| Black And White Rag | |
| Cover: | Black-And-White-Rag-1908.jpgborder |
| Caption: | Sheet music cover, 1908 |
| Published: | 1908 |
| Genre: | Ragtime |
The "Black and White Rag" is a 1908 ragtime composition by George Botsford.[1]
The song was recorded widely for both the phonograph and player piano,[2] and was the third ragtime composition to sell over one million copies of sheet music.[3] The song was first recorded in 1909, as performed by the Victor orchestra for a Victor disc release. The first known cylinder recording of this piece was by Albert Benzler, recorded on Lakeside/U.S.Everlasting Cylinder #380 in June 1911. This cylinder was also the first piano recording of the song.[4] This recording is somewhat rare (Lakeside/U.S.Everlasting cylinders, though molded celluloid on a wax/fiber core, were made in small batches). Edison featured the "Black and White Rag" on one of his Early Diamond Disc Records (50116) from 1913 played by a Brass Orchestra.
Pianist Wally Rose revitalized interest in the song with his 1941 recording,[5] leading to one of the best-known versions: a 1952 recording by Trinidadian pianist Winifred Atwell, which helped her to establish an international profile. Originally the B-side of another composition, "Cross Hands Boogie", "Black and White Rag" was championed by the popular disc jockey Jack Jackson, and started a craze for Atwell's honky-tonk style of playing.[6] The recording became a million selling gold record, and in the United Kingdom was later used as the theme tune for the long-running BBC2 television snooker tournament, Pot Black.[7]
"Black and White" Rag was also later arranged for use as the music in the 1985 BBC Computer game Repton and some of its sequels.[8]
The piece has also become a fiddle standard with recordings by musicians such as Johnny Gimble and Benny Thomasson.