Paul Robert Ash, Baby Esther and Sugar Kane:
Paul Ash is cited as the “Rajah of Jazz” and is said to have discovered Helen Kane way back in 1928.
Paul Ash & His Discoveries:
Paul Ash had made Helen Kane a star during the late 1920s, but in her earlier career he had her try to emulate Clara Bow, that apparently didn’t work out. Kane didn’t have “It,” but she had the “Poo” instead. Clara was the It Girl, and Helen was later known as the Boop Girl, and there were “many other personality girls” just like them. Many personality girls with unusual titles and stage names.
Ash got on well with Helen Kane, because he was German, and she was of German and Irish descent.
For example Mae Questel was once given the title name “The Chic Charming Singer of Sparkling Songs” when Helen Kane complained and forced the RKO in 1930 to remove the “Boop” title from her name. Questel was previously known as the “Boop-Boop-a-Doop” girl winner, of course Questel was later known as “The Betty Boop Girl” and that karma taught Kane a lesson, never to sabotage people in show business. Karma!
Peggy Bernier The Girl With The Baby Voice:
Ash also made Ruth Etting, Paul Whiteman, Peggy Bernier (who used a baby-doll technique long before Helen Kane), stars. Fun fact, Bernier came up in the Helen Kane vs. Betty Boop lawsuit.
Knowing that Paul Ash had made Kane a star, adds more to the story of Helen Kane actually copying someone else. It is possible that Helen Kane was imitating Peggy Bernier, as they were both discovered by the same person. While being grilled in court, Kane accidentally confirmed to the Judge that Bernier, Duncan Sisters, Irene Franklin, Frances White, Nan Halperin had all preceded her by singing using the baby-voice technique.
When asked about Bernier, Kane became very defensive, that she had never heard her sing. She gave a vague response to a question, that once Bernier had followed her into the Paramount, and that she couldn’t remember what had happened. It was obvious that Kane was aware that Bernier also sang in a baby-voice. But she tried to distance herself away from Bernier by claiming that she didn’t know her very well.
Peggy Bernier is cited in newspapers from 1926 to 1927, as the girl with the baby voice.
Helen Kane did not make her debut or become a household name and or star until 1928. Who knows for sure, Peggy might have also been one of the many people Kane emulated. But what is known that the baby-singing style was quite common. By the way, Ash told a young “Ginger Rogers” to imitate Helen Kane, earlier on in her career. So in Rogers’ earlier career, you can see her also do a number of Helen Kane imitations in Paramount features.
For anyone interested I have ripped two of Bernier’s baby-talk songs, you can listen to the “Varsity Drag” here, and “Good News” here. So if anyone hears me say that “Helen Kane” was not original. I am not being malicious, I am merely telling the truth.
People are probably not aware, but Peggy Bernier and Baby Esther, they were both in Paul Ash’s 1926 show in Chicago at the McVicker’s.
Esther Jones & Paul Ash:
But did you know that Esther Jones better known as Baby Esther and Little Esther was the finale attraction in his 1926 show “Minstrels of 1927” in 1926 at the McVickers!? The show was later featured at the Chicago Oriental. This jazz show featured 57 varieties, and one of them was Esther Jones.
Please note that a lot of people tend to “discredit” Esther Jones and her contribution to the scat-singing genre, and they try to cover it up, or pretend she never existed. So please be careful when you read third-party articles. Wikipedia is also known to fabricate lies, as you can write practically anything on that website, and they often defame people too, so independent researchers be wary.
(I’m trying my best to explain this best as I can. Sorry to say, Helen Kane is not the sole innovator of the “Boop” routine. It was used earlier by African-American singers Louis Armstrong and Clarence Williams.)
But in this post, I will focus on Esther Jones.
Esther Jones was a Charleston dancer in Paul Ash’s show.
Baby Ester? Helen Kane? Marc Letty?
On the 6th of December in 1928, Esther Jones she recorded a Loew “talking short” only known as “Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Shorts: Little Esther” flanked by a 26-piece orchestra from the Capitol Theatre, New York City.
In that MGM film, Esther is cited as giving tribute to Helen Kane or scat-singing. It is not known 100%, nobody has actually seen it. But she does a little “Boop-Boop-a-Doop” act.
In late December of 1928, it would seem that Paul Ash held a benefit show for Christmas for poor families in New York. He had a lot of performers on the bill. Helen Kane was there too, alongside Marc Letty.
A Baby Esther is referenced as either performing in a gig with Helen Kane or after Helen Kane. But the paper cites this Esther as being “Helen’s” Baby Esther. Who is that!? This is in 1928. Quite weird. Helen Sugar Kane, didn’t know a Baby Esther. So who exactly is this Baby Esther that is on the benefit show? Esther Jones!?
As people are aware, Jones didn’t leave for Europe until 1929. And even when she went to Europe, sometimes she would return to America, so she would go to France then return and then go to Spain and so on.
Jones didn’t return to America until 1933. When Jones returned, she became a “has-been” around the same time the Betty Boop and Helen Kane lawsuit was taking place. Jones did not find much success as she did in Europe and South America.
Had Esther stayed in Paris, Sweden or Brazil she would have still been famous today. London didn’t give Esther a very good welcome, they classed her as “grotesque” but were amazed by her dance moves. Esther was also a jazz singer, and in 1928, she did sing on radio. All this obviously no longer exists but it was once archived in digital newspapers. Half of those papers no longer exist. FH originally had most of the information, up until they wiped it all clean. The archive also limits requests to a certain number of users. So that is a newspaper archive that is now pretty much useless as of 2023.
Lou Bolton who trained Esther way back during the 1920s decided to speak out. Being as they had based Esther’s fame on Florence Mills, it would seem he wanted to give his own statement about how Esther used a similar scat-singing technique years earlier.
Lou Bolton and Baby Esther crossed paths with Helen Kane and Tony Shayne in 1928. So Bolton thought that Kane had taken inspiration from Esther’s stage show. On that stage show, Esther was reported as scat-singing something similar to the “Boop” routine. But not exactly “Boop” but something similar.
Jones also had really bad press in an African-American newspaper, that links her to Bill Bojangles, and classed her as “abandoned” and then goes on to give more tribute to new upcoming little Black child performers such as Baby Hilda and Baby Selma. Most of these articles no longer exist, but I have the luck of being able to read all these articles before they vanished, and I was able to obtain the information.
(Here is a newspaper article for May of 1926.)
There’s the McVicker Theater and McVickers Theater in Chicago. It was obviously the McVickers “Paramount Pictures” Theater. As of 2023, a lot of Esther Jones sources have been deleted. Obviously possibly by request of people who are desperate to “erase” her existence. Those kind of people hate the fact that she links to the “Betty Boop” and “Helen Kane” story. Thankfully I have archived pretty much everything. Though the direct links have vanished into thin air, the archived text still exists thanks to me.
Who would have guessed that the “untitled show” that Jones appeared in was a Paul Ash show.
McVicker’s Is The Oldest Theatre In Chicago:
The performers seemed to change frequently, as Esther seems to have only been on the bill for a short while. A lot of performers possibly crossed paths. For example Margie Hines, in 1930 she was featured in a show called “In Florida” with Sunshine Sammy from the Our Gang series.
Kane and Jones are obviously always going to come up in conversation. And that main conversation is who actually “Booped” first!? We have a hint, but we are not entirely sure. But being as scat-singing is more of a Harlem thing, I would cite African-Americans as pioneers. So I often point to Esther Jones.
Helen Kane and Baby Esther clearly crossed paths sometime in 1928, but this is not actually recorded in history. One clearly, inspired the other. Being as Esther already was scat-singing prior to Helen Kane being discovered by Paul Ash in 1928, she’s the obvious indirect predecessor.
However there’s a big difference between Jones’ techniques the “Wha-Da-Da-Da,” “Roop-Woop-a-Woop,” “Poo-Poo-a-Doo,” “Boo-Boo-Boo,” “Doo-Doo-Doo,” and Kane’s “Poop-Poop-a-Doop,” “But-Dut-De-Dut,” and “Bop-Bop-Be-Dop” routines.
Clearly coined someone, I assume Harlem.
Kane adapted the “Poop” to “Boop” in 1930 officially and then became the “Boop-Boop-a-Doop” girl. Then there’s all these other females who were Black female performers, who had used a similar technique years earlier before Betty Boop, Helen Kane and Esther Jones.
Weirdly when the Esther Jones story came up in the news, Paul Ash never added any statement. He never mentioned that Jones had been in his show. This is a man who claims he “discovered” Helen Kane. Yet was working with Jones years earlier. After doing a little research, you would need a lot of time and patience to find these old sources that link Paul, Esther and Helen.
The lawsuit was silly. I think they all lied. Kane knew she wasn’t the original scat-singing baby-doll but wouldn’t accept fate and lied, and the Fleischers knew that Grim Natwick had used Helen as the basis for the character in Dizzy Dishes, but also would not tell the truth. So technically they developed a character based on Kane’s success in the baby-doll category but ended up developing a character that surpassed the original.
Of course a cartoon if promoted correctly is going to gain more popularity. It is something that is not real, and something that can outlive you and maintain youth, and at the same time appeal to youth.
By the time Betty Boop was trending, Kane was getting really old and fat. She had people impersonating her in Hollywood, so there was no need for her. And she hardly got any work, and she blamed pretty much everyone but herself. Keep in mind, she asked for a parody, she asked for imitation and impersonation.
Little did Kane know, a majority of those girls, included Mae Questel who Kane belittled in 1930, went on to become the new “Boopers” and voices of Betty Boop in the cartoons.
Gertrude Saunders & Florence Mills:
Two of the women were Gertrude Saunders and Florence Mills. Others included Esther Bigeou and Mae Barnes and Nina Mae McKinney. And I guess even the great Josephine Baker, who’d used a “Doo-Doo-Doo-Doo” in her 1927 “Then I’ll Be Happy” song.
Gertrude Saunders used a variety of scat-singing techniques, her main was “Tweet-Tweet-Tweet-Twat,” and Florence Mills’ used a “Tooty-Tooty-Too” in her song.
Incidentally Jones was a well known Mills impersonator in 1928, and at the Everglades Club, she would impersonate Mills, this is actually written down in history. Keep in mind that Mills had died in 1927.
A lot of misinformation by people who rewrite history is that they have rewritten Jones as a “Helen Kane” impersonator, but she’s actually cited as doing Florence Mills impersonations, that obviously also included scat-singing.
When it comes to scat-singing for female singers, it often points to Gertrude Saunders. Saunders even made reference to this several times during the 1930s, as being the originator of the gimmick.
Boop-Boop-Be-Doop Girls:
And then Betty Boop came along and Helen Kane’s “Boop-Boop-a-Doop” was adapted to “Boop-Oop-a-Doop,” and then later “Boop-Boop-Be-Doop,” but there are the odd few cartoons in which Betty will “Poop-Poop-a-Doop” and “Boop-Boop-a-Doop,” depending on her voice actress. Three of which were Helen Kane imitators and impersonators.
During the 1950s, Helen Kane coined Mae Questel’s “Boop-Boop-Be-Doop” routine. She just randomly took it, and mixed it with her other “Boop” routines. Of course by then Betty Boop was long retired, and Kane had a short lived comeback within Hollywood as nobody outside Hollywood seemed to care.
If you want to learn more about Esther Jones you can follow the sources below. Of course most of the links no longer exist. But the text is still archived on that very website.
https://babyestherjones.wordpress.com/2019/10/10/baby-esther-jones-sources-5/
As much as people hate to give credit. I did most of the research and brought this performer to life. Prior to my research, this person did not exist. She was literally erased, and was about to be classed as a myth. As long as her existence is known, I am humbled. At least we know she did exist, and was more successful than Helen Kane.
Jones opened a dance troupe in Harlem, but later left the business, she got married, and changed her second name which is why nobody knows what became of her after she quit.
Let us just say that she lived her life.
Boop-Boop-Be-Doop ♥ 