Leonard Reed
Early life and career
Born in Lightning Creek, Oklahoma, near Nowata, on January 7, 1907, a mix of black, white and Choctaw. His mother died of pneumonia when he was 2, and he never knew his father. He was raised by his great-grandmother until he was 11, when he was placed in a foster home in Kansas City, Missouri.
He was soon running with the wrong crowd, and at the age of 13 was threatened with a four-year stretch in reform school for buying alcohol under-age. However, the headmaster of his high school, Hugh Oliver Cook, knew that Leonard was being habitually assaulted by the guardian of the foster home, and offered to adopt him if he were not jailed.
By 15, Leonard had a weekend job selling popcorn at a theater in Kansas City. The Charleston craze was sweeping the United States, and he learned how to dance it by copying the performers on stage. Soon Reed was good enough to win local Charleston contests and spent the summer of 1922 as the barker for a black "tent show", or traveling revue. He began to work for the likes of Travis Tucker in his holidays and then, at 18, while in New York visiting his prospective university, Cornell, entered and won a Charleston competition for whites. The victory proved to be his passport to the white theaters as well. He attended Cornell University but after winning another Charleston contest on a bet, he left school to start his dancing career.
He began in entertainment as a specialist Charleston dancer, doing three-minute slots in the shows that toured the black theater circuits of the South and Mid-West. He learned to tap by watching other performers, and while appearing in a revue called Hits and Bits of 1922 was forced to parade his new skills when its star, Travis Tucker, was found to be too drunk to appear. Reed was 15. Soon he was a regular visitor to the Hoofers Club, on 7th Avenue in Harlem, where dancers such as Bill Robinson traded steps and styles with all comers. Reed started working for the Whitman Sisters, who were acknowledged to have the best black revue, and formed a partnership with the similarly light-skinned Willie Bryant: "Reed & Bryant - Brains as well as Feet".
Shim Sham Shimmy
In about 1930, Reed and Bryant devised a new finale for their eight-minute show, a step of simple heel-and-toe combinations danced to four eight-bar choruses - tunes such as Tuxedo Junction or Ain't What You Do. He and Bryant originally called it "Goofus", but it became known as the Shim Sham after a club where they regularly appeared. Its simplicity, and suitability as a line dance, especially with the newly popular swing music, meant that it was quickly picked up and disseminated by clubgoers. It has endured ever since, and has been called the anthem of tap.
Producer career
In 1934 he and Bryant broke up, and at the age of 26 Reed became a producer, working in Chicago, Los Angeles and New York with some of the era's best-known black performers. He staged shows at the famed Cotton Club and later managed the Apollo Theater, where he also served as master of ceremonies for 20 years. He also developed his talents as a songwriter, arranger, bandleader and comedian. "Dancing has been my only love," he said in a Fort Worth Star Telegram interview. "But I didn't let dancing stop me from doing other things. I have the ability to be multitalented." In 1937, he was injured in a car accident and so was unfit for service during the Second World War, which he spent entertaining troops.
Post war and later years
The 1960s found him working for record companies, producing acts, choreographing dance numbers, and helping launch the career of singer Dinah Washington. He also wrote songs and taught dance in his Hollywood dance studio and in master classes coast to coast. He received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Music Awards in 2000, and two years later received an honorary Doctorate of Performing Arts degree from Oklahoma City University. At that time, he told the Sunday Oklahoman that his long, active life could be credited to "women, golf and show business... but not necessarily in that order."
He also wrote a number of songs that were recorded by various artists such as Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Chick Webb, and Lionel Hampton. Several of these songs have been recorded by Mora’s Modern Rhythmists, including his 1935 tune, "A Viper’s Moan," as well as his 1932 hit, "It’s Over Because We’re Through," with Leonard himself singing the vocals.
Leonard Reed lived in southern California, and until his late nineties continued to teach tap dancing.
He married, in 1951, Barbara De Costa. At 97, Leonard Reed died in his sleep in a West Covina, CA hospital Monday night April 5, 2004 of congestive heart failure. His survivors include his wife Barbara, a daughter, a granddaughter, and two great-grandchildren.
References
External links
- Leonard Reed's Original Shim Sham Shimmy DVD on Amazon.com
- Leonard Reed on IMDB
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