On today’s date in 1923, the comedy team of Flournoy Miller and Aubrey Lyles were the star attraction in a new musical they had written called “Runnin’ Wild,” which opened at the Colonial Theater at Broadway and 62nd Street.

In their day, Miller and Lyles were the African-American equivalent of Abbot and Costello or Laurel and Hardy. The plot of “Runnin’ Wild,” like many Broadway musicals of that day, was flimsy: two Southern con-men on the run head north to St. Paul, Minnesota, but find the natives too strange and the climate too cold, so they return home disguised as famous spiritualists. This “plot” provided an excuse for comic sketches to be sandwiched in between snappy song and dance numbers, the latter invariably involving leggy showgirls.

Prior to its opening night, everyone predicted that one of the songs from “Runnin’ Wild” entitled “Old Fashioned Love” would be the show’s big musical hit. As luck would have it, it was a totally different dance number that struck gold for the show’s composer, James P. Johnson.*

Johnson called this tune “Charleston,” after the dockside hometown of many recent African-American immigrants to New York City’s west side. Scholars have traced this dance step back to the west side of Africa, however—an Ashanti Ancestor dance, to be exact.

But whatever its source, this catchy rhythm made Johnson famous, and rapidly became the signature tune for the “Roaring Twenties,” a decade of flappers, bathtub gin, and all that jazz!