(“BLIND TOM”)
I suppose there is not a little colored girl or boy in America who has
not heard of the wonderful “Blind Tom,” one of the greatest musicians of
the world. I wish that every boy and girl might have seen him and heard
him give one of his remarkable performances with the piano. I had that
high favor and privilege myself. During his life on the stage, or for
more than forty years, “Blind Tom” was seen probably by more people in
the world than any one living being. His stage career was closed
somewhere in 1900. Everywhere, in this country and Europe, those who
observed him most closely, and attempted to understand him, pronounced
him a living miracle, unparalleled, incomprehensible, such as had not
been seen before in the world, and probably never would be seen again.
Thomas Greene Bethune, better known to the public as “Blind Tom,” was
born within a few miles of the city of Columbus, Georgia, on the
twenty-fifth day of May, 1849. He was of pure negro blood, and was born
blind. He was little less than four years old when a piano was brought
to the house of his master, for he was born a slave. As long as any one
was playing he was contented to stay in the yard and dance and caper to
the music. Sometimes he was permitted to indulge his curiosity by being
allowed to run his fingers over the keys. One night the parlor and piano
had been left open. Before day the young ladies of the family awoke and
were astounded to hear Blind Tom playing one of their pieces. The family
gathered around him to witness and wonder at his performance, which they
said was marvellously strange. Notwithstanding that this was his first
known effort at a tune, he played with both hands and used the black as
well as the white keys. Pretty soon he was allowed free access to the
piano, and began to play off-hand everything he heard. As young as he
was, he soon mastered all of that and began composing for himself. The
record of his public life is too long for me to give, but that Blind Tom
was known and honored around the world is known to everybody.
But feeling that every colored boy and girl should be justly proud of
Blind Tom’s record, I will give some words from the book of Hon. James
M. Trotter, himself a colored man. His book is called “Music and Some
Highly Musical People.” He says:
“Blind Tom is unquestionably the most wonderful musician the world has
ever known. He is an absolute master in the comprehension and retention
of all sound. You may sit down to the pianoforte and strike any note or
chord or discord, or a great number of them, and he will at once give
their proper names, and, taking your place, reproduce them. Complete
master of the pianoforte keyboard, he calls to his melodious uses, with
most consummate ease, all of its resources that are known to skillful
performers, as well as constantly discovers and applies those that are
new. Under his magnetic touch this instrument may become, at his will, a
music box, a hand organ, a harp, or a bagpipe, a “Scotch fiddle,” a
church organ, a guitar, or a banjo; it may imitate the “stump speaker”
as he delivers his glowing harangue; or, being brought back to its
legitimate tones, it may be made to sing two melodies at once, while the
performer, with his voice, delivers a third, all three in different time
and keys, all in perfect tune and time, and each one easily
distinguishable from the other! He remembers and plays fully seven
thousand pieces. Some persons, it is true, have had the temerity to say
that Blind Tom is an idiot. Out with the idea! Who ever heard of an
idiot possessing such power of memory, such fineness of musical
sensibility, such order, such method, as he displays? Let us call him
the embodiment of music, the soul of music, and there let our
investigations rest, for all else is vain speculation. No one lives, or,
so far as we know, has ever lived, that can at all be compared with
him.”