Dora Dean, detail from "Since I Heard From Home."

The song "Dora Dean" by Afro-American Bert Williams (composed, needless to say, in honor of Dora Dean) [1895 by Broder and Schlam, New York] has an interesting counterpart ­ the 1896 coon song "Ma Angeline," by Charles Sydney O'Brien ­ interesting in that it is a note-for-note, word-for-word theft (excepting the substitution of "Angeline" for "Dora Dean") of William's piece. It is not known to this editor whether Williams sought legal action against O'Brien as did Joe Jordan against Nick LaRocca for his unabashed lift of "Teasin' Rag" in the recording of the "Original Dixieland One-Step" (1917); Jordan won. Today, one may hear Bert William's piece in a somewhat similar manner: as "Ma Angeline," recorded by an unnamed orchestra in 1896 ­ making it certainly one of the more significant early ragtime records.