George O'Connor

George Henry O'Connor (August 20, 1874 – September 28, 1946)

At the same time as his legal career, he became a leading stage entertainer and recording artist. Aged nine, in 1883, he was mentioned in the local press as a performer in a "juvenile masque carnival", and while at Georgetown was a leading member of the glee club. By 1900, he had begun performing newly-fashionable "rag-time" music, and formed the Birenomore Quartette with three friends. O'Connor became a popular entertainer at events hosted by such organizations as the Gridiron Club, the National Press Club, the Alfalfa Club, the Knights of Columbus, and the Bar Association. specializing in dialect material, particularly "coon songs", as well as other popular songs and light opera. His July 1916 recording of "Nigger Blues", copyrighted four years earlier by Leroy "Lasses" White, is one of the first recordings of a twelve-bar blues song. His other successful recordings included "Everybody Rag With Me" (1915) and "Pray For the Lights to Go Out" (1917).

O'Connor was the favored entertainer of a succession of US Presidents, from Taft to Truman, particularly at White House Correspondents' Association dinners, and became known as the "Troubadour to the Presidents".