Song: "He’s a Cousin of Mine" (from Marrying Mary)

Brooklyn contralto Nicole Mitchell sings "He’s a Cousin of Mine" (from Marrying Mary), made famous by Brooklyn-born Broadway actress/vocalist Marie Cahill, who starred in the vaudeville show. Many of the most popular female vocalists of the vaudeville years combined contralto voices with a mastery of the newly popular raggy rhythms. Sophie Tucker, Marie Cahill, Belle Baker and others commissioned songs from the African-American songwriters, such as Shelton Brooks and Chris Smith, or from Irving Berlin and those of his younger generation. They often brought their vaudeville specialties with them for Broadway appearances. Marie Cahill interpolated Smith's "He's a Cousin of Mine" into Marrying Mary, where it acted as an anti-"After the Ball." (In that ballad, a man dooms himself to loneliness by failing to trust his fiancée when she is seen talking to her brother.) Each time her character was caught kissing another man, she sang "he's a cousin of mine." When she returned to vaudeville, she commissioned a follow-up song – "He's My Cousin (if she's your niece), which continued "What's good for the gander is good for the geese."

"He's a cousin of mine" (1906)
Composer: Smith, Chris -- 1879-1949
Contralto: Nicole Mitchell
Piano: Mila Henry
Recorded 2021 for the American Opera Project at South Oxford Space, Fort Greene, Brooklyn.

Produced by The American Opera Project and supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.