a history of entertainment in america

 Before I take you back to the 1840's and discuss how entertainment in America began, In my first blog I mentioned the names of the legendary performers that I performed with in "BUBBLING BROWN SUGAR", my first Broadway musical. In case you're not familiar with this production, it paid a tribute to Harlem in it;s heyday of the 1920's,  the music of Cab Calloway, Duke Ellington, Fats Waller., the comedy of  Miller & Lyles,  Bert Williams and others of the period.  If you've never heard of AVON LONG.., or Charles Honi Coles, here's a little info on them. Avon Long was one of the first, male solo. artist, that performed at the famous  COTTON CLUB  in  NYC. There he danced and performed his song "Brown Girl" to the segregated audiences. He had a wonderful career, and was also featured in "Roots", as the older "Chicken George", as well as many other great performance In  BBS he recreated Bert Williams historic pantomime of a poker game and sang Bert William's song "Nobody", always to tremendous applause. As a result of seeing Avon perform this, I recreated it myself, in "Rollin on the TOBA", as well as in  my  first short film entitled "Know When To Hold Em", which I shot will studying at The Community Film Workshop of Chicago in the mid 1980's.    In my next blog , Ill tell you about  Charles Honi Coles
Ronald Smokey Stevens