In illustrations and rhyme describes the dancing of Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, one of the most famous tap dancers of all time. A brief Afterword outlines his career.

Here is the first biography of Bill Bojangles Robinson, the most famous tap dancer who ever lived. Written with the cooperation of many of Bill Robinson's friends and colleagues, it is also a fascinating account of the heyday of American musical entertainment. 16 pages of black-and-white photos.

Three men's lives, told through the story of one song. Jerry Jeff Walker, the singer and writer behind the classic hit "Mr. Bojangles," never would have expected that his song, inspired by an experience in a New Orleans jail cell, would make Richard Nixon cry, or that it would be covered by Sammy Davis, Jr., the entertainment giant and, controversially, a supporter of Nixon. This work, told through the perspective of writer, performer and listener, traces these three men's overlapping journeys through the American consciousness. Chapters discuss the history of Walker's song, Davis's rise from rags to riches, Nixon's journey from grocer's son to president, and more.

Magisterial, revelatory, and-most suitably-entertaining, What the Eye Hears offers an authoritative account of the great American art of tap dancing. Brian Seibert, a dance critic for The New York Times, begins by exploring tap's origins as a hybrid of the jig and clog dancing from the British Isles and dances brought from Africa by slaves. He tracks tap's transfer to the stage through blackface minstrelsy and charts its growth as a cousin to jazz in the vaudeville circuits and nightclubs of the early twentieth century. Seibert chronicles tap's spread to ubiquity on Broadway and in Hollywood, analyzes its decline after World War II, and celebrates its rediscovery and reinvention by new generations of American and international performers. In the process, we discover how the history of tap dancing is central to any meaningful account of American popular culture. This is a story with a huge cast of characters, from Master Juba (it was probably a performance of his in a Five Points cellar that Charles Dickens described in American Notes for General Circulation) through Bill Robinson and Shirley Temple, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, and Gene Kelly and Paul Draper to Gregory Hines and Savion Glover. Seibert traces the stylistic development of tap through individual practitioners, vividly depicting dancers both well remembered and now obscure. And he illuminates the cultural exchange between blacks and whites over centuries, the interplay of imitation and theft, as well as the moving story of African-Americans in show business, wielding enormous influence as they grapple with the pain and pride of a complicated legacy.What the Eye Hears teaches us to see and hear the entire history of tap in its every step.

An “oddball fairy tale” (The New York Times)—shortlisted for one of France’s highest literary prizes—a dark, funny, and wholly charming novel about a young boy and his eccentric family, who grapple with the realities of mental illness in unique and whimsical ways. A young boy lives with his madcap parents, Louise and George, and an exotic bird in a Parisian apartment, where the unopened mail rises in a tower by the door and his parents dance each night to Nina Simone’s mellifluous classic “Mister Bojangles.” As his mother, mesmerizing and unpredictable, descends deeper into her own mind, it is up to the boy and his father to keep her safe—and, when that fails, happy. Fleeing Paris for a country home in Spain, they come to understand that some of the most radiant people bear the heaviest burdens. Told from the perspective of a young boy who idolizes his parents—and from George’s journals, detailing his epic love story with his wife—Waiting for Bojangles is a “lighthearted and yet sorrowful tale” (San Francisco Chronicle) that will stay with you long after the final page.

Three men's lives, told through the story of one song. Jerry Jeff Walker, the singer and writer behind the classic hit "Mr. Bojangles," never would have expected that his song, inspired by an experience in a New Orleans jail cell, would make Richard Nixon cry, or that it would be covered by Sammy Davis, Jr., the entertainment giant and, controversially, a supporter of Nixon. This work, told through the perspective of writer, performer and listener, traces these three men's overlapping journeys through the American consciousness. Chapters discuss the history of Walker's song, Davis's rise from rags to riches, Nixon's journey from grocer's son to president, and more.