Boogie Woogie

Boogie Woogie is a dance music genre derived or related to various forms of music like the blues, jazz, and particularly stride piano and ragtime in the early 20th century. The consensus among some musicologists is that the style of piano started in northeast Texas as early as the 1870s particularly in the Piney Woods among the lumber and turpentine camps as well as the Harrison and Marshall Counties in Texas. The polyrhythmic sound and cadence of Boogie Woogie (then called “Fast Western” music) was influenced by the “Texas Western Railroad Company” workers.

The origins of the term Boogie Woogie are unknown, though it is believed to have come from certain African dialects. The blues musician Blind Lemon Jefferson referred to the bass figure of the music style as “Booga Rooga”. The style of piano music was heard and then acquired by musicians early in the 20th century by the likes of Jelly Roll Morton as piano music and then was acquired by many Texan guitarists like Lead Belly (who knew Blind Lemon Jefferson).

Later, during the mass migration of African Americans from the south up to the north western cities, the music became known also as house-rent party music. These “rent parties” started as a way for black renters to meet the monthly rent payments when many were suffering from poverty and unemployment. This became a common practice in the late 19th century up through to the mid-20th century in the cities up and down the Mississippi river (in particular, St. Louis and of course Chicago). These rent parties had the effect of incubating great forms of African American music like ragtime, Stride, Jazz and Boogie Woogie.

Boogie Woogie started out primarily as piano music (as solo piano, duet and even triplet pianos) where it was easily played in the juke joints, barrel houses, bar rooms of the rural south and then later, in rented apartments in the urban cities of the mid-west.

As the migration continued up the Mississippi river, Chicago became the hub of boogie woogie music, as well as all the other contemporary forms of music; Jazz, Ragtime, Urban Blues and Stride in the decades before and including the Roaring 20s. Boogie Woogie then was being played by guitars and small and larger jazz combos that used trumpet(s), trombone(s), of course piano, stringed double bass and drums.

The first hit song of Boogie Woogie was a tune called “Pine Top’s Boogie Woogie”, which hit #20 on the charts in February of 1929 by Pine Top Smith. He lived only a month after his hit when he was shot at age 24 in a night club. This might have prompted Elton John’s album titled “Don’t Shoot Me, I’m Just the Piano Player”, which was said to be a comeback joke between Groucho Marx and Elton.

Hersal and George Thomas from Texas who migrated to Chicago are cited as being very influential in the 2nd & 3rd decades of the 20th century (1910s-1920s) with the piece “The Fives”. “The Fives” had most of the modern bass figures in it such as the walking, shuffle and chordal bass, as well as broken octaves (used in ragtime stride). The Fives are considered the first use of Boogie Woogie in a jazz band as found in Joseph Samuels’ Tampa Blue Jazz Band in 1923.

Later on, in the 30s piano artists like Jimmy Yancey who influenced Meade Lux Lewis, Albert Ammons and Pete Johnson, who would all carry the torch of Boogie Woogie into the 1940s. Incidentally, Jimmy Yancey wouldn’t record a song until 1939 when he caused a stir with his unique light-handed style. Meade Lux Lewis recorded “Honky Tonk Train Blues”, released in 1930. Albert Ammons was influential with the song “Boogie Woogie Stomp” in 1936. Pete Johnson (who played with Big Joe Turner) had an influential record with the 12-bar blues, Boogie Woogie style “Roll ‘Em Pete” released in 1938 and considered one of the first Rock & Roll records, if not a precursor to the future genre.

Pine Top influenced Jimmy Dorsey, the big band leader, who recorded a version of Pine Top’s Boogie called simply “Boogie Woogie”, a #3 hit (with a million sales) in 1938 which re-entered the charts in 1943, 1944 and 1945 during the revival Boogie Woogie craze.