
a play featuring Black actor John A. R. No as
King Richard the Third that year, and later that year
it was kind of a big deal when she sang
(10:49):
in a concert at the Providence Music Hall starring Marie
Selica or Selika. I'm not exactly sure how to pronounce
that part of her name, but she was a black vocalist,
and she also had a first She was the first
black artist to at the White House.
Speaker 4 (11:01):
But sadly, Jones's daughter.
Speaker 5 (11:04):
Mabel did die when she was two years old, which
had an emotional toll on her and affected how she
showed up for her career. But she did go back
to singing and she performed more with Flora Batson, and
she studied may have studied either at the Boston Conservatory
of Music or the New England Conservatory of Music, but
(11:26):
it does seem like she's studied in Boston in the
late eighteen eighties. So she had a concert tour starting
in early eighteen eighty eight for cities in the New
England area, and she signed a contract with management firm
called Abby Shuffle and graw. I feel like my German
isn't My German is not the best, so polase forgive
(11:47):
me for that. She was on a tour of the
Caribbean and South America with a company of Black American
singers called the Tennessee Jubilee Singers.
Speaker 4 (11:56):
So this is she's.
Speaker 5 (11:57):
Still very young, but she's already doing a lot of
traveling with her singing career. And getting really invested involved
in it and working with a lot of different people.
Speaker 4 (12:08):
And it's unclear who was.
Speaker 5 (12:10):
The very first person to call her this, but several
newspapers did refer to her as Black Patty, and those
newspapers said that her managers called her black Patty, which
I wasn't there, but to have my manager call me
by some weird personification of somebody else, I just feel
(12:31):
like that's very strange in practice. But apparently that's what
those newspapers said. This was a reference to Adelina Patti,
who was a really popular opera singer in the nineteenth century,
and they called Jones that.
Speaker 4 (12:44):
For the rest of her career.
Speaker 5 (12:45):
You'll see this referred to in articles about her and
in advertisements about the work that she was doing, her
being called the Black Patty, and she even referred to
herself as that. But she did say that she didn't
care for the moniker. She said in the Detroit Evening
News quote, I am afraid people will think I consider
myself the equal of Pati herself. I assure you I
(13:08):
do not think so. But I have a voice, and
I am striving to win the favor of the public
by honest merit and hard work. Perhaps someday I may
be as great in my way, but that is a.
Speaker 4 (13:19):
Long way of head, a long way ahead. So she
was pretty gracious.
Speaker 5 (13:23):
About that back then, even though she's commented on that
Moniker more later in life and was just like.
Speaker 4 (13:28):
That's not for me.
Speaker 5 (13:30):
I didn't put that on myself, but I got it.
But she seemed to accept it pretty gracefully, even though
we've talked about before on female First, my disdain for
this weird using these names to refer to somebody else
of a different race, to say you're of this race.
But yeah, so it was something that was attached to
(13:50):
her and that lasted and worked well for branding, so
we know how important that is. So some other critics
didn't care for the name, and that was for various reasons,
Like some of it was more from the direction that
she was coming from, like I don't need that, I
don't need this weird comparison to another race. But some
(14:11):
people also thought that she didn't measure up to Adelina
Patti or there was no need to draw those comparisons.
Speaker 4 (14:17):
Or even that like she wasn't.
Speaker 5 (14:19):
Black, so while we call her black, she's quote unquote
Mulato some would say.
Speaker 3 (14:23):
So.
Speaker 5 (14:23):
There are various reasons people thought this, but the black
Patti is one thing that people called her. So she
and her husband, along with the company, went to Jamaica
in August of eighteen eighty eight as the first stop
on their six month tour. They played in Panama, Barbados, Trinidad,
what was then British Guyana, Antiga, and Saint KITT's and
(14:45):
other places, and the audiences of these shows were mixed
when it came to race and reportedly the manager made
somewhere around four thousand dollars off of the tour. And
minstrel shows were a thing at this time. I'm associated
with blackface and this kind of silly performance on stage,
(15:07):
caricatures and things like that. But she did perform a
menstrel show sometimes. Her first was probably in eighteen eighty nine.
By that point her husband David was helping move her
career for a lot.
Speaker 4 (15:20):
As her manager.
Speaker 5 (15:22):
But yeah, so he will come up over the years
as being involved in the work that she did, booking
her shows, going with her on tours, although that relationship
did sour the personal relationship as well as that professional relationship,
and Cisiretta as part of another troop later went back
(15:43):
to the Caribbean and to South America, visiting places like Haiti, Cuba, Granada,
and Saint Thomas.
Speaker 4 (15:51):
But this time was a little bit different than the
other time.
Speaker 5 (15:55):
Her husband and a black woman who was a former
newspaper reporter named Florence Williams managed the tour. Reports of
their shows overseas were sent back to the States and
that helped grow her reputation.
Speaker 4 (16:06):
And she talked about how she had gotten all.
Speaker 5 (16:08):
Of these gifts from people around the world and the
countries that she visited. So this one thing that comes
up in her story a lot is a tear that
she got with diamonds in it. She got money, she
got gold, medals and various gems. And you can, although
we don't have recordings of her, everybody can go look
at pictures of her online. They do exist, many of them,
(16:29):
and they're really fun to look at because she looks
very grand. She looks very regal in a lot of
the pictures because she's wearing these long flowing gowns and
dramatic capes. And you can also see her wearing all
of her medals, which is it feels like the ultimate
flex to me. For her to put all of her
metals on her chest and take a picture like that.
Speaker 4 (16:51):
But it's just reflective of this part of her history.
Speaker 5 (16:54):
That we're reading about and learning about and hearing like
she got all these metals, which can sound very like
we're trying to impressed a certain thing upon her biography
that wasn't necessarily there.
Speaker 4 (17:03):
But she really did.
Speaker 5 (17:04):
Get these medals, and she showed that she got these medals,
and there's actual documentation that we can see today, so.
Speaker 4 (17:10):
I think that's pretty cool.
Speaker 5 (17:11):
But anyway, all of this happened by the time she
was in her early twenties, just her context, so she
was doing a lot and going a lot of places,
clearly working very hard. In eighteen ninety two, she sang
(17:35):
at the White House for President Benjamin Harrison, and she
reportedly sang at the White House for later presidents as well.
That same year, she was in an event called the
Grand Negro Jubilee at Madison Square Garden. It was in
a large venue, it has these mixed race audiences, and
she appeared as this prima donna in the show, and
(17:57):
she garnered a lot of us attention for it. She
later said about this appearance, quote I woke up famous
after singing at the Garden and didn't know it. So
this clearly was a pivotal point in her story, in
her becoming this little kind of larger than white figure
that she became. So in June, she and her husband
(18:19):
signed a contract with the manager named James B.
Speaker 4 (18:22):
Pond. So that contract was supposed.
Speaker 5 (18:25):
To be lucrative, paying her more than six thousand dollars
a year, which would be around two hundred thousand dollars today.
So that is obviously a large sum of money for
them and for today. And she was one of the
highest paid entertainers of her time black American of black Americans.
(18:46):
So that same month, she was featured as a soprano
in all black performance at Carnegie Hall. And there are
a lot of quotes about her voice.
Speaker 4 (18:59):
Obviously, we can can't hear it, and there's.
Speaker 5 (19:00):
Only so much that we can get out of words
trying to represent what her voice sounded like. But a
lot of those quotes do tend to mention how great
her enunciation was.
Speaker 4 (19:11):
Like even if those people.
Speaker 5 (19:13):
Who were writing about her were hating on her and
didn't really care for her performance, they were like.
Speaker 4 (19:17):
Oh, her enunciation was really great.
Speaker 5 (19:19):
And some of them would compare her voice to angels
and birds, which is an obvious comparison because the song
birds exist, so it makes sense. But yeah, so they
also mentioned her manner and speaking to people. They would
say things like she's very lovely and that she is
(19:40):
a good conversationalist. So apparently people did take pretty well
to her demeanor outside of the stage. But that makes
sense as well, because it's all fitting as part of
the work that she was doing in the demeanor that
she was expected to carry in front of these large
audiences at the time. And I can give you a quote,
for instance, about what one person said from the Saratoga
(20:03):
Union quote. There is neither brass in her notes nor
thickness in her phrasing. Her enunciation is also perfect. The
exquisite crispness with which she executes complicated skills and rapid
time delight at all with all. She thinks intelligently, without affectation,
and with much feeling. These newspaper articles talked about her
(20:23):
appearance as well, but often they had this air of
being surprised that she was actually great at her craft,
even though not every person who was a critic of
hers said that she.
Speaker 4 (20:38):
Was good at her craft.
Speaker 5 (20:41):
Some people did say she has natural talent, but you know,
the craft ain't so much there she could do with
more professional schooling, more training and things like that.
Speaker 4 (20:51):
They would also do this.
Speaker 5 (20:52):
Thing where they were like, oh wow, I wasn't necessarily
expecting that, I was just expecting hers, like as if
her race would proceed her the work that she was doing,
like it was the race was the reason that she
had this grand reputation that would precede her, and they
would do the same thing that a lot of media
does today with women and with black women, comparing her
(21:16):
to other female singers like Flora Batson, for instance. But
she was still well received in a lot of these places,
and she was making money and she was able to
support herself through her work that way and doing what
she loved in terms.
Speaker 4 (21:29):
Of concert singing.
Speaker 5 (21:31):
So her manager, James Pond, set her up to go
on a tour with a troop of white European musicians.
That meant that at the same time as they would
attract an audience who wanted to see white musicians, but
they would also choose to perform on stage with her,
which is something that some white musicians didn't want to
(21:53):
do white Americans particularly and under Pond she was mostly
performing for white audiences, which up until that point her
audiences were mostly black.
Speaker 4 (22:06):
So she's sang with a bunch of.
Speaker 5 (22:09):
Different people, like it would be an exhaustive list to
go through all of the concerts that she did. Was
just so many over the years and with so many people.
But she would continue to do voice lessons for years.
She did them with Luisa Cappiani, who was a voice
teacher from Austria and lived in New York City. So
musician and composer will Marion Cook he wanted to put
(22:32):
on a black opera called Scenes from Uncle Tom's Cabin
at the Chicago World's Fair, which was also known as
the Colombian Exposition. Spoiler alert, that did not happen. That
performance didn't happen. Jones did sing one night at the
Exposition though.
Speaker 4 (22:50):
Either way.
Speaker 5 (22:51):
There was a benefit concert at Carnegie Music Hall and
cciretta headline that concert, which marked the first time that
black Americans played in the main hall at Carnegie, and
there was Cisciretta's first There wasn't much known commentary from
Ciiciretta on how she felt about the racial climate in
(23:14):
the United States. There was some she talked about in Europe,
how she felt like she didn't have to go through
and black people didn't go through as much there as
they did in the United States, and saying that there
wasn't as much racism there.
Speaker 4 (23:26):
She did comment on things like.
Speaker 5 (23:29):
When how she thought it was unreasonable at these segregated
shows where black people would be confined to the gallery
and white people were able to sit in the orchestra,
even if that didn't really make sense because there were
all these seats in the orchestra in the gat while
the gallery was packed and they were having to turn
people away from that, and also along the way things
(23:49):
would happen even when they were on their tours outside
of the United States of where they had difficulties finding
hotels and getting turned around from hotels when she was
having a hot from place of place place and stay
in hotels along the way. But either way, David booked
concerts for her and Pawn booked concerts for her, and
(24:11):
at a certain point there was controversy over that because
when David booked some contract concerts for Ciciretta, Ponn said
that they had violated their contract, so he sued them,
and he even said that Ciciretta refused to sing the
concerts that he booked, and they had a bunch of
(24:32):
back and forth over that. There was a whole court
case with a lot of dealings, and Cicioretta wanted damages
of five thousand dollars saying that nobody had been abiding
by this contract that they had initially agreed to in
the first place, like that was basically Nolan void after
a certain point, and an initial ruling did go into
(24:52):
her favor her and David's favor, but then another one
right after that went into Pond's favor with a different judge,
and David couldn't book Sisi Reddit to sing at that
point and gigs could only be booked under Pond's management.
The judge basically deemed her ungrateful for all that Pond
(25:13):
had done for her hugely successful career, and yeah, so
there was this contention between her and her manager over
this point, and Pond did stop being her manager in
mid eighteen ninety four anyway, and Rudolph Vocal would soon
manage her for the rest of her career not long
(25:36):
after that. So her career continued to be successful, but
that was kind of a contentious split between her and
a person who seemingly did have play a huge role
in her growing into this large name that she was.
So that's pretty complicated, but yeah, she toured Europe for
most of eighteen ninety five. She went to places like Germany,
(26:00):
in England, France, and Italy, and at a certain point
she began appearing in more vaudeville shows. When she got
to the back to the US, there weren't as a
mini concert opportunities for her at this point, and this
enigma and mystery around Black Prima Donna's at that point
was kind of fading, but she moved into a career
(26:23):
as the star of the Black Pati Troubadours. Their shows
were a mix of comedy of vaudeville, opera and burlesque,
and they would sing quote unquote coon songs, which was
a thing at the time, and have all these skits
as part of this super long, hours long show, and
(26:46):
then Cicioretta would close them out with this grand operatic
performance and that lasted for a long time, a super
long time.
Speaker 4 (26:58):
In eighteen ninety eight, I alluded.
Speaker 5 (27:00):
To earlier she did file from for divorce from David,
saying that he neglected to support her.
Speaker 4 (27:07):
He was cruel to her.
Speaker 5 (27:08):
And he had quote unquote continued drunkenness, and she wanted
her old last name back. She wanted to join her back,
and they granted her that, though she did continue to
use Jones in her stage name, and the Black Pati
Troubadours eventually changed their name to the Black Pati Musical
Comedy Company, but that didn't last too long and they
(27:29):
broke up in nineteen fifteen. She had a lot of
travels over her life and did a bunch of shows
while she was part of It would be impossible to
condense her story with the Troubadours into such a short
space because she did so many shows. A lot of
them were these one off nights. Sometimes she would do
week long engagements in places she went everywhere. She was
(27:52):
in San Francisco, she was in Atlanta, she was in
the Northeast, she was all of these places that she
would tour with them and got good reception, got different
positive and negative reviews in the press, and a lot
of deaths within the Troubadors because these were huge performances
(28:14):
with a lot of people in them, dozens of people.
So she was also surrounded by things like that drama
with people who wanted certain kinds of ownership and credit
over things that were happening in the show. And a
split between the managers who were over the Troubadours and
them going their own separate ways.
Speaker 4 (28:34):
So all of.
Speaker 5 (28:34):
Those things that you would expect with something involving so
many people. It is an artistic endeavor and happens in
so many different places. And mind you, is occurring while
all of these turbulent and like just really dramatic things
are happening in the United States and in the world.
(28:55):
Wars are happening, a lot of technological advancement like cars
being created, did planes, you know, all of these things
are happening while she is going through all of this.
So she did end up returning to Providence and taking
care of her mother after that split with the Troubadors.
Speaker 4 (29:17):
Her mother was sick. There was a.
Speaker 5 (29:18):
Period when toward the end of her career with the
troube Doors when she got ill as well. After she
returned to Providence, she stopped performing on stage, and she
ended up selling a lot of her jewelry and property
to support herself.
Speaker 4 (29:35):
She died in nineteen thirty three.
Speaker 5 (29:39):
And I think her story is very fascinating in terms
of what she was able to do at that time
and how much confidence she had. And I really wish
that I could hear her voice, just so I could
like hear what everyone else was hearing at the time.
And we're so pressed by and that so many people
(30:01):
had opinions about.
Speaker 4 (30:03):
But it does feel.
Speaker 5 (30:04):
Like her story is so bittersweet because she there's this
feeling of she didn't leave this world with much, but
that she left it with a lot. I don't know
her character personally, but from the way it's described, it
seems like at the end of her life, she was
the same as she was throughout the rest of her life.
And so she had this grand experience where she was
(30:26):
invited and welcomed by all these dignitaries and performed with
all these high falutin people and was in circles with
people who were notable when it came to abolition, so
some civil rights leaders, people like Paul Lawrence Dunbar, so
(30:48):
huge artist, so people who were super culturally.
Speaker 4 (30:53):
Relevant and did a lot of things that we remember
them for.
Speaker 5 (30:56):
But also all of the quote unquote normal people who
were in the audience and watching her and seeing her
rise to stardom and all of these things that she
was doing, and her being on all these trains and
being the star of the show. It seems like such
a glamorous life in such a difficult time. I just
have a lot of complicated feelings around it, because she
(31:19):
seemed to be characterized as this person at the end
of her life who was a lot more mellow and calmer, like,
keeping things a lot more low key at the end
of her life than she did before.
Speaker 4 (31:31):
Like she was just the neighborhood.
Speaker 5 (31:33):
Kids knew her and would come over, and artists would
visit her home and she would be in her garden,
and she was respected a little bit, well respected and
feared a little bit. But also the modest and economics
for the way that her money was at the time,
(31:55):
all the savings that she had burned through and having
to sell these things and make deals with people to
be able to four things and take care of her mother.
And she died not long after her mother died. Actually,
so yeah, it leads me with this very bittersweet feeling
of this life full of riches in so many ways
that didn't necessarily end in riches, but I'm hesitant to
(32:17):
say like she died in poverty, because she didn't die
in poverty. She lived a life of wealth in so
many ways that are more than just the tangible ways
that are related to her monetary things, her belongings and
the things that you know, one could put their hands
on and say that that has a certain value, Like
her life definitely had value outside of those things.
Speaker 4 (32:38):
And you know that's why I like, I.
Speaker 5 (32:41):
Am grateful to be able to share her story and
share so many of these stories. But a headstone wasn't
put on her unmarked grave until twenty eighteen. And yeah,
like Annie said earlier, there are no known recordings of
her singing and people, are you still hopeful that that
will one day because even though there was a black
(33:05):
Pati record label, she didn't really have anything to do
with that. Yeah, but that's her story and I'm happy
to share it.
Speaker 2 (33:26):
We're happy as always that you brought it to us
and you did all this work and you put it
together in such a great way, because it is it's
an amazing, amazing story.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
And there's so much, like you said, like.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
This is a condensed thing, but there's so much that
she did that was fascinating, and it's like hard to
I kept finding all these other rabbit holes I want
to go down, like, oh, I want to hear more
about this. I learn more about this in her life
and all of her accomplishments. And then I don't know,
when I was reading it, I'm glad you put you
(34:02):
have you shared your conflicting feelings around it, because I
was like, wow, she was buried in an unmarked grave
after all of this, and it was twenty eighteen.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
I think it was a go fundme campaign.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
It took that long when she did have this big
of an impact and people did know her. That just
sort of like have have to have those people fighting
for you to still be remembered and still be heard.
And I'm glad, as I said at the top, I'm
glad people have been doing that for a long time
and continue to do so. And I am very happy again,
(34:39):
Eves that you you shared that story, and now our
listeners maybe can share that story.
Speaker 1 (34:44):
And because it's one worth being told.
Speaker 3 (34:47):
Right, maybe someone can find a recording. I'm thinking maybe
somewhere in Europe. Yes, it's a hidden recording of her
Grand tour now that.
Speaker 4 (34:56):
Has to be discovered.
Speaker 2 (34:57):
The HBO mini series you keep bringing up it would
be the search for the lost recording.
Speaker 4 (35:02):
I love it at the beginning.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
I would love it too, because that was I was like, oh,
I can't wait to hear your voice.
Speaker 1 (35:08):
You can't find it anywhere.
Speaker 4 (35:09):
It was like, no, that's even more haunted. Joke, it
really is.
Speaker 3 (35:14):
I know that's one of the biographers, like that's the
one wish that they had, and yeah, that's so haunting
to know that this amazing performance is out there. That
was a showstopper. Literally, people were just odd and would
sit there for hours to listen to this and we
can't hear it.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
Oh no, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5 (35:35):
It's like it's all of that that goodness of hearing
her voice has to be confined to that time, even
though thousands of people.
Speaker 4 (35:44):
Heard her voice.
Speaker 5 (35:45):
It's like, we'll never get to but sometimes, well hopefully
we will, but right now it's.
Speaker 3 (35:51):
Maybe one person out there. Kind of also takes the
lesson of taking people for granted and not realizing the
legend that is happening at that point in time, not
realizing that and not recognizing what.
Speaker 1 (36:04):
She was doing, which is just doing something that she.
Speaker 3 (36:06):
Loved and was really, really, really well trained at and
good at and talented in and did a lot of
work to be in that field. And it makes me
said that we don't get to hear that. But at
the same time it sounds like, yeah, you know some
of the treatment as a conflict as you have, and
like seeing glad to see that she continued to thrive
as in I guess I'm thinking in being able to
(36:30):
be in her own privacy and to do what she
needed to do. But at the same time, all of
the harshness that she had to deal with, especially in
the United States, you know, it's like, yeah, we did
this to ourselves, so we punished, Like we're punished because
we couldn't recognize how amazing this was. And then those
the evils behind, which is kind of familiar today of
like the recording industry. Yeah, that's kind of like comes
(36:52):
back to play and you're like, yeah, this is what
happens when things like this are neglected.
Speaker 5 (36:58):
I guess she does feel.
Speaker 4 (37:02):
Icky to think about.
Speaker 5 (37:07):
Another place in which a lot of these conflicting feelings
come up for me is and how much she worked
and up to I think it was around forty five
weeks out of the year she would be on tour
with these troubadours, night after night after night after night,
you know, using her physical body. Another part of this
(37:27):
is that this was a very it's singing, but it's
a very physical thing that from her moving from one
place to the other, you know, imagining the amount of
sleep that she was able to get, you know.
Speaker 4 (37:36):
How she had to maintain her health.
Speaker 5 (37:39):
But at the same time, her health was so taxed
because of the work that she did, and just thinking
about how many years of consistent grind that she had
to go through, and also so much of the loss
that she was having to deal with when it came
to her, her children, her siblings, her mother who not
(38:00):
long before her, And it feels like a lot of
weight for one person. But at the same time, she
had so much beauty in her life as well. That
offered another narrative, you know, beyond the tragedy in her life.
(38:21):
But I just think about that too in terms of
sus so anomalous for the time as a black woman
who achieved the kind of success that she did in
concert singing, even though she never did opera, because we
didn't really touch on that, but opera was and it
can be such a very white space, and she didn't
have access to that in many ways. But yeah, and
(38:44):
how much she had to grind and push herself to
these kinds of limits.
Speaker 4 (38:53):
During that time.
Speaker 5 (38:55):
It just I think about that in terms of what
people do today and what musicians than artists do today
as well.
Speaker 2 (39:02):
Yeah, Yeah, a lot of sacrifices were made, for sure.
Whenever we get to that, because I feel like we've
been talking a lot about celebrity and the fast too.
Whenever we do that one about privacy and celebrity and
kind of the demands on artists and the entitlement we
feel a lot of times around. Artists can talk on
this talking some more. Yes, thank you, e Well, it
(39:29):
was a pleasure as always to have you. Thank you
so much for coming on. Where can the good listeners
find you?
Speaker 1 (39:36):
Eves?
Speaker 5 (39:37):
Y'all can find me on Instagram at not Apologizing, I'm
on Twitter at Eve's Jeffcoat, or you can just go
to my website Evesjeffcoat dot com and get the links
to all of those things.
Speaker 2 (39:50):
Yes, and you should do that if you haven't done
it already. You can also find her on this very show,
which are always excellent segments. Oh yes, this thing I
am doing currently, Yes, Yes, yes, Yes, and listeners. If
you would like to reach out to us, you can
or emails Stuff Media mom Stuff at iHeartMedia dot com.
(40:11):
You can find us on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcasts
or on Instagram at stuff I've Never Told You. Thanks
as always to our sup producer Christina. Thank you Christina,
and thanks to you for listening. Stuff I've Never Told
You is the production of iHeartRadio. More podcasts from iHeartRadio,
You can visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or
regul listen to your favorite shows
Hey, this is Anny and Samantha and.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Welcome to stuff I never told you pro Actually iHeartRadio,
and welcome to another classic For today, we are bringing
back another female first about Cinciretta Jones, who is a
singer that we talked about with Eves on Female First
(00:30):
and I thought it was a great conversation.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Have you done any karaoke? Have you done any singing lately?
I haven't.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
The only in my car that makes me.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Say I have a karaoke machine.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
No, we have yet to use this.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
I should bring it. Hello.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Yeah, it has like lights does, but we would not
get to the range and the amazing things that Cinciretta
Jones accomp but still we could have fun. Yes, well,
please enjoy this classic episode. Hey, this is Annie and Samantha.
(01:12):
I'm welcome to stuff I've never told you, protection of iHeartRadio,
and it's time for another female first, which means we
are once again thrilled to be joined by the amazing,
fantastic Eves.
Speaker 4 (01:31):
Welcome Eves. Hello, Hello, Hi, how are you? How have
you been?
Speaker 5 (01:37):
I am doing very well. I don't know what to say.
It's hot outside. I'm trying to stay, you know, outside
as much as possible without melting.
Speaker 4 (01:47):
Mm hmmm. It has been possible so far, so I'm
excited about that.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
But you know, wow, that's a skill.
Speaker 5 (01:53):
Have you been off pretty well? You know, I mean
staying in the shade a lot.
Speaker 4 (02:00):
I was.
Speaker 5 (02:01):
I was like outside in the car yesterday saying, how
if this feels impossible, Like I am not even that
close to the equator and the sun is that far
away from me, and it's this hot. Doesn't really make
any sense, but you know, I was gonna. I was
just say, I prefer this to being cold. But I
feel like that also that has a little bit more
(02:21):
meaning because of climate change, things are in a certain direction,
so I had to double I had to think about
that again for a second.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Yeah, I mean true, true, I've been like the opposite.
I prefer the colds, and I've gone outside very very little,
which makes me sad because I do love going outside.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
I mean, I'd be out there for like a minute
and I know, what.
Speaker 4 (02:44):
Is this go back and does not compute?
Speaker 1 (02:48):
Mm mmmmm mmm.
Speaker 4 (02:50):
What about you, Samantha, what are your.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
Oh yeah, well, I'm on the same lines with Eaves.
I don't want to say it too loudly either, because
I feel like when we do, especially in Georgia, the
climate's really test you, Like, yeah, you think you want
to be warm, but as we speak, I'm a little
cool right now, to the point that I'm like, where's
my blanket? Which I have all year long in my office,
(03:13):
so you know. But yes, it's definitely been one of
those times where it's like, yeah, but I don't love
sweating either, So.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
Which is it? It's a delicate balance. It's a delicate
balance for sure. Well.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
I am very, very excited to talk about who brought today.
He's this very compelling story. But before we get into it,
I'm just curious where you both lie on like the
singing scale, Like how do you rate yourself?
Speaker 1 (03:40):
Do you enjoy singing? Did you ever think you're going
to be a singer, Samantha?
Speaker 4 (03:44):
Do you want to go?
Speaker 3 (03:46):
That's funny, as our listeners pretty much know, I do
love to just randomly sing.
Speaker 4 (03:52):
Do I think I'm great at it?
Speaker 3 (03:53):
No? Do I think I can hit a tune? And
am I okay with harmonizing? Yes, that's how I would
keep it. Did I think I could be a star
once upon a time, especially when you know Whitney came
out with her Bodyguards soundtrack. I'm like, yeah, I definitely
could hit these notes, by the way, I could not.
I could not, but I really wanted to try at
that point in time and had those small dreams like
(04:17):
maybe I could be a singer. At least I could
do the harmony the background vocals, but that's about it.
And yeah, now that I'm getting older, I'm like, oh no, yeah,
I definitely couldn't do that.
Speaker 5 (04:28):
I think singers are really amazing, and I'm honestly just
so often astonished at how many people can sing, but
it's not their careers. But I can blow people out
of the water when it comes to singing. I am
not one of those people. I took chorus for about
a year or something like that in elementary school, and
I honestly have no idea why I was in it.
(04:50):
I think it was probably just because my mom put
me in it. But I wasn't particularly great at singing,
and I think that I can hold a note decently well.
Speaker 4 (05:00):
But I know that I don't have.
Speaker 5 (05:03):
It because I've heard people plenty of people who have
it and.
Speaker 4 (05:06):
I ain't got whatever that is. I am so yeah, I.
Speaker 5 (05:10):
Sing in the shower, I sing along with songs like
I sing in the car.
Speaker 4 (05:14):
I love singing like.
Speaker 5 (05:15):
It feels great, it feels expressive, and I like the
way it makes me feel. And sometimes I will even
record myself singing and listen back to it and say,
how do I sound like I think I sound, because
I'm always very curious because I feel like I sound okay,
but do I have reading?
Speaker 4 (05:30):
So I'll do that. Sometimes I'm like, oh, okay, that's
how I feel about. It's basically okay, and then I
move a line.
Speaker 5 (05:37):
So no, definitely not any significant or noteworthy history of
singing in my life.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
I love that. I too.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
I like singing like in the car, around the house.
I love a good karaoke. I don't think I'm very good,
but I have fun. I used to think. I used
to think when I was a kid that I was
a good singer and I was singing in the shower
and a bit like, oh this melodious voice. Now I
don't think that, So I'm wondering if that's a shift
(06:08):
in confidence or like perception. Like when I was a kid,
I was like, oh, yeah, I'm good, and.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
Now like, let's temper the truth. Temper with the truth.
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
I mean, I but I never I used to think
I could be like a big time actor. I never
thought I could be a singer. There was never a
moment where I was like, I'm that good, but I did.
I was jealous of it. I was really jealous of
people who could sing. And I had friends who just, yeah,
they would nail it, and they made it look so easy, Like.
Speaker 4 (06:37):
Why can't I do that.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
It's a talent, it's a skill. Yeah, but yeah, I
do enjoy it.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
Well, all right, now that we've got our past and
experiences out of the way, who did you bring for
us to discuss today?
Speaker 1 (06:52):
Eves.
Speaker 5 (06:53):
Today we will be talking about Cissi Aretta Jones, And
that's why we were talking about singing, because she was
an amazing singer. And even so, there were still a
lot of people who criticized the way she sang or
her ability and singing. But she was the first Black
American woman to headline a concert at Carnegie Hall.
Speaker 4 (07:12):
So we'll be.
Speaker 5 (07:12):
Going through her history. It was long, it lasted many decades,
and it was very storied, and she traveled a lot.
She toured a lot, so I'm excited to talk about
her today. She is like so many of the people
we talk about on other episodes of Female First, a
person whose popularity or interest has waned over the years
(07:33):
posthumously after her death. During the time she was alive,
she had a lot of fame in many places around
the world, but her notoriety after she died did wane
a little bit, and then she came back into the
view of the mainstream in certain ways. So yeah, I'm
(07:53):
excited to talk about her and share her story with everyone.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
Yes, yes, we're very excited to to hear it too.
And I'm glad she's getting more attention lately because it
was just she did so much and it was just
kind of tragic that yes, disappeared and you can't find
any recordings yeah of her. So I'm glad people are
some people have been just fighting for so long, like,
(08:18):
do not forget this person, do not forget what she did.
I'm glad more and more people are like catching on
and hearing this story and you have brought it to
share even more. So Yeah, thanks me happy, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (08:29):
Shout out to all the biographers who do the hard
work of making sure that these people's names stand people's
minds and in people's hearts over the years, so really
grateful for all of them obviously, So.
Speaker 4 (08:41):
Yeah, we'll get into her story.
Speaker 5 (08:43):
She was born Matilda Ciciaretta Joiner in Portsmouth, Virginia, not
long after the end of the Civil War in eighteen
sixty eight or sixty nine. She was the oldest of
three children born to her parents, but her siblings died
when they.
Speaker 4 (08:57):
Were very young. Her father was Jera Maya.
Speaker 5 (09:00):
Malchai Joiner, and he was born into slavery in North Carolina,
and when she was born, he was a carpenter and
a pastor as well as a choir leader at a church.
Her mother was named Henrietta, and she did laundry and
she sang in the choir as well, and she was
also from North Carolina. In her early life, Ciciaretta was
(09:22):
called Matilda her first name, and also called Sissy, and
they moved to Providence, Rhode Island, to the east side
of the city. Not long after they moved to Providence,
though Henrietta and Jeremiah did stop living together, Henrietta was
played a huge role in Ciciretta's upbringing and they made
(09:43):
money by doing laundry and she would iron in her home,
and around eighteen eighty nine, the Ciciretta's parents divorced, but
she was already singing at a young age. She sang
at school and at work, and as a teenager she
began attending the Providence Academy of me Pretty early on,
she married David Richard Jones, who was a hotel porter.
(10:04):
That was eighteen eighty three when they married, and marriage
records said that she was eighteen and he was twenty four,
but they were likely both a few years younger than that,
and in April of eighteen eighty four, their daughter, Mabel
was born, So she Cincioretta began singing at more church
concerts and performing with groups here and there. In eighteen
(10:28):
eighty five, she performed with Flora Batson, who's another big
name in the singing community. She was a well known
black concert singer, and Jones also sang a solo in
a play featuring Black actor John A. R. No as
King Richard the Third that year, and later that year
it was kind of a big deal when she sang
(10:49):
in a concert at the Providence Music Hall starring Marie
Selica or Selika. I'm not exactly sure how to pronounce
that part of her name, but she was a black vocalist,
and she also had a first She was the first
black artist to at the White House.
Speaker 4 (11:01):
But sadly, Jones's daughter.
Speaker 5 (11:04):
Mabel did die when she was two years old, which
had an emotional toll on her and affected how she
showed up for her career. But she did go back
to singing and she performed more with Flora Batson, and
she studied may have studied either at the Boston Conservatory
of Music or the New England Conservatory of Music, but
(11:26):
it does seem like she's studied in Boston in the
late eighteen eighties. So she had a concert tour starting
in early eighteen eighty eight for cities in the New
England area, and she signed a contract with management firm
called Abby Shuffle and graw. I feel like my German
isn't My German is not the best, so polase forgive
(11:47):
me for that. She was on a tour of the
Caribbean and South America with a company of Black American
singers called the Tennessee Jubilee Singers.
Speaker 4 (11:56):
So this is she's.
Speaker 5 (11:57):
Still very young, but she's already doing a lot of
traveling with her singing career. And getting really invested involved
in it and working with a lot of different people.
Speaker 4 (12:08):
And it's unclear who was.
Speaker 5 (12:10):
The very first person to call her this, but several
newspapers did refer to her as Black Patty, and those
newspapers said that her managers called her black Patty, which
I wasn't there, but to have my manager call me
by some weird personification of somebody else, I just feel
(12:31):
like that's very strange in practice. But apparently that's what
those newspapers said. This was a reference to Adelina Patti,
who was a really popular opera singer in the nineteenth century,
and they called Jones that.
Speaker 4 (12:44):
For the rest of her career.
Speaker 5 (12:45):
You'll see this referred to in articles about her and
in advertisements about the work that she was doing, her
being called the Black Patty, and she even referred to
herself as that. But she did say that she didn't
care for the moniker. She said in the Detroit Evening
News quote, I am afraid people will think I consider
myself the equal of Pati herself. I assure you I
(13:08):
do not think so. But I have a voice, and
I am striving to win the favor of the public
by honest merit and hard work. Perhaps someday I may
be as great in my way, but that is a.
Speaker 4 (13:19):
Long way of head, a long way ahead. So she
was pretty gracious.
Speaker 5 (13:23):
About that back then, even though she's commented on that
Moniker more later in life and was just like.
Speaker 4 (13:28):
That's not for me.
Speaker 5 (13:30):
I didn't put that on myself, but I got it.
But she seemed to accept it pretty gracefully, even though
we've talked about before on female First, my disdain for
this weird using these names to refer to somebody else
of a different race, to say you're of this race.
But yeah, so it was something that was attached to
(13:50):
her and that lasted and worked well for branding, so
we know how important that is. So some other critics
didn't care for the name, and that was for various reasons,
Like some of it was more from the direction that
she was coming from, like I don't need that, I
don't need this weird comparison to another race. But some
(14:11):
people also thought that she didn't measure up to Adelina
Patti or there was no need to draw those comparisons.
Speaker 4 (14:17):
Or even that like she wasn't.
Speaker 5 (14:19):
Black, so while we call her black, she's quote unquote
Mulato some would say.
Speaker 3 (14:23):
So.
Speaker 5 (14:23):
There are various reasons people thought this, but the black
Patti is one thing that people called her. So she
and her husband, along with the company, went to Jamaica
in August of eighteen eighty eight as the first stop
on their six month tour. They played in Panama, Barbados, Trinidad,
what was then British Guyana, Antiga, and Saint KITT's and
(14:45):
other places, and the audiences of these shows were mixed
when it came to race and reportedly the manager made
somewhere around four thousand dollars off of the tour. And
minstrel shows were a thing at this time. I'm associated
with blackface and this kind of silly performance on stage,
(15:07):
caricatures and things like that. But she did perform a
menstrel show sometimes. Her first was probably in eighteen eighty nine.
By that point her husband David was helping move her
career for a lot.
Speaker 4 (15:20):
As her manager.
Speaker 5 (15:22):
But yeah, so he will come up over the years
as being involved in the work that she did, booking
her shows, going with her on tours, although that relationship
did sour the personal relationship as well as that professional relationship,
and Cisiretta as part of another troop later went back
(15:43):
to the Caribbean and to South America, visiting places like Haiti, Cuba, Granada,
and Saint Thomas.
Speaker 4 (15:51):
But this time was a little bit different than the
other time.
Speaker 5 (15:55):
Her husband and a black woman who was a former
newspaper reporter named Florence Williams managed the tour. Reports of
their shows overseas were sent back to the States and
that helped grow her reputation.
Speaker 4 (16:06):
And she talked about how she had gotten all.
Speaker 5 (16:08):
Of these gifts from people around the world and the
countries that she visited. So this one thing that comes
up in her story a lot is a tear that
she got with diamonds in it. She got money, she
got gold, medals and various gems. And you can, although
we don't have recordings of her, everybody can go look
at pictures of her online. They do exist, many of them,
(16:29):
and they're really fun to look at because she looks
very grand. She looks very regal in a lot of
the pictures because she's wearing these long flowing gowns and
dramatic capes. And you can also see her wearing all
of her medals, which is it feels like the ultimate
flex to me. For her to put all of her
metals on her chest and take a picture like that.
Speaker 4 (16:51):
But it's just reflective of this part of her history.
Speaker 5 (16:54):
That we're reading about and learning about and hearing like
she got all these metals, which can sound very like
we're trying to impressed a certain thing upon her biography
that wasn't necessarily there.
Speaker 4 (17:03):
But she really did.
Speaker 5 (17:04):
Get these medals, and she showed that she got these medals,
and there's actual documentation that we can see today, so.
Speaker 4 (17:10):
I think that's pretty cool.
Speaker 5 (17:11):
But anyway, all of this happened by the time she
was in her early twenties, just her context, so she
was doing a lot and going a lot of places,
clearly working very hard. In eighteen ninety two, she sang
(17:35):
at the White House for President Benjamin Harrison, and she
reportedly sang at the White House for later presidents as well.
That same year, she was in an event called the
Grand Negro Jubilee at Madison Square Garden. It was in
a large venue, it has these mixed race audiences, and
she appeared as this prima donna in the show, and
(17:57):
she garnered a lot of us attention for it. She
later said about this appearance, quote I woke up famous
after singing at the Garden and didn't know it. So
this clearly was a pivotal point in her story, in
her becoming this little kind of larger than white figure
that she became. So in June, she and her husband
(18:19):
signed a contract with the manager named James B.
Speaker 4 (18:22):
Pond. So that contract was supposed.
Speaker 5 (18:25):
To be lucrative, paying her more than six thousand dollars
a year, which would be around two hundred thousand dollars today.
So that is obviously a large sum of money for
them and for today. And she was one of the
highest paid entertainers of her time black American of black Americans.
(18:46):
So that same month, she was featured as a soprano
in all black performance at Carnegie Hall. And there are
a lot of quotes about her voice.
Speaker 4 (18:59):
Obviously, we can can't hear it, and there's.
Speaker 5 (19:00):
Only so much that we can get out of words
trying to represent what her voice sounded like. But a
lot of those quotes do tend to mention how great
her enunciation was.
Speaker 4 (19:11):
Like even if those people.
Speaker 5 (19:13):
Who were writing about her were hating on her and
didn't really care for her performance, they were like.
Speaker 4 (19:17):
Oh, her enunciation was really great.
Speaker 5 (19:19):
And some of them would compare her voice to angels
and birds, which is an obvious comparison because the song
birds exist, so it makes sense. But yeah, so they
also mentioned her manner and speaking to people. They would
say things like she's very lovely and that she is
(19:40):
a good conversationalist. So apparently people did take pretty well
to her demeanor outside of the stage. But that makes
sense as well, because it's all fitting as part of
the work that she was doing in the demeanor that
she was expected to carry in front of these large
audiences at the time. And I can give you a quote,
for instance, about what one person said from the Saratoga
(20:03):
Union quote. There is neither brass in her notes nor
thickness in her phrasing. Her enunciation is also perfect. The
exquisite crispness with which she executes complicated skills and rapid
time delight at all with all. She thinks intelligently, without affectation,
and with much feeling. These newspaper articles talked about her
(20:23):
appearance as well, but often they had this air of
being surprised that she was actually great at her craft,
even though not every person who was a critic of
hers said that she.
Speaker 4 (20:38):
Was good at her craft.
Speaker 5 (20:41):
Some people did say she has natural talent, but you know,
the craft ain't so much there she could do with
more professional schooling, more training and things like that.
Speaker 4 (20:51):
They would also do this.
Speaker 5 (20:52):
Thing where they were like, oh wow, I wasn't necessarily
expecting that, I was just expecting hers, like as if
her race would proceed her the work that she was doing,
like it was the race was the reason that she
had this grand reputation that would precede her, and they
would do the same thing that a lot of media
does today with women and with black women, comparing her
(21:16):
to other female singers like Flora Batson, for instance. But
she was still well received in a lot of these places,
and she was making money and she was able to
support herself through her work that way and doing what
she loved in terms.
Speaker 4 (21:29):
Of concert singing.
Speaker 5 (21:31):
So her manager, James Pond, set her up to go
on a tour with a troop of white European musicians.
That meant that at the same time as they would
attract an audience who wanted to see white musicians, but
they would also choose to perform on stage with her,
which is something that some white musicians didn't want to
(21:53):
do white Americans particularly and under Pond she was mostly
performing for white audiences, which up until that point her
audiences were mostly black.
Speaker 4 (22:06):
So she's sang with a bunch of.
Speaker 5 (22:09):
Different people, like it would be an exhaustive list to
go through all of the concerts that she did. Was
just so many over the years and with so many people.
But she would continue to do voice lessons for years.
She did them with Luisa Cappiani, who was a voice
teacher from Austria and lived in New York City. So
musician and composer will Marion Cook he wanted to put
(22:32):
on a black opera called Scenes from Uncle Tom's Cabin
at the Chicago World's Fair, which was also known as
the Colombian Exposition. Spoiler alert, that did not happen. That
performance didn't happen. Jones did sing one night at the
Exposition though.
Speaker 4 (22:50):
Either way.
Speaker 5 (22:51):
There was a benefit concert at Carnegie Music Hall and
cciretta headline that concert, which marked the first time that
black Americans played in the main hall at Carnegie, and
there was Cisciretta's first There wasn't much known commentary from
Ciiciretta on how she felt about the racial climate in
(23:14):
the United States. There was some she talked about in Europe,
how she felt like she didn't have to go through
and black people didn't go through as much there as
they did in the United States, and saying that there
wasn't as much racism there.
Speaker 4 (23:26):
She did comment on things like.
Speaker 5 (23:29):
When how she thought it was unreasonable at these segregated
shows where black people would be confined to the gallery
and white people were able to sit in the orchestra,
even if that didn't really make sense because there were
all these seats in the orchestra in the gat while
the gallery was packed and they were having to turn
people away from that, and also along the way things
(23:49):
would happen even when they were on their tours outside
of the United States of where they had difficulties finding
hotels and getting turned around from hotels when she was
having a hot from place of place place and stay
in hotels along the way. But either way, David booked
concerts for her and Pawn booked concerts for her, and
(24:11):
at a certain point there was controversy over that because
when David booked some contract concerts for Ciciretta, Ponn said
that they had violated their contract, so he sued them,
and he even said that Ciciretta refused to sing the
concerts that he booked, and they had a bunch of
(24:32):
back and forth over that. There was a whole court
case with a lot of dealings, and Cicioretta wanted damages
of five thousand dollars saying that nobody had been abiding
by this contract that they had initially agreed to in
the first place, like that was basically Nolan void after
a certain point, and an initial ruling did go into
(24:52):
her favor her and David's favor, but then another one
right after that went into Pond's favor with a different judge,
and David couldn't book Sisi Reddit to sing at that
point and gigs could only be booked under Pond's management.
The judge basically deemed her ungrateful for all that Pond
(25:13):
had done for her hugely successful career, and yeah, so
there was this contention between her and her manager over
this point, and Pond did stop being her manager in
mid eighteen ninety four anyway, and Rudolph Vocal would soon
manage her for the rest of her career not long
(25:36):
after that. So her career continued to be successful, but
that was kind of a contentious split between her and
a person who seemingly did have play a huge role
in her growing into this large name that she was.
So that's pretty complicated, but yeah, she toured Europe for
most of eighteen ninety five. She went to places like Germany,
(26:00):
in England, France, and Italy, and at a certain point
she began appearing in more vaudeville shows. When she got
to the back to the US, there weren't as a
mini concert opportunities for her at this point, and this
enigma and mystery around Black Prima Donna's at that point
was kind of fading, but she moved into a career
(26:23):
as the star of the Black Pati Troubadours. Their shows
were a mix of comedy of vaudeville, opera and burlesque,
and they would sing quote unquote coon songs, which was
a thing at the time, and have all these skits
as part of this super long, hours long show, and
(26:46):
then Cicioretta would close them out with this grand operatic
performance and that lasted for a long time, a super
long time.
Speaker 4 (26:58):
In eighteen ninety eight, I alluded.
Speaker 5 (27:00):
To earlier she did file from for divorce from David,
saying that he neglected to support her.
Speaker 4 (27:07):
He was cruel to her.
Speaker 5 (27:08):
And he had quote unquote continued drunkenness, and she wanted
her old last name back. She wanted to join her back,
and they granted her that, though she did continue to
use Jones in her stage name, and the Black Pati
Troubadours eventually changed their name to the Black Pati Musical
Comedy Company, but that didn't last too long and they
(27:29):
broke up in nineteen fifteen. She had a lot of
travels over her life and did a bunch of shows
while she was part of It would be impossible to
condense her story with the Troubadours into such a short
space because she did so many shows. A lot of
them were these one off nights. Sometimes she would do
week long engagements in places she went everywhere. She was
(27:52):
in San Francisco, she was in Atlanta, she was in
the Northeast, she was all of these places that she
would tour with them and got good reception, got different
positive and negative reviews in the press, and a lot
of deaths within the Troubadors because these were huge performances
(28:14):
with a lot of people in them, dozens of people.
So she was also surrounded by things like that drama
with people who wanted certain kinds of ownership and credit
over things that were happening in the show. And a
split between the managers who were over the Troubadours and
them going their own separate ways.
Speaker 4 (28:34):
So all of.
Speaker 5 (28:34):
Those things that you would expect with something involving so
many people. It is an artistic endeavor and happens in
so many different places. And mind you, is occurring while
all of these turbulent and like just really dramatic things
are happening in the United States and in the world.
(28:55):
Wars are happening, a lot of technological advancement like cars
being created, did planes, you know, all of these things
are happening while she is going through all of this.
So she did end up returning to Providence and taking
care of her mother after that split with the Troubadors.
Speaker 4 (29:17):
Her mother was sick. There was a.
Speaker 5 (29:18):
Period when toward the end of her career with the
troube Doors when she got ill as well. After she
returned to Providence, she stopped performing on stage, and she
ended up selling a lot of her jewelry and property
to support herself.
Speaker 4 (29:35):
She died in nineteen thirty three.
Speaker 5 (29:39):
And I think her story is very fascinating in terms
of what she was able to do at that time
and how much confidence she had. And I really wish
that I could hear her voice, just so I could
like hear what everyone else was hearing at the time.
And we're so pressed by and that so many people
(30:01):
had opinions about.
Speaker 4 (30:03):
But it does feel.
Speaker 5 (30:04):
Like her story is so bittersweet because she there's this
feeling of she didn't leave this world with much, but
that she left it with a lot. I don't know
her character personally, but from the way it's described, it
seems like at the end of her life, she was
the same as she was throughout the rest of her life.
And so she had this grand experience where she was
(30:26):
invited and welcomed by all these dignitaries and performed with
all these high falutin people and was in circles with
people who were notable when it came to abolition, so
some civil rights leaders, people like Paul Lawrence Dunbar, so
(30:48):
huge artist, so people who were super culturally.
Speaker 4 (30:53):
Relevant and did a lot of things that we remember
them for.
Speaker 5 (30:56):
But also all of the quote unquote normal people who
were in the audience and watching her and seeing her
rise to stardom and all of these things that she
was doing, and her being on all these trains and
being the star of the show. It seems like such
a glamorous life in such a difficult time. I just
have a lot of complicated feelings around it, because she
(31:19):
seemed to be characterized as this person at the end
of her life who was a lot more mellow and calmer, like,
keeping things a lot more low key at the end
of her life than she did before.
Speaker 4 (31:31):
Like she was just the neighborhood.
Speaker 5 (31:33):
Kids knew her and would come over, and artists would
visit her home and she would be in her garden,
and she was respected a little bit, well respected and
feared a little bit. But also the modest and economics
for the way that her money was at the time,
(31:55):
all the savings that she had burned through and having
to sell these things and make deals with people to
be able to four things and take care of her mother.
And she died not long after her mother died. Actually,
so yeah, it leads me with this very bittersweet feeling
of this life full of riches in so many ways
that didn't necessarily end in riches, but I'm hesitant to
(32:17):
say like she died in poverty, because she didn't die
in poverty. She lived a life of wealth in so
many ways that are more than just the tangible ways
that are related to her monetary things, her belongings and
the things that you know, one could put their hands
on and say that that has a certain value, Like
her life definitely had value outside of those things.
Speaker 4 (32:38):
And you know that's why I like, I.
Speaker 5 (32:41):
Am grateful to be able to share her story and
share so many of these stories. But a headstone wasn't
put on her unmarked grave until twenty eighteen. And yeah,
like Annie said earlier, there are no known recordings of
her singing and people, are you still hopeful that that
will one day because even though there was a black
(33:05):
Pati record label, she didn't really have anything to do
with that. Yeah, but that's her story and I'm happy
to share it.
Speaker 2 (33:26):
We're happy as always that you brought it to us
and you did all this work and you put it
together in such a great way, because it is it's
an amazing, amazing story.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
And there's so much, like you said, like.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
This is a condensed thing, but there's so much that
she did that was fascinating, and it's like hard to
I kept finding all these other rabbit holes I want
to go down, like, oh, I want to hear more
about this. I learn more about this in her life
and all of her accomplishments. And then I don't know,
when I was reading it, I'm glad you put you
(34:02):
have you shared your conflicting feelings around it, because I
was like, wow, she was buried in an unmarked grave
after all of this, and it was twenty eighteen.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
I think it was a go fundme campaign.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
It took that long when she did have this big
of an impact and people did know her. That just
sort of like have have to have those people fighting
for you to still be remembered and still be heard.
And I'm glad, as I said at the top, I'm
glad people have been doing that for a long time
and continue to do so. And I am very happy again,
(34:39):
Eves that you you shared that story, and now our
listeners maybe can share that story.
Speaker 1 (34:44):
And because it's one worth being told.
Speaker 3 (34:47):
Right, maybe someone can find a recording. I'm thinking maybe
somewhere in Europe. Yes, it's a hidden recording of her
Grand tour now that.
Speaker 4 (34:56):
Has to be discovered.
Speaker 2 (34:57):
The HBO mini series you keep bringing up it would
be the search for the lost recording.
Speaker 4 (35:02):
I love it at the beginning.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
I would love it too, because that was I was like, oh,
I can't wait to hear your voice.
Speaker 1 (35:08):
You can't find it anywhere.
Speaker 4 (35:09):
It was like, no, that's even more haunted. Joke, it
really is.
Speaker 3 (35:14):
I know that's one of the biographers, like that's the
one wish that they had, and yeah, that's so haunting
to know that this amazing performance is out there. That
was a showstopper. Literally, people were just odd and would
sit there for hours to listen to this and we
can't hear it.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
Oh no, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5 (35:35):
It's like it's all of that that goodness of hearing
her voice has to be confined to that time, even
though thousands of people.
Speaker 4 (35:44):
Heard her voice.
Speaker 5 (35:45):
It's like, we'll never get to but sometimes, well hopefully
we will, but right now it's.
Speaker 3 (35:51):
Maybe one person out there. Kind of also takes the
lesson of taking people for granted and not realizing the
legend that is happening at that point in time, not
realizing that and not recognizing what.
Speaker 1 (36:04):
She was doing, which is just doing something that she.
Speaker 3 (36:06):
Loved and was really, really, really well trained at and
good at and talented in and did a lot of
work to be in that field. And it makes me
said that we don't get to hear that. But at
the same time it sounds like, yeah, you know some
of the treatment as a conflict as you have, and
like seeing glad to see that she continued to thrive
as in I guess I'm thinking in being able to
(36:30):
be in her own privacy and to do what she
needed to do. But at the same time, all of
the harshness that she had to deal with, especially in
the United States, you know, it's like, yeah, we did
this to ourselves, so we punished, Like we're punished because
we couldn't recognize how amazing this was. And then those
the evils behind, which is kind of familiar today of
like the recording industry. Yeah, that's kind of like comes
(36:52):
back to play and you're like, yeah, this is what
happens when things like this are neglected.
Speaker 5 (36:58):
I guess she does feel.
Speaker 4 (37:02):
Icky to think about.
Speaker 5 (37:07):
Another place in which a lot of these conflicting feelings
come up for me is and how much she worked
and up to I think it was around forty five
weeks out of the year she would be on tour
with these troubadours, night after night after night after night,
you know, using her physical body. Another part of this
(37:27):
is that this was a very it's singing, but it's
a very physical thing that from her moving from one
place to the other, you know, imagining the amount of
sleep that she was able to get, you know.
Speaker 4 (37:36):
How she had to maintain her health.
Speaker 5 (37:39):
But at the same time, her health was so taxed
because of the work that she did, and just thinking
about how many years of consistent grind that she had
to go through, and also so much of the loss
that she was having to deal with when it came
to her, her children, her siblings, her mother who not
(38:00):
long before her, And it feels like a lot of
weight for one person. But at the same time, she
had so much beauty in her life as well. That
offered another narrative, you know, beyond the tragedy in her life.
(38:21):
But I just think about that too in terms of
sus so anomalous for the time as a black woman
who achieved the kind of success that she did in
concert singing, even though she never did opera, because we
didn't really touch on that, but opera was and it
can be such a very white space, and she didn't
have access to that in many ways. But yeah, and
(38:44):
how much she had to grind and push herself to
these kinds of limits.
Speaker 4 (38:53):
During that time.
Speaker 5 (38:55):
It just I think about that in terms of what
people do today and what musicians than artists do today
as well.
Speaker 2 (39:02):
Yeah, Yeah, a lot of sacrifices were made, for sure.
Whenever we get to that, because I feel like we've
been talking a lot about celebrity and the fast too.
Whenever we do that one about privacy and celebrity and
kind of the demands on artists and the entitlement we
feel a lot of times around. Artists can talk on
this talking some more. Yes, thank you, e Well, it
(39:29):
was a pleasure as always to have you. Thank you
so much for coming on. Where can the good listeners
find you?
Speaker 1 (39:36):
Eves?
Speaker 5 (39:37):
Y'all can find me on Instagram at not Apologizing, I'm
on Twitter at Eve's Jeffcoat, or you can just go
to my website Evesjeffcoat dot com and get the links
to all of those things.
Speaker 2 (39:50):
Yes, and you should do that if you haven't done
it already. You can also find her on this very show,
which are always excellent segments. Oh yes, this thing I
am doing currently, Yes, Yes, yes, Yes, and listeners. If
you would like to reach out to us, you can
or emails Stuff Media mom Stuff at iHeartMedia dot com.
(40:11):
You can find us on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcasts
or on Instagram at stuff I've Never Told You. Thanks
as always to our sup producer Christina. Thank you Christina,
and thanks to you for listening. Stuff I've Never Told
You is the production of iHeartRadio. More podcasts from iHeartRadio,
You can visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or
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