John W. Bubbles
Encyclopedia
Vaudeville
Vaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. Each performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill...
performer, dancer, singer and entertainer.
Life and career
Born in Louisville, KentuckyLouisville, Kentucky
Louisville is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kentucky, and the county seat of Jefferson County. Since 2003, the city's borders have been coterminous with those of the county because of a city-county merger. The city's population at the 2010 census was 741,096...
, his family soon moved to Indianapolis
Indianapolis
Indianapolis is the capital of the U.S. state of Indiana, and the county seat of Marion County, Indiana. As of the 2010 United States Census, the city's population is 839,489. It is by far Indiana's largest city and, as of the 2010 U.S...
. Here, he formed a partnership with Ford L. "Buck" Washington known as "Buck and Bubbles," with Buck playing stride piano
Stride piano
Harlem Stride Piano, Stride Piano, or just Stride, is a jazz piano style that was developed in the large cities of the East Coast, mainly in the New York, during 1920s and 1930s. The left hand may play a four-beat pulse with a single bass note, octave, seventh or tenth interval on the first and...
and singing while Bubbles tapped, beginning in 1919. The two appeared in the Ziegfeld Follies
Ziegfeld Follies
The Ziegfeld Follies were a series of elaborate theatrical productions on Broadway in New York City from 1907 through 1931. They became a radio program in 1932 and 1936 as The Ziegfeld Follies of the Air....
of 1931 and were the first black artists to appear at the Radio City Music Hall
Radio City Music Hall
Radio City Music Hall is an entertainment venue located in New York City's Rockefeller Center. Its nickname is the Showplace of the Nation, and it was for a time the leading tourist destination in the city...
. On November 2, 1936, they performed live in the inaugural programme of the world's first scheduled 'high definition' (240-line or better) television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
service at Alexandra Palace
Alexandra Palace
Alexandra Palace is a building in North London, England. It stands in Alexandra Park, in an area between Hornsey, Muswell Hill and Wood Green...
, London, and may thus be said to be the first black artists in television history.
Sublett is known as the father of "rhythm tap", a form of tap dance
Tap dance
Tap dance is a form of dance characterized by using the sound of one's tap shoes hitting the floor as a percussive instrument. As such, it is also commonly considered to be a form of music. Two major variations on tap dance exist: rhythm tap and Broadway tap. Broadway tap focuses more on the...
. As opposed to the tap dancing of Bill Robinson
Bill Robinson
Bill “Bojangles” Robinson was an American tap dancer and actor of stage and film. Audiences enjoyed his understated style, which eschewed the frenetic manner of the jitterbug in favor of cool and reserve; rarely did he use his upper body, relying instead on busy, inventive feet, and an expressive...
(Bojangles) who emphasized clean phrases and toe taps, Sublett brought in percussive heel drops and played with the traditional eight-bar phrase, slowing it down to allow for more rhythmic freedom. He thus merged the art of tap dancing with the new improvisitory style of jazz, reinventing the tap artform.
Though unable to read music, Bubbles was chosen by George Gershwin
George Gershwin
George Gershwin was an American composer and pianist. Gershwin's compositions spanned both popular and classical genres, and his most popular melodies are widely known...
to create the role of Sportin' Life in his opera Porgy and Bess
Porgy and Bess
Porgy and Bess is an opera, first performed in 1935, with music by George Gershwin, libretto by DuBose Heyward, and lyrics by Ira Gershwin and DuBose Heyward. It was based on DuBose Heyward's novel Porgy and subsequent play of the same title, which he co-wrote with his wife Dorothy Heyward...
in 1935. Sublett performed the role occasionally for the next two decades. In 1963, in a studio recording
Studio recording
The term studio recording means any recording made in a studio, as opposed to a live recording, which is usually made in a concert venue or a theatre, with an audience attending the performance.-Studio cast recordings:...
of Porgy and Bess featuring Leontyne Price
Leontyne Price
Mary Violet Leontyne Price is an American soprano. Born and raised in the Deep South, she rose to international acclaim in the 1950s and 1960s, and was one of the first African Americans to become a leading artist at the Metropolitan Opera.One critic characterized Price's voice as "vibrant",...
and William Warfield
William Warfield
William Caesar Warfield , was an American concert bass-baritone singer and actor.-Early life and career:Warfield was born in West Helena, Arkansas and grew up in Rochester, New York, where his father was called to serve as pastor of Mt. Vernon Church. He gave his recital debut in New York's Town...
, he performed Sportin' Life's two main arias from the opera , It Ain't Necessarily So and There's A Boat Dat's Leavin' Soon For New York. (Ironically, he did not perform these songs on the so-called "original cast" album, recorded in 1940.)
In 1920 he gave lessons in tap dancing to Fred Astaire
Fred Astaire
Fred Astaire was an American film and Broadway stage dancer, choreographer, singer and actor. His stage and subsequent film career spanned a total of 76 years, during which he made 31 musical films. He was named the fifth Greatest Male Star of All Time by the American Film Institute...
who considered Sublett the finest tap dancer of his generation. In the number "Bojangles of Harlem" from Swing Time
Swing Time
Swing Time is a 1936 RKO musical comedy film set mainly in New York City and stars Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Helen Broderick, Victor Moore, Eric Blore and Georges Metaxa, with music by Jerome Kern and lyrics by Dorothy Fields...
(1936) Astaire dresses in blackface
Blackface
Blackface is a form of theatrical makeup used in minstrel shows, and later vaudeville, in which performers create a stereotyped caricature of a black person. The practice gained popularity during the 19th century and contributed to the proliferation of stereotypes such as the "happy-go-lucky darky...
as the Sportin' Life character and dances in the style of Sublett while ostensibly paying tribute to Bill Robinson
Bill Robinson
Bill “Bojangles” Robinson was an American tap dancer and actor of stage and film. Audiences enjoyed his understated style, which eschewed the frenetic manner of the jitterbug in favor of cool and reserve; rarely did he use his upper body, relying instead on busy, inventive feet, and an expressive...
.
During the Vietnam War John Bubbles toured the war zone with the USO. In 1965 he appeared with Eddie Fisher on a USO tour visiting many outposts and camp in the early war years.
In 1978, John Bubbles spoke at the Variety Arts Theatre in Los Angeles as a participant in a seminar on vaudeville. Someone asked him who the best tap dancer was. Bubbles answered, "You're looking at him." Then he added, "Honestly, if I had to name the best dancer, it would be Fred Astaire. He could tap. He had a good teacher. But he could ballroom, dance with a partner. All in all, he's the best." That same night, Bubbles mentioned that Fred had actually brought him into the rehearsal hall to work on "Bojangles of Harlem" and John's chops are right there in the number.
Sublett also appeared in Hollywood films of the late 1930s and 1940s, including Varsity Show
Varsity Show (film)
Varsity Show is a 1937 feature film from Warner Brothers about a group of students at "Winfield College" who butt heads with their faculty advisor while producing an annual stage show....
in 1937, Cabin in the Sky
Cabin in the Sky
Cabin in the Sky is a 1943 American musical film with music by Vernon Duke, lyrics by John La Touche, and a musical book by Lynn Root. The musical premiered on Broadway at the Martin Beck Theatre on October 25, 1940. It closed on March 8, 1941 after a total of 156 performances...
in 1943 and A Song Is Born
A Song Is Born
A Song Is Born was a 1948 Technicolor musical film remake, starring Danny Kaye and Virginia Mayo, of 1941 movie Ball of Fire with Gary Cooper...
in 1948. In later life, he also made television appearances, one of his last being on a musical episode of The Lucy Show
The Lucy Show
The Lucy Show is an American situation comedy that aired on CBS from 1962 until 1968. It was Lucille Ball's follow-up to I Love Lucy. A significant change in cast and premise for the 1965-66 season divides the program into two distinct eras; aside from Ball, only Gale Gordon, who joined the program...
, which, in addition to Bubbles, also guest-starred Mel Torme
Mel Tormé
Melvin Howard Tormé , nicknamed The Velvet Fog, was an American musician, known for his jazz singing. He was also a jazz composer and arranger, a drummer, an actor in radio, film, and television, and the author of five books...
.
Sublett received the 1980 Life Achievement Award from the American Guild of Variety Artists. He died in 1986 in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
.
Sublett's catchphrase, "Shoot the liquor to me john boy," has been quoted in songs by several artists, including The Manhattan Transfer
The Manhattan Transfer
The Manhattan Transfer is an American vocal music group. There have been two manifestations of the group, with Tim Hauser being the only person to be part of both...
, The Ink Spots
The Ink Spots
The Ink Spots were a popular vocal group in the 1930s and 1940s that helped define the musical genre that led to rhythm and blues and rock and roll, and the subgenre doo-wop...
, Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong , nicknamed Satchmo or Pops, was an American jazz trumpeter and singer from New Orleans, Louisiana....
, among others.
Michael Jackson
Michael Jackson
Michael Joseph Jackson was an American recording artist, entertainer, and businessman. Referred to as the King of Pop, or by his initials MJ, Jackson is recognized as the most successful entertainer of all time by Guinness World Records...
admired Bubbles' dancing and studied his steps for inspiration. In the mid-1980s Michael named his beloved pet chimpanzee, Bubbles, in memory of John Sublett.
External links
- John W. Bubbles at the Internet Broadway DatabaseInternet Broadway DatabaseThe Internet Broadway Database is an online database of Broadway theatre productions and their personnel. It is operated by the Research Department of The Broadway League, a trade association for the North American commercial theatre community....
- Biographical blurb from the Dance Heritage Coalition