Ford Lee "Buck" Washington

Happy Birthday Ford Lee "Buck" Washington...October 16, 1903-January 1, 1955..."Buck" Washington was one half of the famous dancing duo "Buck and Bubbles" as well as an accomplished musician, singer and comedian. Washington and John Sublett (Bubbles) were orphans when they teamed up as pre-teens, winning local amature contests in Louisville, Kentucky. They went on to join the vaudeville circuit, traveling to Detroit and New York with an act that included dancing, singing, antics at the piano and a big dose of comedy.

Their routine never varied much in the many years they performed together but it was a formula that made them some of the best loved performers of their day. They broke the color barrier in the 20's by playing in white vaudeville houses as well as black ones. They appeared in several Broadway revues in the 20's and 30's, then made their way to Hollywood to appear in movies such as "Varsity Show" and "A Song is Born." The pair performed together until shortly before Washington died at the age of 51.

Victoria Spivey

Happy Birthday, Victoria Spivey...October 15, 1906-October 3, 1976...Victoria Spivey got her start in her native Houston, Texas performing with her family's string band. By the age of 19 she was playing piano for local silent film theaters and singing and performing in local bars, brothels and clubs, sometimes accompanied by Blind Lemon Jefferson. In 1926, at the age of 20 she made her way to St. Louis to try her luck.

She was signed by Okeh records and her original composition, "Black Snake Blues", was a huge success. That was followed by "Dirty Woman Blues" and for two years after that, the red hot Spivey recorded nearly one record a month, often accompanied by talent such as Lonnie Johnson, Louis Armstrong, King Oliver, Clarence Williams and many others. Her biggest influence was another red hot Blues Woman, Ida Cox, and the topics of the songs Spivey wrote were often of the same raw nature, covering subjects like drug addiction, poverty, crime, health issues and sex.

As the Depression set in and most ladies of the blues left the circuit, Spivey found a new outlet for her talents, first in King Vidor's first sound film "Halleluyah" as Miss Rosie, and later in other films and stage shows, including the acclaimed "Hellzapoppin"" review in New York. She was able to continue to record and perform through the 1940's.

In the 1950's. Spivey retired from show business, playing a pipe organ in her church and leading the choir. But the early 60's blues revival would bring her out of retirement and back into the limelight. As one of the few surviving original Ladies of the Blues, Spivey was in big demand at folk and blues festivals. Her sexually suggestive song lyrics resonated with the sexual revolution of the 60's and 70's. Spivey created her own record company, Spivey Records, and Bob Dylan joined her on her first recording for the label. Her album "Songs We Taught Your Mother" featured Alberta Hunter and Lucille Hegiman and brought women in the blues back to the forefront. Spivey continued to perform, record and preserve the blues of her heyday until her death just shy of her 70th birthday.

Peg Leg Bates

Happy Birthday, Clayton "Peg Leg" Bates...October 11, 1907-December 8, 1998...Dancing was intrinsic to Bates who remembered always wanting to dance from the age of five. While working in a cotton seed gin mill at the age of 12 in his hometown of Fountain Inn, South Carolina, Bates became caught up in the machinery and his left leg was mangled. It was amputated below the knee on his kitchen table at home. Bates was confined to crutches to get around but in his words, "At first I was walking around on crutches and, I started making musical rhythm with them. See, I did not realize the importance of losing a leg. I thought it was just like stubbing my toe and knocking off a toenail that was going to grow back." When his uncle Wit came home from WW1 and found his nephew handicapped, he created Bate's first crude wooden leg.

Bates continued dancing, "It somehow grew in my mind that I wanted to be as good a dancer as any two-legged dancer. It hurt me that the boys pitied me. I was pretty popular before, and I still wanted to be popular. I told them not to be sorry for me." Bates was true to his word. With enormous effort he learned to copy the rhythms steps of the popular tappers of his day, adding his own unique acrobatics and novelty steps. By the age of 15 he was traveling the minstrel show and vaudeville circuits becoming the undisputed king of one-legged dancers. His appearance in Paris in  Lew Leslie's Blackbirds of 1929 gave him the boost to return to New York in 1930 as a featured tap dancer at the Cotton Club, Connie's Inn and Club Zanzibar.

With his deep toned-toned left leg peg and his higher-pitched metallic right foot tap he rhythmically reinvented popular tap steps like the Shim Sham, Susie-Q and Truckin'. He would perform dive bombing type maneuvers, landing balanced on his peg leg. He owned 13 of them; one to match each of his suits.Unlike many tap dancers, he didn't focus on one style. "Well, I'm into rhythm and I'm into novelty. I'm into doing things that looks almost impossible to do.", he explained. He mastered the styles to surpass two-legged dancers, and he often did. Many tappers became associated with certain big bands as part of the general entertainment. Bates topped them all, dancing with the bands of Jimmy Dorsey, Charlie Barnett, Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway, Count Basie, Erskine Hawkins, Jimmie Lunceford, Claude Hopkins, Billy Eckstine and Louis Armstrong.

Bates tackled the budding television industry full on, appearing on the Ed Sullivan show 21 times, more than any other tap dancer. He often used the show to dance tap-offs with other well known tap dancers. He also traveled extensively and performed for royalty. In 1951, Bates and his wife Alice bought a turkey farm in the Catskill Mountains and turned it into the largest black-owned-and-operated resort in the country. The Peg Leg Country Club catered to a primarily black clientele in a predominantly Jewish resort area, presenting some of the finest jazz musicians and entertainers of it's day. "At first the natives were resentful," Bates told the N.Y. Times in 1969, "But now everything is kosher, beautiful." He ran the resort until his wife died in 1987 and sold it in 1989.

In retirement, Bates spent a good deal of his time performing, teaching and speaking to youth groups, senior citizens and the handicapped, spreading his philosophy of being involved no matter what life brought your way. "Life means, do the best you can with what you've got, with all your mind and heart. You can do anything in this world if you want to do it bad enough." He died at the age of 91 in his home town, just a mile and a half from the place he lost his leg.