Tag Archives: Maurice HInes

Tappin’ Thru Life: Maurice Hines

Posted on by
Reply

hines

***

***

Yesterday, radio station WBAI 99.5 FM in NY aired my interview with tap-dancing legend, Maurice Hines. Together with his brother Gregory, he re-invented tap dance for modern audiences.

Maurice guested on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson over 35 times and had a featured role in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Cotton Club.  The star of several shows on Broadway, he just opened Off-Broadway in a new autobiographical song and dancer called Tappin’ Thru Life. 

In the show, 72 year old Maurice sings, dances and dishes about the greats he’s worked with, including Ella Fitzgerald, Judy Garland, Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole and on and on. I had the pleasure of talking with him in his dressing room a few hours before his Wednesday evening performance.

Click on the grey triangle to hear the warm giving voice of Maurice Hines talking about his life and times.

The First Black President

Posted on by
1

***

When tap dancing legend Maurice Hines was asked in an interview  for the name of the greatest tap dancer he had ever seen, he replied Sammy Davis, Jr. That answer surprised me, because though my generation knew Sammy Davis as a singer and dancer and Rat Pack member, I didn’t know that he was also a child tap-dancing prodigy. Above is an extraordinary clip from a short called “Rufus Jones for President” (1933) starring the 7-year old Sammy Davis, Jr. Click on the video above for an amazing few minutes of sheer joy.

You can see the whole movie, starring Ethel Waters, on YouTube. In it, mother Ethel Waters dreams about her son becoming the first Black President while singing “Am I Blue?” and “Underneath A Harlem Moon.”