Langston Hughes Biography
James Langston Hughes, 1 February 1902, Joplin, Missouri, USA, d. 22 May 1967, New York City, New York, USA. Born into a middle-class black family, Langston attended school in various places, including Lincoln, Illinois, which is where he began writing poetry, and Cleveland, Ohio. After studying at Columbia University he worked on ships, visiting Africa and Europe, spending some time working in the kitchen of a Parisian nightclub, and then took a job as a busboy at the Wardman Park Hotel in Washington DC. There, he managed to get a poem he had written, "The Weary Blues', into the hands of poet Vachel Lindsay, who introduced the young man to publishers and soon Hughes" work began appearing in print. His first book of poems appeared in 1925. Owing to a scholarship, Hughes was able to resume his studies and in 1929 graduated from Lincoln University. His declared literary influences were Paul Laurence Dunbar, Carl Sandburg and Walt Whitman.
Hughes' poems, as well as his novels, short stories, and plays, dealt affectionately but perspicaciously with the life of black Americans through the decades. In 1947 he worked on Elmer Rice's Street Scene, writing lyrics to Kurt Weill's music. The show had a 138-performance run at New York's Adelphi Theater. The songs included "Somehow I Never Could Believe", "When A Woman Has A Baby", "Wouldn't You Like To Be On Broadway?", "Ain't It Awful The Heat", "Moon-Faced, Starry-Eyed", "The Woman Up There" and "Get A Load Of That'. None of these songs enjoyed a life outside the show, possibly a reflection of their lyrics" somewhat florid literary style. In addition to his original work, Hughes also translated poems by black Cuban and Haitian writers.
Source: The Encyclopedia of Popular Music by Colin Larkin. Licensed from Muze.
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