@motorthings Could you please send me the fountain of the history of the Black bottom? I'm doing a presentation about the Black Button and I really need it. Thank you~
Thanks for this, My Grandmother told lots of stories about dancing on the rooftops of downtown buildings in Beaumont, Texas in the 20's ....She said when they did this dance they thought the floor was going to collapse...lol
Hey U all, have you ever heard of the "Castles" and there band leader Mr. James Reese there band leader? well Mr. Reese took the funky butt and made it excitable for the whites. he evened the waltz, fox trout and many other dances. The lame steps you see on this clip was he whites trying to get down, but didn't get it.
lol i can't tell if this for real....the ''colored kids'' were adorable. seriously who looks at a kid acting out and decides it's a dance, I guess inspiration can come from anywhere, funny
@TXejas19 the dance originated in black communities in the rural south long before it got "mainstream" so to speak. Kinda demeaning to suggest they were just imitating a cow and white people turned into a "proper" dance, but hey that's the 1920s for you I guess...
@schizoidchimp They didn't actually think the blacks got it from a cow stuck in the mud, evidently the movie maker thought the dance looked silly and thought that it looked like a cow stuck in the mud.
@schizoidchimp An article appearing in The Smithsonian sometime ago suggested that the tango originated in the African slave ghettos of Buenos Aires. From the basic form of the dance -- man/woman in hip to hip contact (and more!!), the African slave population might've been influenced by the equally scandalous waltz (again man/woman embrace while "dancing"). Its mainstream inclusion didn't seem to expurgate the sizzling tango, however.
I don't know, but it strikes me there was something new and sharp to those days. There's just something so much more charming about a woman in those days being rebellious than now, when it's expected of modern youth. Perhaps it just feels as if it took more guts back then than now. Then again maybe it was staid even back then, and I only see it as a kid looking back at history and thinking how it seems 'more romantic'
If only the 20s went on forever. Civil rights might have been granted a lot earlier. People were a lot more tolerant than you would believe in the 20s toward minorities. When the Depression happened, that all went out the window.
ha ha, this dance is the bomb :) if anyone thinks this video is racist, they must still want 40 acres and a mule :) get over it,don't be a slave to the past :)
Oh wow, that's a young Ruby Keeler, she is sooo cute. Great video, too bad people ruin it with a bunch of comments about things that happened 80-90 years ago.. get a life.
This just shows you white people even though they call you names and lynch you they just can't help but try to be like you.America is just as racist today as it was yesterday.This is the hip hop of the twenties.Black America has shaped American cultrue for a hundred of years and continues to be a driving force in style and dance.This video does not offend me.If your offfended by this then must be offended by all the white kids and entertainers that continue to rip off our style.
@Soflynoli23 Yeah, that's not racist at all. Black hip hop and culture is what's poisoning American youth. Songs about sex, drugs, and the clubbbb, right, brotha?
@romeoandjuliet1968 What the fuck are you talking about? Have you ever heard of Sex,Drugs,and rock n roll heavy metal didn't that poison the American youth.I tell you what has happend to the youth they don't care about real music,dance or anthing else all they care about is cell phones,online and a bunch of crapy tv.I get so sick of people complaining about what black people have done get over it we are the creaters of what's cool.Start raising your children and stop blaming us.THANKS!!
@romeoandjuliet1968 Good for you hun I am glad you don't have any children in High School.I wish more young people thought that way.I do realize that some white kids don't like hip hop music,but you can't say that the African American did not creat cool because you would be wrong.We have created all of the major genres of music in the last 100 years our dances and stlye have been copyed for generations it is not my opinon it's a fact.Rock n roll,Jazz,Blues,and Hip Hop where all created by us.
@Soflynoli23 That's true. I didn't remember jazz, I like older music, it's just modern hip-hop that's trashy and inappropriate, but you're right. Sorry for being so rude.
I never did understand why the Black Bottom and the Charleston were considered such a scandal. It's not really suggestive. Energetic maybe, but hardly sexy.
When I first saw this in the summer, I thought that "the great white way" meant what it says and that this was a racist and horrible video, but the "great white way" also used to be a nickname for "a section of broadway in the midtown section..." . Maybe that's the context they were using it in?, weren't they starting to use politically correct terms in the 20s?
The kids certainly did the dance better. They had rhythm. The "dancers" look uptight, bored, and awkward except for the little girl. She did her thing! LOL. Kids always do the dances better than adults. I guess because they have more energy and flexibility. What I wouldn't give to be 8 again, turning cartwheels in the grass before dinner. Time sure flies...*nostalgic sigh*
This dance was derived from black youths like many of our dances throughout American history. Lots of dances originated down South. One could consider this video racist, but these were the times back then. Lynchings were still a regular occurance back in the 1920's. If folks are offended they have every right. Again...those were the times and not eveyone is going to find this nostalgic or gratifying. I do cause I love history. I acknowledge America's racist (present) past, but still watch.
very cool video.. lol the kids were cute. I could see how this would be controversial--a lot of hip shaking and gyrating. im sure some pretty shnazzy flappers got more risque when they danced.. i love these old videos!
Ugh.. i can already see people below me making this a race thing.Guys. Just enjoy the video. That's how people talked back then, it wasn't racist! "Colored" was the normal UNOFFENSIVE way to refer to Blacks (at the time). It's not like they called them Niggers in the vid. CHILL.
Oh now this is funny. Cows began this move in the mud, then colroed kids copied this... and not only that but colored kids in the mud, that is wayyyyy too funny... and what do white people do as usual? ... Ha Ha, white people just like chimpanzees copy what black people do. Yeah, I'm white but fact is fact, 1960s "cool cat", where did that come from? and the rest is history. Colored folk are just that, colorful, & the white youth must always copy the color folk, it's simply an undeniable fact.
Our Black Bottom instructoress (from 1:22 to 3:00) is the freshly discovered yet pre-famous, age-13-fwd professional Bway tapdance talent, future star of 42nd Steet (and wife of Al Jolson), Miss Ruby Keeler. ("Whoo, [She]?") Yessir, that's his baby!
@rgbmarrone It was primarily because the dance was adapted from the African Americans and back then, they weren't given the respect as human beings. As one New York columnist, Lipstick, had said, "Black people can never become lilies of America" or something like that. Yes, people were racist and closed minded, and I'm glad that the vast majority of us don't think like that any more.. It was also because Girls weren't supposed to dance like that.
Thank you for this. I have just got the music for the 'Black Bottom' but I didn't know what the dance steps to it were as it so often gets included with 'The Charleston' and becomes a hybrid.
However, the music was good but it was a pity that the actual 'Black Bottom' music wasn't played.
I have to do a Harlem Renaissance inspried project and I've chossen to dance with my partner. Dude I'm gonna learn some of these dances It looks so fun!
It's gonna take some serious practice though. *smiles*
He actually never said he invented the moonwalk if you know your history. He was an admirer of many older dancers Fred Astaire, Cab Calloway, etc. Jeff Daniels was a dancer from Soul Train that he made his choreographer. Jeff was doing the moonwalk in Shalalmar videos b4 MJ ever did it and taught it to MJ. MJ just did it on the biggest platform and was actually great at it. Everybody knows that and only an idiot would think Elvis was an inventor of anything! Sheesh.
Right. I can see that getting stuck in the cow mud really is the key to this whole entire thing, an effective mindset.
There is definitely another consideration for the Black Bottom, though, especially it being called that, because, let's face it, the dance could very easily be developed into the break dance: getting your bottom stuck in da cowl MUD!
Of course, it would then be called Black Bottom break dancing, the "triple 'B's' ".
Modern day dancers have just made variations of these 1920s dances. And we thought Elvis invented these moves! Even Micheal Jackson must have studied these old time dance moves.
My mother did this dance when she was in her teens. It used to annoy all the old ladies who thought it was scandelous. Mom said the more annoyed they got the dirtier they danced.
Yeah Granule....you can see ankles and even KNEES every now and then...young whippersnappers.....Enough to give a person the vapors. Where's my fainting couch? Or did men faint back then?
@xxxBucket99xxx , it is absolutely from the 1920s. In it, dancer Ruby Keeler (born 1909, debuted as Bway hoofer at age 13) looks a zaftig 15. Yet as Black Bottom became the rage in 1926, this film is likeliest that year, to teach BB to the masses. Another big clue to the decade is the ladies' makeup (Ruby's smoky vamp eyes), coy shoes and dresses. By the 1933 film "42nd Street," Ruby had lost baby fat and midteen tumosity, had trimmed and slimmed.
We should be remembering Perry Bradford whose "Jacksonville Rounders Dance" based on a folk dance he remembered from childhood, started the Black Bottom craze rolling after WWI. "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom" and Jelly Roll Morton's "Black Bottom Stomp" flamed the craze in the late twenties. None of these poor devils got royalties or even a decent performer's wage and the least we can do is give them credit now.
You really have to look at it from the historical perspective.
Only a decade before the 20s, dancing was seriously constricted. as was a lot of things in the early 20th century.
Then the 20s boom in! and suddenly...you can dance however the F*** you want! You can only imagine how liberating that must have felt to the youth of that time. That's why i go crazy for these old dances. :-)
i don't believe that's true at all. dance was one of most pre eminent forms of social entertainment throughout history. there are great dances from well prior to the jazz age which you are referring to. in fact, it was only when the hippies came along that dancing went out of style. don't believe everything you read in a college textbook. in fact don't believe any of it.
Haha, oh those blasted hippies! I was unaware that dancing took a hiatus. Glad someone came along who makes up their own facts instead of relying on those stupid college textbooks. And their point was that there were only a few acceptable dances back then (waltz and ballroom stuff) which were indeed very restrictive. But that might be wrong, because books are veritable fountains of misinformation apparently.
@up2space and @thelonelyslayer, latter is right -- historically, before the 1920s, in upper white culture the most daring dance was the Waltz. (Daring because a couple not necessarily married to each other were in close proximity whirling giddily, dizzily in circles about a dance floor in public. One could lose one's reserve! Whereas minuets, polonaises, and other traditional stiff couple dances kept a distance.)
Dayum, you can see her ankles and everything! Hotcha! I'm getting faint from the excitement, guess I'll have to sit down. Whew! These teenagers are taking it too far!
@gablefan01 , Omg . . . what an astute noticing! I've only seen her as an older adult, on the Dick Van Dyke tv sitcom. Fascinating. (That she'd been a "Baby June" [or Jane].)
The dance got it's name from the low-lying part of town where the black people lived, called the "Black Bottom". It was a dance introduced by African-Americans, as was the Charleston. It's pretty likely the dance was imitating a cow stuck in the mud. The BB just doesn't have the finesse of the Charleston.
I really wonder if the Black Bottom dance came from observing 2 black children stuck in the mud and wiggling around trying to movie in it. Sure makes a good story though for the origin of this very popular 1920's dance. Thanks for sharing this instructive video.
I don't know much about filming but I'm assuming that it has something to do with the amount of frames they could record per second. Since the technology was no were near todays standard they could not capture the frams in a "natural" flow like our eyes see, so a smaller frame count skiped slightly so it appears to have rugged speeded movements. kind of like when a game lags it "skips" a bit a appears warp speed up the nuts.
Movies then were shown at a normal speed, but since projectors were different then, when old films are played on modern projectors they often run too fast. If you were watching this in the 20s, things would be at a normal speed.
This is so much fun. As per Jazz - it was "created" by the peoples of America - African, Native and European. Its formation would not have happened without the contributions of all involved. And let me tell you - the dancer at about 1:20 is Rubdy Keeler!
I used to do this dance all the time when I was kid, except we called it the "Scraping Dog Shit off the Bottom of Your Shoe" dance! Ah, what memories!
It gave the jitterbug of my WWII generation with skirt up when the girls jump overhead in Paris St-Germain-des Pres "caves". May be the last surviving is "Caveau de la Huchette" in the 50s
...all the fresh styles always start out as a good lil' hood thing...by the time it reaches Hollywood its over.....but its cool we'll just keep makin' new shit!-Andre 3000 "HOLLYWOOD DIVORCE"
5:36 Subo?
t4si0r 1 week ago
@motorthings Could you please send me the fountain of the history of the Black bottom? I'm doing a presentation about the Black Button and I really need it. Thank you~
jrockDaisukii 1 week ago
Thanks for this, My Grandmother told lots of stories about dancing on the rooftops of downtown buildings in Beaumont, Texas in the 20's ....She said when they did this dance they thought the floor was going to collapse...lol
k775blondie1 1 month ago
y will yall not lik it it from the 1920 s i luv it
fallongreen100 2 months ago
:L at 2:58
ImaRetroFreak 4 months ago
Hey U all, have you ever heard of the "Castles" and there band leader Mr. James Reese there band leader? well Mr. Reese took the funky butt and made it excitable for the whites. he evened the waltz, fox trout and many other dances. The lame steps you see on this clip was he whites trying to get down, but didn't get it.
allenlewis 4 months ago
OMG THIS IS RUBY KEELER AT 1:39 !!!!!
itsSinatrabitch 4 months ago 2
lol i can't tell if this for real....the ''colored kids'' were adorable. seriously who looks at a kid acting out and decides it's a dance, I guess inspiration can come from anywhere, funny
TXejas19 5 months ago
@TXejas19 yeah p sure it didnt happen like that
schizoidchimp 4 months ago
@schizoidchimp enlighten me, how did it happen?
TXejas19 4 months ago
@TXejas19 the dance originated in black communities in the rural south long before it got "mainstream" so to speak. Kinda demeaning to suggest they were just imitating a cow and white people turned into a "proper" dance, but hey that's the 1920s for you I guess...
schizoidchimp 4 months ago 2
@schizoidchimp They didn't actually think the blacks got it from a cow stuck in the mud, evidently the movie maker thought the dance looked silly and thought that it looked like a cow stuck in the mud.
wasp9 4 months ago
@schizoidchimp An article appearing in The Smithsonian sometime ago suggested that the tango originated in the African slave ghettos of Buenos Aires. From the basic form of the dance -- man/woman in hip to hip contact (and more!!), the African slave population might've been influenced by the equally scandalous waltz (again man/woman embrace while "dancing"). Its mainstream inclusion didn't seem to expurgate the sizzling tango, however.
ccaammiiittoo1 4 months ago
my Grandma all day!!! Nice!!!
unique74muzik 5 months ago
start from 3:17 - cool!
ra1ajw 5 months ago
4:42 JERKIN
musiklover5238 6 months ago
giggin hella hard! I swear we aren't doing anything new!
musiklover5238 6 months ago
3:05
Ramona Quimby's gettin' down!
jarvisel 6 months ago
I don't know, but it strikes me there was something new and sharp to those days. There's just something so much more charming about a woman in those days being rebellious than now, when it's expected of modern youth. Perhaps it just feels as if it took more guts back then than now. Then again maybe it was staid even back then, and I only see it as a kid looking back at history and thinking how it seems 'more romantic'
Spirosaur 7 months ago 6
@Spirosaur
You know what I'd like to see? A woman with guts enough to wear a decent dress and not feel ashamed.
SirRiehl 6 months ago
I want to have club with 20's nite. It would be fun.
finmagik 7 months ago 3
I have found this most amusing, espesially the part about the "colored kids who got it from the cows". lol
MrBogusSmogus 7 months ago
slllooowww mooottion... havent seen that many black and white film slow motions! So beautiful!
narmolania 9 months ago
The 1920's were just awesome... except for prohibition, that is.
IKissllamas 9 months ago
@IKissllamas And the searing racism and sexism.
witchsistah 8 months ago
@witchsistah In many places that sure was the case! Although I'm not sure it was everywhere. I could be wrong, though.
IKissllamas 8 months ago
Just imagine what old people from the 1920s would think if they saw music we have now.
hercludes 9 months ago
lol, funny, i wish i lived in the 20's
DJALIENPHANTOM 10 months ago 3
These people grew up & called rock & roll vulgar!
KenMacMillan 10 months ago 18
@KenMacMillan I'm 68 years old. I remember my grandparents telling that they had more fun then 'kids nowaday' do.
Axgoodofdunemaul 3 months ago
@KenMacMillan
Ha ha ha brilliant comment!
Drblooter99 2 months ago
They are all gorgeous! Love the dancing!!
chaikaify 10 months ago
Is that Ruby Keeler at 1:35 ?
paulj0557 10 months ago
@paulj0557 Yes it is Ruby Keeler!
rustyfrank 7 months ago
I'm 16 and I absolutely love stuff like this, I have to admit though, I prefer the Charleston, but the Black Bottom is definitely a close second.
MissEmilyAnnabelle 11 months ago
looks kinda like some of the modern dances now
rowin09 1 year ago
Ruby starts at 1:20. And I believe the "famous Broadway dancer" is Anne Pennington.
52marym 1 year ago
That's a young Ruby Keeler doing the how-to demonstration.
52marym 1 year ago
@52marym That's her at 1:25? I thought she looked like Ruby Keeler.
karenpog 1 year ago
If only the 20s went on forever. Civil rights might have been granted a lot earlier. People were a lot more tolerant than you would believe in the 20s toward minorities. When the Depression happened, that all went out the window.
LapisGarter 1 year ago
ha ha, this dance is the bomb :) if anyone thinks this video is racist, they must still want 40 acres and a mule :) get over it,don't be a slave to the past :)
813mrgoodwine206 1 year ago
This is an awesome dance! I should learn how to do it and bring it out at some school dance or something. That would be awesome.
akikowolf 1 year ago
Great! Thanks for posting.
MollyAnn2009 1 year ago
Oh wow, that's a young Ruby Keeler, she is sooo cute. Great video, too bad people ruin it with a bunch of comments about things that happened 80-90 years ago.. get a life.
CupcakeKatieB 1 year ago
This just shows you white people even though they call you names and lynch you they just can't help but try to be like you.America is just as racist today as it was yesterday.This is the hip hop of the twenties.Black America has shaped American cultrue for a hundred of years and continues to be a driving force in style and dance.This video does not offend me.If your offfended by this then must be offended by all the white kids and entertainers that continue to rip off our style.
Soflynoli23 1 year ago
@Soflynoli23 Yeah, that's not racist at all. Black hip hop and culture is what's poisoning American youth. Songs about sex, drugs, and the clubbbb, right, brotha?
romeoandjuliet1968 1 year ago
@romeoandjuliet1968 What the fuck are you talking about? Have you ever heard of Sex,Drugs,and rock n roll heavy metal didn't that poison the American youth.I tell you what has happend to the youth they don't care about real music,dance or anthing else all they care about is cell phones,online and a bunch of crapy tv.I get so sick of people complaining about what black people have done get over it we are the creaters of what's cool.Start raising your children and stop blaming us.THANKS!!
Soflynoli23 1 year ago
@Soflynoli23 Yeah, but see, it's not cool is the thing. I can't raise my children, seeing as I don't have any yet. Nobody should in High School.
romeoandjuliet1968 1 year ago
@romeoandjuliet1968 Good for you hun I am glad you don't have any children in High School.I wish more young people thought that way.I do realize that some white kids don't like hip hop music,but you can't say that the African American did not creat cool because you would be wrong.We have created all of the major genres of music in the last 100 years our dances and stlye have been copyed for generations it is not my opinon it's a fact.Rock n roll,Jazz,Blues,and Hip Hop where all created by us.
Soflynoli23 1 year ago
@Soflynoli23 That's true. I didn't remember jazz, I like older music, it's just modern hip-hop that's trashy and inappropriate, but you're right. Sorry for being so rude.
romeoandjuliet1968 1 year ago
@romeoandjuliet1968 Thanks, we need more young people like you that know good music.
Soflynoli23 1 year ago
This has been flagged as spam show
@Soflynoli23 I disagree with you about that.
Khultan 1 year ago
I never did understand why the Black Bottom and the Charleston were considered such a scandal. It's not really suggestive. Energetic maybe, but hardly sexy.
bookgirl1971 1 year ago
When I first saw this in the summer, I thought that "the great white way" meant what it says and that this was a racist and horrible video, but the "great white way" also used to be a nickname for "a section of broadway in the midtown section..." . Maybe that's the context they were using it in?, weren't they starting to use politically correct terms in the 20s?
LoveGaneva 1 year ago
The kids certainly did the dance better. They had rhythm. The "dancers" look uptight, bored, and awkward except for the little girl. She did her thing! LOL. Kids always do the dances better than adults. I guess because they have more energy and flexibility. What I wouldn't give to be 8 again, turning cartwheels in the grass before dinner. Time sure flies...*nostalgic sigh*
krissykimono 1 year ago
This dance was derived from black youths like many of our dances throughout American history. Lots of dances originated down South. One could consider this video racist, but these were the times back then. Lynchings were still a regular occurance back in the 1920's. If folks are offended they have every right. Again...those were the times and not eveyone is going to find this nostalgic or gratifying. I do cause I love history. I acknowledge America's racist (present) past, but still watch.
80s4ever63 1 year ago
/how was this dance dirty?
FerdiDG 1 year ago
very cool video.. lol the kids were cute. I could see how this would be controversial--a lot of hip shaking and gyrating. im sure some pretty shnazzy flappers got more risque when they danced.. i love these old videos!
Ugh.. i can already see people below me making this a race thing.Guys. Just enjoy the video. That's how people talked back then, it wasn't racist! "Colored" was the normal UNOFFENSIVE way to refer to Blacks (at the time). It's not like they called them Niggers in the vid. CHILL.
rainonmebi 1 year ago 2
GREAT Post....keep them coming!!!
Greenhornet270 1 year ago
Oh now this is funny. Cows began this move in the mud, then colroed kids copied this... and not only that but colored kids in the mud, that is wayyyyy too funny... and what do white people do as usual? ... Ha Ha, white people just like chimpanzees copy what black people do. Yeah, I'm white but fact is fact, 1960s "cool cat", where did that come from? and the rest is history. Colored folk are just that, colorful, & the white youth must always copy the color folk, it's simply an undeniable fact.
GlobalAwareness2525 1 year ago
Does anybody out there recognize her? That's a very young Ruby Keeler! One the greatest dancers of early Hollywood.
lowellbarn 1 year ago
@slg524 a simple google search would have saved you the embarassment of that inane comment.
anyway, great vid, doofus youtube commenters notwithstanding.
nemoalpha 1 year ago
Lol women used to dance like a cow stuck in the mud.
TheNabsta 1 year ago
"great white way"?.... kill yourself
slg524 1 year ago
Comment removed
evingalang 1 year ago
this a very young Ruby Keeler. Always a great dancer,
ocalabarn 1 year ago
That kid at 5:55 is AWESOME.
OnlyAPoetNeedApply 1 year ago
Wow
They got the idea for the dance from a COW STUCK IN MUD!
Wow
pennelia16 1 year ago
Really?..you couldn't get the 'REAL' Black Bottom or Charleston? for the soundtrack?
pgronemeier 1 year ago
It sure looks like Ruby Keeler to me!
CantStopHere21 1 year ago
@CantStopHere21 SURE IS.
LazlosPlane 1 year ago
Say ...isn't the girl demonstrating Ruby Keeler? (the girl right after the cow)
villageidiot2000 1 year ago
@villageidiot2000 you might be right!
MYheroMJrip 1 year ago
Our Black Bottom instructoress (from 1:22 to 3:00) is the freshly discovered yet pre-famous, age-13-fwd professional Bway tapdance talent, future star of 42nd Steet (and wife of Al Jolson), Miss Ruby Keeler. ("Whoo, [She]?") Yessir, that's his baby!
JudgeJulieLit 1 year ago
Hm, I don't know, seems fun but I think I prefer the Charleston more. Whatever's challenging. :)
And what's with the odd facial expressions upon close ups? I never got that from back then, haha.
Zeanu 1 year ago
Thanks for video
COMB0RICO 1 year ago
i don't see what was so scandalous about this, someone explain?
rgbmarrone 1 year ago
@rgbmarrone It was primarily because the dance was adapted from the African Americans and back then, they weren't given the respect as human beings. As one New York columnist, Lipstick, had said, "Black people can never become lilies of America" or something like that. Yes, people were racist and closed minded, and I'm glad that the vast majority of us don't think like that any more.. It was also because Girls weren't supposed to dance like that.
ShisInLuv 1 year ago
Thats Ruby Keeler dancing, isn't it at 1:37?
Chaplin1914 1 year ago
@Chaplin1914 That's Ruby Keeler, absatively posolutely!
JudgeJulieLit 1 year ago
Thank you for this. I have just got the music for the 'Black Bottom' but I didn't know what the dance steps to it were as it so often gets included with 'The Charleston' and becomes a hybrid.
However, the music was good but it was a pity that the actual 'Black Bottom' music wasn't played.
hamishray 1 year ago
I have to do a Harlem Renaissance inspried project and I've chossen to dance with my partner. Dude I'm gonna learn some of these dances It looks so fun!
It's gonna take some serious practice though. *smiles*
mookamyad 1 year ago 3
looks like ruby keeler 1:35
jjaniero 1 year ago 2
very instructive-1st time I've ever actually seen it. Bravo! Very enjoyable. Regards, The '62 Mathew St. Band (1 Man-Full Group Retro)
OlRetro 1 year ago
what is the song?
moonlightorchid99 1 year ago
"The colored kids got from a cow stuck in the mud!"
calvinandhodge 1 year ago
black bottom was created by the slaves.
boundtodream 1 year ago
Sorry, the music you're hearing has nothing to do with the original 1920 video. You ALL need to learn a little more.
Huckabeezer 2 years ago
He actually never said he invented the moonwalk if you know your history. He was an admirer of many older dancers Fred Astaire, Cab Calloway, etc. Jeff Daniels was a dancer from Soul Train that he made his choreographer. Jeff was doing the moonwalk in Shalalmar videos b4 MJ ever did it and taught it to MJ. MJ just did it on the biggest platform and was actually great at it. Everybody knows that and only an idiot would think Elvis was an inventor of anything! Sheesh.
twistvid 2 years ago 3
Right. I can see that getting stuck in the cow mud really is the key to this whole entire thing, an effective mindset.
There is definitely another consideration for the Black Bottom, though, especially it being called that, because, let's face it, the dance could very easily be developed into the break dance: getting your bottom stuck in da cowl MUD!
Of course, it would then be called Black Bottom break dancing, the "triple 'B's' ".
RaintreeLDS 2 years ago
Fabaroonistic it gives me the feel good factor when I do it Thanks
1soulsista 2 years ago
Modern day dancers have just made variations of these 1920s dances. And we thought Elvis invented these moves! Even Micheal Jackson must have studied these old time dance moves.
EaglesArise 2 years ago
Shake your tail feather girl!
Kell1295 2 years ago
Well done! Love it too ! 5/5*!
KatzenImNebel 2 years ago
• I love it!
homiedogus 2 years ago
I love watching history.
GabrielNotTheAngel 2 years ago 36
@GabrielNotTheAngel I agree, it is so different from today!!! :D
MultiMatt2009 1 year ago
This is all sorts of fabulous.
PChanmisao 2 years ago
there's a movie with Joan Crawford doing this.
wattever333 2 years ago
is that Ruby Keeler?!?!
wattever333 2 years ago 2
Fantastic! Loved it!
Tap2323 2 years ago
This will really help me with my project! thanks! :D
Nightmaregirl242 2 years ago
I haven't read all the comments, but the first girl is Ann Pennington, I think. And the other girl later is definitely Ruby Keeler!
bobparis 2 years ago 3
My mother did this dance when she was in her teens. It used to annoy all the old ladies who thought it was scandelous. Mom said the more annoyed they got the dirtier they danced.
Lupitamihita 2 years ago 67
@Lupitamihita Thanks for sharing that memory... Love it!
cevc918 1 year ago
@Lupitamihita i guess our girls these days do a good job on that one
enyeny7077 1 year ago
Wow, just wow...on so many levels wow. Thank you for posting this!
angal2 2 years ago 3
Hey Now! 2:59-3:14
LunaOverEden 2 years ago
this is kinda strange lol and i want her dress the volume is tripping me out
SanctuaryOfDissent 2 years ago
1:02
Flabadosa23 2 years ago
Yeah Granule....you can see ankles and even KNEES every now and then...young whippersnappers.....Enough to give a person the vapors. Where's my fainting couch? Or did men faint back then?
SpeedyNeutrino43 2 years ago 6
Can anyone verify that this footage is from the 1920s? Please??
xxxBucket99xxx 2 years ago
What are you looking for some one to send you a certified letter? It says "Library Service" at the bottom.
MrPisster 2 years ago
@xxxBucket99xxx , it is absolutely from the 1920s. In it, dancer Ruby Keeler (born 1909, debuted as Bway hoofer at age 13) looks a zaftig 15. Yet as Black Bottom became the rage in 1926, this film is likeliest that year, to teach BB to the masses. Another big clue to the decade is the ladies' makeup (Ruby's smoky vamp eyes), coy shoes and dresses. By the 1933 film "42nd Street," Ruby had lost baby fat and midteen tumosity, had trimmed and slimmed.
JudgeJulieLit 1 year ago
Thanks for this! My grandmother once won a Black Bottom contest, and now I know what the dance looks like.
swineharp 2 years ago 2
We should be remembering Perry Bradford whose "Jacksonville Rounders Dance" based on a folk dance he remembered from childhood, started the Black Bottom craze rolling after WWI. "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom" and Jelly Roll Morton's "Black Bottom Stomp" flamed the craze in the late twenties. None of these poor devils got royalties or even a decent performer's wage and the least we can do is give them credit now.
cedardoggie 2 years ago 2
You really have to look at it from the historical perspective.
Only a decade before the 20s, dancing was seriously constricted. as was a lot of things in the early 20th century.
Then the 20s boom in! and suddenly...you can dance however the F*** you want! You can only imagine how liberating that must have felt to the youth of that time. That's why i go crazy for these old dances. :-)
thelonelyslayer 2 years ago 4
i don't believe that's true at all. dance was one of most pre eminent forms of social entertainment throughout history. there are great dances from well prior to the jazz age which you are referring to. in fact, it was only when the hippies came along that dancing went out of style. don't believe everything you read in a college textbook. in fact don't believe any of it.
up2space 2 years ago
Haha, oh those blasted hippies! I was unaware that dancing took a hiatus. Glad someone came along who makes up their own facts instead of relying on those stupid college textbooks. And their point was that there were only a few acceptable dances back then (waltz and ballroom stuff) which were indeed very restrictive. But that might be wrong, because books are veritable fountains of misinformation apparently.
FiggyMoonpowder 2 years ago
@up2space and @thelonelyslayer, latter is right -- historically, before the 1920s, in upper white culture the most daring dance was the Waltz. (Daring because a couple not necessarily married to each other were in close proximity whirling giddily, dizzily in circles about a dance floor in public. One could lose one's reserve! Whereas minuets, polonaises, and other traditional stiff couple dances kept a distance.)
JudgeJulieLit 1 year ago
Dayum, you can see her ankles and everything! Hotcha! I'm getting faint from the excitement, guess I'll have to sit down. Whew! These teenagers are taking it too far!
TheGranule 2 years ago 2
I love the song that goes with the Blackbottom
msjosephh 2 years ago
The scene with Ann Pennington at the end is breath taking!
Mannock 2 years ago
I am very impressed by this whole thing. Loved it. If children can learn it so can I.
I'll give it a go.
JoseEduardoNZ 2 years ago
I love this! I'm already learning it!
KyndalSarah 2 years ago
HEYYYYYY
ekocentric 2 years ago
Love this!
finmagik 2 years ago 2
klasse gemacht
gv721 2 years ago
The child at about 3:00 looks like "Baby Rose Marie," aka Rose Marie from the 60s Dick Van Dyke show.
gablefan01 2 years ago
I think that you may be right!
Mannock 2 years ago
@gablefan01 , Omg . . . what an astute noticing! I've only seen her as an older adult, on the Dick Van Dyke tv sitcom. Fascinating. (That she'd been a "Baby June" [or Jane].)
JudgeJulieLit 1 year ago
Wow. Ruby Keeler. Very, very interesting to see.
GeorgeWTush 2 years ago 2
It didn't seem to be stopping traffic - I thought he was going to get hit by one of those cars!
Thanks for the video though, now that i've learned the Charleston I might give this one a go :D
mauerbluemchen0 2 years ago
the black bottom really brought out the flappers charecter
wtcgnub 2 years ago
i love little black kids dancing it make me smile every time x
hayleyAjones 2 years ago
Does anyone have any vids of Bricktop performing? Did she ever perform on camera?
InuitInua 2 years ago
is this original footage?
aralina007 3 years ago
does anybody know what song that is?
savethetreesbitch 3 years ago
I am pretty sure that "kid" is young Ruby Keeler
not credited on the dance compilation this comes from...
look up her movies! you are in for a treat...
janetklein 3 years ago
that little kid was amazing!
indiemotronic 3 years ago 2
The dance got it's name from the low-lying part of town where the black people lived, called the "Black Bottom". It was a dance introduced by African-Americans, as was the Charleston. It's pretty likely the dance was imitating a cow stuck in the mud. The BB just doesn't have the finesse of the Charleston.
dornroslein 3 years ago 6
At 4:36, It looks like those two guys are dancing at gunpoint, why else would someone be dancing on the ledge of a skyscraper? Haha
Great video!
picure 3 years ago 2
oh shit i love doing the charleston me nd my cuzzo but we do it to old skool so i guess that all types of dances come 2gether sum how
KnB90zkidzfamlee 3 years ago
work those hips gurls
crazygettoclown 3 years ago
I really wonder if the Black Bottom dance came from observing 2 black children stuck in the mud and wiggling around trying to movie in it. Sure makes a good story though for the origin of this very popular 1920's dance. Thanks for sharing this instructive video.
jazzgirl1920s 3 years ago
That's Ann Pennington in the end, isn't it? D:!
Rita15keke 3 years ago
Wow! It is Ruby Keeler, starting at 1.21, that's incredible!
aldiboronti 3 years ago 2
I don't know much about filming but I'm assuming that it has something to do with the amount of frames they could record per second. Since the technology was no were near todays standard they could not capture the frams in a "natural" flow like our eyes see, so a smaller frame count skiped slightly so it appears to have rugged speeded movements. kind of like when a game lags it "skips" a bit a appears warp speed up the nuts.
TheCapstanShanty 3 years ago
Amazing to see Ruby Keelers first film clip.This is not included in her imdb list of films.
mic33george 3 years ago
why do they always seem to be moving fast in these old 20s and 30s movies? can someone answer this?
Cmann600 3 years ago
Movies then were shown at a normal speed, but since projectors were different then, when old films are played on modern projectors they often run too fast. If you were watching this in the 20s, things would be at a normal speed.
Patrick3183 3 years ago
funny! so glad we dont dance like that anymore, though today (sexual) dancing is getting way to out of controll though
LittleMissJmoo 3 years ago
Anyone know how to do the Eagle Rock? The Strut? The Stomp? These are referred to in old acoustic blues songs...
phild1214 3 years ago
Wow... what a completely different life than we lead...
JULIE2298 3 years ago
Go Ruby!!!
costernocht 3 years ago
wow that is ruby keeler dancing! I saw her on broadway in the 1970s--still dancing!
ActionAm7 3 years ago
Ginger Rogers does the best black bottom, in Roxie Hart :0)
kenaco2009 3 years ago
Yep it's Ruby Keeler.
glawsny 3 years ago
Isn't that girl Ruby Keeler????
costumemarie1 3 years ago 2
This is so much fun. As per Jazz - it was "created" by the peoples of America - African, Native and European. Its formation would not have happened without the contributions of all involved. And let me tell you - the dancer at about 1:20 is Rubdy Keeler!
3investigators 3 years ago
I used to do this dance all the time when I was kid, except we called it the "Scraping Dog Shit off the Bottom of Your Shoe" dance! Ah, what memories!
heeter71 3 years ago 3
Oh, so THAT'S why they call it "Black Bottom"... of course, the cow's bottom was probably already black before it got stuck in the mud... YIKES!!!
heeter71 3 years ago
It gave the jitterbug of my WWII generation with skirt up when the girls jump overhead in Paris St-Germain-des Pres "caves". May be the last surviving is "Caveau de la Huchette" in the 50s
slomoschon2000 3 years ago
White people taking black culture and dance and refining it, and by that I mean completely sucking the soul and life out of it. Again
Oh gotta love the homage to the people who made it, 10 seconds of ''colored'' boys dancing in the muddy fields, now that's love for ya!
coolblue46 3 years ago 5
Everything in the 20s was so optimistic and happy! Why can't it be like that now :(
Patrick3183 3 years ago 2
Why? The internal combustion engine that runs on gasoline... made from oil.
defundthewar 3 years ago
Ha ha, us colored kids got it from a cow in the mud...
(grimace)
estevancarlos 4 years ago 4
That was very cool! Thank you for posting it!
storytimewithcathy 4 years ago
I'm talking about Ruby Keeler at 1:50 of the video.
cascol 4 years ago
...all the fresh styles always start out as a good lil' hood thing...by the time it reaches Hollywood its over.....but its cool we'll just keep makin' new shit!-Andre 3000 "HOLLYWOOD DIVORCE"
shadayafreeman 4 years ago 3
Fantastic Archive! Not as easy as it looks, either...
Lola1965 4 years ago