Better Times Are Coming (Perry Bradford Campaign Song)

Sheet music for a Republican campaign song from the 1948 presidential election, featuring a stylized image of an elephant morphing into a dollar sign, along with a well-known promotional image of Republican candidates Thomas Dewey and Earl Warren with their campaign slogan “The Way Ahead”. Conceived and published by Perry Bradford. 4to (9 in. x 12 in.), 4 pages from a single folded sheet. Bradford (1893-1970) was an African-American composer, songwriter, and vaudeville performer, whose songs include Crazy Blues, That Thing Called Love, and You Can’t Keep a Good Man Down. He is credited with persuading Okeh records to record Mamie Smith singing Crazy Blues in 1920,, the first appearance on record of an African-American blues singer. During the 1920’s he promoted blues and jazz recordings by publishing and managing, working with both Smith and fellow blues legend Alberta Hunter. With the Depression, however, he himself fell on hard times, leading to commercial gigs like campaign songs. Better Times Are Coming was composed first as a Republican campaign song for the 1936 election and was reprised for the 1948 campaign. The present item is a fascinating piece of musical and political ephemera, both for its creation by a notable Harlem Renaissance-adjacent figure and for its association with the ill-fated Warren-Dewey ticket. Minor rubbing, otherwise NF.