TLS signed “Langston,” one page, 8.5 x 11, November 29, 1940. Letter to musician and theater critic Dan Burley, in part: "I think your anthology of Jive is going to be a swell idea. If you have already done something else that you think might be interesting for the Revue out here, please send us a copy." Hughes politely declines the idea of a musical collaboration, explaining that "with this revue, a number of lectures in January, and the first draft of a new book to finish by March, I am afraid I have enough to do to keep me going at top speed for the rest of the winter. However, when I get back to New York in the spring, if your script is not finished (and produced!!!), perhaps we could get together on it. I think we could turn out some amusing things together, and when I hit Harlem again, let us hold a conference on the subject. Man, you ought to hear a song I have just written with Elliott Carpenter called: 'Young Black Joe.' - (I'm comin', I'm comin', But my head ain't bending low) which is going to be the finale of the show." In addition to several ink corrections to the text, Hughes also adds a handwritten postscript: "Went out to the theatre and found that my first letter dictated to you hadn't gone off yet—so here it, too, enclosed." In fine condition.
Dan Burley (1907-1962) started out as a rent-party pianist before joining the staff of the Associated Negro Press and became theatre critic for New York Amsterdam News in the 1940s. He then moved to Chicago where he worked for Ebony before founding several of his own periodicals, including The Owl. He also recorded for Circle in the mid-1940s as well as with Lionel Hampton, but many remember Burley best as the author of the superb Dan Burley's Original Handbook of Harlem Jive (1944).
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