At the recording session for Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,
Honi, left...and Cholly on the right.
Atkins and Coles performed together with many of the great jazz bands
from 1945 to 1949. Most consider them the last of the "class acts,"
tap duos that performed from the late 1920's to the late 1940's.
Cholly working with a 19 year old Aretha Franklin.
Charles (Honi) Coles, a virtuosic tap dancer who won a Tony Award for
his performance in the Broadway musical "My One and Only." Lena
Horne once described as him as making "butterflies look clumsy."
Not only was Charles (Cholly) Atkins an incredible tap dancer, he was also a choreographer for groups like the Temptations and the Shirelles...
so they didn't think up those steps themselves!
It was Cholly...even those "Stop in the Name of Love" moves of the
Supremes were his!
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