Buck and Bubbes, began in 1919 with Buck Ford Lee Washington playing stride piano and singing while Bubbles John William Sublett tap dancing.
The two appeared in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1931 and were the first black artists to appear at the Radio City Music Hall.
On November 2, 1936, they performed live in the inaugural program of the world’s first scheduled High Definition 240-line or better television service at Alexandra Palace, London, and may thus be said to be the first black artists in television history.
The clip is from the Varsity Show, a 1937 feature film from Warner Brothers about a group of students at Winfield College who butt heads with their stodgy faculty adviser while producing an annual stage show, his ideas are out of date and won’t let the new swing music be played in the show. They get a hold of a former student, a big Broadway star now and have him direct their show. They don’t know that this star’s last three shows were big flops.
Enjoy…..