Sam Hearn et al

[Yhtapmys]

I have no idea whether or not Correll and Gosden did as much research as you implied, but you are making an utterly false assumption, or at least implication, and that is you seem to be saying that they were too busy with (what?) their radio show(?) to research dialects.

Elizabeth is an impeccible researcher and Amos and Andy is her speciality. If she says Gosden and Correll did research, she'll have the data to back it up, and not just accept some 70-year-old PR shillery. I have implicit trust in anything she writes on the subject. I'll accept it over some book connecting dots to come to some kind of conclusion.

Yhtapmys

[Mister Kitzel]

They might have worked long and hard on those dialects before they even dreamed of becoming Sam and Henry, and they might have had plenty of time to do so, perhaps as they were growing up.

Prior to the radio careers, one of the team of Gosden and Correll had a job supplying costumes and scripts to company functions or civic groups so they could do minstrel shows among other things.

Gosden was the one from the South, and most likely to have grown up interacting with black people. The early Amos and Andy shows sound like they have more influence from minstrel shows than reality. By the time of the television series, Gosden was banned from the set because one of the principle actors of the TV show did not like Gosden trying to teach him how to sound like a white man trying to sound like a black man.

What you seem to be saying is similar to saying that Bix Beiderbecke couldn't have learned jazz by listening to those African-American musicians because he was too busy playing with Jean Goldkette and Paul Whiteman.

You are reading far more into my statement than I have ever expressed here, and I think you intend to insult me.

[Roman]

I'm not sure that Mr. Kitzel is right about Correll and Gosden or Amos 'n' Andy. Charles Correll, from what I've read, grew up in Chicago where there was certainly a large black population. So he very well could have interacted with people of all races, particularly as he worked for years as a construction worker and was, I understand, a frequent visitor to the city's numerous jazz clubs. And my understanding is that there are no (or very few) recordings still around of the early Amos 'n' Andy shows from the 1930s when the writing was far less comedic (less minstrel if you will) and much more realistic. So Mr. Kitzel most likely never listened to early Amos 'n' Andy (unless he's as old as the real Mr. Kitzel). I wish these recordings were still around because they sound fascinating.

Although I've never read that story before, Mr. Kitzel could be right that Gosden was banned from the set of the 1950s Amos 'n' Andy TV show because one of the actors did not like his attempts to teach him how to sound like a black man. Clearly, by the 1950s, the idea of white men doing black dialect, no matter how well it was done, was deemed to be racially offensive. But it's interesting that on last night's 30 Rock, Alec Baldwin did a very funny bit imitating Tracy Morgan and his parents without being racist or buffoonish. I found it refreshing really that they were able to put the PC guardrails down for a moment in the interest of humor.

[Mister Kitzel]

Some of the early Amos and Andy Shows from the 1930's do exist. Some of the Sam and Henry shows are out there, too.

If you like, I can send a CD full of Amos and Andy MP3's to you. I think the set includes some of the 30's shows. I have some early shows on cassette that I can dig out and copy, too.

Contact me at stevehaynie aatt mindspring ddoott com or call (864) 859-3575.

[Maxwell]

They might have worked long and hard on those dialects before they even dreamed of becoming Sam and Henry, and they might have had plenty of time to do so, perhaps as they were growing up.

Prior to the radio careers, one of the team of Gosden and Correll had a job supplying costumes and scripts to company functions or civic groups so they could do minstrel shows among other things.

Gosden was the one from the South, and most likely to have grown up interacting with black people. The early Amos and Andy shows sound like they have more influence from minstrel shows than reality. By the time of the television series, Gosden was banned from the set because one of the principle actors of the TV show did not like Gosden trying to teach him how to sound like a white man trying to sound like a black man.

What you seem to be saying is similar to saying that Bix Beiderbecke couldn't have learned jazz by listening to those African-American musicians because he was too busy playing with Jean Goldkette and Paul Whiteman.

You are reading far more into my statement than I have ever expressed here, and I think you intend to insult me.

No, I'm not trying to insult you. I'm trying to figure out exactly when Correll and Gosden would not have had time to learn dialects. During the run of the show? That would be akin to saying an early white jazz musician (Beiderbecke) could not have learned from African-American players (e.g. Armstrong) because he was too busy during the peak of his professional career (with Goldkette and Whiteman).

Why exactly would they have been too busy to learn dialects? Because of their radio show? I don't get what you're trying to say.

[Mister Kitzel]

OK.

At the time the Amos and Andy show was among the top rated shows, Freeman Gosden had a big hand in the show much in the same way that Jack Benny had with his own show. For both men, the show was his life.

According to the book that I read, stories about Gosden and Correll researching dialects was overstated and they had very little time to spend with black people outside of their own show's cast.

So, yes, once the Amos and Andy show was a success there would have been no more time to research dialects.

To you, Maxwell, I also make the offer to send a couple of CD's full of MP3's and even copies of some cassettes with early shows that will demonstrate the minstrel show influence on the dialogue.

[LLeff]

Hi folks,

First off, let's keep it friendly...I don't think anyone has the intention of besmirching anyone else. This has always been a great group of folks, and I'm sure it will stay that way.

Secondly on the general topic of research and books and assertions...there are plenty of items in various Benny books with which I'd take issue. For example in the Marcia Borie book, Hilliard Marks asserts that the NBC chimes were created because Jack's show always ran long and the network needed some sort of delimiter (however, the chimes are played at the end of Jack's FIRST radio show). In a recent chat, I recalled letting off an involuntary "DAWWWWWWW!!!!!" at Borders when paging over a biography of Orson Welles which cited Jack's famous answer to a hold up as being "I'm turning it over." So bottom line, don't believe everything you read.

So anyone with even the slightest interest in Amos n Andy should buy and read Elizabeth's book. There's so much information on this topic packed into these pages that no amount of quoting here would do it justice. In extreme summary, Freeman Gosden was from Richmond, Virginia, and grew up in a neighborhood that was the "point of intersection for Richmond's white and black communities". The Gosden family took in an African-American orphan named Garrett Brown, who became Freeman's closest childhood friend and lived with the family for a decade. Charles Correll came from a working-class neighborhood in Peoria, Illinois. So while Gosden and Correll may have had a very busy schedule during their radio careers, the learning of the dialect started in childhood.

Elizabeth's book also an excellent chapter entitled "Speaking the Language" which is an in-depth analysis of the dialect spoken on the program compared to the actual phonetics of African-American English.