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Tap dancer from Asheville at end of his career
Monday, June 29, 2009 From the Oakland Tribune:
Autumn has arrived in Mr. Entertainer's career, and the phone doesn't ring as often anymore, because there isn't the same demand for him to show off his versatility onstage.
"The retirement is now, man, because I don't have anywhere to work," Jay Payton, 83, said Thursday. "You don't have any clubs."
That's a shame because Payton, Mr. Entertainer, can thrill you with his tap dancing, his singing, and his comedy act. If you need a master of ceremonies or TV host, he can do that, too.
And if you need somebody to put it all together, he has experience as a promoter.
He has been entertaining nearly 70 years, from the time he tap-danced for coins on the streets of his boyhood home, Asheville. N.C.
From there, he took a bus to New York City, starved a while, then triumphed at the make-or-break Apollo Theater, where he won a talent show doing his tap routine. From there, he tap-danced with the Charles Taylor Bronze Mannequins across the country and across oceans.
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