Brass Bands and Snake Oil Stands: Colorful Glimpses of America's Early Entertainment - Softcover

Goodwin, Dennis

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0936885025 ISBN 13: 9780936885025

Publisher: Activity Factory, 1993

Synopsis

A colorful nonfiction account of America's early entertainment forms. This easy-to-read creative nonfiction book provides a light-hearted, yet accurate picture of many types of America's early entertainment. Join the one-of-a-kind characters who strolled across America's early entertainment landscape. You'll meet Blatz the "Human Fish," Dinner Pail McNutt, "Big-eared Zip" and a delightful cast of true-life characters. Enjoy the vivid scene of "Sparrow," a vaudeville performer who caught pumpkins with his face, and the Chautauqua entertainer who got into a "sneezing-barking" contest with a local's dog.

From the gleaming gold and silver steam of the great circus parades to the pounding of the tambourines of the raucous minstrel shows, you'll soak in the sights and sounds of America's early entertainment. Annie Oakley, the Christy Minstrels, the "Boston Bird Man," "Slick and Sleepy," and all the rest will rise from the dusty pages of history and live again for a few golden moments.

About this title

From the Publisher:

This colorful nonfiction three-audio tape set takes the listener into a time when entertainment was served up in rough-cut raggedy-edged slices of pure fun. One by one, the raucous minstrel showmen, the silver-tongued Chautauqua orators, the uninhibited vaudeville performers, and all the others will come alive for a few golden moments. They will fill the air of our early country with their unadulterated enthusiasm. The entertainment forms covered are: medicine shows, vaudeville, Wild West shows, radio barn dances, Chautauqua, circus parades, stereoscopes, minstrel shows and the birthplaces of our entertainment snacks.

From the Back Cover:

Open the cover and step into a time when entertainment was served up in rough-cut raggedy-edged slices of pure fun. Sit back and float across the years into the audience of an old medicine showman as he "cures" a country bumpkin's corns right through his shoes, with his soothing cooling secret ingredient - gasoline. Then watch the rowdy half-drunk cowboys howl with laughter as a runaway Wild West show stagecoach gives an unexpected thrill ride to the Colville, Nebraska mayor and town council.

One by one, the raucous minstrel showmen, the silver-tongued Chautauqua orators, the uninhibited vaudeville performers, and all the others, will come alive again for a few golden moments. They will step onto the stage, and once more fill the air of our early country with their unadulterated enthusiasm. Then, they will slowly fade back into the yellowed pages of history.

As they sadly pack their bags for the last time, they know they can't compete with the sophisticated stage performers who took their places. They know, however, that those polished, well-rehearsed performers will never share their memories - memories like those of the pasture full of cows competing with their musical numbers, or the full-fledged gun-shooting, bronco-riding show in the driving rain, for nine people. No, their successors would never hear the "bovine chorus" or feel the sting of the rain as they sedately walked across the warm well-lit stage. But they would never know the raw excitement that pulsed through the glorious days of brass bands and snake oil stands.

About this edition

• Publisher: Activity Factory
• Publication date: 1993
• ISBN 10: 0936885025
• ISBN 13: 9780936885025
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 92