I was looking over a piano roll auction recently, and saw a roll called
"Brown Skin (Who Yo For?)", by Mills, and I figured if I got it for my
bid it would be worth at least looking at.  It's played by Zema Randale,
a great pianist who I heard died in the great flu epidemic of 1918.

Well, I just put the roll on YouTube; it's on my channel "Aeolian Hall".
This roll has got some of the most incoherent lyrics imaginable, and
the music is also fairly unusual.  It's no big deal, but it is really
weird.

If anybody has any idea of what is going on here, I hope they can tell
the rest of us:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIg4ex08wBw
 

Randolph Herr

 [ Your Imperial piano roll probably plays the song by Roy Barton
 [ and Jerry Mills, "Brown Skin (Who You For?)", published by Will
 [ Rossiter, Chicago, 1916.  But maybe not!  See the long discussion
 [ at http://www.prjc.org/roots/mysteryhistory.html  -- Robbie