Ghost Dance

I went shopping the web for a Halloween-like sheet music cover and I came up with the Ghost Dance – which, apparently, is a "dance descriptive". What, exactly, would a "dance descriptive" be? I can't seem to find a resource that describes, dance descriptive. Maybe the whole dance descriptive genre is indescribable – which seems to make an oxymoron of this whole piece of sheet music. Then again, I dig oxymorons so it just attracted me more. The appropriateness of having a piece of sheet music titled ghost-anything just sealed the deal! Get it - ghost...sheet...is this thing on?

Cora Salisbury's sheet music might be fairly easy to find on the web but you have to dig deep to find much information about the composer's life. That seems odd considering there aren't too many female ragtime composers that I'm aware of - seems to me that Cora isn't getting her due. Professor Bill Edwards' amazing site provided this snippet:


"It was potentially around 1907 that Cora created a vaudeville act and started to travel, most likely with a small troupe of performers. One of her first published compositions was Poodles Parade in 1907, which was printed by Thiebes Stierlin in St. Louis, further suggesting that she was traveling in that time frame. The following year saw another piece in print, My Light Guitar under the logo of Will Rossiter in Chicago, extremely hard to locate today so likely in a small run. In 1909 her most famous piece found its way into print, Lemons and Limes: A Sour Rag, also published by Rossiter. It mentions a piece she had composed called Love's Embrace, but the existence of this waltz in print is difficult to verify. In the 1910 Census it is difficult to pinpoint either Cora or Eliza, so one or both may have simply missed the local Census takers while on the road. One more composition would come from Cora during these years of travel, albeit still based in Wisconsin. This was Ghost Dance, a novelette published by Rossiter, That would be the end of published compositions by Cora Salisbury, but one of her best acts was yet to come."

There is a lot more – her divorce, re-marriage, being widowed, and eventually becoming part of a vaudeville troupe. Mostly there's the real evidence that Cora wasn't going to be beaten down by the trials and travails of life. She was no Polly Purebred tied to the railroad tracks waiting for her Dudley Doright. Regardless of what you might think about ragtime music or even her ragtime music, you've got to respect her. Or, if you don't respect her for her musicality, you should know that she tutored one Ben Benny who'd later change his name to Jack Benny and go on to a lauded career in comedy. Benny credited Cora for teaching him stagecraft and I get the feeling it's credit she deserved.

As for the cover art, pretty basic monotone work. Our gypsy-esque ghostie is cavorting in some pine grove. Knowing that Cora haled from Wisconsin's lumber-belt, maybe the artist was a local or maybe she had some input into the design. I like to think that this little grove represents some memory she had of the days when her dad sharpened saws for the lumber mill. Otherwise, it's nondescript to the point of being dull. Many ragtime pieces have fantastic, fanciful cover art but this isn't one of them. The art work didn't catch me – it was Cora's story and I thought she deserved a little remembrance – even if it's in a smallish blog like ours.