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• Four Step Brothers

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• Performing Arts Encyclopedia
• Tap Dance America

The Four Step Brothers, one of the most exciting and long-lived acrobatic-tap dance acts in show business that combined fast rhythm taps with acrobatic flash steps in a boogie-woogie jitterbug-style of tap dancing, all put across through the daring mode of the tap challenge which encouraged the ceaseless one-upsmanship of tap steps. Encouraging each other and setting the time by clapping hands and stomping feet, the act was famous for its trademark "Bottle Dance" and a furious finale of jumping over each other doing flips and splits. Unlike other brother acts of the day, the Step Brothers were not actual brothers but talented hoofers.

Working as a newsboy in 1925, Maceo Anderson (1910-2001) spent every spare moment in the back room of the Hoofers Club, the famous gathering place for tap dancers located under the Lafayette Theater in Harlem. Anderson, along with Al Williams and Red Walker, dancers who he had seen and admired in an amateur night at the Lafayette, formed a trio and adapted the name Step Brothers. After performing in a show called Moon Over Alabama, they set their eyes on performing at Harlem's famous Cotton Club. Avoiding the doorman, the former heavyweight champion Jack Johnson, they entered through the kitchen. During the breaks, Duke Ellington, whose band had just become a regular at the Cotton Club, would walk past the kitchen to the water fountain. The trio showed Ellington some of their steps and gained an audition, in which they performed a military tap routine. They were hired as the only regular tap act at the Cotton Club for the next four years, often dancing to "The Mystery Song," a tune written especially for them by Ellington. In 1927 the trio added Sherman Robinson as a fourth member of the group that eventually billed itself as The Four Step Brothers, "Eight Feet of Rhythm."

Various members of the group over its fifty-year tenure included Red Gordon, who joined the group in 1930; Sylvester "Happy" Johnson; Prince Spencer, who joined the group in 1941 replacing Sylvester Johnson; Freddie James, who performed with the group from 1939 to 1943; Rufus "Flash" McDonald, who joined the act in 1943 when Freddie James left; Ernie "Sunshine Sammy" Morrison; and Norman Rowe. At one time or another, comedy, rhythm tap, slides, cane tricks, Snake Hips, five-tap Wings, Afro-Cuban movement and the entire repertory of acrobatics formed a part of their act.

The Four Step Brothers played in Europe for kings and queens and in every nightclub and theatre of importance in the United States. They worked longer than many acts, unemployed for only a year or so after a manager blackballed them for failing to appear after he denied them a raise. They toured on the Keith-Orpheum circuit, often the first black performers to appear in theaters, and also toured on black circuits. They toured with Duke Ellington Band from 1933 to 1959. They were the first black group to play Radio City Music Hall in New York (where they performed for ten years), Copa City in Miami Beach, and the Chex Paree in Chicago. In 1949, the comedian Milton Berle refused to appear on a live NBC telecast of "The Texaco Star Theater" unless Texaco agreed to let the Four Step Brothers perform. The impasse lasted until minutes before air-time, when Texaco relented. Afterward, they danced on "The Ed Sullivan Show," Bob Hope specials and telecasts featuring Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, Perry Como and Steve Allen. Maceo Anderson credits Jerry Lewis for opening doors for them. Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis would not sign a contract to perform at Copa City in Miami Beach unless the Step Brothers were signed. No black artist had ever performed there before, thus opening the door for many others such as Sammy Davis, Jr. and Lena Horne. After Prince Spencer and Rufus "Flash" McDonald joined the group, they became the first black act to play the Café de Paree in London and the Lido in Paris. Booked in Paris for six months, they stayed for two years. They toured twelve European countries and received standing ovations from kings and queens. In the United States, Presidents Truman and Eisenhower received them. They appeared in numerous motion pictures including Check and Double Check (1930), the Vitaphone short subject film Barbershop Blues (1933) with the Claude Hopkins Band, When Johny Comes Marching Home Again (1942) It Ain't Hay (1943), Rhythm of the Islands (1943), Carolina Blues (1944), Greenich Village (1944), That's My Gal (1947), Here Come the Girls (1953), and The Patsy (1964) with Jerry Lewis.

When the group broke up in 1959 the existing members went many directions but the group continued to be celebrated. In 1960 the Four Step Brothers were honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Dance Masters of America. In 1988, when they were awarded a star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame, The Reverend Jesse L. Jackson issued a statement congratulating the members for their classic elegance: "The Four Step Brothers are not merely an entertainment troupe, they are an institution that no stage or screen can contain. . . . They were and remain the greatest."

[Sources: Rusty E. Frank, Tap! The Greatest Tap Dance Stars and Their Stories, 1900-1955 (1990); Constance Valis Hill, "Four Step Brothers," Encyclopedia of African American Culture and History (MacMillan, 1996); Melba Huber, "Maceo Anderson: An Original Step Brother," International Tap Association Newsletter, vol. 7, no. 2 July-August 1996, 3-5); Larry Billman, Film Choreographers and Dance Directors: An Illustrated Biographical Encyclopedia, with a History and Filmographies, 1893 through 1995 (MacFarlane, 1997); Lewis Segal, "The Four Step Brothers," Los Angeles Times July 17, 2001]