Biography
Buck Washington, celebrated as an accomplished pianist who also sang on occasion, maintained a lengthy association with singer-dancer John W. Sublett, known as Bubbles, inside the renowned duo Buck & Bubbles. Having both grown up without parents, the pair first joined forces around 1917 while still in their teens and began appearing together in theatres and on the vaudeville circuit. Multiple European tours followed during the 1930s, along with appearances in several motion pictures that included Cabin In The Sky and A Song Is Born. On record, Washington accompanied Louis Armstrong at the piano, most notably on a 1930 trumpet-piano duet treatment of “Dear Old Southland,” and he also supported Bessie Smith at her final session in 1933 as well as Coleman Hawkins during 1934 dates in Europe. The Buck & Bubbles team itself cut a handful of duet sides in 1933 and 1936, then added four band-accompanied numbers the same year. The partnership dissolved in 1953; afterward Washington spent a brief period working alongside Jonah Jones behind comedian Timmie Rogers, and he died two years later at age 51.