Circa 1890 African American Musician tintype photo
The Grammy Awards show just passed, and I could not help but to think about many of the unnamed, uncompensated genius musicians from our past. The talented people long before the Lenny's, the Jimmy's, the Prince's, the Quincy's, the Michael's, etc.
This authentic tintype historical photo is on auction over at eBay. Here is an excerpt from the seller's description:
"African-American Guitar playing gentleman with a HARMONICA RACK(!) One of the earliest photos of a Black musician, and certainly the earliest with a harmonica.
He is a professional musician...guitars were often used as a studio prop in early photography studios but this fellow certainly played for a living. Since "musicianers" or more properly "songsters" as proto-bluesman are called would frequent areas where there was money to be made, this musician was likely to have played in minstrel shows, medicine shows and along carnival and sideshow routes, possibly at fish-frys, logging camps, parties and wherever a crowd with coins would be found. He would have had a large batch of songs to perform, ranging from the blues to popular tunes of the day depending on the needs of his audience. Likely a former slave or certainly the offspring of one, he would have escaped the drudgery of domestic work or farm labor with his musical skills."
Now that's hustling.
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