Bert Potter (composer)

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Albert Lincoln (“Bert”) Potter (March 11, 1874 – January 29, 1930) was a composer of popular songs active between 1904 and 1917.

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Biography

Bert Potter, born in Boston, was the first child of Algernon S. and Flora E. Potter. Algernon was a wholesale dealer in clothing, and Bert was raised in an upper-middle-class family, with two Irish servants in the household. [1] After his marriage to Eleanor Dodge (August 2, 1898), Bert worked in his father’s business; but early in the twentieth century he migrated into music, publishing his first songs in 1904. [2] Shortly afterwards he settled in Dorchester, in a house that he occupied the rest of his life. The 1908 city directory identified him as a “musician,” and at least from 1910–14 he worked as a salesman in piano stores. [3] By 1918, however, he had abandoned the musical profession and become an agent with John Hancock Mutual Insurance Co., serving in that capacity until his death. [4]

Dorchester, Boston Neighborhood of Boston in Suffolk, Massachusetts, United States

Dorchester is a Boston neighborhood comprising more than 6 square miles (16 km2) in the City of Boston, Massachusetts, United States. Originally, Dorchester was a separate town, founded by Puritans who emigrated in 1630 from Dorchester, Dorset, England to the Massachusetts Bay Colony. This dissolved municipality, Boston's largest neighborhood by far, is often divided by city planners in order to create two planning areas roughly equivalent in size and population to other Boston neighborhoods.

Composer

Between 1904 and 1907 eighteen publications by Potter were copyrighted; in 1912 there were two more, and in 1917 a single, final one. [5] He wrote piano pieces and songs, the latter usually to his own texts. Most pieces are uptempo rags, marches, and novelties; at least one piano solo, “A swell affair” (1906), is considered a minor classic and has been included in recent ragtime anthologies. [6] Several early songs were intended for blackface performance in vaudeville or revues. Potter had a lively, if conventional, sense of rhythm; this, plus a certain lack of melodic invention, made his instrumental music generally more popular than his songs. Several compositions were released in band arrangements, notably by the publisher Walter Jacobs; all Potter’s music was issued by Boston firms.

Ragtime – also spelled rag-time or rag time – is a musical style that enjoyed its peak popularity between 1895 and 1918. Its cardinal trait is its syncopated or "ragged" rhythm.

Blackface form of theatrical makeup

Blackface is a form of theatrical make-up used predominantly by non-black performers to represent a caricature of a black person. The practice gained popularity during the 19th century and contributed to the spread of racial stereotypes such as the "happy-go-lucky darky on the plantation" or the "dandified coon". By the middle of the century, blackface minstrel shows had become a distinctive American artform, translating formal works such as opera into popular terms for a general audience. Early in the 20th century, blackface branched off from the minstrel show and became a form in its own right. In the United States, blackface had largely fallen out of favor by the turn of the 21st century, and is now generally considered offensive and disrespectful, though the practice continues in other countries.

Vaudeville genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s

Vaudeville is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment born in France at the end of the 18th century. A vaudeville is a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation. It was originally a kind of dramatic composition or light poetry, usually a comedy, interspersed with songs or ballets. It became popular in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s, but the idea of vaudeville's theatre changed radically from its French antecedent.

On December 10, 1917, D. W. Cooper copyrighted Potter’s “101st Regiment, U. S. A. March,” an isolated piece written after Potter had left the musical profession. This was moderately popular, at least in Boston. In a six-month period it was issued twice (the same music, but newly engraved), its Trio was published as one of the “War Songs” musical supplements in the Boston Sunday Advertiser, [7] and it was released on a piano roll for coin-operated players. [8] The 101st regiment, known as “Boston’s Own,” formed part of the celebrated “Yankee Division” (the 26th), which was the first army unit to be dispatched to the front after America entered World War I. [9] Potter was surely moved by civic pride to write this march, but he had personal motivations as well: his son Albert N. Potter had enlisted on July 7, 1917, and was listed among the wounded at war’s end. [10]

26th Infantry Division (United States) combat formation of the United States Army

The 26th Infantry Division was an infantry division of the United States Army. A major formation of the Massachusetts Army National Guard, it was based in Boston, Massachusetts for most of its history. Today, the division's heritage is carried on by the 26th Maneuver Enhancement Brigade.

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References

  1. ↑ 1880 and 1900 U. S. Federal Census.
  2. ↑ Massachusetts Town and Vital Records; 1900 U. S. Federal Census; WorldCat; “With the Music Publishers,” The New York Telegraph, November 6, 1904, p. 8.
  3. ↑ The Boston Directory (Boston: Sampson & Murdock Company), 1908–14.
  4. ↑ World War I Draft Registration Cards; 1920 U. S. Federal Census; death date from The Boston Directory (Boston: Sampson & Murdock Company), 1930.
  5. ↑ Catalog of Copyright Entries ... Musical Compositions (Washington: Government Printing Office), 1904–18.
  6. ↑ See, for instance, Ragtime Revival, ed. John L. Haag (Ventura, CA: Creative Concepts, 1997).
  7. ↑ Boston Sunday Advertiser, June 16, 1918, n.p.
  8. ↑ "Issue Automatic Roll Bulletin," The Music Trades Review LXVI:16 (April 20, 1918), p. 35.
  9. ↑ Harry A. Benwell, History of the Yankee Division (Boston: Cornhill, 1919).
  10. ↑ Department of Veterans Affairs, World War I Records; The Boston Globe, February 25, 1919, p. 5.
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