First time I saw Damp Hampton in action was at Dance Manhatten dance studio in New York City some 9 years ago for her birthday celebrations. But it was only this year at Herrang that I got to talk to her and hang with her a little bit, especially during the bits when I was DJing – it. If anything she has grown more amazing over the years.
Famous for her back-leading, and conducting (see my entry on Herrang), her inspirational speech on swing dancing, and her dancing to bhangra, Dawn was born in 1928, in Middle town, Ohio. Her father, Clark Deacon Hampton, Sr., had a family band and vaudeville act which was part of a travelling carnival. She grew up listening to the music of the family band, Deacon Hampton’s Pickaninnys, sitting on an orange box behind her mother Laura’s piano. She began performing at the tender age of three, and two years later sang He Takes Me to Paradise. Dawn is one of twelve children. Slide Hampton, the well-known jazz trombonist, is the youngest. Two of Dawn’s older sisters, Aletra and Virtue, live in Indianapolis and are still performing and there are many more musical Hampton’s scattered around the country.
After the war, the family band reunited for several years. There were fourteen pieces and nine Hamptons; Dawn played alto and tenor sax. They travelled under the leadership of her brother Duke, and played throughout the Mid-West and South. Finally, in 1950, the band achieved its dream of performing at Carnegie Hall (along with another well-known, although unrelated Hampton, Lionel). Once the Big Apple got a taste of the Hampton Family, they were featured at the Apollo Theatre and the Savoy Ballroom. The Hamptons became the House Band at the then-famous Sunset Terrace in Indianapolis, and then moved on to the Cincinatti Cotton Club. Somewhere in the mid-1950’s, several brothers went off to study music and Dawn and her sister’s Aletra, Virtue and Carmelita continued performing as the Hampton Sisters.
Dawn is now a regular at Herrang Dance Camp, and here, we see her performing with another regular at the camp – the Carling Family Band, an amazing variety act and jazz band from Gothenberg, Sweden (see http://www.carlingfamily.se/indexeng.html)
Here we see her dancing with Frankie Manning at Lindyfest 2008 in Houston, to one of Frankie’s favourite tunes “Shiny Stockings”. No fancy moves but one of the best dances ever because of the interaction between them, all the playing with each other and the music. It really ain’t what you do but the way that you do it!
And this is her dancing with John Stokes, after Frankie’s Funeral, at the Harlem Stage, to her favourite song Splanky, played by George Gee and his Make Believe Ballroom Orchestra.
