*s*/<^ jr. V*?/"**- ^xJS'T^ 'BACKSIDE ALBANY. A COMIC SOM^ AS SUNC BY MESS. H/LL & BROWER. ■ COMPOSED BY M? MICHAEL HAWKINS, * Arranged, hy I "W.fcVLETOK. I Li Hawkins' song "Backside Albany" (also called "Champlain and Plattsburgh"), written in 1814, described the Battle of Lake Champlain in "comic" Negro dialect; it was among the earliest songs performed in blackface on the New York stage. The cover of its first known sheet music publication, in 1837, misspelling Hawkins' first name, bore this gaudy caricature of a Negro on its cover, an image that was later to become a stereotype on the American stage, music division, library OF CONGRESS.