Luckey Roberts

Charles Luckeyth “Luckey” Roberts was a transcendentally gifted pianist from the “San Juan Hill” ragtime college along with a author of both popular and classical materials. Blessed in Philadelphia along with a lifelong Quaker and teetotaler, Roberts begun to play the lease celebrations in Harlem around 1908 and was usually the guy to defeat in reducing contests; the astounding virtuosity of his 1908 rag “Nothin'” shows that there couldn’t have already been many players in San Juan Hill looking to earn against Roberts. He begun to publish his rags in 1909, you start with “The African 400 (AN INFORMED Rag),” documented that calendar year by Arthur Pryor; Roberts’ most well-known rag, “Pork and Coffee beans,” made an appearance in 1913. Luckey Roberts produced his initial recordings for Columbia in 1916, including his well-known blues-styled rag “Railroad Guy,” however the information were hardly ever released. Within the 1920s, he is able to be noticed leading the orchestra on information by comic Charles Hunter and burning the radio humor group of Moran and Mack, “BOTH Dark Crows”; Roberts also performed on the network radio present as accompanist. On such information, Roberts sometimes utilized a style he created for vaudeville displays around 1923 known as “Complainin'”; entirely Roberts contributed quantities for some 23 musicals within the 1910s and ’20s. Roberts also documented piano rolls during this time period, mainly for Ampico. In the first ’30s, Luckey Roberts relocated to Washington, D.C., opened up a cafe, and led a culture band there. It had been an effective and fairly upscale procedure, and during this time period, he used classical structure and by 1941 created a piano concerto which was noticed in New York’s City Hall. That same calendar year, “Moonlight Cocktail,” a favorite song developed away from his 1916 “Ripples from the Nile” with lyrics by Kim Gannon, became popular for Glenn Miller. In 1946, Roberts documented some solos for Single Artwork that became his 1st issued single recordings. He continuing to record sporadically through 1959. Roberts’ greatest recordings were designed for Lester Koenig’s Great Period Jazz label in 1958 on Luckey as well as the Lion, an recording break up with another veteran of San Juan Hill, Willie “The Lion” Smith. Unlike his contemporaries Eubie Blake and Wayne P. Johnson, Luckey Roberts under no circumstances made a complete changeover to playing jazz and didn’t consider himself a jazz pianist; he regarded as himself one the final ragtime pianists, a author of well-known tracks and of significant music. His last program was for Everest Information in 1959, comprising an unremarkable group of industrial, honky tonk-styled piano solos with clarinetist Garvin Bushell. Roberts was a new player of incredible dexterity actually into his past due years; “Luckey as well as the Lion” was documented when Roberts was 70 and got survived three car accidents, among which got shattered his tremendous hands — you’ll never understand it from just how that he was with the capacity of playing.