John W. Bubbles

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Portrait of John W. Bubbles, as Sportin' Life in Porgy & Bess by Carl Van Vechten, 1935 Dec. 27.

John William Sublett (February 19, 1902 – May 18, 1986), known by his stage name John W. Bubbles, was an American vaudeville performer, singer and entertainer.

Born in Louisville, Kentucky, Sublett's family soon moved to New York City. Here, the ten-year-old performed with Ford L. Buck in "Buck and Bubbles" begininng in the 1930s, with Buck playing piano and singing while Bubbles tapped. The two appeared in the Ziegfield Follies of 1931 and were the first black artists to appear at the Radio City Music Hall.

Sublett is known as the father of "rhythm tap", a form of tap dance. As opposed to the tap dancing of Bill Robinson (Bojangles) who emphasized clean phrases and toe taps, Sublett brought in percussive heel stomps 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. [1] [2]

Though unable to read music, Bubbles was chosen by George Gershwin to create the role of Sportin' Life in his opera Porgy and Bess in 1935. Sublett performed the role occasionally for the next two decades. In 1963, in a studio recording of Porgy and Bess featuring Leontyne Price and William Warfield, 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 who considered Sublett the finest tap dancer of his generation. In the number "Bojangles of Harlem" from Swing Time (1936) Astaire dresses in blackface as the Sportin' Life character and dances in the style of Sublett while ostensibly paying tribute to Bill Robinson.^[1]

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 in 1937, Cabin in the Sky in 1943 and A Song Is Born in 1948. In later life, he also made television appearances, one of his last being on a musical episode of The Lucy Show, which, in addition to Bubbles, also guest-starred Mel Torme.

Sublett received the 1980 Life Achievement Award from the American Guild of Variety Artists. He died in 1986 in New York City.