Buster Brown died at ColumbusPresbyterian Hospital in New York City onMay 7th 2002, ten days before his 89thbirthday. As Heather told us, he went natu-rally and had a smile on his face. That smilestands for his loving and happy personalitythat we all connect with Buster. At the ser-vice at St. Peters Church where many greattap and jazz artists had their service, JimmySlyde said: “Buster didn’t leave, he leftsomething for us”. And Gregory Hines gotto the heart of it: When he got into the tapbusiness and closer to the circles of tapmasters, everybody would eventually saysome not so nice things about othercollegues. But there was one guy whowould never do that. That was Buster as weall knew him. A friendly, positive, suppor-ting man who always had a good word forthe others. And as Gregory said that’s what

he left for the tap community.Buster really loved dancing, especially

tap dancing. And through him, the wholeSwing Era came back to life. His swingcame from deep inside and he really lived it.He would go out dancing and partyingwhenever he could, even when he got old.That was his life. And he could sing anytune that you could think of, and manymore. Everybody remembers him scattingthe arrangements of “Fascinating Rhythm”and “Just You” during his tap classes, andalways ending the classes with “Ballin’ theJack”. And he was definitely a “LadiesMan”. One time in Freiburg, asked on stagewhy he got into showbusiness, he lookedaround to the chorus line behind himsaying, “I think it was the girls”. And theyloved him, too. But not only them, every-body did. The auditorium at the service at

St. Peter’s was filled with old and newfriends who loved this man.

BaltimoreJames Richard “Buster” Brown was

born on May 17th 1913 in the Brownfamily’s house on 414 Hamburg Street inBaltimore, Maryland. He was the sixth ofeight children.

The last of his sisters, Ruth Jackson, asweet lady of 86 years and with Buster’skindness and positive charisma, told us alittle about their family life.

Ruth: Well, my mother said that whenhe was born he was such a little fat boy. Andthen my aunt said: “He’s just like a littleBuster.” James Richard Brown. But we calledhim Buster. And he kept that name.

BusterBrown

Story

“Got a stack of magazines about this highI can’t read them and you know whyI gotta go tap dancing tonight.”

To Busterwith loveBy Kurt Albertand Klaus Bleis

The mother Mary Brown was born in1879 as Mary Ella Otho in Calwed County,Maryland. Around 1900 she marriedBuster’s father William Brown who workedas an oyster shucker in Baltimore. Thefather died young in 1919 when Buster wasonly six years old. So the large Brownfamily was mostly brought up by hismother and he was the only male surroun-ded by seven sisters. It were Isabel, Mary,Lilian, Grace, Sadie, Buster, Ruth andMildred. The family’s income came mostlyfrom the mothers housekeeping for whitefamilies and later all the children had tosupport the household by taking jobs afterschool.

Ruth: My mother raised us all by her-self practically. And we worked, all of usworked all the time, all seven of us. I workedevery day after school and took home mysalary and gave it to my mummy. Buster didthat, too, as long as he was at home. And thenhe was sending money home when he could.

And, see, in those days neighbor fami-lies looked after each other. We were just likeone big family. People watched over and madesure you didn’t make anything wrong. Theywould tell your mother or they could spankyou too. And you go home and get anotherspanking.

We belong to the same church as whenwe were babies. And I am the last one in thechurch. We were Methodists ... UnifiedMethodist Church. We all went there asbabies. We were all christianized there, every-body. Buster went to Sunday School every sun-day. And at that time we spent most of theday sundays in church. And these people lovedto sing. And in the summertime sunday schoolhad a picknick down there near the water. Orwe went on the boat. All day long. And wedanced all day long. We had a band, and wewere dancing. All the kids were dancing. Thenwe would go back to the table to get food forthe band fellows. So they could keep playingfor us. That was nice.

The musicality and love for dancingwas also brought into the family by thefather William Brown and their uncle.

Ruth: My mother had three brothers.One died young, the other one came up toNew York and did what Buster did. He was amusician, he played the piano. His name was... Otho, in the twenties. And our father wasa cakewalker. He was a dancer, but not a pro-fessional dancer. He just liked to dance, andhe taught my sisters, my oldest ones. So we alldanced like ballroom dancing. And we allliked to go out and dance. We were called the

Brown Sisters (laughs).That was life years ago. We just loved

dancing. My sisters used to go out Fridaynight to go to dance. They never had any pro-blem getting dancers ’cause guys were laid forthem. And when the USO times came, theyalways would go to the USO and dance withthe soldiers and try to entertain them. Andthen they would invite them home and feedthem. There were so nice young men. Mymother always liked to do that ’cause she washoping that wherever my brother was that thepeople would do things like that to him.

And Buster liked Charleston. In thetwenties, we had Charleston going around.And we both could do the Charleston. Wepracticed doing the Charleston, yeah.

Years ago, they had carnivals on thestreet. And they had the band up on awaggon. And the lady came around, said:“Miss Brown, do you know that Buster is upthere on the thing doing the Charleston up onthe waggon. We were about 14, 15 years oldthen. And at that time the Charleston was arage. And I used to like to do it too. I used todo it all the time. We just liked to dance, thewhole family.

All his life Buster stayed in contactwith his family which always supported himand always was proud of him being a dancer.

Ruth: We had a big house, on Christ-mas time everybody went home. You know,Christmas was a big day for us. And whenBuster came home, bigger. When Buster camehome, everybody: “Buster’s home, Buster’shome”. We always looked forward to him.When he came home, we were very happyaround there.

Conrad: We called him “the Celebrity”of the family. He was the celebrity.

Coming up during the jazz age Busternaturally got interested in showbusiness.The whole family went, whenever theycould, to the shows that came throughtown.

Buster: I started to dance when I star-ted to walk. See, all of my family weredancers, not professionally … We did have alot of fun home. I had a large family. Sevensisters, my mother, my daddy, and we werejust enjoying our life. My cousin used to comeand play the guitar. (Ruth: His name wasCarl Wallace) And we just had the family gettogether. And so, when I was able to walk, Iwas able to do what I call dancing (tapping).What got me interested in showbusiness wasthe vaudeville shows that used to come totown. And there was a show called theWhitman Sisters (1898 – 1942, Mable,

Alice, Essie and Alberta). They had a six yearsold that could really dance. His name wasPops Whitman. And that got me interested. Iused to see his show, go home, and tear up mybasement, trying to do what he was doing.(Albert “Pops” Whitman, 1921 – 1951, sonof Alice Whitman of the Whitman Sisters,toured till 1932 with the Whitman SistersVaudeville Show, and then teamed up withLouie Williams of the Four Harmony Kings tobuild the famous tap and acrobat act Popsand Louie)

High School – Autumn Folliesand The Three Aces

Buster went to Frederick DouglassHigh School in Baltimore on Calhoun andBaker Street. It was the same school wheremany later famous musicians and dancerswent through.

Buster: Noble Sissle, Cab Calloway,Derby Wilson, all those guys were alumni ofDouglass High School. I’m so very proud ofthat.

Ruth: See, at that times schools weresegregated. We only had one school for us.Everybody went there. Buster played basket-ball, and the team he played on was called“The Ramblin’ Horsemen”. And we had awonderful music teacher, Mr. Lowell Wilson(Eubie Blake’s music teacher). He was a lovelymusic teacher. He brought everything out ofyou, you know what I mean.

He got friends with his classmateJohn Orange, and together with John as hisfirst teacher they learned dancing on thestreet and in the Brown house’s basementby exchanging steps with the other kids.Here he got one of his biggest influences injazz dance by the later famous Earl“Snakehips” Tucker who was an olderneighbor kid (see Buster’s snakehip movesin Brenda Bufalino’s documentation “GreatFeats Of Feet”).

Ruth: The first act that he had were theBrown Brothers. Yeah, first it were the two ofthem. There’s a friend of his from Baltimore.His name was John Orange, and John wasjust like a brother.

Buster: And that’s how I got into show-business. Actually, we were the “Three Aces”,and the “Speed Kings” name came later. SamCampbell, John Orange, I met them in HighSchool. That was the original act. They hadan annual show in that High School. Andevery year they would give that show. Theywould do it in the auditorium, but my first

year we did the show up there, and the nextyear when they gave the show the audiencewas too big for the auditorium, so they wentout and got a public dance hall. And fromthen on to the next three years, every year wedid “Autumn Follies”. (1928 – 1932, theshows were patterned of big shows of the RegalTheater.)

Buster, Sam and John would gothrough the night clubs of Baltimore dan-cing for tips. And, talking about famousschoolmates, Laurence Donald Jackson –Baby Laurence –, the later Charlie Parker oftap, also went to Douglass High.

Buster: Baby Laurence didn’t go toschool that much. But I knew him in Balti-more as a boy. He sang, no dancing. He waswith the “Highlanders”. He was about myage, some years difference. But we knew eachother, we were close. We did the same thing,dancing and singing the same clubs andpassing the hat in Baltimore. He was one ofthe guys that went out every night. We calledhim the “Midnight Hawk”. And he lived inBaltimore till he was dicovered by DonRedman and went with him to New York.

In his biography Cab Calloway whowas a schoolmate of Buster’s older sister saidthat he also got his first contact with show-business through Douglass High.

The Speed Kings 1Buster, John and Sam, “The Three

Aces”, graduated 1932 and went directlyinto showbusiness. They were renamed to“The Speed Kings” because their whole actwas highspeed and precision tap dance.Their first real gig besides the AutumnFollies also gave them the first impressionhow tough business can be.

Buster: 1932 when I came out of HighSchool, we went to a place fifty miles fromBaltimore, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Thatwas our first show out of Baltimore and thefirst show not being in the school. That’s whenI got the first bite from the biz. This littleshow was playing round the corner in a littlevaudeville house (Lafayette Theater) rightwhere I lived. My partners and I were dan-cing in the show, and when they went awaythey invited us to go with them, a whole week,seem like two years. This guy wasn’t payingany money and I wasn’t enjoying it much.When I looked up on stage and seen one of myneighbors, almost like a brother, sitting out inthe audience, I stopped right there, I said:

“Let’s go, I’m ready to go home!” And when Icame home my sister laughed at me.

Ruth: He was in Pennsylvania andmama didn’t know where he was. And whenwe found out where he was, Mama toldBubba to find him. (The young man in theblock, Nathaniel Butler, we called himBubba, he adopted Buster because he didn’thave a brother.) So he went up, finally foundhim and brought him home.

Buster: Then the same show got a jobin Columbus, Ohio, and they would say:“Listen, man, don’t worry about nothing! Assoon as we get there we tell the man about youguys.” And two days later we got a telegram ifwe would like to come to Columbus theywould send us the money, and they did. Wewent to that place and we worked there aweek and then an agent came in fromCleveland, Frank McSina.

Jeni LeGon TourBuster: Then we went to Cleveland.

The last day that we were with the show inPhiladelphia we were standing getting ourstuff out of the bus when a guy named Emmetcame up, he had been at a rehearsal rightacross the street at the Lincoln Theater wherethe bus stopped, and he asked for us, ’cause Imet him before in Cleveland. He asked: “IsBuster Brown of the Speed Kings on thisbus?”. They said: “Yes, he is in the back.” Sohe came back, said: “Listen, you guys wannawork? Jeni LeGon is rehearsing across thestreet.” So we went there. Her manager andteacher was named Earl Dancer. And fromthat day we were with that show. So westayed with that show for two weeks, a varietyshow featuring Jeni LeGon. We were in Phila-delphia with her, then we went to Washing-ton, D.C., the Howard Theater. After

Washington we went back with them, not towork, we just went with them. I was justenjoying showbusiness. I was really having aball.

Brownskin ModelsTheir next big engagement was with

the show “Brownskin Models”.Buster: I must have stayed with

“Brownskin Models” with the “Speed Kings”for about two years, 36, ’37, something likethat. Al Stewart, he was with “BrownskinModels”, he wrote down everything. He had abook, and everytime we seen him he had thisbook. I don’t know where I was last night, youknow. But I have been in New York at theApollo with the “Brownskin Models”.

Ruth: Buster got married. He had adaughter, Lolita Price. She travelled withthem as a baby. Her mother was a BrownskinModel, she was a beautiful girl. We called herBootsy. He married her in the theater. Thatwas in the thirties, 1937. They lived in Cleve-land. But they travelled all the time. He wason the road most of the time.

Buster: After two years, that show brokeup. Then we went to Canada and that waswhere one of my act, John, was drowned whilewe were in Susan St. Marie, Canada.

Ruth: He died very young when theywere in Canada. He was drowned. It just sohappened. He stayed in the house and wassleeping and John went out to swim. AndBuster had to bring him back home.

That tragedy was the end of the“Speed Kings 1”.Jeni LeGon and Bill Robinson.

The Speed Kings 2 – Comingto New York

Buster: So I came home to Baltimore,stayed there a little while, then I went back toCleveland where I met Emmet McClure andSylvester Luke. And so I put the act backtogether, and that was the “Speed Kings 2”.

We danced a Soft Shoe, then we didrhythm. We did a whole medley of tunes, threenumbers. Soft Shoe, the rhythm dancing. Weopened with the Soft Shoe, and the musicnever stopped from the point we started. Fromthe Soft Shoe we segued into something else,and everytime the dancing would do some-

thing different dancewise. Very fast and withprecision. When we danced everybody’s handswere together. We admired “Pete, Peaches andDuke” who were one of thegreatest precision dancers. Iheard so much about thembefore I actually seen them.When we were in Cleve-land that’s the first time weseen them. I remember wewere working in a place,the “E-light Club”, andthey came in town for aone-nighter. And they wereplaying an auditorium. Wewent over to see them. Wedidn’t care whether the man(for whom we worked)liked this or not, we’ve gotto see “Pete, Peaches andDuke”. ’Cause we had

tried to imitate them but we never seen them.They did everything. Everything they didlooked like they had almost … Everything theydid was together. And they dressed well. Theywere the best dressed tap dancing act ever.

With the Speed Kings 2 I actuallyreally came to New York, that was in 1939.We stopped at my home in Baltimore, andthat’s when we wrote the Apollo Theater, wesent pictures, and they sent a contract. So wewent to New York and made New York ourheadquarters. We played the Apollo withChick Webb’s band.

Second job was at Small’s Paradise withEarl Bostic’s band. But then we didn’t workfor a year. We had good friends there in NewYork, and dancers were great friends. Theywould say: “Come on, man, come home withme!” And my two partners would get a girland wherever they stayed I stayed.

I remember the Hoofers Club. TheHoofers Club was a club where you just goand dance, you know. If you feel like youwanna rehearse, you go in there and rehearse,put an act together, go there rehearse, youknow. And some of the guys in there wouldgive you some help. All the great dancerssooner or later came there. I did only see thelast year of the Hoofers Club. The owner usedto fix the floor when it kinda broke down.When we went in there, there was nobody inthere but us. A guy named Duke, a bassplayer, said: “I will bring you round theHoofers Club.” A guy named Acie, a verygood dancer, he was from Philadelphia, heand the bass player took us, and then wedanced a little bit. At least we could say wedanced in the Hoofers Club.

Then, after one year, somebody gave usa job. We met a girl who had been a bigchorus girl in New York, and she did ask me

The Speed Kings 2: Sylvester Luke, Emmet McClure,Buster Brown. Photo Credit: L. E. Bigham. Photocourtesy Buster Brown.

The Speed Kings 2: Sylvester Luke, Emmet McClure, Buster Brown.Photo courtesy Buster Brown.

did I know Green. This girl said her husbandwas an agent. And she said: “You should getin touch with this guy.” And we did. Andthat’s when we started getting work. This guywas great for us. We were very lucky to gethim. And that’s when we started doing mostlyclub dates, like all the big hotels had bigbands back then in New York. We worked for“Beckman & Pransky”. I stayed with Emmetand Sylvester about seven years till the warbroke us up, 1942.

One of the last things they did was in1942 the Hollywood Columbia MusicalMovie “Something to shout about” directedby Gregory Ratoff. Stars were Don Ameche,Janet Blair and Jack Oakie. Also on the billwere Hazel Scott, Charles Walker of Chuckand Chuckles and Cyd Charisse (her firstfilm appearance). The film came out 1943.It was a bland Cole Porter Musical with onehit song, “You’d be so nice to come hometo” which was nominated for two Oscars(song and scoring). It’s about an ex chorusgirl who decides to put on a show herself.

They can also be seen in a soundiefeaturing Bill Robinson’s wife and the ThreeSpeed Kings.

The Three RiffsBuster: The Speed Kings broke up in

Detroit, and then I went with “The ThreeRiffs” who were also in Detroit. This was asinging act. And I taught them a chorus of atap routine to “Just you”. We did two songsand we closed with this dance routine. I knewthem from before, they lived also in theBraddock Hotel in Harlem. None of usworking at that time, and we all lived in theBraddock Hotel. So we been always in theirroom listen to them sing. So I knew the tunes.They had a great act, “The Three Riffs”. Istayed with them six months.

Buster first time soloBuster: Then I left New York for Boston

to form my single act. It must have taken sixmonths to learn a single ’cause I didn’t wantto use nothing I used with the trio. So every-thing I did was brand-new. So I put togethereverything. I talked, told jokes, opened upwith a Soft Shoe, then I would introduce theother things as I went along, and then I didflash at the closing. Same pattern, Soft Shoe,rhythm dance, flash dance, and over. And itwas getting kind of funny, I always was usedto step back and let somebody else do some-

thing, but now I was solo, no rest. But Ienjoyed it. Everything was enjoyable.

Brown and Beige(1945 – 1951)

Buster: While I was in Boston puttingmy thing together I met Pippy, Ernest Cathy,the later “Beige”, and we put somethingtogether. There was nothing else to do, youknow. So we danced together a little while,maybe five or six years. We got a good act. But

then he started to get in trouble. He wouldalways be in trouble. We were getting ready todo the Kate Smith Show, we went to therehearsal early, did the rehearsal, come home,dressed up before showtime, then couldn’t findhim. Could not find him. Didn’t show up forit. So I went back for one of my partners ofthe “Speed Kings”, Sylvester Luke. I said: “Youremember our first dance?” He said: “Yeah!”So we opened up with our first thing, then wedid our own, single.

Conrad: Pippy never married. He justcame down to visit when Buster came. He was

Brown and Beige: Buster Brown and Ernest Cathy (Pippy).Photo Credit: Gaby of Montreal. Photo courtesy Buster Brown.

a happy-go-lucky guy. He was definitely ahappy-go-lucky guy. The guy who likes to dohis own thing. Buster had to father him.Buster had to keep him close ’cause sometimeshe didn’t show up for the gig. What happenedto him? He had a condition that he wastrying to feed and then took him over. One ofthose things. Buster never took those drugs,but Pippy. Heroin was the drug of the time.And when Pippy wouldn’t show they lost thejob. Buster hated to let him go because he wasa good dancer. Boy, he could dance. On stageat the Royal Theater they had a good 15minutes. They would come out, say a fewwords, jokes, he could emcee a bit while theywere dancing. And all of a sudden they cutloose. And then they would do acrobats thatwas part of the act. Splits and all that kind ofstuff. They were very good. The video that wesaw from the sixties that was his rhythm. Thatwas the same thing. He danced the rhythm.He was a rhythm dancer, you know. Hemastered it. And he stuck to it. That was histhing.

Brown and Beige used the tunes“Laura” (1945 by D. Raksin), “I GotRhythm” and “Just You, Just Me” for theiract.

Again soloBuster: Around 1950 I was doing a

single. I broke up the act. We did several TVshows when TV first came in. “Beige” messedup so many times. We were in Canada and hefelt like going home. So he just left and wenthome. That’s when I had to work alone. I wasready for that. I did a single in the fifties, Iworked everywhere. I worked Chicago. TheRegal Theater, the new Club de Lisa. I don’tremember all the dates and places. I was surebeing busy having a good time. Icouldn’t keep money two minutes.Money burned my pocket. I could bepaid that night and three days laterbe broke. I just started picking moneywhen I was with the Ink Spots (70s).I didn’t think that money was thatimportant before that.

ChocolateersBuster: I worked with the

“Chocolateers”. I didn’t work withthem that long ’cause I was in forEddie Jefferson. So Eddie told them:

“Go and see whether Buster can do it.”Chuckles was with them when they were inGermany (1956). And he was with the“Chocolateers” just before Eddie Jefferson.Eddie Jefferson was tap dancing, doing every-thing. Eddie, when he was a little kid, he hada hell of a radio show. He was a star. Hecould do everything. The “Chocolateers” wereEddie West, Paul Black and Gib Gibson. Ireplaced Eddie. It was comedy dancing andsinging. They were originating the “Peckin’”.They did “Peckin’” in a picture, a soundie.That was a big thing, the “Peckin’”, that’swhat put them on the map.

Brown and Beige at the Apollo. Photo courtesy Buster Brown.

The Three Chocolateers became famous in 1937 by creating the“Peckin’” in the films “Murder at the Vanities” and “New Faces”.

The tap decline – jobsBuster: The work got so bad right after

Bill Robinson died in 1949. That’s wheneverything just fell. Bang. No more jobs. Itwas not in the same moment when he died,but it slowly went down afterwards. Theaterswere closing. You know, before when we weredancing, there were many theaters. All themovies came to that theaters. There weremany theaters and night clubs to work. We gotfortune enough to get to the real famoustheaters and the real famous night clubs. Itwas great. But then in the fifties and sixties Ihad every kind of job you can think of to sur-vive. Tap dance became something on the side,you know. I was working for a record com-pany … that was located on 50th Street andBroadway, they had Basie. Oh, I had a lot ofjobs. I had a restaurant on 7th Avenue andHolland. I managed it. It was named afterthe guy I was working for, Bobby’s Restaurant.

The HoofersBuster: Then I danced with the

Hoofers, but that’s in the sixties. They startedhere on 125th Street in the sixties. Every

Monday, you know. But the onethat I thought that really financedthe show was Letitia Jay. She hadthe money to put down for thetheater. That’s why I said she wasresponsible for the Hoofers gettingreally started. Lon Chaney, BabyLaurence, L.D., a guy named“Big Red” (“Rhythm Red”). Allthe guys that thought about dan-cing would go down there onMonday to jam and so the mangave them the theater every Monday night. Itturned out to be a good performance with

good press. We weregetting great press,you know. AndLetitia was in theshow. She loved tapdancing and shewas a dancer, too.She used to docrazy stuff, eccen-tric dance. Sheworked withChuck. One show

she did with us. That was in 1966 in Berlin,that wasn’t yet the Hoofers, we called it “TheHarlem Allstars”.

Around the same time Letitia Jay pro-duced a TV show with Buster Brown, GibGibson, Jimmy Slyde, Fred Kelly, ChuckGreen and Ralph Brown.

Buster: Then in 1968 we went toAfrica. And I know that really started doingthe Hoofers. This started really in ’68. Webeen there in Africa eight weeks and it wasduring the summer. (The Hoofers touredAfrica with the State Department sponsoredJazz Dance Theater. While in Africa, theygave a command performance for EmperorHaile Selassie who awarded them with “TheLion Of Judea Coin”.)

The Harlem Allstars: Buster Brown, Jimmy Slyde, Baby Laurence, Chuck Green and Letitia Jay at the Berlin Jazz Festival 1966. Photo Credit: Josef Werkmeister.

The Hoofers: Buster Brown, Baby Laurence, ChuckGreen, L.D. Jackson, John McPhee. At the NewportJazz Festival 1972. Photo Credit: Josef Werkmeister.

Duke EllingtonDuring 1966 Buster also toured as a

soloist with the Duke Ellington Big Bandthroughout the United States and Canadadoing Ellingtons famous “Sacred Concert”(“David danced before the Lord”).

Buster: I think it was the greatest thinglike … when I had the opportunity to workwith Duke Ellington. It’s like going to heaven.Really, I still look at this … I’m dancing withDuke Ellington. I never did get over that.Never have. That’s the beautifullest thing inmy life.

1967 Buster moved with his secondwife Dorothy and his two sons Ricky andShawn into the apartment that he held upto now on 884 Riverside Drive.

Ink SpotsBuster: I was working with the Ink

Spots, singing in the seventies. Ralph Brownwas with us. I was with them before Ralphcame. We both sang. This was jazz singing.We hum with them and then we go out andtap danced. But that wasn’t the original InkSpots. There were about eight or ten Ink Spotacts working everywhere. I was working forJoe Bothman. He had been with the Ink Spotsfor a half minute. I went to school with one ofthe original Ink Spots, Billy Kenny. We wentto High School, and he was in the “Follies”with us.

Everything gets copaseticAt the beginning

of the seventies Busterbecame a lifetime mem-ber of the CopaseticsClub founded in thehonour of the late BillBojangles Robinson

and so became the only dancer who dancedwith the Hoofers and was a member of theCopasetics – the only Hoofersetic.

Buster: I was with the Ink Spots, andwhen I came home my wife said: “You arenow a Copasetic.” I said: “How had thathappened?” They looked out for new membersand somebody mentioned my name. Theysaid: “Okay, he can come in.” I never tried to,they asked me. I worked with the Hoofers andI worked with the Copasetics. And I workedwith the Hoofers again. These guys formed theclub when Bill Robinson died, same year

(1949). Honi Coles, Cholly Atkins, BillyStrayhorn, he was President, and then, CharlesCook. Everybody in there was in showbusiness.Gib was with us, Bubba Gaines, Cookie,Brownie, all of the Copasetics. Paul Black,Brownie, Gib, Stump of “Stump and Stumpy”– James Cross –, Stumpy was Harold Cromer.And with the Copasetics we did a lot of bene-fits. One we had in a mental institution –they were C R A A A Z Y about us. There wasa guy hangin’ from the ceiling. And anotherone brooming the floor beneath him. I askedthe doctor: “What’s this dude doin’ up there?”.He said: “Oh, don’t pay him no mind. Hethinks he is a light bulb. But follow us, he’sready for getting his treatment. The doctor gotup, screwed him out of the socket and we wentto the treatment room. When we turnedaround we saw the brooming guy following us.The doctor said: “What are you doin’ overhere?” He said: “Do you think I wanna broomover there in the dark?”

In 1974 one of the best tap docu-mentaries, “Great Feats Of Feet”, was doneby Brenda Bufalino. It shows the puttingtogether of a Copasetics show by CharlesCookie Cook. It features Buster Brown,Charles Cookie Cook, Ernest BrownieBrown, Leslie Bubba Gaines, Albert GibGibson and Charles Honi Coles.

Around this time must have beenBuster’s tour with Cab Calloway’s “JazzTrain” through South America.

1980 – 2002Getting an old master

In the eighties and nineties when tapdance really started to come back one couldfind Buster wherever tap dance wasfeatured, dancing in the Broadway shows

“Bubbling Brown Sugar” and “Black andBlue”, dancing and teaching at all theupcoming tap festivals and workshops inAmerica and working with the Hoofers, theCopasetics, Leon Collins (“SchnitzelBrothers”) and as a single in Europe.

In 1980 you could see Buster withthe Hoofers in the TV production “TapDancing” and in 1984 in the Francis FordCoppola movie “Cotton Club”. In 1987 hewas in Susan Goldbetter’s video production“Cookie’s Scrapbook”.

In 2000 Buster toured with “SavionGlover And Friends – Footnotes” (withJimmy Slyde and Dianne Walker).

The Copasetics: Leslie “Bubba” Gaines, Charles “Cookie” Cook, Ernest “Brownie” Brown, James “Buster”Brown. Photo courtesy Brenda Bufalino (from “Great Feats of Feet”).

The last few years Buster had his ownweekly tap jam session on Sunday at Swing46 in New York City.

In February 2002 he was honoured asa “Doctor of Performing Arts” at the Okla-homa City University.

During the last two years when hishealth got bad, he was fortunate to havemany good friends like Max Pollak,

Heather Cornell and his son Shawn whohelped and took care of him. The last weeksin hospital he was surrounded by lovingvisitors.

This article was made from interviewswith Buster Brown (1994) and with RuthJackson (sister) and Conrad Turner (nephew)

(May 2002), completed with excerpts fromBrenda Bufalino’s interview in “Great FeatsOf Feet” (1974).

BALLIN’ THE JACK (1913, Smith /Burris)(Buster’s favourite workshop closing)

First you put your two knees close up tightAnd then you wiggle ‘em to the left, and youwiggle ‘em to the rightThen you walk around the floor kinda niceand lightAnd then you twist around, twist around,with all of your mightPut your two loving arms out in spaceAnd then you do the Eagle Rock with a lot ofstyle and gracePut your right foot up and bring it backTHAT’S WHAT WE CALL BALLIN’ THEJACK.

Jammin’ at Swing 46 with longtime friend, tap dancerFay Ray.

Monday night swingin’ it out at Wells Restaurantwith swing dancer Norma Miller