Creole Belles

A ragtime march and two-step composed by J. Bodewalt Lampe (1869–1929) and published in 1900. The sheet music sold over a million copies, and the piece was championed by bandleader John Philip Sousa, whose band’s 1902 recording was a national hit. Mississippi John Hurt adapted it as “My Creole Belle.” The composition is also the source of a separate fiddle tune: early in the twentieth century, fiddlers picked up its second strain, which took on a life of its own as “Back Up and Push” (also “Rubber Dolly”), first recorded in 1929 by the Augusta Trio and the Georgia Organ Grinders.The earliest recordings are from the ragtime era itself: the Metropolitan Orchestra made the first recording in 1901, and the same year Charles Booth’s performance of it became the first commercially available acoustic ragtime recording, for the new Victor label. Then Sousa’s Band’s version was a No. 1 hit for six weeks in early 1902, and the Edison Concert Band cut it on an Edison Gold Moulded cylinder the same year. On the folk side there’s Mississippi John Hurt’s “My Creole Belle,” and trad jazz revival bands like Doc Evans and the Hall Brothers Jazz Band later covered it.