Later Years
Sweatman continued to ply his somewhat dated style in live appearances throughout the Northeast. Several notable musicians passed through his band, including Duke Ellington, Coleman Hawkins, and Cozy Cole. Sweatman also continued to record for such labels as Gennett, Edison, Grey Gull, and Victor. Sweatman frequently played at the well known Harlem club Connie's Inn. He continued playing in New York through the 1940s and early 1950s, but increasingly concentrated his efforts on the music publishing business and talent booking. His earlier compositions provided Sweatman a steady income. In 1937 alone, ASCAP reported that "Down Home Rag" had been played on the radio over 2,000 times, with Sweatman receiving royalties for each play.
Wilbur Sweatman died in New York City on March 9, 1961. His illegitimate daughter Barbara initially inherited his estate, consisting mostly of his publishing business and some personal papers. However the estate, which included the papers of Scott Joplin as well, eventually ended up with Sweatman's sister Eva.
Read more about this topic: Wilbur Sweatman
Famous quotes containing the word years:
“Twenty or thirty years ago, in the army, we had a lot of obscure adventures, and years later we tell them at parties, and suddenly we realize that those two very difficult years of our lives have become lumped together into a few episodes that have lodged in our memory in a standardized form, and are always told in a standardized way, in the same words. But in fact that lump of memories has nothing whatsoever to do with our experience of those two years in the army and what it has made of us.”
—Václav Havel (b. 1936)
“... the girls who came at dawn
To pay a visit to the young child, and how, when he grew up to be a man
The same restive ceremony replaced the limited years between,
Only now he was old, and forced to begin the journey to the sun.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)