Marie Cahill
PerformerName
Marie Cahill
About
Marie Cahill was an actress and singer whose songs emphasized the minstrel origins that influenced the blues genre. Born in 1870 in New York, Cahill began performing on Broadway in the late 1880s and starred in a popular Broadway show of the time called Nancy Brown. In the early twentieth century, she increasingly performed in vaudeville circuits and incorporated songs of the nascent blues genre into her stage acts where she imitated what whites perceived to be black speech and music. Most of her songs were considered “ragtime” and written by black composers but enacted racial stereotypes influenced by the minstrel stage. Indeed, her reputation as a “coon shouter” and her recording of “The Dallas Blues,” which makes fun of a “darky” poker player, indicate how the early days of the blues consisted of white performers making fun of black Americans.
Role(s)
Performer
Birth date
February 7, 1870
Death date
August 23, 1933
Related Pages
Genre
Marie Cahill was an actress and singer whose songs emphasized the minstrel origins that influenced the blues genre. Born in 1870 in New York, Cahill began performing on Broadway in the late 1880s and starred in a popular Broadway show of the time called Nancy Brown. In the early twentieth century, she increasingly performed in vaudeville circuits and incorporated songs of the nascent blues genre into her stage acts where she imitated what whites perceived to be black speech and music. Most of her songs were considered “ragtime” and written by black composers but enacted racial stereotypes influenced by the minstrel stage. Indeed, her reputation as a “coon shouter” and her recording of “The Dallas Blues,” which makes fun of a “darky” poker player, indicate how the early days of the blues consisted of white performers making fun of black Americans.
