"Harry P. Guy and the Ragtime Era of Detroit."

by Ms. Nancy Bostick and Mr. Arthur LaBrew.

"During that period when Detroit was known as the 'City Beautiful' and 'where life is worth living'" wrote historian and Afro-American reporter Fred Hart Williams in his unpublished memoirs on Detroit, "Harry P. Guy was one of Detroit's unique and unusually gifted musicians. [Guy's] extreme modesty, his obvious efforts at self-effacement withheld from him the fame and wealth which should rightfully have been his. His superb arrangements of music compositions, his ability to infuse them with the magic of his inborn melody and harmony of tone, quite often was the measure of success of an otherwise mediocre composition. He was equally at home with arrangements of serious dimensions and with so-called popular forms of musical output. Harry P. Guy was the soul of music. Money seemingly mattered little. It was nothing unusual for him to neglect to place his name on manuscripts as the arranger. In consequence scores of musical successes carried only the name of the composer and lyricist."

Born July, 1870 in Zanesville, Ohio (about 45 miles to the east of Columbus) to Samuel (b. 1843, Ohio) and Lucy A. Guy (b. 1847, Virginia), he was about eight years old when he began the study of piano, violin, and pipe organ. As a youth, he peddled the black-owned Cleveland Gazette, and along with his brother Erin and sister, Ella M. Guy, he participated in a variety of musical events sponsored by his school, Hill High (class of 1886) and church, St. Paul A. M. E. He apparently had the opportunity to meet members of Donavin's Original Tennesseans when they appeared in Zanesville, including the black tenor and composer H. M. Wilson, as well as Alexander Luca of the famed Luca Brothers. It is quite possible that such personalities encouraged the young Harry P. Guy to continue his musical pursuits.

Sometime in the 1880s Guy appears to have moved to Cincinnati, as he studied with George Schneider, a noted pianist and teacher there. He also had the opportunity to accompany the famous Madame Marie Selika during her opera appearances in that city, as well as being employed as the accompanist for the Cincinnati Opera Club, a white institution. Apparently, he also accompanied the Fisk Jubilee Singers during their tours through Cincinnati. One of Guy's earliest known compositions, "The Flowret Waltz" was published there in 1887 by Ilson & Co. The next year Ilson published his "My Wooing," which was "sung with great success" by A. C. Orcutt while performing with Hanlon's New Fantasma Company. Guy's "When the Dew Begems the Lea" song was another early composition published by Ilson & Co.

Above: Harry P. Guy, c. 1900.