They were popular in the United States and Australia from around 1880[1] to 1920,[2] though the earliest such songs date from minstrel shows as far back as 1848, when they were not yet identified with the "coon" epithet.

[3] The genre became extremely popular, with White and Black men[4] giving performances in blackface and making recordings.

[7] It may also have been used earlier on the stage; a Black man named Raccoon was one of the lead characters in a 1767 colonial comic opera "The Disappointment".

[15] In 1905, Bob Cole, an African-American composer who had gained fame largely by writing coon songs, made somewhat unprecedented remarks about the genre.

[15] When asked in an interview about the name of his earlier comedy A Trip to Coontown, he replied: "That day has passed with the softly flowing tide of revelations.

A. Whitman, released a short film, Coon Song, which had an audible track featuring singers such as Blanche Ring, Anna Held, Eva Tanguay and Stella Mayhew.

[12] However, James Dormon, a former professor of history and American studies at the University of Southwestern Louisiana, has also suggested that coon songs can be seen as "a necessary sociopsychological mechanism for justifying segregation and subordination.

"[20] The songs portrayed Black people as posing a threat to the American social order and implied that they had to be controlled.

In keeping with the older minstrel image of Black people, coon songs often featured "watermelon- and chicken-loving rural buffoon[s]".

[28] However, Black people "began to appear as not only ignorant and indolent, but also devoid of honesty or personal honor, given to drunkenness and gambling, utterly without ambition, sensuous, libidinous, even lascivious.

"[28] Black people were portrayed as making money through gambling, theft, and hustling, rather than working to earn a living,[28] as in the Nathan Bivins song "Gimme Ma Money": Last night I did go to a big Crap game, How dem coons did gamble wuz a sin and a shame...

Passing was a common theme,[33] and Black people were portrayed as seeking the status of whites, through education and money.

[14] Notable coon shouters included Artie Hall,[36] Sophie Tucker, May Irwin, Mae West, Fanny Brice, Fay Templeton, Lotta Crabtree, Marie Dressler, Blossom Seeley, Emma Carus, Nora Bayes, Rae Samuels, Blanche Ring, Clarice Vance, Elsie Janis, Trixie Friganza, Eva Tanguay and Julia Gerity.

[38] Similarly, coon songs' lyrics influenced the vocabulary of the blues, culminating with Bessie Smith's singing in the 1920s.

[39] Black songwriters and performers who participated in the creation of coon songs profited commercially, enabling them to go on to develop a new type of African American musical theater based at least in part on African-American traditions.