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