Johnny Hudgins

Biography

Hudgins was an African American vaudeville performer and a part of the Harlem Renaissance. He began his career in show business in Baltimore dancing in small clubs. For nine years thereafter he sang and danced on the burlesque circuit. He developed blackface pantomime routines that relied on the assistance of a jazz trumpet soloist. In these routines the trumpeter played vocal-sounding "wah-wah" effects with a plunger mute (or his hand) while Hudgins mouthed the words and executed a languid comedy dance. The acts became Hudgins's signature, prompting fans to dub him "The Wah-Wah Man." Hudgins hired a succession of eminent trumpet players to assist him, including Joe Smith, Louis Metcalf, Rex Stewart, Johnny Dunn, and Doc Cheatham. In 1924 Hudgins joined the Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake production "Chocolate Dandies" on Broadway. In 1926 he joined the Lew Leslie Blackbirds and appeared in subsequent years at the Apollo Theater and Cotton Club and in London and Paris. In France he was hailed as the "colored Charlie Chaplin" and was a starring performer of the acclaimed Parisian Revue Negre which also featured and made a celebrity of Josephine Baker.