A black man born in Bowling Green may have given birth to ragtime music, according to a local historian.

Ray Buckberry, a historian and retired lawyer, told members of the Bowling Green Noon Rotary Club on Wednesday about the historical significance of two black men from Bowling Green, Ruben Crowus, who became known as Ernest Hogan, and Pete Hampton.

Americas Puritan forefathers thought music appropriate only for church, Buckberry said, adding Americas national music has its roots in African Americans.

It would have been the Indian if we had absorbed them, instead of exterminating them, he said, joined with a host of laughter.

I would like to acquaint you with an African American, a Bowling Green native named Ruben Crowus, who attained the highest level of national recognition in the entertainment field, Buckberry said. This achievement was as a performer, a song writer and a producer during a period of approximately 25 years, from the early 1880s til his death in 1909.

In 1865, Crowus was born in Bowling Green. He lived at 309 Kentucky St., in the community known as Shake Rag. By 1891, he had adopted the stage name Ernest Hogan and was touring the country and starring on Broadway.

One of his first jobs was a pick, or as a pickaninny, or a plantation singer in the tent version of Uncle Toms Cabin, Buckberry said. By age 24, we find Ruben touring with minstrel companies on the West Coast.

Hogan rode to popularity during a time known as the coon song era, and in 1896, he wrote a song called All Coons Look Alike to Me.

The published sheet music is known to historians as being the first piece of sheet music to have the word rag in it, consequently attributing to Hogan the origination of ragtime music, Buckberry said.

Without aiming to, Hogan struck the nerve of the nation.

Hogan had accidentally capsulated one of the baser tenets of prejudice, Buckberry said. That blacks are alike and need not be thought of, or dealt with, as individuals.

The song was the biggest hit of that year, but Hogan stated several times that he regretted writing it because it became a popular racist joke.

The songs contribution to ragtime was so significant that it was the deciding tune at the ragtime championship of the world, held in 1900 at Tammany Hall in New York.

The three pianists that reached the semifinals were asked to demonstrate their skills by ragging the song, All Coons Look Alike to Me, Buckberry said. When you look at the history of blacks in show business, you realize that part of the price paid by blacks for their entry into show business was to assimilate and regurgitate whatever style of music and dance that their audiences expected black people to perform.

On Feb. 18, the Bowling Green Chamber Orchestra will perform A Celebration of Black Composers, featuring Scott Joplin and Hogans music, according to orchestra director Jeff Reed.

Several years before Joplin wrote his first rag, Hogan was selling 40,000 copies a month of his sheet music, according to Reed.

You can hear the influences he had on Joplin, he said. He sort of paved the road. Without Ernest Hogan, Scott Joplin probably wouldnt have ever sat down and written his first rag. Hes in all the music history books when it comes to jazz. Everybody recognizes his importance.

In 1898, Hogan starred in the Broadway performance of Clorindy, otherwise known as The Origin of the Cake Walk. The show received 10 encores on opening night.

Buckberry read a passage written by the shows promoter, Will Marion Cook: When the last note was sounded, the audience stood and cheered for at least 10 minutes. I was so delirious that I drank a glass of water, thought it was wine and got gloriously drunk.

In 1905, Hogan opened a show with singers, dancers and instrumentalists called The Memphis Students, at Hammersteins Victoria Theatre on Broadway.

This show has been called the first public concert of syncopated music in history, Buckberry said. The show was so successful, it was held over for five months.

Hogan died May 20, 1909, in New York and his body was shipped to Bowling Green, where he was buried in Mount Moriah Cemetery in an unmarked grave.

The many floral designs (sent) from New York are said to represent the most flowers for any funeral in Bowling Green, Ky., Buckberry said.

An obituary in a New York newspaper stated the stage lost a Moses of the black theatrical profession, according to Buckberry.

In the Jan. 16, 1944, issue of the Park City Daily News, Herman Lowe wrote: His name was Ruben Crowus, but he wrote under the pen name of Ernest Hogan. He was called the father of ragtime music. Shake Rag, ragtime, come to think of it, it seems very right and natural that ragtime should be born in Shake Rag, Bowling Green, Ky.

Pete Hampton, also born in Bowling Green in 1871 at 417 Fifth St., was a recording pioneer, Buckberry said.

He toured Europe extensively from 1903 to 1914, he said. He was a comedian, actor, singer and an instrumentalist He was the most recorded African American artist at that time in the United States and internationally. He was the first black to appear in a British film.

Hampton and his wife, Laura Bowman, performed under the name Dark Town Aristocrats, and performed for King Edward at Buckingham Palace.

The London Press said they were well known by music audiences all over the world, Buckberry said.

It is significant that Bowling Green has two African American heroes that have gone unrecognized, according to Bowling Green Judge John Minton, president of the rotary club.

I have lived here all my life and up until today was unaware of the contributions these two men made, he said Wednesday. Its certainly an important part of our history. … Its hard to imagine weve never heard of one who is credited by some to be the father of ragtime.

Buckberry summed up his speech to the rotary club by reading a commentary on blacks in show business written by Hogan for The Freeman, a newspaper in Indianapolis.

The salvation of the Negro race lies in the arts, Hogan said. The orator is doing much to convince the people of our prospects and the works in the arts is doing more. The negro is naturally musical and all that is required is cultivation. This is easy because of his instinct and temperament. He is bound to make his mark where he is given a chance and ultimately will be a credit in America.