the abbreviated reign of “neon” leon spinks

PERSISTENCE CAN OUTWEIGH TALENT 71
operatic lore. Her 1941 studio recording—which consisted entirely of sin-
gle takes, since Jenkins loathed tinkering with perfection—became a collector’s
item, and was reissued several decades later as a CD. In recent
years, Jenkins’s story has been retold a number of times on the stage, most
recently in British playwright Stephen Temperley’s Souvenir, with Broadway
musical star Judy Kaye suppressing her vocal virtuosity to portray
Jenkins.
But Jenkins’s most enduring legacy is America’s continuing fascination
with would-be vocal virtuosos who are as unrelenting as they are
untalented. As Jenkins herself supposedly once explained, “Some may say
I couldn’t sing, but no one can say I didn’t sing.”
THE ACCOMPLICE . . . ER, ACCOMPANIST
Over the years, Jenkins aficionados have speculated that the unusual
name of her accompanist, Cosme McMoon, was a pseudonym employed
by some professional musician to protect himself from
embarrassment. However, Social Security Administration rec ords indicate
that Cosme McMoon was an actual person, who was born in Texas in
1901 and died in New York in 1980.
In 1936, the New York Times published a short review of a recital
by McMoon, whom the paper described as a Texas-born composer and
pianist. He reportedly got the job working for Jenkins after she fi red her
previous accompanist, Edwin McArthur, for laughing during one of her
per for mances.