Mike Bernard '' was an Americanmusician who influenced the development of ragtime-era music.
Career
A musical child prodigy born in New York City, Michael Barnet Brown was the son of decorator and wallpaper dealer Julius S. Brown and his wife Eva Eisenberg. He had one older brother, Harry, born in 1873. Michael studied at the Berlin Conservatory and once reportedly played before the Kaiser. At age twenty-one, back in New York, he heard Ben Harney perform, and decided to compete against him. He soon became known as one of the bestragtime performers in the country, billing himself as the "Rag Time King of the World." A white musician with little exposure to the African-American roots of ragtime, he pioneered a style of music that appealed to the public but is often derided by purists as "pseudo-ragtime." He was one of the first to record ragtime piano styles, working for Columbia Records starting in 1912. While he played in vaudeville pretty much continuously from the late 1890s through the late 1910s, his style mostly fell out of favor by the onset of the jazz age. He was considered for a spot with the Original Dixieland Jazz Band in 1918 after pianist Henry Ragas died in the Spanish influenza outbreak, but the job ended up going to J. Russell Robinson. Mike still managed to work in increasingly smaller venues through the 1920s, last performing at Bill's Gay Nineties in Manhattan just weeks before his death. His style, flashy and fast, influenced the white ragtime composers of Tin Pan Alley but was often looked down upon by the admirers of the "genuine ragtime" that issued from African-American communities. Artists considered part of the "Mike Bernard school" include Pete Wendling, Lee S. Roberts, Max Kortlander, Frank Banta, Victor Arden, Phil Ohman, Zez Confrey, Charley Straight, and Roy Bargy.
"When The Midnight Choo-Choo Leaves for Albam' ", by Irving Berlin
"Ragtime Soldier Man", by Irving Berlin
Columbia A-1427
Columbia A-1386
Columbia A-1590
Columbia A-2577
Personal
Married three times, he had three sons, one out of wedlock with Ziegfeld Follies girl Dorothy Zuckerman. He also had an intimate relationship with singer Blossom Seeley around 1908 to 1909. Bernard and his first wife, May Convery — with whom there are two marriage certificates in Manhattan: February 25, 1897, and June 7, 1898 — had a son, Melvin Bernard. Bertram M. Bernard was born to Dorothy Zuckerman, but there is no evidence of any marriage to Michael. Julius "Jules" Brown Bernard was born to his third wife, Katherine "Kitty" Stapleton, on October 9, 1921. One other wife, Florence Courtney of the Courtney Sisters, divorced Mike in 1916 after just over two years of marriage, as he was discovered with another female companion, and they were sharing a single pair of pajamas.
