In January of 1967 Ziggy treated students at his school to a Monday night pizza party to celebrate John Bubbles. Ziggy’s small fry crowded around the television in his office to watch Bubbles execute a few “impossible steps” and sing “The Town Where I was Born” on The Lucy Show. The students applauded so loudly for Bubbles (wearing an understated baby-blue sweater, gray slacks, and an open-collared shirt) that their thunder drowned out some of the details of Bubbles and Buck’s history that Ziggy was imparting. Soon as the credits had run, the phone on Ziggy’s office desk rang. A hush came over the room. The call was hoped for, but not promised; the students were prepared “just in case.” Soon as Ziggy said, “John,” he held the receiver out and the students yelled, “Best dancer in the history of the world!” When Ziggy hung up the phone he loudly proclaimed: “There are three things I never want you to forget: Ziggy loves you. Detroit is your hometown. And John ‘Bubbles’ Sublett is a genius.”
Bubbles and Buck
PATRON SAINT OF: Dynamic Duos and Unbreakable Teams
Sweetest people I have ever known: Bubbles and Buck. It was a long and loyal love. Bubbles and Buck, alias John Sublett and Ford Lee Washington, started working together in their teens. They danced together for going on forty years, till Washington died, in 1955. Exactly what the flavor of the love was, nobody who knows will be telling. We tell this: Bubbles can still write his name in chalk on a stage with his feet.
They were closer than close. Brothers. Lovers? Something sweet. Something strong. Something that lasted. Something white folks could not pry apart, and they tried. Gershwin. Eleanor Powell. Everybody wanted Bubbles, fewer folks wanted Buck. You wanted Bubbles, you got Buck, too. That’s how Sublett do.
John William Sublett was the original Sportin’ Life in Porgy and Bess on Broadway.
Bubbles could sing. When he brought the character of Sportin’ Life into flesh-and-blood being, he injected nuances of meaning into “It Ain’t Necessarily So” that the composer, George Gershwin, didn’t put there, that the lyricist, Ira Gershwin, didn’t put there, that the director didn’t catch. His sepian audience heard it. And generations of actors after him who played the role Bubbles created, they heard it. I heard it. But you won’t hear Bubbles on those early albums. They got white singers from the Metropolitan Opera to sing “best of Porgy and Bess.” Now that’s a bold-face, ugly-as-homemade-sin lie. No matter.
Bubbles had a voice. And it was in no way ordinary. His voice didn’t change until 1920. When he was eighteen. Then he couldn’t get and keep his notes for a while. Said he would slide right off them. So he started dancing. Practicing all night long and crying when he couldn’t get a step, he lived on coffee and donuts while he invented tap as we know it.
Everyone who came after echoed him. We thought he danced better than Bill “Bojangles” Robinson. Bubbles, everybody says, everybody knows, he invented rhythm tap dancing. Others danced on their toes. He danced on his heels. Dropped those heels, exploding Western ideas about the length of a bar and bars to the beat. Bubbles didn’t read music. He was music. Complex music. Evolving music, improvising music. Music that expressed his understanding of the power of fluidity wrapped in snap. Just like Buck.
Ford Lee Washington, Buck, doesn’t get the acclaim he deserved as a serious jazz pianist. Buck played the left hand of a dangerous and loving God—and that’s a good God worth knowing.
In 1934 when I was picking up stateside dates with Butterbeans and Susie, Bubbles and Buck were on one of the Blackbirds tours, an extravagant and sophisticated musical revue that played London and all over Europe, attracting a cosmopolitan-cool ofay audience, they met a music-loving aristocrat we called The Dane.
The Dane thought Buck played like Earl Hines. Actually, he compared Buck to everybody great. Buck played like nobody but himself. He was great; that, the Dane was right about. The rest was, he was as in love with Buck as Bubbles was. We all were—but only Bubbles got him.
They come up hard. Starting in 1919 too many times, both men put on corkface to perform. They played Europe, Broadway, in the big-ticket drama shows, not just musical reviews. Real dramas with real music including the big one: Porgy and Bess. Bubbles and Buck were the first Black entertainers to appear on a television show. They were on a BBC show in 1936. Stars of the white circuits, they played the Palace, the Keith, the Orpheum, and the most prestigious houses on the white circuits, but they were made for film—it captured their details and they had so many gorgeous details.
Bubbles and Buck did a number called “Love Is in the Air Tonight” in the 1937 film Varsity Show. I love this bit. They are in long, light tails and top hats. And Bubbles is singing a love song to Buck. It’s strange, the words of the song I remember: “Have you got any villains you want to have laid to rest? You can tell all the papers I did it because I love you.” They promised to kill people for the love of the other, and nobody noticed. What was that?
I thought they would always be together, die in each other’s arms. I would have thought Bubbles would have gone just after Buck. He didn’t. He rose from those ashes. Started showing up on teevee more often. Became one of the most powerful acts I ever did see on teevee. Loved seeing Bubbles dance in a sports jacket and dark pants. Bubbles dancing with Judy Garland. “Me and My Shadow.” Judy Garland was the shadow. Bubbles was Me.
I want Bubbles to tap at my funeral, write my name in the Michigan snow, with his low-dropped heels. I want that man who cried like a baby when he couldn’t get a step, and stepped like a man when it was achieved, to write my elegy with his well-dropped heels, and with the tips of his toes.
LIBATION FOR THE FEAST DAY OF BUBBLES AND BUCK:
Something That Lasted
1 jigger of cognac
1 sugar cube
1 lemon peel
Hot water
Place sugar cube and a couple of tablespoons of hot water into a vessel suited for a hot beverage. Muddle the sugar and stir briefly. Add cognac and 4 to 5 ounces more of hot water. Twist lemon peel over the top, then drop into the cocktail.