And Fuld may have missed something earlier - as I said before, these things are hard to search and we’re lucky, pretty much, that Fuld (or his source) did the research to get it back to 1899. Fuld, and Fuld either did this research himself or didn't explain where he got his information (e.g., his sources are a bit of a black box). These kinds of uncertainties are why it's hard to track down the 'shave and a haircut' rhythm with any more certainty - Wikipedia sources the claim it comes from Hale to a 2000 edition of a book by James J. Perhaps ‘At A Darktown Cakewalk’ is a version of a melody Hale heard in Atlanta, and he was just the one to write it down or potentially it’s a genuine original composition. So I'm not sure where he stands in comparison to the inhabitants and musicians of Darktown (a historically Black area of Atlanta). This was a well known song in 1899, an era when 'cakewalks' were popular dance tunes, but I'm having trouble finding any other information on Charles Hale, as there was a later Charles Hale who was also a composer. You can hear 'At A Darktown Cakewalk' here, thanks to someone on YouTube, and the 'shave and a haircut' tune fairly clearly pops out at you as the end of some of the verses. And to some extent, what counts and doesn't count is a bit in the ear of the beholder. Another is that we can't be sure that what's written down is actually the origin - perhaps the origin was more part of an oral tradition (especially if it originates in Black American music). There's a few problems with dating a sort of musical meme like 'Shave And A Haircut' - one is that musical information is a bit hard to search - how do you go through all those thousands and thousands of copies of sheet music of different tunes? You can't just search on Google Books. Assuming it really does originate in the US, do we know anything about how it spread to Europe? (or is my premise flawed, and it's actually from Europe to begin with?) What can you tell me about the origins of this tune? Is it really from a Yoruba musical tradition (passed down, presumably, by the descendants of slaves), and if so, how/when did it enter into common American culture? If it's from a drumming tradition originally-and therefore just a rhythm-then where did the specific tune come from? And why is it so strongly associated with those particular lyrics ("shave and a hair cut-two bits") when it's been used in such a broad variety of other contexts?īonus question: I also see on the Wikipedia page that the rhythm (and possibly tune) are well-known in Europe too. I also came across a bit in the Wikipedia article on the Bo Diddley beat that claims the rhythm is linked to "Yoruba drumming", citing this news article that I'm not able to access. According to Wikipedia, the "shave and a hair cut-two bits" tune dates back to at least Charles Hale's 1899 "At a Darktown Cakewalk", but this is described as only an early occurrence, not the first occurrence, and states other songs at the time used the same tune.
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