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Shelton Brooks (May 4, 1886 – September 6, 1975) was a Canadian-born American composer and performer of popular music and jazz. He was known for his ragtime and vaudeville style, and wrote some of the biggest hits of the first third of the 20th century; including "Some of These Days" and "At the Darktown Strutters' Ball". He composed "Some of These Days" at the Pekin Theatre.

Early life and education

Brooks was born in Amherstburg, Canada in 1886. His father was a preacher, and Brooks taught himself music on their church's pump organ. His family moved to Detroit, Michigan, in 1901 and that was where Brooks first made a name for himself in music and comedy. While he never learned to read music, his works were highly sought after for their brash style, which contrasted the previous restrictive styles of Victorian era music. Towards the end of his life, his style of music had lost popularity.

Career

Brooks sang, played piano, and performed on the vaudeville circuit (notably, as a Bert Williams imitator) as well as having a successful songwriting career. His first hit song was "Some of These Days", which he was able to get to headliner Sophie Tucker in 1909. Tucker adopted it as her theme song, and performed it regularly for the next 55 years.

He starred in several 1920s musicalcomedies. He appeared in the cast of Lew Leslie's Plantation Revue, which was opened in 1922. After the sudden death of his partner Florence Mills in 1927, he stopped appearing in stage shows and pursued a nightclub act. He had a radio show on the CBS network in the 1930s, and he is also credited as a contributor to the music featured in the 1932 film Harlem Is Heaven. In the 1940s he became a regular in Ken Murray's "Blackouts", a long-running salute to burlesque that played in both New York and Los Angeles, California.

Brooks sang and provided piano accompaniments on records with vocalists Ethel Waters and Sara Martin.

Discography

Brooks' works include "Some of These Days", "At the Darktown Strutters' Ball", "I Wonder Where My Easy Rider's Gone", "Every Day", "Somewhere in France", "Swing That Thing", "That Man of Mine", and "There'll Come a Time".

He also composed "Honey Gal, You Aint Talkin' to Me" and "If I Were a Bee and You Were a Red, Red Rose".

Partial list of songs

• 1909 "You ain't talkin' to me"
• 1910 "Honey Gal"
• 1910 "Some of These Days"
• 1911 "Jean"
• 1911 "There'll come a time"
• 1912 "You ain't no place but down South"
• 1912 "All Night Long"
• 1913 "I wonder where my easy rider's gone"
• 1916 "Walkin' the Dog"
• 1916 "Darktown Strutters' Ball"
• 1917 "Somewhere-Somewhere in France" (with William Vaughan Dunham)
• 1919 "Jean" (popularized by Isham Jones)
• 1919 "Tell Me Why You Want to Go to Paree (You Can Get the Same Sweet Loving Here at Home)"

References

1. "Jazz Roots: Shelton Brooks Discography". Jass.com. 1975-09-06. Retrieved 2014-08-22.
2. "Shelton Brooks". Internet Broadway Database, IBDB. Retrieved November 28, 2023.
3. "Brooks, Shelton: standards and selected hits, 1909 to 1918 | Songbook". Songbook1.wordpress.com. 3 May 2010. Retrieved 2020-03-09.
4. https://www.lib.uchicago.edu/media/documents/exfds-text.pdf page 7
5. ^ "Shelton Brooks | Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame Inductee". Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame. Retrieved 2021-02-19.
6. ^ Dennison, Sam (2013). Shelton Brooks. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.A2248493. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
7. ^ "Shelton Brooks | Biography & History | AllMusic". AllMusic. Retrieved 2017-06-19.
8. "Google". www.google.com. Retrieved 2021-11-17.
9. ^ Dennison, Sam (2013). Shelton Brooks. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.A2248493. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
10. ^ Parker, Bernard S. (2007). World War I Sheet Music - Volume 2. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc. pp. 608, 644. ISBN 978-0-7864-2799-4.

External links

• Works by Shelton Brooks at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or about Shelton Brooks at the Internet Archive
• Shelton Brooks at IMDb
• Shelton Brooks at IBDb
• Free scores by Shelton Brooks in the Choral Public Domain Library (ChoralWiki)
• Shelton Brooks recordings at the Discography of American Historical Recordings.

• 1886 births
• 1975 deaths
• Canadian emigrants to the United States
• Musicians from Detroit
• 20th-century Black Canadian male singers
• 20th-century Canadian male singers
• Canadian male songwriters
• Canadian pop pianists
• Canadian jazz pianists
• Canadian male musical theatre actors
• Canadian impressionists (entertainers)
• Canadian vaudeville performers
• Okeh Records artists
• People from Amherstburg, Ontario
• 20th-century Canadian comedians
• 20th-century Canadian pianists
• Canadian male jazz musicians
• Canadian male jazz pianists