Ink Spots
Ink Spots
I use fountain pens. I often forget about my weekly budget when in bookstores and online in fountain pen stores. I have several fountain pens that I’ve filled with different color inks. I use two, old rags when filling a pen to clean up and prevent disasters. I like the look of these two, old rags covered in bright splotches of color; accidental Jackson Pollacks; what a chimp might produce slinging paint at a white canvas. So, I photographed the rags. Abstract art!
The colors on my ink rags triggered my first idea for this post. I decided to title the post “Ink Spots.” With that title, I couldn’t avoid writing about the Ink Spots, a five-man, vocal group from the 1930s and 1940s.
As I watched the Ink Spots sing “Do I Worry” in this video from a posh nightclub, I realized that this happened in the depths of the Jim Crow era. The musicians are African American as are the waiters. The patrons are all upper-crust, urban whites. One member of the Ink Spots (the one on the left), plays the coon caricature; “one of the most insulting of all anti-black caricatures.” *
As for the music, it’s a style from the 1930s that sounds syrupy-sweet and smooth to my 21st-century ears. A lot of high notes and a bit of falsetto. I found it hard to ignore the coon caricature and hear the music.
Here are some other Ink Spot songs. I found that they quickly became a bit monotonous. The guitar intro seems to be the same in every song. Same tempo, same saccharine sentiments, same harmony; same lead vocals.
*There is an article on the coon caricature on the website of the Jim Crow Museum.
