By Addison Smith, Brendan Roberts, and Jared Bekoe.
Like most towns and cities in Ontario, Guelph has a has a long history of Black cultural contributions and achievements that have been obscured and neglected. Today it often requires deliberate research and exploration of our archives to uncover these untold and yet significant stories. Though this city has a wide range of topics related to Black history in need of greater exploration, the prevalence of music in Guelph’s Black community and its importance to their social cohesion and cultural achievement is one such topic which can be traced through written and visual evidence buried in our archives. Music was of particular importance to the Black community as a means of communal and familial bonding, but also an important means of subverting racism and gaining access to spaces and resources which might otherwise be denied. By accessing the Guelph and Wellington County archives we were able to track the successes of members of two black families, the Jewells and the Lawsons (who may both be descended from a single family who lived in the Queen’s Bush Settlement), who lived in Guelph in the first half of the twentieth century. Both of these families contained members who were extremely musically talented and mobilized these talents to combat the racism of the time.
The Jewell family is the first such family we will use to explore the role of music as means to empower black youth and families. In 1925, Percy Cornelius Jewell, a CPR employee, married Ida Brooks, and while living in Guelph the couple had four children: Percy, Ted, Melba, and Pat (figure 1). Although little could be found about the younger Percy, the other three Jewell children all found moderate success as a result of musical prowess. Melba and Pat formed two thirds of trio known as the “Fabulous PJ’s” (figure 2) performing alongside the white Patti-Jo Patriquin and releasing at least one album together. Ted, however, went a different route and played as part of the musical accompaniment of several shows at Guelph’s Capitol Theatre, including the August 1950 musical “Up in Central Park,” before studying music at the University of Toronto and going on to graduate from the Royal Conservatory of Music. The Lawson brothers, Herbert and Elwood, also turn up in various records, often in connection to their musical talents. According to records, Herbert “Herbie” Lawson was a very talented pianist who performed in the Guelph area throughout the twentieth century. His brother Elwood joined the Salvation Army band at the age of 8, going on to sing frequently as part of the Salvation Army Songster Brigade and at Guelph’s BME Church. Most impressive though is that despite losing two fingers at young age, he became a well-known pianist and horn player, allegedly playing the piano with one hand and the horn with the other (“The Artisans” 2).
Through the stories of these families, it is clear to see that musical talent was an extremely important asset for Black people. Modern research has indicated that the development of musical skills from a young age can have profound impacts on performance in school and in life (Hallam 69); however, most relevant to these stories and the time period was the access that musical ability granted to what could have been considered “whites only spaces.” Ted Jewell attained post-secondary education and eventually would be named Chancellor of Huntington University. For Melba and Pat Jewell, while their band would have allowed them to tour and generate revenue for themselves, being part of a mixed-race band may have allowed an even greater level of access. Elwood Lawson was a member of the Salvation Army bands for more than half a century, in which time he doubtlessly made many connections and friends as part of group’s integrated mission to serve the disenfranchised and poor. Ultimately, Black people could use their musical gifts, abilities, talents, and skills to gain access to facilities, services, employment, and other opportunities that may otherwise have been unreachable to them. For these Guelph residents, music represented a crucial way for them to develop a talent which would in turn allow them to enter spaces previously closed to Blacks and to subvert some of the racism of this period.