"Peg Leg Bates was born Clayton Bates in Fountain Inn, South Carolina, the son of Rufus Bates, a laborer, and Emma Steward Bates, a sharecropper and housecleaner. He began dancing when he was five. At twelve, while working in a cotton-seed gin mill, he caught and mangled his left leg in a conveyor belt. The leg was amputated on his kitchen table at his home. Though he was left with only one leg and a wooden peg leg his uncle carved for him, Bates resolved to continue dancing. "It somehow grew in my mind that I wanted to be as good a dancer as any two-legged dancer," he called. "It hurt me that the boys pitied me. I was pretty popular before, and I still wanted to be popular. I told them not to feel sorry for me." He meant it. He began imitating the latest rhythm steps he saw dancers of metal-tap shoe dancers, adding his own novelty and acrobatic steps into the taps. He worked his way from minstrel shows and carnivals to the vaudeville circuits. Relearning how to dance with his wooden peg leg, Bates worked his way upward from minstrel shows and carnivals to the vaudeville circuits. At fifteen, after having become the undisputed king of one-legged dancers, able to execute acrobatic, graceful soft shoe, and powerful rhythm-tapping all with one leg and a peg, he established a professional career as a tap dancer." Thank you Mr. Bates for all of your contributions and inspiration! Please click the link below and learn more about Peg Leg Bates. :-)
http://www.atdf.org/awards/pegleg.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hayM4B7hcBQ
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