Kicha's photos

She was as popular as Josephine Baker was in France. Miss Fields gained her fame throughout Europe, learned their language, and became one of the first women to make a record. She also starred in two silent European films. Arabella Fields came to be known in Europe as "The Black Nightingale." A contralto, she was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1879. She initially came to Europe as one half of a brother and sister singing act (James and Bella Fields) in 1889. From the 1890's to the 1920's she toured as a single act throughout Europe and became one of the most prolific African American entertainers outside the States. Fields was one of several women to make records in the 1900s. Her first recording was for the Anker label in Berlin in 1907; reissued many times, her twenty year old original records were listed in a 1928 catalogue. In this respect, the only artist comparable to Fields is Enrico Caruso, whose acoustic pre-1914 recordings were available well into the 1920s era of electric recording. To attract attention of her German audiences Fields often dressed in German style attire. She was also featured in many adverts in Europe (the photo is from an advert where she is dressed as an 'Alpine Cowgirl,' in 1910). In 1907 she was featured in two silent European films. In the first two decades of the 20th century she toured widely singing German lieder and Swiss yodels as well as English language songs. During the 20s and 30s she appeared in various black musicals that toured Europe. Among them, Sam Woodings 'Chocolate Kiddies' and Louis Douglas's 'Black Follies Girls and Negro Revue.' According to newspapers of that time she was in Amsterdam in 1915, 1916, and 1917. And made tours in the Netherlands in 1926, 1928, and 1931. It appears she was in at least one American film, Love in Morocco (1933) in which she portrayed a slave named Mabrouka. The social climate encouraged many African American entertainers performing in Europe to remain there permanently. Miss Fields lived the rest of her life in Germany. Her date of death and place of burial at this time are unknown. Source: Cross the Water Blues: African American Music in Europe written by Neil A Wynn; Stadtmuseum Berlin

Anise Boyer (1914 - 2008), went from being Harlem’s most popular chorine to becoming a part of America’s number one dance team Anise and Aland in the glorious Harlem era in the 1930s. Boyer was considered a child prodigy when it came to dancing. She started her career as a chorus girl during the depression at the famous Cotton Club at the age of 15. She danced alongside Lena Horne in the chorus line. Anise gained notoriety and popularity swiftly. Anise was a little lady who always looked younger then she was. She didn’t weigh over 100 lbs. but as little as she was that’s how much of a big talent and big personality she had. She was a powerhouse performer that exuded charm in her stage presence and in her dance that would outshine the bigger in size and in fame on stage so she was never overlooked. Anise became an instant favorite with her baby face beauty, sweetness, petite figure, energetic personality and the talent of knowing how to dance any dance. She danced at Harlem’s most popular nightclubs and at the Apollo theater and then ventured outside of Harlem and danced at some of the U.S. and Europe’s prominent cabarets, nightclubs, and theaters. At the age of 18 Anise starred in “Harlem Is Heaven,” from 1932, she played Jean Stratton, a southern good girl who wants to be a dancing star travels to Harlem, stranded with nothing, she gives the famous tree of hope in Harlem a stroke and gets a job with help from legendary Bill Bojangles Robinson, who plays himself, through his help she escapes a scoundrel and finds true love. The movie seem like a true story of Anise Boyer’s climb to fame. In the mid-1930s Anise teamed up with Aland Dixon and they became known as Anise and Aland, and they were called the best of the adagio dancers because of their exuberance and athletic dancing. Their dancing varied from tap, ballroom, swing, jazz dancing and sometimes they put it all together for a spectacular performance. In 1936, Anise and Aland were two of the stars of Lew Leslie “Blackbirds of 1936″ that opened in London and they received excellent reviews for their versatile dancing. Anise and Aland stayed together until the early 1940s. In the 1940s, Anise star started to dim. Anise danced with other male partners but didn’t achieve the same success as she did with Alan Dixon. She appeared in the papers again in the late 1940’s when she married actress Louise Beaver’s husband and appeared in the papers again where it was said she was working as a secretary after her dancing partner Archie Savage (stage and movie dancer and choreographer) was jailed and serving a term for stealing expensive items from Ethel Waters. Since work was scarce and show business was changing Anise retired from show business. The last known show business gig Anise had was as a bathing beauty in race film “Look Out Sister.” After that Anise Boyer became forgotten in show business history, most regrettably in black show biz history. HarlemWorld; screenshot from film Harlem is Heaven (1932)

Aurora Greeley (1905-1983), born in Jacksonville, Florida was a dancer, choreographer and producer. As a young girl moved with her parents to New York City where she first gained success as a musical comedy actress. Her first stage role was as a chorus girl in Irvin C Miller's Liza . At the time, she was a student at Wadleigh High School in New York City. She was in the chorus for six months when Margaret Simms became ill, she took her role as one of the principals. She portrayed it so successfully that Miller gave her a similar role in Broadway Rastus and later she was featured in Flournoy E. Miller and Aubrey Lyle's show Runnin' Wild . In 1926 she joined 4-11-44 and worked with the company until it closed in 1927. It was with this show that she first met Leroy Broomfield. At the time, Broomfield was a first rate dancer in his own right and he objected very rigorously to being teamed with a young woman who had relatively little experience. However, by the end of the first rehearsal he accepted her and their dancing was one of the high points of the show 4-11-44 . Soon after, they decided to team together and played for a while in Chicago. Their career was at its pinnacle in the 1920s and 1930s when they produced shows at the Ubangi Club in Harlem, Minsky’s on Broadway, and at Franks Sebastian’s Cotton Club in Los Angeles. Miss Greeley, besides leading the chorus of thirty chorines, did a specialty number each night with Broomfield. At the time, the Cotton Club orchestra was considered to be one of the best in the country, and for a while it broadcast nightly over KFVD with Leroy Broomfield announcing. Aurora Greeley, died in Los Angeles, California, March of 1983 at the age of 78. Her former partner, Leroy Broomfield, died in Los Angeles, August 1971. Source: Blacks in Blackface: A Sourcebook on Early Black Musical Shows, Vol 1 by Henry T Sampson]

As she appeard in the stage production of Aida . Estelle Pinckney Clough, (1866-1929), soprano, was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, and probably died in the same area. She began her singing career in the 1880s giving concerts in Worcester and Boston. During the 1890s she appeared in concerts in New York and along the East Coast. In 1903 her first major break came when she sang the title role in Verdi's Aida in Theodore Drury's New York production. When England's renowned Anglo-African composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor came to the United States to conduct his work The Childhood of Hiawatha in 1904, Clough was one of the featured soloists. The concert was given in Washington, D.C., Clough continued her concert singing career during the years that followed. In the 1930s she formed her own voice studio in Worcester. Sources: Colored American Magazine (1902 issue);African American Concert Singers Before 1950 , by Darryl Glenn Nettles

From 1909 to 1918 Bradford performed in a song-and-dance act with Jeanette Taylor (known as Bradford and Jeanette). Blues and vaudeville songwriter, publisher and musical director, was born John Henry Perry Bradford (1895 - 1970) in Montgomery, Alabama, the son of Adam Bradford, a bricklayer and tile setter, and Bella (maiden name unknown), a cook. Early in his youth Bradford learned to play piano by ear. In 1901 his family moved to Atlanta, where his mother cooked meals for prisoners in the adjacent Fulton Street Jail. There he was exposed to the inmates' blues and folk singing. He would often visit Decatur Street, the black district in Atlanta, to learn singing, dancing and piano from the black entertainers. In 1906 he joined Allen's New Orleans Minstrels, and then worked briefly as a solo pianist in Chicago. From about 1909 to 1918 he performed in a song-and-dance act with Jeanette Taylor calling themselves Bradford and Jeanette. They traveled widely and Bradford absorbed more black culture which he incorporated into the songs he wrote. A shrewd entrepreneur, he initially published his songs as sheet music, to be sold after his performances. This informal method of distribution was caused in part by the racist structure of the publishing industry, which put roadblocks in the paths of aspiring African American songwriters. In 1918 he settled in New York City and, instead of peddling his own sheet music, sold his songs to white publisher, Frederick V. Bowers. In that same year, to publicize his songs, he and other actors produced the Made in Harlem Revue which featured cabaret singer, Mamie Smith, singing his title song, Harlem Blues. Bradford was impressed with Mamie, and felt she could help him sell his conviction that there was a huge, untapped black audience eager to buy authentic black recordings sung by blacks. "I thought our folks had a story to tell, and it only could be told in vocal, not instrumental, recordings." He finally convinced Fred Hager at OKeh Records to schedule a recording session for February 14, 1920, to record Mamie Smith singing two Bradford songs, That Thing Called Love and You Can't Keep A Good Man Down. Both songs were backed by OKeh's white studio band, the Milo Rega Orchestra. Essentially these were two Pop songs with a slight Jazz and Blues feel. The two songs sold 10,000 copies within a month, which was enough to prove Bradford's point, and to warrant a follow-up session, on August 10, 1920, to record another two of Bradford's songs, It's Right Here For You and Crazy Blues. But this time both songs were backed by Bradford's hand-picked African American band, the Jazz Hounds. Crazy Blues was a sensation, quickly selling 75,000 copies. Other record labels scrambled to sign black female singers. This marked the beginning of the Classic Blues era and, more importantly, opened the door for all black Blues and Jazz musicians on the newly-created "race" labels. From this momentous high, Bradford's career slowly began to decline. Bradford's publishing problems started with the success of Crazy Blues. The lyrics of this song were identical to his Harlem Blues, a song for which he sold the publishing rights. In fact, by his own admission, ". . . I feared what would happen if the song became a big hit, because I had used the same lyrics three times before." In 1921 he was sued for selling a song to more than one publisher. This was settled out-of-court. In 1922 he was again sued: this time for publishing a song owned by another publisher. This suit also involved perjury of a character witness. Bradford was sentenced to four months in prison. At some point he decided life might be simpler if he kept the rights to his songs and built his own publishing empire. He was very aware of the money to be made in publishing based on royalties received as a songwriter. Consequently, through the 1920s, he built four publishing companies that eventually owned the publishing rights to about 1,400 songs. But this proved to be his undoing. As a publisher he needed to market records, but his catalog of songs was blackballed by the recording industry. As Bradford didn't have the resources to manufacture and distribute his own records, he was left out in the cold. Through the 1920s Bradford was active with several early Jazz bands. In 1923, needing to do something exceptional to put his career back on track, Bradford assembled a Jazz band with greats such as Louis Armstrong, James P Johnson and Buster Bailey. Perry Bradford and his Jazz Phools recorded from 1923–1927 without much success. Bradford continued composing for musical revues through the 1920s without much impact. In 1927 he was moved to write, All I Have is Gone. In 1940, Bradford copyrighted Keep A-Knockin', there were several versions of the song prior to 1940. It was a big hit for Little Richard in 1957. Little Richard had this to say: "Everything happens for a reason. Who knew that the style Perry was developing in the 1920s would lead to Rock and Roll." In 1965, feeling like an outcast in the very music he fostered, Bradford felt compelled to publish his book, Born With The Blues, in which he describes "the true story of the pioneering Blues singers and musicians in the early days of Jazz." In this book he attempts to debunk much music history as we know it. Perry Bradford the man whose historic song, Crazy Blues, opened the door for commercial black music lived on relief and worked in New York as a mailman at Queens General Hospital, where he died after having spent his last years in ill health and confined to a nursing home. He died on April 20, 1970. In 1994 Crazy Blues was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. Sources: Harlem Renaissance Lives from the African American National Biography, edited by Henry Louis Gates and Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham

Here is a rare publicity photo from 1924, showing Ruby Walker (Bessie's niece through marriage) glancing up at her aunt, 'Empress of the Blues,' Bessie Smith (1894 - 1937). The three gentlemen seated in front were known as the Dancing Sheiks with Arthur "Eggie" Pitts in the middle, a man whose affection both Ruby and Bessie sought and received. Pitts was a dancer from Detroit whose often shaved head earned him the nickname "Eggie." Primarily a tap dancer Pitts also did juggling and headed up the Dancing Sheiks, who were a song and dance trio. When Bessie set out on tour in 1924, she took her niece with her, putting her to work assisting with elaborate costume changes and performing dance routines during intermissions. During a visit to Bessie's hometown in Chattanooga, Tennessee, a pushy man who tried to hassle Ruby was knocked unconscious by Bessie after he ignored her warning to cease and desist. Hours later when the women were leaving, he jumped out of the bushes and stuck a knife in Bessie's side. She chased him for three blocks before allowing the knife to be removed, and had to be hospitalized. Bessie survived this incident. She died in 1937, in a car accident. Ruby Walker (1903 - 1977), who was Bessie's niece through marriage eventually became a blues singer. Within months of Bessie's death in 1937, Ruby changed her last name to Smith and began cutting records very much in the manner of her famous aunt. Ruby's first recording sessions took place in 1938. In addition to a cover of Bessie's famous "Send Me to the 'Lectric Chair," she sang "Dream Man Blues," "Selfish Blues," "Flyin' Mosquito Blues," and "Draggin' My Heart Around," an Alex Hill composition which had been introduced eight years earlier by Fats Waller. On March 9, 1939 Ruby sang "He's Mine, All Mine" and Bessie Smith's "Back Water Blues" with an orchestra under the direction of James P. Johnson, who had accompanied Bessie on the original recording of "Back Water" in 1927. In December, 1941 Ruby sang "Why Don't You Love Me Anymore?" and "Harlem Gin Blues" with a band led by pianist Sammy Price. In August 1946 and January 1947 she recorded a total of eight titles with ex-Fats Waller sax and clarinet man Gene "Honeybear" Sedric, still channeling the Bessie Smith sound at times. Ruby Walker Smith passed away in Anaheim, California on March 24, 1977. Sources: paramounts.org; allmusic.com, arwulf

Helen Louise Dillet Johnson (1842 - 1917), was a mom, musician, and public school teacher. And the first black female teacher in Florida at a grammar school and then at Edwin M. Stanton School. She imparted to her children her considerable love and knowledge of English literature and the European tradition in music. Her husband James Johnson was born a free man in Richmond, Virginia in 1830. Helen's father, Stephen Dillet was of French Haitian blood. Her mother (the former Mary Symonett), took her to New York to embark upon a singing career. When James Johnson migrated to New York, he too was interested in music, heard Helen Louise sing and it was love at first sight. When the Civil War created so much unrest, Helen Louise and her mother, returned to Nassau, and James Johnson followed. They were married in Christ Church Cathedral on April 22, 1864. Bringing his wife back to America after the war and settling in Jacksonville, their first child was born, a girl, Marie Louise, on July 10, 1868. On July 17, 1871, James William (in 1913 he changed his middle name to Weldon), was born and on August 11, 1873, John Rosamond arrived. She died in 1917 in New York City. Sources: Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library ; The James Weldon Johnson Papers in the Beinecke Library, Yale University

Lovely portrait of cousins Mabel Wyche (Russell) and Ethel Wyche (Martin). Courtesy of Jean Braybon. The Black Experience in Charlotte & Mecklenburg County

Helen Oakley, in the light dress, then working for Irving Mills, organized this 1937 jam session at the Brunswick Recording Studio in New York to help launch the Master and Variety record labels. Chick Webb, Artie Shaw, and Duke Ellington all volunteered their time. Milt Gabler kneels behind Ellington; Oakley's British-born future husband, the jazz historian Stanley Dance, stands against the far wall. Jazz: A History of America's Music; by Geoffrey C Ward and Ken Burns

The great Billie Holiday photographed in Paris by Jean-Pierre Leloir in 1958.

Actress Hilda Simms in her dressing room applying makeup before a performance, 1949. "Anna Lucasta" and Ms. Simms's performance in the title role created a stir when the play, written by Philip Yordan and produced by the American Negro Theater, moved from Harlem to Broadway in 1944. For the first time, American playgoers saw an all-black cast acting in a drama that did not deal with racial issues. Ms. Simms played a middle-class woman who falls into prostitution and tries to fight her way back to respectability. Ms. Simms, whose original surname was Moses, was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She was one of nine children and studied teaching at the University of Minnesota until lack of money forced her to leave. In 1943, Ms. Simms moved to New York. She acted in radio dramas and joined the American Negro Theater, where she was in charge of sound effects, props and publicity. After appearing as a Southern ingenue in "Three's a Family," she was cast in "Anna Lucasta," a play written for white actors. Although most of the cast members were amateurs, the play received strong reviews and moved to Broadway. In 1947 Ms. Simms went with the play when it moved to London. While in Britain, she married the American actor Richard Angerolla. (Her first marriage, to William Simms in 1941, ended in divorce.) Under the name Julie Riccardo, she also sang in Paris nightclubs before returning to the U.S. The couple returned to the states in the 1950s and Simms embarked on a brief film career. Her first role was as co-star to heavy-weight boxing champion Joe Louis. She played the boxer' wife in The Joe Louis Story (1953). Her only other movie role was that of the hatcheck girl in Black Widow (1954). Under the name Julie Riccardo, she also sang in Paris nightclubs before returning to the United States in 1953 to make the film "The Joe Louis Story." Her other film role was in "The Black Widow" (1954). She also appeared in "The Cool World" (1960), "Tambourines to Glory" (1963) and a revival of "The Madwoman of Chaillot" (1970) in New York theaters. On television, she was in the series "The Nurses." Simms believed she was blacklisted in Hollywood in the 1950s because of alleged communist affiliations. In an article titled "I'm No Benedict Arnold," which appeared in the Pittsburgh Courier in 1960, Simms reported that the U.S. Defense Department notified her that the Department of Justice denied her passport in 1955 and canceled her scheduled 14-week USO tour of the Armed Forces in Europe. Simms, who had entertained troops and made War Bond tours during World War II, felt the Defense Department decision and perhaps dozens of other lost opportunities during that period came from speculation about her affiliation with the Communist Party in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Unable to continue her film career, Simms continued her stage career and obtained her own radio program known as Ladies Day on New York's WOV. She also became an active participant in political movements, serving as the creative arts director for the New York State Human Rights Commission where her commitment brought discrimination against black actors to the public attention and helped usher in better film roles for luminary African American actors of the era. When she became director of the creative arts program of the New York State division of human rights in the 1960's, she focused attention on discrimination and the lack of roles for black actors in film and television. After earning a master's degree in education from City College, she worked for drug treatment programs in New York. She died of pancreatic cancer on February 6, 1994, at the age of 75, at the home of her sister. Sources: NY Times, 'Hilda Simms, Actress, Dies at 75; Broadway Star of 'Anna Lucasta' by William Grimes ; Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Photographs and Prints Division

Ruby Dee, as the sweet natured good girl (dressed in white), and Eartha Kitt, as the mean bad girl (dressed in black), in the movie St. Louis Blues. The 1958 movie also starred: Nat "King" Cole, Pearl Bailey, Cab Calloway, Mahalia Jackson, and Ella Fitzgerald. Plot -- The life of legendary bluesman W.C. Handy is highly dramatized in this tuneful biopic. The story opens as his father, a minister chastises his son for playing "the devil's music." Despite his father's admonitions, Handy is drawn to the blues. He is encouraged by two disparate women, one an earthy singer from New Orleans and the other a good-hearted girl from his hometown whose main concern is Handy's happiness. Stress causes Handy to go blind for a while, but eventually he regains his sight, becomes famous for his music, and wins the respect of his father. The highlight of the film involves the performance of Handy's music by some of the great blues and jazz singers of the 1950s including Cole, Calloway, Jackson, and Fitzgerald. Songs include "Hesitating Blues," "Chantez Les Bas," "Beale Street Blues," (W.C. Handy), "Careless Love" (based on folk music by Handy; lyrics by Spencer Williams, Martha Koenig), "Morning Star," "Way Down South Where the Blues Began," "Mr. Bayle," "Aunt Hagar's Blues" (Handy; lyrics by Tim Brymn), "They that Sow" (hymn), and "Going to See My Sarah" (spiritual). ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi. Source: Brown Sugar: Eighty Years of American's Black Female Superstar by Donald Bogle

Aida Overton Walker (1880-1914), dazzled early 20th century theater audiences with her original dance routines, her enchanting singing voice, and her penchant for elegant costumes. One of the premiere African American women artists of the turn of the century, she popularized the cakewalk and introduced it to English society. In addition to her attractive stage persona and highly acclaimed performances, she won the hearts of black entertainers for numerous benefit performances near the end of her tragically short career and for her cultivation of younger women performers. She was, in the words of the New York Age's Lester Walton, the exponent of "clean, refined artistic entertainment." Born in New York City, where she gained an education and considerable musical training. At the tender age of fifteen, she joined John Isham's Octoroons, one of the most influential black touring groups of the 1890s, and the following year she became a member of the Black Patti Troubadours. Although the show consisted of dozens of performers, Overton emerged as one of the most promising soubrettes of her day. In 1898, she joined the company of the famous comedy team Bert Williams and George Walker, and appeared in all of their shows—The Policy Players (1899), The Sons of Ham (1900), In Dahomey (1902), Abyssinia (1905), and Bandanna Land (1907). Within about a year of their meeting, George Walker and Overton married and before long became one of the most admired and elegant African American couples on stage. While George Walker supplied most of the ideas for the musical comedies and Bert Williams enjoyed fame as the "funniest man in America," Aida quickly became an indispensable member of the Williams and Walker Company. In The Sons of Ham, for example, her rendition of Hannah from Savannah won praise for combining superb vocal control with acting skill that together presented a positive, strong image of black womanhood. Indeed, onstage Aida refused to comply with the plantation image of black women as plump mammies, happy to serve; like her husband, she viewed the representation of refined African American types on the stage as important political work. A talented dancer, Aida improvised original routines that her husband eagerly introduced in the shows; when In Dahomey was moved to England, Aida proved to be one of the strongest attractions. Society women invited her to their homes for private lessons in the exotic cakewalk that the Walkers had included in the show. After two seasons in England, the company returned to the United States in 1904, and it was Aida who was featured in a New York Herald interview about their tour. At times Walker asked his wife to interpret dances made famous by other performers—one example being the "Salome" dance that took Broadway by storm in the early 1900s—which she did with uneven success. After a decade of nearly continuous success with the Williams and Walker Company, Aida's career took an unexpected turn when her husband collapsed on tour with Bandanna Land. Initially Walker returned to his boyhood home of Lawrence, Kansas, where his mother took care of him. In his absence, Aida took over many of his songs and dances to keep the company together. In early 1909, however, Bandanna Land was forced to close, and Aida temporarily retired from stage work to care for her husband, now clearly seriously ill. No doubt recognizing that he likely would not recover and that she alone could support the family, she returned to the stage in Bob Cole and J. Rosamond Johnson's Red Moon in autumn 1909, and she joined the Smart Set Company in 1910. Aida also began touring the vaudeville circuit as a solo act. Less than two weeks after Walker's death in January 1911, Aida signed a two-year contract to appear as a co-star with S. H. Dudley in another all-black traveling show. Although still a relatively young woman in the early 1910s, Aida began to develop medical problems that limited her capacity for constant touring and stage performance. As early as 1908, she had begun organizing benefits to aid such institutions as the Industrial Home for Colored Working Girls, and after her contract with S. H. Dudley expired, she devoted more of her energy to such projects, which allowed her to remain in New York. She also took an interest in developing the talents of younger women in the profession, hoping to pass along her vision of black performance as refined and elegant. She produced shows for two such female groups in 1913 and 1914—the Porto Rico Girls and the Happy Girls. She encouraged them to work up original dance numbers and insisted that they don stylish costumes on stage. When Aida Overton Walker died suddenly of kidney failure on October 11, 1914, the African American entertainment community in New York went into deep mourning. The New York Age featured a lengthy obituary on its front page, and hundreds of shocked entertainers descended on her residence to confirm a story they hoped was untrue. Walker left behind a legacy of polished performance and model professionalism. Her demand for respect and her generosity made her a beloved figure in African American theater circles. Bio: Jazz: Black Musical Theater in New York, 1890-1915. Washington, D.C., Smithsonian Institution Press, 1989, Thomas L Riis Photo: "Staging Race: Black Performers in Turn of the Century America" Karen Sotiropoulos

Jewel 'Pepper' Welsh and Mildred 'Candi' Thorpe danced through the 1930s and made their New York debut at the Apollo in September 1941 on a bill that headlined Stump and Stumpy (male tap dancers). Half of the audience consisted of tap dancers 'casing' new acts. "Ladies and Gentlemen, we got two girls who are going to dance for you out of Philadelphia. Candi is sweet, Pepper is hot; come on girls, show me what you got," the emcee announced. "We tore 'em up!" Thorpe remembered. The act opened with a jazz song, such as 'On the Sunny Side of the Street," followed by a rhythm tap solo by Thorpe to 'I've Got Rhythm' played in stop-time, which allowed her to perform her rhythmic breaks without musical accompaniment. Welch followed with her expressive style of flash dancing. Tall and with a beautiful movement style, she added quick turns to her dancing, her jacket flowing from her body. They closed their act to 'One O'clock Jump,' performing trench steps, toe-touching, straddle-split jumps and Russian kazotsky kicks. 'Candi' and 'Pepper' were called back for so many encores by the Apollo audience that they were moved to the closing act, thus gaining the theater's highest billing. The act split up three years later in 1944. Sources: Frank Driggs Collection; Tap Dancing America: A Cultural History by Constance Valis Hill

Aida Overton Walker (1880-1914), dazzled early 20th century theater audiences with her original dance routines, her enchanting singing voice, and her penchant for elegant costumes. One of the premiere African American women artists of the turn of the century, she popularized the cakewalk and introduced it to English society. In addition to her attractive stage persona and highly acclaimed performances, she won the hearts of black entertainers for numerous benefit performances near the end of her tragically short career and for her cultivation of younger women performers. She was, in the words of the New York Age's Lester Walton, the exponent of "clean, refined artistic entertainment." Born in New York City, where she gained an education and considerable musical training. At the tender age of fifteen, she joined John Isham's Octoroons, one of the most influential black touring groups of the 1890s, and the following year she became a member of the Black Patti Troubadours. Although the show consisted of dozens of performers, Overton emerged as one of the most promising soubrettes of her day. In 1898, she joined the company of the famous comedy team Bert Williams and George Walker, and appeared in all of their shows—The Policy Players (1899), The Sons of Ham (1900), In Dahomey (1902), Abyssinia (1905), and Bandanna Land (1907). Within about a year of their meeting, George Walker and Overton married and before long became one of the most admired and elegant African American couples on stage. While George Walker supplied most of the ideas for the musical comedies and Bert Williams enjoyed fame as the "funniest man in America," Aida quickly became an indispensable member of the Williams and Walker Company. In The Sons of Ham, for example, her rendition of Hannah from Savannah won praise for combining superb vocal control with acting skill that together presented a positive, strong image of black womanhood. Indeed, onstage Aida refused to comply with the plantation image of black women as plump mammies, happy to serve; like her husband, she viewed the representation of refined African American types on the stage as important political work. A talented dancer, Aida improvised original routines that her husband eagerly introduced in the shows; when In Dahomey was moved to England, Aida proved to be one of the strongest attractions. Society women invited her to their homes for private lessons in the exotic cakewalk that the Walkers had included in the show. After two seasons in England, the company returned to the United States in 1904, and it was Aida who was featured in a New York Herald interview about their tour. At times Walker asked his wife to interpret dances made famous by other performers—one example being the "Salome" dance that took Broadway by storm in the early 1900s—which she did with uneven success. After a decade of nearly continuous success with the Williams and Walker Company, Aida's career took an unexpected turn when her husband collapsed on tour with Bandanna Land. Initially Walker returned to his boyhood home of Lawrence, Kansas, where his mother took care of him. In his absence, Aida took over many of his songs and dances to keep the company together. In early 1909, however, Bandanna Land was forced to close, and Aida temporarily retired from stage work to care for her husband, now clearly seriously ill. No doubt recognizing that he likely would not recover and that she alone could support the family, she returned to the stage in Bob Cole and J. Rosamond Johnson's Red Moon in autumn 1909, and she joined the Smart Set Company in 1910. Aida also began touring the vaudeville circuit as a solo act. Less than two weeks after Walker's death in January 1911, Aida signed a two-year contract to appear as a co-star with S. H. Dudley in another all-black traveling show. Although still a relatively young woman in the early 1910s, Aida began to develop medical problems that limited her capacity for constant touring and stage performance. As early as 1908, she had begun organizing benefits to aid such institutions as the Industrial Home for Colored Working Girls, and after her contract with S. H. Dudley expired, she devoted more of her energy to such projects, which allowed her to remain in New York. She also took an interest in developing the talents of younger women in the profession, hoping to pass along her vision of black performance as refined and elegant. She produced shows for two such female groups in 1913 and 1914—the Porto Rico Girls and the Happy Girls. She encouraged them to work up original dance numbers and insisted that they don stylish costumes on stage. When Aida Overton Walker died suddenly of kidney failure on October 11, 1914, the African American entertainment community in New York went into deep mourning. The New York Age featured a lengthy obituary on its front page, and hundreds of shocked entertainers descended on her residence to confirm a story they hoped was untrue. Walker left behind a legacy of polished performance and model professionalism. Her demand for respect and her generosity made her a beloved figure in African American theater circles. Sources: Jazz: Black Musical Theater in New York, 1890-1915. Washington, D.C., Smithsonian Institution Press, 1989, Thomas L Riis; James Weldon Johnson Collection in the Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library

Singer and actress Deloreese Patricia Early, better known as Della Reese, was born in Detroit, Michigan on July 6, 1931. Reese began on the path that would lead her to show business by singing in her family's church at the age of 6. Her talents landed her to tour with gospel great Mahalia Jackson while still only a teenager. By 18, Reese had formed The Meditation Singers, the group that became the first to take gospel music to the night clubs of Las Vegas. Reese began making records with the Erskine Hawkins Orchestra in the 1950s and produced such hits as "Don't You Know," and "That Reminds Me." She also began performing on television variety shows and was a regular guest on The Ed Sullivan Show. In 1969 Reese became the first black woman to have her own television variety show, although the series was short-lived. The following year she became the first black woman to guest host The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. Over the next two decades, she pursued acting and appeared in a number of TV series and movies, including Roots: The Next Generations, Chico and the Man, The Love Boat, Sanford and Son with her friend Redd Foxx and 227 with close friend Marla Gibbs. In 1989 she starred with Foxx, Richard Pryor and Eddie Murphy in Harlem Nights—and stole the show with a hilarious fight scene with Murphy. Reese had a number of health challenges over the years. In 1979 she suffered a brain aneurysm from which she made a full recovery. She announced in 2002 that she had Type 2 diabetes and subsequently became a spokeswoman for the American Diabetes Association. Reese, who was married several times, adopted several children, including a daughter who died in 2002 from a pituitary disease. From 1969 to 1970, she hosted a TV talk show while guest starring on many other shows into the 1980s, including Sanford and Son and Picket Fences. In 1987, she was nominated for a Best Female Soloist in Gospel Music Grammy Award, and in the 1990s, she landed a starring role on television's Touched By An Angel. Reese published her autobiography, Angels Along the Way: My Life With Help From Above, in 1997. In it, she joyfully recalled the human angels who provided support and guidance—and miracles—in her own life. In 1994 Reese received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. She was also one of 25 black female honorees at Oprah Winfrey’s Legends Ball in 2005. Ms. Reese died on November 19, 2017 at the age of 86. Photo and Info: Brown Sugar: Eighty Years of America's Black Female Superstars; by Donald Bogle and Monée Fields

W. C. Fields, star of the silent screen, called Bert Williams "the funniest man I ever saw and the saddest." As a central figure on America's vaudeville circuit, Williams sang, danced, and pantomimed in clubs, cabarets, and theaters across the country. Williams was one of, if not the most, famous African-American performers in the 1900s. In an age when the "white vaudeville stage did not welcome black performers," Williams pioneered an important role for black performers who had so profoundly shaped the genre. With unfortunate regularity, he was often the only African American on stage. In the 1900s Williams was the toast of the cities he toured, and in 1904 he played a command performance in England for King Edward VII. Racial prejudice shaped Williams' career. Unlike many other blackface performers, Williams did not play for laughs at the expense of other African Americans or black culture. Instead, he based his humor on universal situations in which any members of his audience might find themselves. In the style of vaudeville, Williams performed in blackface makeup like his white counterparts. Blackface worked like a double mask for him. It emphasized the difference between Williams, his fellow vaudevillians, and his white audiences. Many white vaudevillians refused to appear on the same bill with Williams, and others complained that his material, which he wrote himself, was better than theirs. Williams, like many black performers, faced discrimination from the hotels and restaurants in which he often performed. Hotels routinely refused to let Williams ride in the same elevators used by their white patrons. He once told a friend how much such seemingly petty discrimination hurt. "It wouldn't be so bad. ... if I didn't hear the applause [from his performance] still ringing in my ears." Williams was born in New Providence, Nassau, in the British West Indies, in 1874. He became a showman in 1893, when he joined Martin and Seig's Mastodon Minstrels. While performing with the Minstrels he met African American song-and-dance man George Walker, and the two men teamed up. The twosome debuted in New York's Casino Theatre in 1898 in a short-lived show, "The Gold Bug." Their act consisted of songs, dance, and quick-paced patter that centered on Walker trying to convince the slower Williams to join him in get-rich-quick schemes. Williams and Walker's popular act continued until Walker's death in 1911. Williams pioneered an important role for black performers who had so profoundly shaped the genre. Ziegfeld Follies. Williams struck out on his own when, in 1909, Walker became too ill to perform. In 1910 Florenz Ziegfeld hired Williams to be one of the stars of "The Ziegfeld Follies." He performed in the "Follies" almost continually, and his national popularity and fame grew. In 1918 Williams broke another color line when he topped the bill at New York City's Palace. Williams became famous for his pantomimed poker game. In this skit a single spotlight illuminated Williams' head and shoulders as he mimicked all the gestures of the player, from drawing cards to losing the game. The popularity of this skit led to a brief film career in the summer of 1916 when Williams appeared in the film A Natural Born Gambler. In addition to the poker-game skit, Williams introduced many popular songs to audiences across the country, such as "You Ain't So Warm," "Nobody," "That's Harmony," and "You Got the Right Church but the Wrong Pew." In 1920 Williams left the "Follies" and signed with another New York company, the Shuberts. On 21 February 1922 Williams collapsed onstage while touring with the production of "Under the Bamboo Tree." Williams returned to New York City, where he died a month later. ***************************** In 1915 the Biograph Company in an unprecedented move gave Bert Williams the authority to produce, write, direct, and star in two Biograph films both made in 1916, the "Natural Born Gambler" and "Fish", making him the first African American to have full control and produce his own films for a general audience. No other film company at that time had done such a thing. Cavendish Morton, Photographer

Florence Winfrey (later Mills) was born on January 25, 1896, in Washington, D.C. at her family home on K Street. Her parents, John and Nellie Winfree, were formerly enslaved who orignated from Lynchburg, Virginia. When Virginia's tobacco economy worsened, the family relocated to Washington, D.C. and Mills's father found work as a carpenter and day laborer. The neighborhood surrounding K Street was pleasant and stable, but the Winfrees fell upon hard times and were forced to move to a far more dangerous area of Washington called Goat Alley. Despite the family's hardships, Mills showed exceptional talents as a singer and dancer from a very young age. Mills began entering dance contests at local theaters and won several medals and other prizes. At the age of four, she performed for the first time at Washington's Bijou Theater. In 1903, she sang "Miss Hannah from Savannah" in the touring production of an African American musical comedy entitled Sons of Ham. The star of the show, an accomplished performer named Aida Overton Walker, taught Mills the song, and soon took her under her wing. Walker's guidance helped make Mills a stage phenomenon by the age of eight. In 1905 she was hired by a vaudeville company, Bonita and Hearn, and made her professional debut. Because the vaudeville company was operated by whites and played to segregated audiences, Mills, like other black vaudeville performers of the day, often performed in degrading "pickaninny" numbers that fostered racist stereotypes of African American culture. As a teenager Mills joined with her sisters, Maude and Olivia, to form a touring vaudeville troupe known as "The Mills Sisters." However, the group enjoyed only minor success. Around 1912 Mills married a man named James Randolph, but the union was short-lived. Tired of the constant travel of the vaudeville circuit, Mills settled in Chicago in 1915 and began working at the infamous Panama Café. The Café, located in South State Street's red-light district, was notorious for its freewheeling atmosphere. Blacks and whites often danced together there, which was considered very scandalous at the time, and the Café was eventually shut down by the Chicago vice squad. While working at the Panama Café, Mills sang as a member of the club's "Panama Trio." For a time, Mills performed with the Keith vaudeville troupe as a member of its "Tennessee Ten," and soon became involved with a fellow performer, Ulysses S. Thompson. They were married in 1923. Mills eventually began moving out of vaudeville and into the more stable--and lucrative--cabaret and nightclub circuit. In 1921, while performing in Harlem at the Barron's Club, she received an offer to replace one of the leads in the groundbreaking production of Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake's musical Shuffle Along. Shuffle Along, which was the first legitimate African American musical comedy and a tremendous hit with white audiences as well, made Mills a star. In sold-out performances at New York's 63rd Street Music Hall, Shuffle Along showcased African American song and dance numbers and is considered the work that introduced jazz rhythms and dance to mainstream America. The title of the musical referred to a dance step that is considered the predecessor of tap. Shuffle Along "marked the beginning of the Black Renaissance," noted Lynne Fauley Emery in Black Dance from 1619 to Today. Mills performed for five months in Shuffle Along, and received rave reviews. She sang with an unusually high-pitched voice that was sometimes described as birdlike, and her petite, lithe frame was well-suited to the energetic score. "Mills's performances were memorable," wrote Richard Newman in Notable Black American Women, "for her charismatic effectiveness in presentation. Demure and modest personally and in her private life, on stage she was assured, vivacious, and as capable of intimate mutual interaction with her audiences as a black preacher." Following her success in Shuffle Along, promoter Lew Leslie hired Mills to perform at his Plantation Club, a black-themed cabaret on Broadway that played to white audiences. Her performance in the club's "Plantation Review" was such a success that Leslie created a full-scale Broadway show of the same name, which opened at the 48th Street Theater in July of 1922. Mills's performance in Plantation Review received rave reviews from New York stage critics, who "liked her energy and vitality, her sinuous dancing, her lack of self-consciousness," wrote Newman in Notable Black American Women. The essay also explained that Plantation Review was a groundbreaking show because it attracted white audiences to an entirely African American-themed work: "...There was real appreciation for the authenticity of black song and dance, and the realization that Negro portrayals by blackface performers like Al Jolson and Eddie Cantor were only imitations of the real thing," noted Newman. In 1923, Mills was invited to appear in London in a stage work entitled Dover Street to Dixie. The show was a critical success, but the British cast considered Mills an outsider and treated her badly. It was also feared that the appearance of an African American on stage would cause London audiences to boycott the show. However, midway through the show, Mills mesmerized the audience with her beautiful singing of "The Sleeping Hills of Tennessee" and "any threat of opposition vanished, and for the rest of that night and the remainder of the show's run, she received a fervent ovation before every song she sang," wrote Newman. Dover Street to Dixie soon evolved into a New York stage show, From Dixie to Broadway, which became the first African American musical comedy in an established Broadway theater. It opened in New York in October of 1924, and Mills's rendition of "I'm a Little Blackbird Looking for a Bluebird" was a showstopper. Theater scholars point out that musical reviews such as From Dixie to Broadway gave African American performers like Mills an opportunity to showcase their talents and did much to eradicate vaudeville-era racial stereotypes. Stars such as Mills now became box-office draws, but their success depended upon remaining true to African American musical forms and the rhythms of jazz. In June of 1925, Mills became the first African American woman to headline at a Broadway venue with her engagement at the Palace Theatre. "Other blacks had been in Palace programs," explained Newman in Notable Black American Women, "but as a headliner Mills received money, billing, the best dressing room, and courtesy from management--real and symbolic achievements for a black American woman." For six weeks, Mills starred in Blackbirds of 1926 at Harlem's Alhambra Theatre. The show--featuring her signature tune, "I'm a Little Blackbird Looking for a Bluebird"--was such a hit that it opened in Paris, London, and several other British cities. At London's Pavilion Theatre the Prince of Wales, who later became King Edward VIII, reportedly saw Blackbirds over twenty times. During her time abroad, Mills was a celebrated guest at the glittering parties of young aristocrats and creative types and Evelyn Waugh reportedly based a character in his Brideshead Revisited on Mills. The heavy touring schedule for Blackbirds took a devastating toll on Mills's health and she was forced to withdraw from the show. After a stay at a spa in Germany failed to restore her health, Mills sailed back to New York City in the fall of 1927. Upon her arrival in New York, she became seriously ill and was admitted to New York's Hospital for Joint Diseases for an appendectomy. On November 1, 1927, Mills died of an intestinal obstruction known as paralytic ileus. The number of mourners at Mills's funeral at Harlem's Mount Zion African Methodist Episcopal Church was estimated at 5,000, while 150,000 lined the streets outside. She was buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx. As Newman wrote in Notable Black American Women, "Mills was one of the most popular people in Harlem during the 1920s. Blacks understood that she had never forgotten her roots, that she never put on airs, that she affirmed over and over again the heritage--and the struggle--they shared together. In appreciation for everything she meant to them, the people of Harlem gave her the grandest funeral within their considerable power, an outpouring of affection and recognition, music and flowers, tears and drama." You can find an excellent site on Mills from author Bill Egan: www.florencemills.com/ Sources: Carol Brennan at answers.com; Photographer, S.Georges