Al Bernard

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Al Bernard was a great historic recording artist from the vaudeville era. He was also one of the most famous blackface performers from the days of the minstrel shows. Yet his work has also been reappraised by music historians who feel links exist between minstrel show styles and more modern forms of popular music, such as musical theater, jazz and western swing music. Known as "the boy from Dixie" in much of his promotion, Bernard's biggest hit was the clutchy "I Want to Hold You in My Arms", one of many duets with Ernest Hare that were released on Edison as "diamond discs." His collaborations with Hare included what passed for male and female duets, except it was Bernard doing the woman's voice. Having come up on the vaudeville boards, he'd learned to do just about anything for a laugh. The 1922 "My Little Bimbo Down On The Bamboo Isle", for example, is a typical Bernard song title. The label credit for one of his vintage recordings of W.C. Handy songs was "Al Bernard, Singing Comedian and Hot Orchestra," the measures of comedy and music based on the context of the song and what band he was singing in front of. The Original Dixieland Jazz Band were one of his employers in the early days. This group billed itself as having invented jazz, the claim based on the record "Livery Stable Blues", combined with "Dixie Jass Band One Step", which as of early 1917 was supposedly the first jazz record ever released. The band had already gone through decades of critical backlash as a r

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