26 Facts About Eubie Blake

James Hubert "Eubie" Blake was an American pianist and composer of ragtime, jazz, and popular music.

Eubie Blake was born at 319 Forrest Street in Baltimore, Maryland.

John Sumner Eubie Blake was a stevedore on the Baltimore Docks.

When Eubie Blake was seven, he received music lessons from a neighbor, Margaret Marshall, an organist for the Methodist church.

Eubie Blake gained his first big break in the music business in 1907, when world champion boxer Joe Gans hired him to play the piano at Gans's Goldfield Hotel, the first "black and tan club" in Baltimore.

Eubie Blake played at the Goldfield during the winters from 1907 to 1914, and spent his summers playing clubs in Atlantic City.

Eubie Blake played a melodeon strapped to the back of the medicine wagon.

Eubie Blake stayed with the show only two weeks because the doctor's religion didn't allow the serving of Sunday dinner.

Eubie Blake said he composed the melody of "Charleston Rag" in 1899, when he would have been only 12 years old.

Eubie Blake did not commit it to paper until 1915, when he learned musical notation.

In 1912, Eubie Blake began playing in vaudeville with James Reese Europe's Society Orchestra, which accompanied Vernon and Irene Castle's ballroom dance act.

Shortly after World War I, Eubie Blake formed a vaudeville musical act, the Dixie Duo, with performer Noble Sissle.

Eubie Blake made his first recordings in 1917, for the Pathe record label and for Ampico piano rolls.

Eubie Blake appeared in Warner Brothers' 1932 short film Pie, Pie Blackbird with the Nicholas Brothers, Nina Mae McKinney and Noble Sissle.

In July 1910, Eubie Blake married Avis Elizabeth Cecelia Lee, proposing to her in a chauffeur-driven car he hired.

In 1910, Eubie Blake brought his bride to Atlantic City, New Jersey, where he had already found employment at the Boathouse nightclub.

Eubie Blake died later that year, at the age of 58.

In 1946, Eubie Blake retired from performing and enrolled in New York University, where he studied the Schillinger System of music composition, graduating in two and a half years.

Eubie Blake spent the next two decades using the Schillinger System to transcribe songs that he had memorized but had never written down.

Eubie Blake was a frequent guest of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson and Merv Griffin.

Eubie Blake was featured by leading conductors, such as Leonard Bernstein and Arthur Fiedler.

Eubie Blake performed with Gregory Hines on the television program Saturday Night Live on March 10,1979.

Eubie Blake continued to play and record until his death, on February 12,1983, in Brooklyn, five days after events celebrating his purported 100th birthday.

Eubie Blake was interred in Cypress Hills Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York.

Eubie Blake's headstone, engraved with the musical notation of "I'm Just Wild About Harry", was commissioned by the African Atlantic Genealogical Society.

Eubie Blake was reported to have said, on his birthday in 1979, "If I'd known I was going to live this long, I would have taken better care of myself", but this has been attributed to others and has appeared in print at least as early as 1966.