“Darktown Strutters’ Ball” was written by Shelton Brooks in 1915 and first published in 1917. It has been recorded many times under various titles, including “At the Darktown Strutters’ Ball,” and “Strutters’ Ball.” Elijah Wald writes that, according to some reports, the song was inspired by an annual ball in Chicago, Illinois, that was “a kind of modern equivalent of the medieval carnivals of misrule, financed by wealthy society folk but with a guest list of pimps and prostitutes.” This syncopated, ragtime-like number would be recorded in later years by such artists as Ella Fitzgerald, Bo Diddley, and Dean Martin.
Songs with Banjo from Harold Hagler
