Luckey Roberts


Charles Luckyth Roberts, better known as Luckey Roberts, was an American composer and stride pianist who worked in the jazz, ragtime, and blues styles. Roberts performed as musician, band/orchestra conductor, and dancer. He taught music and dance. He also owned a restaurant and bar in New York City and in Washington, D.C.
Luckey Roberts noted compositions include "Junk Man Rag", "Moonlight Cocktail", "Pork and Beans", and "Railroad Blues".

Life and career

Childhood with Traveling Vaudeville Acts

Sources:
Luckey Roberts was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, and was playing piano and acting professionally with traveling Vaudeville and Negro minstrel shows in his childhood. His father, William Roberts, an unaccredited self-taught veterinarian, was overwhelmed by the responsibility of single-parenthood when his mother, Elizabeth Williams Roberts, tragically died just three weeks after his birth. His father engaged the Ringolds, a show-business family, to raise him. With the Ringolds influence, he became a lifelong Quaker, teetotaler, and abstained from using tobacco. His first stage performance was as a toddler with a troupe performing Uncle Tom's Cabin. His vaudeville career began at age 5.
By the age of 7, he had taught himself to play piano, but only in the key of F-sharp, which is based on the black keys. As a child, he was paid to sing and dance with Gus Sulky and his Pickaninnies in theater work as a picaninny. His father was involved in his childhood, ensuring his health and happiness. One biographer reports: "One night his father saw him perform for the first time dressed only in a raffia shirt. Enraged, Roberts Sr. stopped the show. The packed house roared, thinking the scene was part of the show."
Reconciliation was made, and Roberts' father financed a visit to Lonnie Hicks, a leading ragtime pianist, who Roberts later credited with mentoring his early career in music. Roberts also performed with Mayme Remington's Black Buster Brownies Ethiopian Prodigies. For about a 10-year period, Roberts toured Europe three times in addition to many USA performances which showcased his childhood talents of singing, dancing, tumbling, and juggling. Mayme Remington's troupe paid him $1.25 weekly plus room and board and tutoring, and sent his father $5 weekly for five years. Roberts accompanied the drum corps at Philadelphia's First Regiment Armoury one summer.
Roberts performed at Billy William's restaurant, in Baltimore, Maryland, in the summer of 1905. Roberts took fighting lessons from Joe Gans, a former lightweight champion boxer. During this time he and pianist Eubie Blake, a lifelong friend, at Joe Gans's saloon, collaborated on ideas for piano composition. During another vacation from annual vaudeville touring, he performed at the Green Dragon saloon in Philadelphia.

1910 and the origins of Stride

Roberts settled in New York City about 1910. He became one of the leading pianists in Harlem and started publishing some of his original rags, assisted by Artie Matthews although he regularly won cutting contests he was still learning how to annotate music:

  • "Nothin'" originally entitled "Park Avenue Polka"
  • "Shoo Fly"
  • "Ripples of the Nile"
On December 28, 1911, he married his lifelong partner Lena Sanford Roberts, a musical comedy actress, who he met while they were traveling with J. Leubrie Hill in the My Friend from Dixie company. Lena frequently performed as a soloist in Roberts's bands in the Harlem Renaissance and throughout his career.
In 1911, Roberts composed "The Junk Man Rag", but since he could not yet notate music, he elicited ragtime pianist Artie Matthews's help to create publishable sheet music. In 1913, "The Junk Man Rag," a one-step, with lyrics Chris Smith and Ferd Mierisch, for Turkey Trot Opera written by Will Marion Cook. "The Junk Man Rag" was subsequently published both as an instrumental solo and as a song and Ferd E. Mierisch, by Jos. W. Stern & Co., 102-104 W. 38th St., N.Y., 1913 Roberts sheet music was often annotated as being 'simplified' since the complex ornamentation and decoration that he and the other ragtime performers embellished into their pieces were not easily scored or played by others. Fortunately, there are existing recordings and piano rolls of Roberts and contemporaries performing "The Junk Man Rag":

  • YouTube: Junk Man Rag played by the composer
  • YouTube: C. Luckyth Roberts The Junk Man Rag 1910s piano roll on 1912 by pump player piano artist Artis Wodehouse. This Piano roll was arranged and played by Leland Stanford Roberts on a 1912 foot-pump player piano.
  • YouTube: Lucky Roberts "Junk Man Rag" the original Connorized Piano roll played on the W. W. Kimball player piano at the Scott Joplin House State Historic Site, St. Louis, MO
  • Library of Congress Audio Recording: The junk-man rag, one-step or two-step, performed by the Victor Military Band on November 11, 1913
  • Library of Congress Audio Recording: Junk man rag with Fred Van Eps as solo banjo player and orchestra recorded September 6, 1913
  • YouTube: Junk Man Rag - Very early hand-played Piano roll Junk Man Rag, recorded in 1913 in Chicago as a duet by Sallie Heibronner and Mabel Avery Cripe. Features syncopated embellishments in the primo part.
A complete analysis of Roberts work would therefore necessarily entail an in-depth analysis of the published scores, a study of any existing piano rolls and recordings, as well as a consideration of interviews and contemporary commentary which give insight into the performance improvisation and reading the room whether for stage performance, a cutting competition, or private dance entertainment.
Roberts next big hit was "Pork and Beans", annotated as a One-Step or Two-Step and recognized as a Fox Trot, and an early example of Stride style. Some notable recordings of "Pork and Beans" exist at the Library of Congress and on YouTube:

  • YouTube: "Pork and Beans"
  • YouTube: "Pork and Beans" played by James P. Johnson
  • YouTube: Pork and Beans, Charles Luckeyth Roberts - Piano Roll
  • YouTube: Donald Lambert Plays Luckey Roberts' Pork And Beans 1961. This is the first track on the International Association of Jazz Record Collectors LP 23, and was recorded in Wallace's Hill Tavern, West Orange, NJ, on August 21, 1961. Lambert plays in key of F♯ minor, then F♯ major for the trio.
  • Library of Congress Audio: Pork and beans, composed by Luckey Roberts. Dance Music: Fox trot. Performed by the Rector Novelty Orchestra led by Earl Fuller
  • Sheet music online: Pork and Beans, One Step-Two Step or Turkey Trot. By C. Luckyth Roberts. Composer of "The Junk Man" Copyright 1913 by Jos. W. Stern & Co. https://levysheetmusic.mse.jhu.edu/sites/default/files/collection-pdfs/levy-172-065.pdf
From 1911 to 1919, among other work, Roberts served as the music director with producers Homer Tutt and Salem Tutt Whitney in their Southern Smart Set Company, an off-broadway troupe, that produced the Smart Set musical comedy
Together they formed the Roberts & Tutts Publishing Company, 110 West 130th St. New York City, and some of Robert's compositions were published as sheet music from Smart Set Company musical comedies. Tutt Brothers hired Roberts to write some musical comedies:

  • My People, Roberts' first broadway show
  • Smart Set yielding sheet music published by Roberts and Tutts Pub. Co.:

    • "Little Boy - Little Soldier"
    • YouTube: "The Irresistible Blues"
    • "Keep On Smiling"
  • Darkest Americans, a musical comedy with cast of characters: Abraham Dubois Washington, Gabriel Douglass, Professor at Howard University, Dean Kelly Miller, Howard University, R. Vernon, a journalist, President of the U.S.A., Vice President of the U.S.A., Red Cap, and others. Synopsis: Dean Miller goes on an
    archeological research trip in the interest of his university. Abe and Gabe enter Howard University under false pretenses. Dean Miller is missing; Abe and Gabe are hired to search for him. Their global escapade includes many exciting and ludicrous adventures. The dean is found, they return home, and everything ends happily.
These successes led to a series of very popular compositions by Roberts for solo piano and song :

  • "Music Box Rag".

    • YouTube and Library of Congress Audio: 'Metropolitan Dance Band - Music Box Rag - 1914 - 1910s Ragtime music' played by the Victor Military Band, directed by Edward T. King recorded Dec. 3, 1914 in New York.
    • The Music Box Rag Jaudas' Society Orchestra with Eugene A. Jaudas recorded Feb. 2, 2015 on Edison Label.
    • Sheet Music online: Music Box Rag, Fox Trot, published by Jos W. Stern and Co., 1914, F major, Moderato https://yorkspace.library.yorku.ca/bitstreams/e44d0f7b-db59-4841-a39b-5e5c167c78cd/download

  • "Tremelo Trot"
  • "Palm Beach", published by Joseph W. Stern
  • Helter Skelter, One Step Polka
  • "Spanish Fandango"
  • "Bon Ton", an instrumental one-step, arranged by J. Louis von der Mehden and performed by Patrick Conway Band on Aug. 3, 2015 by Victor Talking Machine Company
  • "Blue Fever"
  • "Spanish Venus"
  • "Lonesome Longin' Blues"
In 1913, through the encouragement of Lester Walton, Roberts teamed up with lyricist Alex Rogers to produce Broadway musicals, many of which resulted in subsequent publication of popular sheet music. Roberts successful partnership with Rogers lasted until 1930 when Rogers died.
For many years, Roberts held side jobs: doubled as a pool hustler, taught music and dance, and taught boxing and swimming at the YMCA.

World War I (1914 - 1918)

During World War I, he served with the 369th Infantry Regiment "Hellfighters" platoon and band. Roberts toured France and the UK with James Reese Europe during World War I.
Notable war-themed works:

  • "The Little Corporal"
  • "Billy Boy" a ragtime march dedicated to Col. William Hayward of the 15th Infantry Regiment. Composed by Luckey Roberts with Lyrics by Lester A. Walton. Published by Walton Publishing Co., 102-104 Est 38th St. New York.
  • "When the 'Yanks' Yank the 'Germ' out of 'German'" a ragtime march. Composed by Luckey Roberts with Lyrics by Alex Rogers and Lester A. Walton..
  • "The Navy Blues" a ragtime march. Composed by Luckey Roberts with Lyrics by Alex Rogers and Lester A. Walton..
Through these associations he became an occasional performer for the Vernon and Irene Castle dance team.