Thomas "Blind Tom" Wiggins (May 25, 1849 – June 14, 1908) was an American pianist and composer. He had numerous original compositions published and had a lengthy and largely successful performing career throughout the United States. During the 19th century, he was one of the best-known American performing pianists and one of the best-known African-American musicians.
Wiggins was born Thomas Greene on the Wiley Edward Jones Plantation in Harris County, Georgia. Blind at birth, he was sold in 1850 along with his enslaved parents, Charity and Domingo "Mingo" Wiggins, to a Columbus, Georgia lawyer, General James Neil Bethune. Bethune was "the first [newspaper] editor in the south to openly advocate secession". Wiggins's name was variously reported as "Thomas Greene Bethune", "Thomas Wiggins", or "Thomas Bethune"; his name was changed due to his slave status. The headstone at his grave reads "Thomas Greene Wiggins".
Because Tom was blind, he could not perform work normally demanded of slaves. Instead, he was left to play and explore the Bethune plantation. At an early age, he showed an interest in the piano after hearing the instrument played by Bethune's daughters. By age four he reportedly had acquired some piano skills by ear, and gained access to the piano. By age five Tom reportedly had composed his first tune, The Rain Storm, after a torrential downpour on a tin roof With his skills recognized by General Bethune, Tom was permitted to live in a room attached to the family house, equipped with a piano. Neighbor Otto Spahr, reminiscing about Tom in the Atlanta Constitution in 1908 (as reproduced in The Ballad of Blind Tom, by Deirdre O'Connell), observed: "Tom seemed to have but two motives in life: the gratification of his appetite and his passion for music. I don't think I exaggerate when I state that he made the piano go for twelve hours out of twenty-four."
As a child, Tom began to echo the sounds around him, repeating accurately the crow of a rooster or the singing of a bird. If he was left alone in the cabin, Tom was known to begin beating on pots and pans or dragging chairs across the floor in an attempt to make any kind of noise. By the age of four, Tom was able to repeat conversations up to ten minutes in length but was barely able to adequately communicate his own needs, resorting to grunts and gestures.
Another example of Tom's extraordinary abilities was shown after he was taken to a political rally in 1860 in support of Democratic presidential candidate Stephen Douglas. Years after he attended this speech, he was still able to repeat it while capturing the tone and mannerisms of Douglas. Additionally, he was able to recreate the heckles and cheers of the crowd with remarkable precision.
Bethune hired out "Blind Tom" from the age of eight years to concert promoter Perry Oliver, who toured him extensively in the US, performing as often as four times a day and earning Oliver and Bethune up to $100,000 a year, an enormous sum for the time,"equivalent to $1.5 million/year [in 2004], making Blind Tom undoubtedly the nineteenth century's most highly compensated pianist". General Bethune's family eventually made a fortune estimated at $750,000 at the hands of Blind Tom. Oliver marketed Tom as a "Barnum-style freak" advertising the transformation from animal to artist. In the media, Tom was frequently compared to a bear, baboon, or mastiff.
Bethune hired professional musicians to play for Tom, who could faithfully reproduce their performances, often after a single listening. Eventually he learned a reported 7,000 pieces of music, including hymns, popular songs, waltzes, and classical repertoire.
There are conflicting historical accounts of Blind Tom's first public performance, some indicating he was as young as three. One account from 1857 indicates that he had been performing publicly for several years. Newspaper reviews and audience reactions were favorable, prompting General Bethune to undertake a concert tour with Tom around their home state of Georgia. Tom later toured the South with Bethune or accompanied by hired managers, though their travels and bookings were sometimes hampered by the North-South hostilities which were drawing the nation towards Civil War. In 1860, Blind Tom performed at the White House before President James Buchanan; he was the first African-American to give a command performance at the White House. Mark Twain attended many of Blind Tom's performances over several decades and chronicled the proceedings.
On- and off-stage, Tom often referred to himself in the third person (e.g., "Tom is pleased to meet you"). His piano recitals were augmented by other talents, including uncanny voice mimicry of public figures and nature sounds. He also displayed a hyperactive physicality both onstage and off. A letter written in 1862 by a soldier in North Carolina described some of Tom's eccentric capabilities: "One of his most remarkable feats was the performance of three pieces of music at once. He played 'Fisher's Hornpipe' with one hand and 'Yankee Doodle' with the other and sang 'Dixie' all at once. He also played a piece with his back to the piano and his hands inverted." At concerts, skeptics attempted to confirm if Tom's performance replications were mere trickery; their challenge took the form of having Tom hear and repeat two new, uncirculated compositions. Tom did so perfectly. The "audience challenge" eventually became a regular feature of his concerts.
Supposedly, Tom's talents profited the Confederacy during the Civil War. His most famous piece, "The Battle of Manassas", is the story of the Confederate Army's 1861 victory at the Battle of Bull Run. As a result, many African newspapers refused to celebrate him, pointing out that he served to reinforce negative stereotypes about African-American individuals and that he was only a source of profit for slaveholders.
The Emancipation Proclamation in 1862 freed all slaves in the Confederate states; all US slaves were not freed until the Thirteenth Amendment passed in December 1865. In 1866, at age 16, Tom was taken on a European concert tour by General Bethune, who collected testimonials about Tom's natural talents from composer-pianist Ignaz Moscheles and pianist-conductor Charles Hallé. These were printed in a booklet, "The Marvelous Musical Prodigy Blind Tom", and used to bolster Tom's international reputation.
In 1875, General Bethune transferred management of Blind Tom's professional affairs to his son John Bethune, who accompanied Tom on tour around the U.S. for the next eight years. Beginning in 1875, John brought Blind Tom to New York each summer. While living with John in a boarding house on the Lower East Side, Tom added to his repertoire under the tutelage of Joseph Poznanski, who also transcribed new compositions by Tom for publication. Many of these were, at Tom's insistence, published under such pseudonyms as Professor W.F. Raymond, J.C. Beckel, C.T. Messengale, and Francois Sexalise.
Tom's piano-playing behavior, both during practice and performance, was eccentric. "We had two pianos in one room", Poznanski told the Washington Post in 1886 (as recounted in O'Connell's biography). "I would play for him and he would get up, walk around, stand on one foot, pull his hair, knock his head against the wall, then sit down and play a very good imitation of what I had played with additions to it. His memory was something prodigious. He never forgot anything." This led some critics to dismiss Tom as a novelty act, a "human parrot." Novelist Willa Cather, writing in the Nebraska State Journal, called Tom "a human phonograph, a sort of animated memory, with sound producing power."
John Steinbeck has compared the main character in a short story of his, "Johnny Bear", to Blind Tom.
No original recordings of Blind Tom appear to exist. His sheet music is available, but only a small number of musicians have ever recorded his original songs.
