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James Hubert Blake was born on February 7, 1887 in Baltimore, Maryland to former slaves and was the only surviving child of eight. Blake’s musical training began when he was just four or five years old when he wandered into a music store, climbed on the bench of an organ, and started “fooling’” around. The store manager recognized his genius, told his mother and subsequently bought an organ.

At seven, he received music lessons from the Methodist church organist, by fifteen he played piano at Aggie Shelton’s Baltimore bordello and got his first big break in the music business when world champion boxer Joe Gans hired him to play the piano at Gans’ Goldfield Hotel, the first “black and tan club” in Baltimore in 1907. In 1912, Blake began playing ragtime in vaudeville with James Reese Europe’s “Society Orchestra” which accompanied Vernon and Irene Castle’s ballroom dance act. Shortly after World War I, Blake joined forces with performer Noble Sissle forming the vaudeville music duo, the “Dixie Duo” that transformed into 1921’s “Shuffle Along”, the first hit musical on Broadway written by and about African-Americans.

Throughout his career Blake made three films with Sissle for Lee DeForest’s Phonofilm Sound-On-Film, later played the Boathouse nightclub in Atlantic City, was bandleader with the USO during World War II, with his career winding down in 1946 enrolled and graduated from New York University, revived in 1950 with new interest in ragtime as artist, historian and educator, received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Reagan, awarded numerous honorary doctorates and had another hit Broadway play “Eubie!” in his honor. Eubie Blake continued to play piano and record until his death on February 12, 1983 in Brooklyn, New York. He was 96.

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