Leonard Reed was an American tap

Tap dance

Tap dance is a form of dance characterized by using the sound of one's tap shoes hitting the floor as a percussive instrument. As such, it is also commonly considered to be a form of music. Two major variations on tap dance exist: rhythm tap and Broadway tap. Broadway tap focuses more on the...

 dancer, co-creator with his partner, Willie Bryant

Willie Bryant

Willie Bryant was an American jazz bandleader, vocalist, and disc jockey.Born in New Orleans, Louisiana, Bryant grew up in Chicago and took trumpet lessons to little success. His first job in entertainment was dancing in the Whitman Sisters Show in 1926...

, of the famous Shim Sham Shimmy (Goofus) dance routine.

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

Kansas City, Missouri

Kansas City, Missouri is the largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri and is the anchor city of the Kansas City Metropolitan Area, the second largest metropolitan area in Missouri. It encompasses in parts of Jackson, Clay, Cass, and Platte counties...

, 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

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

 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

Cornell University

Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...

 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

Hoofers Club

The Hoofers Club was an African-American entertainment establishment and dancers club hangout in Harlem, New York, in the early to mid twentieth century. The club was a legendary site of some of the best of jazz and tap performers , particularly in the 1920s and 1930s...

, on 7th Avenue in Harlem

Harlem

Harlem is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, which since the 1920s has been a major African-American residential, cultural and business center. Originally a Dutch village, formally organized in 1658, it is named after the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands...

, where dancers such as Bill Robinson

Bill Robinson

Bill “Bojangles” Robinson was an American tap dancer and actor of stage and film. Audiences enjoyed his understated style, which eschewed the frenetic manner of the jitterbug in favor of cool and reserve; rarely did he use his upper body, relying instead on busy, inventive feet, and an expressive...

 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

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

, Los Angeles

Los Ángeles

Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

 and New York

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

 with some of the era's best-known black performers. He staged shows at the famed Cotton Club

Cotton Club

The Cotton Club was a famous night club in Harlem, New York City that operated during Prohibition that included jazz music. While the club featured many of the greatest African American entertainers of the era, such as Fletcher Henderson, Duke Ellington, Adelaide Hall, Count Basie, Bessie Smith,...

 and later managed the Apollo Theater

Apollo Theater

The Apollo Theater in New York City is one of the most famous, and older, music halls in the United States, and the most famous club associated almost exclusively with Black performers...

, 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

Dinah Washington

Dinah Washington, born Ruth Lee Jones , was an American blues, R&B and jazz singer. She has been cited as "the most popular black female recording artist of the '50s", and called "The Queen of the Blues"...

. 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

Oklahoma City University

Oklahoma City University, often referred to as OCU, is a coeducational, urban, private university historically affiliated with the United Methodist Church...

. 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

Ella Fitzgerald

Ella Jane Fitzgerald , also known as the "First Lady of Song" and "Lady Ella," was an American jazz and song vocalist...

, Louis Armstrong

Louis Armstrong

Louis Armstrong , nicknamed Satchmo or Pops, was an American jazz trumpeter and singer from New Orleans, Louisiana....

, Chick Webb

Chick Webb

William Henry Webb, usually known as Chick Webb was an American jazz and swing music drummer as well as a band leader.-Biography:...

, and Lionel Hampton

Lionel Hampton

Lionel Leo Hampton was an American jazz vibraphonist, pianist, percussionist, bandleader and actor. Like Red Norvo, he was one of the first jazz vibraphone players. Hampton ranks among the great names in jazz history, having worked with a who's who of jazz musicians, from Benny Goodman and Buddy...

. 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.

External links

• Leonard Reed's Original Shim Sham Shimmy DVD on Amazon.com
• Leonard Reed on IMDB