Everything about Jules Bledsoe totally explained
Jules Bledsoe (
1898 -
1943) was a renowned
baritone and the first
African American artist to gain regular employment on
Broadway.
After graduating from
Bishop College in
Texas, he studied at
Virginia Union College and
Columbia University. He debuted in New York's Aeolian Hall in
1924 which resulted in him obtaining management from impresario
Sol Hurok.
Bledsoe performed in
Frank Harling's opera
Deep River in
1926 and he created the role of Joe in
Jerome Kern's
Show Boat in
1927, after Paul Robeson was unable to appear in it because of scheduling conflicts. (Robeson first played the role five months after the Broadway opening, in the 1928 London production.)
In
Verdi's opera with the Chicago Opera
Aida Bledsoe sang the role of Amonasro. In
Louis Gruenberg's
The Emperor Jones, he played the title character. Both aforementioned productions were at the
Hippodrome. In a Holland production, he sang the title character in
Mussorgsky's
Boris Godunov.
Bledsoe toured the concert circuit and was a member of the
Roxy Theatre's music staff as a part of
Roxy's Gang. The
1935 BBC program "Songs of the Negro" was programmed by Bledsoe who then sang in
Blackbirds of 1936, a London production.
Bledsoe did make a recording of
Ol' Man River, which he sang in the first production of
Show Boat, and it's occasionally played on the
NPR musical theatre program,
A Night on the Town. His rendition of the song, especially in comparison to those made famous by
Paul Robeson,
William Warfield,
Bruce Hubbard (on the
1988 3-disc
EMI album), and Michel Bell (in the
Harold Prince revival of the show), is somewhat exaggeratedly melodramatic in the manner of early twentieth-century acting, and Bledsoe rolls all of his "r"'s, as a baritone might when singing his solos in an
oratorio. A recently released album of vintage spiritual recordings features Bledsoe singing
Swing Low, Sweet Chariot in that same exaggerately melodramatic style,
(External Link
) which demonstrates that it wasn't unique to his performance of
Ol' Man River.
Bledsoe was also actually filmed singing
Ol' Man River - his rendition of it was included in the
sound prologue to the otherwise
part-talkie 1929 film version of
Show Boat.
Further Information
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