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• "King" Rastus Brown

From:

• Performing Arts Encyclopedia
• Tap Dance America

Place of Birth: Louisville, KY

King Rastus Brown, the legendary buck dancer whose style represented a high point in the evolution of the buck dance and its related paddle-and-roll style of hoofing, was reportedly born in Louisville Kentucky (others say Boston, Massachusetts), and became known in the New York area around 1903. Early reports about him were that he won a buck dance contest at Madison Square Garden in 1910.

Tap legend has it that Brown was one of he many regulars at the Hoofer's Club, located in the back room of a gambling joint located next door to the Lafayette Theater, on the corner of Seventh Avenue and 131st Street in New York City. When he walked into the room, such was the respect and admiration that all other dancers stopped to see what the "King" was about to do. He always turned to the piano player and requested what was known as "The Buck Dancer's Lament," a simple tune that could be played with one finger. Brown would start his own version of the time step, and during the break in the music throw in some improvisation, this done so that other dancers would be challenged to pick up the steps. Brown was well-known for his generosity in sharing steps with younger dancers; the comedian Bob Hope was taught by King Rastus Brown. Hoofers were very protective of their materials, and Brown was loudly critical of Bill Robinson for having stolen his famous stair dance from him, even though Robinson was accused of stealing it from vaudevillian Al Leach. It is said that Brown could imitate anything and that he could dance for an hour straight while standing up, then continue to tap for another hour while seated, never repeating a single step. He was versatile in other styles of tap and well-respected for his sand dances, cakewalks, and cane dances. He was also known to dance an excellent Irish Jig. "He could do everything and keep it up forever," remembered Willie Covan about Brown. Described as thin and about five-foot nine inches tall, Brown always danced wearing spats and a derby hat. He smoked cigars, and when he danced, he always had a bottle of corn whiskey or gin nearby. Dewy "Pigmeat" Markham recalled seeing Brown dance in Cincinnati: "A saloon was located across the street from the theater, and the King danced all over the stage, down the aisle, across the street, where they had a drink waiting for him, and then tapped back to the theater, up the aisle, and onto the stage, while the audience cheered."

Brown was rarely seen by white audiences and so never enjoyed the notoriety of a Bill Robinson. He tapped in what was basically a buck dancing style-- body bent forward, he interspersed stomps with intermittent clogging. He tapped up on his toes but his dancing style was more flat-footed than Bill Robinson's, and he seldom bounced in the animated up-on-the-toes style of Robinson. Instead, Brown was regarded at the master of the flat-footed buck style of tap dance, taking it to the very heights of invention. He was always coming up with new steps, and many credit him with creating the Time Step, which grew out of the standardization of some of the simpler elements of buck dancing.

[Sources: Marshall and Jean Stearns, Jazz Dance: the Story of American Vernacular Dance (Macmillan, 1968); Mark Knowles, Tap Roots: The Early History of Tap Dancing (2002)]