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EUGENE STRATTON (1861-1918) - signed sepia photo postcard.
Size: 3.5in x 5.5in / 9cm x 14cm
United Kingdom - c.1900

Signed: 'Yours Truly Eugene Stratton'

Autographed sepia matt photo postcard (J.Beagles & Co 1345). Unused. Silver tint. Described as “The Birmingham Favourite”. Stratton was 'the' minstrel star of music halls and first brought the song “Lily of Laguna” to the stage. Born in America in 1861, Eugene Stratton arrived in Great Britain with “Haverley’s Minstrels” in 1881, and starred in Music Hall from 1892. He specialised in sentimental songs in blackface, among them “Little Dolly Day Dream” and “I May Be Crazy”.A member of the Grand Order of Water Rats, he became “King Rat” of this charitable organisation in 1896, and again in 1900. He died in 1918.

Songs:
Whistling Coon
I Lub a Lubly Gal
Little Dolly Daydreams
The Cake Walk
Lily of Laguna

Lily of Laguna is a song written in 1898 by Leslie Stuart and performed by Eugene Stratton and G H Elliott. The Carlton Football Club's official theme, We Are The Navy Blues is based on the tune. As with many of the songs written at the time, the original "Lily of Laguna" contains lyrics that are racially charged.

Bing Crosby and Mary Martin performed a stripped down cutesy version of this song which is primarily based on the chorus of the original song, i.e., "She's my lady love". The song was transformed in a number of ways: the racial imagery was replaced with lines referencing sailor hats, docks, and lollipops; the entire verse sections which, in the original, contains the dramatic mood shift of iii minor, to ii minor, to I Major; the arrangement was updated to the jazzy big band sound that was popular at the time; and a woman (Mary Martin) now sang lyrics from the female perspective.

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Below From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Eugene Augustus Rühlmann (May 8, 1861 – September 15, 1918) was born in Buffalo, New York. He adopted the stage name Eugene Stratton, and became an American-born dancer and singer, whose career was mostly spent in British Music halls.

Stratton first performed at the age of 10 in an acrobatic act called the Two Welsleys. He appeared as a dancer in 1873 under the name of Master Jean. He spent some time in a circus before joining a minstrel group.

He went to England in 1880 and was by this time using the name of Stratton. In England, he worked his way up to the main song & dance man in the Moore & Burgess Minstrel Show, and in 1883 he married Moore's daughter, Bella. He left the minstrels to go on the music hall circuit in 1887, first as a double act, then solo. Although at one time he used an Irish voice, he mainly appeared as a "black-faced" singer. He also performed in pantomime, for the first time in 1896.

His friendship & association with Leslie Stuart gave him many of the songs for which he was known. During the period 1899 to 1911 he made records of most of Stuart's songs.

He died in Christchurch, Hampshire on September 15, 1918.

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