Problem one: "All Coons" was written by one Ernest Hogan, and his Vaudeville tag was "The Unbleached American" (his real name was Reuben Crowders; 'Hogan' was either an attempt to butter up the notoriously negrophobic Irish or a sly jibe at them-or both). He was a black man from Bowling Green, Kentucky; as with every other American institution, blackface minstrelsy was a lot more complicated than it seems at first glance: wipe off that cork and you never knew whom you'd find. Hogan had a handful of hits, but none as big as "All Coons." Which brings us to problem two: Hogan sort of, slightly, a little bit stole the song. What he did here was take a particularly catchy Chicago barroom ditty, clean up the words (as he thought) and tack on a verse setting up the situationóa certain young lady is equally indifferent to all other suitors now that she has a new beau. The 'coons' of the title and chorus, went his reasoning, was an improvement over the original 'pimps.' 'All pimps look alike to me'óin the era of the ho and the byotch, inoffensive and almost sweet; back in the days, unprintable. 'Coons' and 'nigger,' however, could flit through the mouths of the striving classes without provoking intake of breath or slantendicular glance.

I would love to insert an erudite and self-indulgent digression here on the theme of moral relativity (and death) in American culture and the Frankfurt School, but I can hear Herr Superego barking his usual Maul halten und weiter Dienen-'shut yer gob and do yer job.' So let's just say that, in spite of the improvements, Hogan's song went over about as well with the black intelligentsia of his day as, say, Luther Campbell's too-live shuck 'n' jive did with their 1980s descendants ('all boys look alike' was their PC fix). The ofays loved it, though-when Jack Johnson defended his heavyweight title against Jim Jeffries on Independence Day, 1910, the good bleached Americans who trooped out to Reno to see white mastery reasserted sang along lustily when the band struck it up as Johnson stepped into the ring. History is silent as to what they sang when Jeffries threw in the towel in the fifteenth.

Nobody thought to shove the Unbleached American's face into a recording horn before tertiary syphilis enrolled him in the choir eternal in 1909, at age 44 (but since the industry was Jim Crow until 1920, that's no reflection on his talent). At least we've got Collins. Arthur Collins (1864-1933), recorded in almost every context imaginable-cylinder and disc; talking, singing, talking and singing; solos, duets, quartets; with piano, with banjo, with band. He was a professional Coon, Mick, Yid, Wop, Hayseed and even sometimes Yankee; blacks weren't the only figures of Topworld fun. Still, it was the dark stuff that got over the most-he was America's ace studio Coon (let's rehab that nasty little word, with a capital C, as a technical term for the bulge-eyed, red-lipped virtual African of the minstrel stage-for all the dandified Zip Coons and countrified Jim Crows, whatever their tint from collar to cuff). His "The Preacher and the Bear" was probably the first million-selling record, if you added up all the versions he had out there.

Unfortunately, judging by the tiny percentage available for scrutiny, Collins' massive body of work seems to be largely-how do I put it-crap. Hundreds of records that suck, covering the whole spectrum of sucking, from a mild inward pressure to the kind of all-devouring vortex that invariably accompanies the discharge of a .44 magnum in tourist class (if you believe what you see in the movies). They're limp, tinny, flat. The accompaniment drags along like a busted-leg hound or bounces around with a mindless and annoying jauntiness.

This one, however, is vacuum-free: "All Coons" is a thoroughly modern record-so modern, in fact, that the first six notes of the chorus riff are rhythmically identical to the verse from "Satisfaction." And like "Satisfaction," the tempo is fast but not too fast to stomp. And it's short-in and out in two minutes and four seconds. As for the sound-the state of the art a hundred years ago was a process similar to the two-juice-cans-and-a-string we all played with in the days before kids had beepers and cell phones.