Moms Mabley: influences, peers and legacy

Every connection with its receipt

Loretta Mary Aiken became Moms Mabley by turning the raw, coded humor of the black vaudeville circuit into a grandmotherly persona who could say anything. This mix traces her roots from Bert Williams and the Theater Owners Booking Association stages through Harlem's revues, out to the comedy albums that made her a crossover star in her sixties.

The Kynda mix for Moms Mabley

• Key Influence · Elevator Papa, Switchboard Mama by Butterbeans and Susie (1931). Jodie and Susie Edwards were the reigning husband-and-wife comedy team of the TOBA circuit, and they discovered the young Loretta Aiken in the early 1920s, bringing her into vaudeville and effectively launching her career. Their recorded routines — bickering domestic dialogue laced with double entendre delivered over hot jazz accompaniment — are the direct template for the bawdy, sung-and-spoken patter Mabley later carried onto records.','
• Influencia Obscura · Open the Door, Richard by Dusty Fletcher (1947). Fletcher was an Apollo Theater comic whose drunken-man routine — hammered into a novelty record that topped the charts — came straight out of the same chitlin' circuit stage business Mabley worked for decades. It is the best surviving evidence of how those live black vaudeville bits sounded: repetition, audience call-and-response, and a physical character sketch translated to shellac years before comedy LPs existed.
• Local Roots · The Joint Is Jumpin' by Fats Waller (1937). Waller's rent-party romp captures the Harlem Mabley lived and worked in from the 1920s onward, when she was a fixture at Connie's Inn, the Cotton Club and above all the Apollo, where she headlined more than any other woman of her era. Like Mabley, Waller built his act on comic asides and interjections thrown over the music — the Harlem entertainer's habit of talking to the room while performing.
• Beyond the Medium · I Have a Dream by Martin Luther King Jr. (1963). Mabley's albums of the early sixties ran parallel to the movement, and her act grew steadily more pointed about segregation, voting and Southern sheriffs, using the licence of an old woman's grumbling to deliver civil rights argument to nightclub crowds. She would later record a mournful version of 'Abraham, Martin and John' mourning King and the Kennedys, her only pop chart hit and the clearest sign of how deeply the movement's rhetoric shaped her.
• Peer · Laff of the Party by Redd Foxx (1956). Foxx's party records for Dootsie Williams' Dooto label created the market that Chess and Mercury later exploited with Mabley's LPs: raunchy black club comedy sold under the counter to black record buyers. He and Mabley worked the same circuit of theaters and lounges, both waited decades for white recognition, and both finally got it on television in the late sixties and early seventies.
• From the Canon · Moms Mabley at the UN by Moms Mabley (1961). Recorded for Chess when she was in her sixties and already a thirty-year veteran, this is the album that made her a national name and reportedly sold over a million copies. The title's joke — a rumpled old woman lecturing world diplomats — frames the whole method: political commentary, marriage complaints and racial satire delivered in a wheezing drawl to a roaring black nightclub audience.
• Key Collaborator · Mules and Men by Zora Neale Hurston (1935). Hurston contributed to the 1931 Broadway revue 'Fast and Furious,' in which Mabley both performed and had a hand in the writing — a rare documented crossing of the Harlem Renaissance literary world and the vaudeville stage. Hurston's folklore collection gathers the Southern black storytelling, tall tales and porch talk that Mabley's grandmotherly persona drew on for its rhythms and its authority.
• Legacy · Whoopi Goldberg: Direct from Broadway by Whoopi Goldberg (1985). Goldberg has repeatedly named Mabley as her formative comic model, and in 2013 directed the documentary 'Whoopi Goldberg Presents Moms Mabley' to rescue her from obscurity. Her breakthrough one-woman show works the same way Mabley's act did: assumed characters, unglamorous bodies and voices, comedy that slides without warning from filth into grief and social accusation.

What influenced Moms Mabley

• Louis Armstrong. Mabley performed a musical tribute to Louis Armstrong during a live set. “she opened for Ike & Tina Turner at the Greek Theatre and sang a tribute to Louis Armstrong as part of her set” (Wikipedia)
• Elevator Papa, Switchboard Mama by Butterbeans and Susie (1931). Elevator Papa, Switchboard Mama (Butterbeans and Susie) — titan for Moms Mabley “== Career == === Early career === At the encouragement of her grandmother, Aiken ran away at the age of 14 to Cleveland, Ohio, joining a traveling vaudeville-style minstrel show starring Butterbeans and Susie, where she sang and entertai…” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Empty Bed Blues by Bessie Smith (1928). Empty Bed Blues (Bessie Smith) — culture for Moms Mabley (musicbrainz.org)
• Nobody by Bert Williams (1905). Nobody (Bert Williams) — titan for Moms Mabley (musicbrainz.org)
• Open the Door, Richard by Dusty Fletcher (1947). Open the Door, Richard (Dusty Fletcher) — ghost for Moms Mabley
• Worried Blues by Gladys Bentley (1928). Worried Blues (Gladys Bentley) — ghost for Moms Mabley
• I Have a Dream by Martin Luther King Jr. (1963). I Have a Dream (Martin Luther King Jr.) — culture for Moms Mabley

Peers and kindred spirits

• Abraham, Martin and John. Mabley recorded a cover version of the song 'Abraham, Martin and John' which charted on the Hot 100. “a cover version of " Abraham, Martin and John " hit No. 35 on the Billboard Hot 100” (Wikipedia)
• Ike & Tina Turner. Mabley opened for Ike & Tina Turner on a shared bill at the Greek Theatre. “she opened for Ike & Tina Turner at the Greek Theatre and sang a tribute to Louis Armstrong as part of her set” (Wikipedia)
• The Joint Is Jumpin' by Fats Waller (1937). The Joint Is Jumpin' (Fats Waller) — geography for Moms Mabley (musicbrainz.org)
• Home to Harlem by Claude McKay (1928). Home to Harlem (Claude McKay) — geography for Moms Mabley (openlibrary.org)
• Mules and Men by Zora Neale Hurston (1935). Mules and Men (Zora Neale Hurston) — collaborator for Moms Mabley (wikidata.org)
• Here Comes the Judge by Pigmeat Markham (1968). Here Comes the Judge (Pigmeat Markham) — peer for Moms Mabley “== Discography == References: === Albums === At the Party (1961) The Trial (1961) Anything Goes with Pigmeat (1962) Open the Door Richard (1963) The World's Greatest Clown (1963) The Best of Moms and Pigmeat Volume One (1964) (with Moms …” (en.wikipedia.org)
• The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour by Tom and Dick Smothers (1967). The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour (Tom and Dick Smothers) — collaborator for Moms Mabley
• Laff of the Party by Redd Foxx (1956). Laff of the Party (Redd Foxx) — peer for Moms Mabley

Who Moms Mabley influenced

• U2 (1976). U2 paid tribute to Moms Mabley during a video segment on their 2017 tour. “Mabley was featured during the "HerStory" video tribute to notable women on U2 's tour in 2017 for the 30th anniversary of The Joshua Tree during a performance of "Ultraviolet (Light My Way)"” (Wikipedia)
• The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel by Amy Sherman-Palladino (2017). The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel depicted Moms Mabley as a character portrayed by Wanda Sykes. “Mabley, portrayed by Wanda Sykes , appears in the final episode of the third season of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel , performing a full stand-up routine on the Apollo Theater stage” (Wikipedia)
• Whoopi Goldberg Presents Moms Mabley. A documentary film was made about Moms Mabley's life and career. “Mabley was the subject of Whoopi Goldberg Presents Moms Mabley , a documentary film that first aired on HBO on November 18, 2013” (Wikipedia)
• Whoopi Goldberg (1955). Whoopi Goldberg's breakout one-woman show was built around portraying Moms Mabley. (also via Whoopi Goldberg: Direct from Broadway)
• Whoopi Goldberg: Direct from Broadway by Whoopi Goldberg (1985). Whoopi Goldberg: Direct from Broadway (Whoopi Goldberg) — legacy for Moms Mabley “== Legacy == In 1983 and 1984, Whoopi Goldberg "first came to national prominence with her one-woman show" in which she portrayed Mabley, Moms, first performed in Berkeley, California, and then at the Victoria Theatre in San Francisco; t…” (en.wikipedia.org)
• That Nigger's Crazy by Richard Pryor (1974). That Nigger's Crazy (Richard Pryor) — legacy for Moms Mabley (musicbrainz.org)
• Lenny Bruce (1925). Moms Mabley at the UN (Moms Mabley) — ghost for Lenny Bruce (via Moms Mabley at the UN)