INGRAM:

I'm Germaine Ingram.

ROBINSON:

And I'm LaVaughn Robinson.

INGRAM:

LaVaughn, we're here this morning, this foggy morning, to talk about your distinctive way of tap dancing and how it came about. Is that okay?

ROBINSON:

Is that what you got me here for?

INGRAM:

Yeah that's what I got you here for.

ROBINSON:

All right.

INGRAM:

Good. All right. You told me that your mother taught you your first time step. Talk a little bit about how that came about. How did your mother know how to tap dance, and what circumstances led her to teach you to tap?

ROBINSON:

Well, during that era, there was a lot of great women tap dancers, and my mother was one of the women that could tap dance. Although she wasn't great, she could tap-dance. And by me being from a family so large as we had--it was 14 of us in the family- I was always the one that was in the kitchen with her while she was cooking, you know, when she made them cobblers and the sweet potato pies. I'd be the one to get the bowl and all. So she found a way to get me out of the kitchen by showing me that plain time step and asked me to try to learn it.

INGRAM:

How old were you then?

ROBINSON:

I was like seven, seven years old when she showed me that plain time step that Bill Robinson made so famous.

INGRAM:

Can you show us a little bit?

ROBINSON:

Sure. That time step went like this. [Demonstrates] Listen. [Continues Dancing] Bill Robinson made that time step famous. My mother showed it to me. It took me about six months to learn it because it wasn't easy.

INGRAM:

It wasn't?

ROBINSON:

No, but at that time because I was so young, I wanted to learn. I learned it before six months, but it took me six months to master it. You see what I'm saying? Then I started-- After I learned that time step, it got me out of the kitchen because I didn't want to be in the kitchen no more with her, you understand, while she was cooking. I wanted to be somewhere where they were tap dancing.

INGRAM:

So you had a sense even then that tap dancing was something that you really loved.

ROBINSON:

Oh, yeah, because when I came up, Philadelphia was a Mecca for tap dancing. I was fortunate enough to be able to go out on the corners and meet a lot of the old tap dancers that were buskin on the corners. You know what buskin is?

INGRAM:

What is it?

ROBINSON:

Buskin is when you tap dance on the street and pass the hat around.

INGRAM:

So, what was it about Philadelphia that made it a place that tap dancers gathered?

ROBINSON:

Well, at that time, Philadelphia had a lot of clubs, and it was a lot of work for tap dancers because the clubs used a lot of tap dancers. I came up in a tramp band. You understand what I'm saying? We had a tramp band. We had one of them bands that everybody played a homemade instrument, other than dance.

INGRAM:

Describe some of those instruments.

ROBINSON:

Well, like the washboard with cymbals on your fingers, and you played that washboard. Then the tub that your mother used to wash our clothes. We would put a hole in the middle of that and a piece of string and play that like a bass. And a bazooka with cigarette paper in it. You understand that? They called that a tramp band. Behind, all of us knew how to do a little tap dancing and that enhanced the tramp band because we all danced and played an instrument, a homemade instrument. We did this for quite a while on Broad Street, South Street. Listen, that was our way of life at the time I come up.

INGRAM:

You could make money that way? What did you do with the money that you made?

ROBINSON:

We made plenty of money. We all bought our own clothes, or you'd give your mother some of it to buy groceries. You could take ten dollars and buy enough groceries to fit in the trunk of the car at that time. But, now, you can't even get that much in the glove compartment--I'm serious.

INGRAM:

What years were these that you were in the tramp band?

ROBINSON:

I'm talking about during the Depression Era. You understand? I mean when things was really, really rough. And that's a funny thing about that, because I never knew I was depressed. I never knew nothing about a Depression Era because, to me, it was just another thing happening. But that was during the Depression time.

INGRAM:

What did that experience of dancing on the street teach you about performing and creating and improvising?

ROBINSON:

I learned a lot from a gentleman by the name of Henry Meadows that was a great paddle-and-roll dancer, himself. He saw--he must have seen something in me because he was the first one that showed me how to paddle. I liked it because it was close to the ground, and it was easy.

INGRAM:

Who else sparked your imagination about dancing in those days?

ROBINSON:

If my memory [serves] correctly, I used to go to the Earl Theater, and I used to-- I knew every tap dancer that came into the Earl Theater. It was at 11th and Market. Every big band that came into that theater had a tap dancer. When Count Basie came into the Earl, he had Baby Lawrence, which was a great rhythm dancer at that time. When Dolly Dawn came into the Earl Theater-- Dolly Dawn was a lady that had a big orchestra-- She always brought the Nicholas Brothers. Then my favorite dancer came into the Earl Theater with Louis Jordan, and that was Teddy Hale. Every time a big band came, I knew the dancer that was going to be there with him, and that's how I learned. Because I'd sit right on the stage and steal. At that time, you wasn't allowed to do that, but, all dancers stole from one another.