John "Picayune" Butler

{{Use mdy dates|date=January 2020}} {{infobox musical artist |name=John "Picayune" Butler |birth_name=John Butler |birth_place=French West Indies |birth_date= |alias= Picayune Butler<ref name=clipper1/> |image= |death_date=18 November 1864<ref name= Schreyer/><ref name=clipper1>{{cite news |work= New York Clipper |date= 10 December 1864 |page= 278 |quote= [transcribists note: column 2], republished in Illinois Digital Newspaper Collection |title= City Summary|url= https://idnc.library.illinois.edu/?a=d&d=NYC18641210.2.37&srpos=3&e=10-12-1864-10-12-1864--en-20--1--img-txIN----------}}</ref> |death_place=New York City<ref name=clipper1/> |occupation=Stage actor, singer, instrumentalist |instrument= banjo,<ref name=clipper1/> bones<ref name=clipper1/> }}

'''John "Picayune" Butler''' (died 1864) was a black French singer and banjo player who lived in New Orleans, Louisiana. He came to New Orleans from the French West Indies in the 1820s.<ref>Southern 43.</ref> One of his influences was Old Corn Meal, a street vendor who had gained fame as a singer and dancer at the St. Charles Theatre in 1837. By the 1820s, Butler had begun touring the Mississippi Valley performing music and clown acts. His fame grew so that by the 1850s he was known as far north as Cincinnati.<ref>Watkins 106–107.</ref> In 1857, Butler participated in the first banjo tournament in the United States held at New York City's Chinese Hall, but due to inebriation, he only placed second.<ref>Meredith 106–110, 246–248.</ref>

Butler is one of the first documented black entertainers to have influenced American popular music, through the blackface song "Picayune Butler's Come to Town", published in 1858, and named for him.<ref>Southern 43–44.</ref> His performance with the song influenced one blackface entertainer directly; circus performer George Nichols took his song "Picayune Butler Is Going Away" from him<ref>{{cite book |last= Toll |first= Robert C. |date= 1974 |title= Blacking Up: The Minstrel Show in Nineteenth-century America |page=45|place= New York |publisher= Oxford University Press |isbn= 0-19-501820-6 |url= https://archive.org/details/blackingupminstr0000toll_a6k6/page/44/mode/2up |quote= George Nichols, a blackface circus clown who was one of the pioneers of minstrelsy...from two New Orleans Negro singer, Picayune Butler and "Old Corn Meal." Little is known of Butler, from whom Nichols got "Picayune Butler Is Going Away"...}}</ref> and claimed to have learned "Jump Jim Crow" from Butler (saying he was performing the song years before Rice).<ref>{{cite book |last=Knowles |first= Mark |date=2002 |title= Tap Roots: The Early History of Tap Dancing |place= Jefferson, North Carolina |publisher= McFarland & Company, Publishers |page=228 |isbn= 0-7864-1267-4|url= https://archive.org/details/taprootsearlyhis00know/page/228/mode/2up |quote= [note 14] Nichols, a circus clown...claimed to have first introduced "Jim Crow" years before Thomas Rice...learned it from a black banjo player named Picayune Butler... }}</ref> In the New York Clipper, an article claimed that Nichols saw John Picayune Butler imitating the character in the song, and got the idea to do the same thing when he sang Jim Crow; at first he had sung it as a clown, but after seeing Butler, he began to sing it in blackface.<ref name=clipper2>{{cite news |work= New York Clipper |title= The Dramatic Chip Basket |page= 256 |date=24 November 1860 |quote= [transcribers note: column 2[ Illinois Digital Newspaper Collections |url= https://idnc.library.illinois.edu/?a=d&d=NYC18601124.2.29&srpos=1&e=24-11-1860-24-11-1860--en-20--1--img-txIN----------}}</ref> The man "Corn Meal" also influenced Nichols, just as he had Butler.<ref name=clipper2/>

In the early 1850s, Butler was one of three people who formed a rivalry, the best professional banjo performers of the day, according to Frank B. Converse.<ref name= Schreyer/> The other two were white blackface minstrel players, Tom Briggs (author of the ''Briggs Banjo Instructor'', 1855) and Hiram Rumsey.<ref name= Schreyer/> Converse was himself a banjo performer and author of several banjo instruction books.<ref name= Schreyer>{{cite book |title= The Banjo Entertainers: Roots to Ragtime |author= Lowell H. Schreyer |publisher= Minnesota Heritage Publishing |place=Mankato, Minnesota|date= 2007 |isbn= 978-0-9713168-9-8|pages=57–58, 70–72, 148}}</ref> In the early 1850s when he was about 14 years old, Converse saw Butler perform.<ref name= Schreyer/> He paid attention and later used his observations of Butler in formulating a standard system to teach the stroke or clawhammer style of playing.<ref name= Schreyer/> Converse noted that Butler used a banjo thimble<ref name= Schreyer/> (metal covers that go over the fingernails, to use with the clawhammer/stroke style).<ref>{{cite web |title= Hooks' Electric Banjo Thimbles |url= https://www.banjothimble.com/shop/thimbles.html |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20180817194538/http://banjothimble.com/shop/thimbles.html |url-status= dead |archive-date= August 17, 2018 |quote= in many forms and called by many names, clawhammer, stroke style, frailing, etc., the movement is the same... strike the strings down with the nail of the finger and pull with the thumb...They [the thimbles] ...increase volume and clarity...they protect the fingernail from damage... }}</ref>

<gallery> File:John Picayune Butler and Corn Meal.jpg|Part of a news clipping discussing how George Nichols looked at John Picayune Butler and "Corn Meal" as inspiration to begin singing "Jim Crow" in blackface. 24 November 1860 in the New York Clipper. File:John Picayune Butler death Nov 18 1864, announced Dec 10 1864.jpg|John Picayune Butler death, 18 November 1864, announced 10 December 1864 in New York Clipper. File:Picayune Butler's Coming to Town, first page.jpg|Picayune Butler's Coming to Town, first page from Phil Rice's book, ''Phil Rice's Correct Method for the Banjo With or Without a Master''. File:Picayune Butler's Coming to Town, second page.jpg|Picayune Butler's Coming to Town, second page from Phil Rice's book, ''Phil Rice's Correct Method for the Banjo With or Without a Master''. </gallery>

==Multiple people use name== thumb|The oldest known banjo, {{circa|1770–1777}}, from the Surinamese Creole culture. Gourd body, carved stick or plank for a neck, three strings. Music historian Lowell H. Schreyer has brought up the possibility that more than one person may be incorporated in the name Picayune Butler, some possibly inspired by popularity of the minstrel song ''Picayune Butler's Come to Town''.<ref name= Schreyer/> One was the original person, the subject of the 1845 song who would have been playing in about 1825.<ref name= Schreyer/> This player is interesting, in that he is described as using a 3-string gourd banjo,<ref name= Schreyer/> which is a banjo type found among descendants of African people in the Caribbean Islands and parts of North America, from the 1600s into the 1800s.<ref>{{cite book |last= Gaddy |first= Kristina R. |title= Well of Souls |publisher= W. W. Norton & Company |date= 4 October 2022 |isbn= 978-0393866803}}</ref> "Picayune Butler's Come To Town<br /> About some twenty years ago, Old Butler reigned wid his ol Banjo...<br /> Twas a gourd, three stringed, and an ol pine stick But when he hit it, he made it speak"<ref>{{cite book |title= Phil Rice's Correct Method for the Banjo: With or Without a Master |place= Boston |publisher= Ditson Company |date= 1858 |page= 33 |url= https://archive.org/details/phil-rice-banjo-1858/page/n31/mode/2up}}</ref> The name was also listed in November 1845 for a possible second performer with the "Eagle Circus," touring in Louisville, Kentucky, Indiana and Cincinnati, Ohio.<ref name= Schreyer/> A possible third performer is the main subject of this article, from New Orleans, listed in the New York Clipper on 24 November 1860 and 18 November 1864; he was "copper colored" and played a four-string banjo.<ref name= Schreyer/> Additionally, the name is reported to have been the stage name for a fourth performer, William Coleman (1829-1867).<ref name= Schreyer/>

==Notes== {{reflist}}

==References== *Meredith, Sarah (2003). ''With a Banjo On Her Knee: Gender, Race, Class, and the American Classical Banjo Tradition''. Florida State University. *Southern, Eileen (1996). "Black Musicians and Early Ethiopian Minstrelsy", ''Inside the Minstrel Mask: Readings in Modern Minstrelsy''. Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press. {{ISBN|0-8195-6300-5}}. *Watkins, Mel (1999). ''On the Real Side: A History of African American Comedy from Slavery to Chris Rock''. Chicago, Illinois: Lawrence Hill Books. {{ISBN|1-55652-351-3}}.

{{DEFAULTSORT:Butler, John Picayune}} Category:19th-century African-American male singers Category:19th-century American male singers Category:American banjoists Category:People from the French West Indies Category:Immigrants to the United States Category:Blackface minstrel performers Category:Singers from New Orleans Category:American street performers Category:Year of birth unknown Category:1864 deaths Category:African-American banjoists