John W. Bubbles

John W. Bubbles, born John William Sublett, is credited with inventing rhythm tap, dropping his heels into the beat and improvising against it where the older style stayed on the toes. With the pianist Ford Lee Washington he formed the vaudeville act Buck and Bubbles, and in 1936 the two became the first Black performers on television anywhere in the world. He could not read music, so Gershwin taught him Sportin' Life as a tap rhythm, and he returned to the part on and off for twenty years. A stroke partly paralysed him in 1967 and he went on performing.