Davis Gussie L (5 results)

Sheet music. Condition: Very Good.

Soft cover. Condition: Very Good. Spaulding & Gray, New York, 1893. Softcover, 5 pp. Sheet music booklet. Described as a 'descriptive waltz song', the lyrics tell a moralizing tale. Music composer Gussie L. Davis was one of the first African-Americans to succeed as a songwriter in the Tin Pan Alley era. Singer William A. Calpen of 'Lou Dockstader's Minstrels' is featured in photo inset on cover. Very good condition with a music store ink stamp (The Zeno Mauvais Music Company, San Francisco) on foot of front wrap.

Sheet Music. Condition: Good. Pictorial Sheetmusic, solid. Music.

Softcover. Condition: Fair. First edition. Folio. Single bifolium with a single sheet insert making six pages. Separated at the fold, significant tearing and chipping throughout though all of the content is present and remains legible, save for a few instances involving small abrasions to the ads on the back cover, a fair to poor copy. For voice and piano. Plate number, 11213-3. Gussie L. Davis is considered the first African-American songwriter to become famous on Tin Pan Alley, an influential collection of music publishers that were all located in the same district in Manhattan. *OCLC* locates six holdings and it appears to be equally scarce in the trade.

Large broadsheet (approx. 3 feet x 2 feet; 91 x 59.5 cm.) printed on newsprint; 18 small metal-cut illustrations on verso; uniformly toned with chips and tears, some loss affecting text with very slight loss of meaning; a good example of this very fragile, large ephemeral piece. Advertisement featuring "Howard Power's Latest Success," Gussie Davis's song The fatal wedding (copyright 1893), with words by W. H. Windom. Printed on recto are the lyrics of 18 songs, including The fatal wedding, and advertisement for 11 songbooks from the Songster series; 18 more songbooks advertised on verso, along with 3 Irish songbooks, and 19 general publications, (a few adorned with rather racist illustrations). Titles include "Wehman's Practical Poultry Book" ("fills a long felt want for a Complete and Standard Guide for the breeding and management of Poultry."); "Wehman's Minstrel Sketches, Conundrums, and Jokes"; "Wehman's Book on the Art and Science of Boxing"; and "Wehman's Bartenders Guide." Also includes two German titles advertised in German black-letter. Not found in OCLC.