In 1940, while performing as a dance soloist with Cab Calloway and his jive-swing orchestra, Coles met Charles "Cholly" Atkins. Atkins is a well-known jazz tap dancer, who choreographed, staged, and staged acts for many vocal groups of the 1960s.Hill, Valis Constance. “Charles "Cholly" Atkins [biography].” In Tap Dance in America: A Twentieth-Century Chronology of Tap Performance on Stage, Film, and Media, Library of Congress, accessed May 4, 2022, http://memory.loc.gov/diglib/ihas/loc.music.tdabio.17/default.html “Honi” Coles’s specialty was precision and fast-rhythm steps, while Atkins was an expert wing dancer known as "the man with the moves".
