LXIV.
THOMAS GREENE BETHUNE.
(“Blind Tom.”)
I suppose there is not a little colored girl or boy in America who has not heard of the wonderful “Blind Tom,” one of the greatest musicians of the world. I wish that every boy and girl might have seen him and heard him give one of his remarkable performances with the piano. I had that high favor and privilege myself. During his life on the stage, or for more than forty years, “Blind Tom” was seen probably by more people in the world than any one living being. His stage career was closed somewhere in 1900. I do not know whether he is living at present or not. If he is still alive, and he probably is, he is very nearly sixty years old. Everywhere, in this country and Europe, those who observed him most closely, and attempted to understand him, pronounced him a living miracle, unparalleled, incomprehensible, such as had not been seen before in the world, and probably never would be seen again.
Thomas Greene Bethune, better known to the public as “Blind Tom,” was born within a few miles of the city of Columbus, Georgia, on the twenty-fifth day of May, 1849. He was of pure negro blood, and was born blind. He was little less than four years old when a piano was brought to the house of his master, for he was born a slave. As long as any one was playing he was contented to stay in the yard and dance and caper to the music. Sometimes he was permitted to indulge his curiosity by being allowed to run his fingers over the keys. One night the parlor and piano had been left open. Before day the young ladies of the family awoke and were astounded to hear Blind Tom playing one of their pieces. The family gathered around him to witness and wonder at his performance, which they said was marvellously strange. Notwithstanding that this was his first known effort at a tune, he played with both hands and used the black as well as the white keys. Pretty soon he was allowed free access to the piano, and began to play off-hand everything he heard. As young as he was, he soon mastered all of that and began composing for himself. The record of his public life is too long for me to give, but that Blind Tom was known and honored around the world is known to everybody.
But feeling that every colored boy and girl should be justly proud of Blind Tom’s record, I will give some words from the book of Hon. James M. Trotter, himself a colored man. His book is called “Music and Some Highly Musical People.” He says:
“Blind Tom is unquestionably the most wonderful musician the world has ever known. He is an absolute master in the comprehension and retention of all sound. You may sit down to the pianoforte and strike any note or chord or discord, or a great number of them, and he will at once give their proper names, and, taking your place, reproduce them. Complete master of the pianoforte keyboard, he calls to his melodious uses, with most consummate ease, all of its resources that are known to skillful performers, as well as constantly discovers and applies those that are new. Under his magnetic touch this instrument may become, at his will, a music box, a hand organ, a harp, or a bagpipe, a “Scotch fiddle,” a church organ, a guitar, or a banjo; it may imitate the “stump speaker” as he delivers his glowing harangue; or, being brought back to its legitimate tones, it may be made to sing two melodies at once, while the performer, with his voice, delivers a third, all three in different time and keys, all in perfect tune and time, and each one easily distinguishable from the other! He remembers and plays fully seven thousand pieces. Some persons, it is true, have had the temerity to say that Blind Tom is an idiot. Out with the idea! Who ever heard of an idiot possessing such power of memory, such fineness of musical sensibility, such order, such method, as he displays? Let us call him the embodiment of music, the soul of music, and there let our investigations rest, for all else is vain speculation. No one lives, or, so far as we know, has ever lived, that can at all be compared with him.”