Waitin’ For The Robert E. Lee: A Song History

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"Waitin' for the Robert E. Lee," published as "Waiting for the Robert E. Lee," is a 1912 song with music by Lewis F. Muir and words by L. Wolfe Gilbert.[1] F. A. Mills issued it in New York that year.[2] It gave Gilbert, a lyricist born in Odessa in 1886, his first songwriting success; he became one of Tin Pan Alley's busiest wordsmiths and later wrote for films and radio.[3] Muir had started out playing ragtime piano in the honky-tonk saloons of St. Louis before settling in New York in 1910.[4]

Lithograph of three lit-up paddle steamers racing on a moonlit river while people cheer beside a bonfire on the bank.

Frances Flora Bond Palmer (Currier & Ives), The Champions of the Mississippi - "A Race for the Buckhorns", hand-colored lithograph, 1866. Mississippi steamboats racing past a riverside woodyard at night, shown for the steamboats and wharves under which the song is indexed; the print has no connection to the song or to any particular boat.

Covers from 1912 show a couple in silhouette watching a boat on a river, and the Levy Sheet Music Collection at Johns Hopkins indexes the song under steamboats, piers and wharves, moonlight and homecomings.[5][1] The same Levy record also lists minstrel shows, dialects and ethnic stereotypes among the song's subjects.[1]

Editions variously billed it as Al Jolson's big hit at the Winter Garden and carried photographs of Blossom Seeley, Sue Smith or the Three White Kuhns.[1][5][6][7] Recordings came quickly: Dolly Connolly made one for Columbia in New York on June 24, 1912, and the Heidelberg Quintette, with countertenor Will Oakland, recorded it for Victor in Camden, New Jersey, on July 11, a take issued as Victor 17141.[8][9] The accordionist Guido Deiro cut an instrumental version for Columbia that August, and in January 1913 the Victor Military Band included it in a turkey-trot medley.[10][11] Shelley Stevens arranges it in Baker's Dozen #10: Ragtime And Honky Tonk, a Fingers Of Steel book of 13 classic American ragtime tunes for mountain dulcimer in DAD tuning, written out in both standard notation and tablature.[12]

Our book that contains the song "Waitin’ For The Robert E. Lee"

Sources

  1. Lester S. Levy Sheet Music Collection, Johns Hopkins University: "Al Jolson's Big Hit in the Winter Garden. Waiting for the Robert E. Lee".
  2. Library of Congress: "Waiting for the Robert E. Lee" (score, F. A. Mills, 1912).
  3. Songwriters Hall of Fame: "L. Wolfe Gilbert".
  4. Songwriters Hall of Fame: "Lewis F. Muir".
  5. York University, John Arpin Sheet Music Collection: "Waiting for the Robert E. Lee".
  6. Detroit Public Library Digital Collections: "Waiting for the Robert E. Lee".
  7. University of Wisconsin–Madison Libraries, Popular Sheet Music Collection: "Waiting for the Robert E. Lee".
  8. Library of Congress, National Jukebox: "Waiting for the Robert E. Lee" (Dolly Connolly, 1912).
  9. Discography of American Historical Recordings: "Victor matrix B-12181. Waiting for the Robert E. Lee / Heidelberg Quintette".
  10. Library of Congress, National Jukebox: "Waiting for the Robert E. Lee" (Guido Deiro, 1912).
  11. Library of Congress, National Jukebox: "Waiting for the Robert E. Lee" (Victor Military Band, 1913).
  12. Fingers Of Steel: "Shelley Stevens, Baker's Dozen #10: Ragtime And Honky Tonk".
  13. Image: Frances Flora Bond Palmer (Currier & Ives), The Champions of the Mississippi - "A Race for the Buckhorns", hand-colored lithograph, 1866. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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