community weblog - [ Boogie Woogie ]

- John Penney  [ 4/8/2008 - 11:17 ]   #

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- John Penney  [ 8/9/2007 - 15:17 ]   #

- John Penney  [ 5/8/2007 - 12:44 ]   #

Boogie Woogie legend Big Joe Duskin died Sunday May 7 at his home in Cincinatti from complications arrising from a long battle with diabetes. You can read the obituary in the Cincinatti Inquirer here.

 Big Joe, the “gentle giant,” was a perennial favorite of ours, performing at the first three Motor City Boogie Woogie Festivals from 1999-2001. He was honored as the first inductee of the Boogie Woogie Hall of Fame in 1999 in hometown Cincinnati, Ohio.  A professional musician since the age of 16, Big Joe’s grace and style belie his size and his other profession -- working 30 years as a Cincinnati police officer.  Big Joe has always mixed his musical talents with his love of gospel.  In fact, Big Joe’s love of Boogie Woogie got him in trouble with his Baptist preacher father. While in his 80s, Big Joe’s father made Joe promise that he wouldn’t play “the Devil’s music” until after his death. What no one could predict was that Big Joe’s father would live to 104 years of age.

Joe first heard piano played in his local church.  “I used to have to walk through a swamp filled with alligators to get to church,” Joe recalls.  “And the only way I escaped a beating for being out late at night was because my uncle would find me behind the piano and take me home in his wagon.  He used to get me to slip under the porch when we got home, before my old man could come out. Then, when my father started hollerin’ for me, I would get out from under that porch and tell him I’d fallen asleep under there.”

When his family moved to Cincinnati, Joe was able to teach himself to play the piano.  “I used to play the same song over and over and over, the only song I knew, Coon Shine Baby.  Folks would close their doors when I came onto the porch.  They’d say, ‘Oh no, here’s the Duskin boy again.  Don’t let him near the piano.  He’s gonna play that damned song again.’  ‘Cause at the time, we didn’t have a piano at home.” 

- John Penney  [ 3/29/2007 - 10:54 ]   #

Big Band Boogie Woogie  Big band music of the swing era was primarily for dancing, and nothing got dancers on floor like the eight-beats-to-the-bar boogie woogie beat. This program recreates the feel of those times and highlights the relationship between the blues, boogie woogie, and jazz. Performers include the 15 piece Paul Keller Orchestra, pianists Bob Seeley, Charles Boles, Mr. B., and Axel Zwingenberger, clarinetist Dave Bennett, saxophonist Red Holloway, guitarist George Bedard, and of course, the dancers. Watch the sampler!

Detroit Blues & Beyond The blues informs virtually all popular music in America, and Alberta Adams and Johnnie Bassett are acknowledged masters. Sir Mack Rice wrote some of the biggest R&B hits of all time, including “Mustang Sally.” Calvin Cooke is master of the "Sacred Steel Guitar," a tradition that comes from the Pentecostal Church and is heavily influenced by the blues. The Howling Diablos are a “rock band,” but their original music would not be possible without the blues. All of these artists are from Detroit. Watch the sampler!

Gen2 Blues The sons and daughters of blues artists have a unique perspective on the continuity of the tradition. Our performers include Bernard Allison, son of Chicago blues great Luther Allison; Kenny Neal, son of Raful Neal and a member of one of New Orleans' most prestigious musical families; Tasha Taylor, daughter of Johnnie “The Wailer” Taylor; and Tito Jackson of the Jackson 5. Performing with all of these artists is the Grammy-winning Phantom Blues Band. Watch the sampler!

International Boogie Woogie The American piano style called boogie woogie has spread around the world, and is particularly popular in Europe. This program puts on the same stage Germany’s Sylvan Zingg, France’s Philippe LeJeune, Toronto’s Michael Kaeshammer, and American expatriate Kenny “Blues Boss” Wayne, now residing in Vancouver BC.  Watch the sampler!

- John Penney  [ 11/22/2006 - 09:49 ]   #

The words may change, but it’s the same refrain every year: “It doesn’t get any better than this.” It’s Founder Ron Harwood, understated as always, saying 15 minutes into the Big Band Boogie Woogie show, “I guess this was a good idea.” And Judy Greenwald, the most expressive member of our group, standing by the sound board with her jaw on her chest saying over and over again, “Oh….my…..God!”

It was the Friday audience dancing all night long to Calvin Cooke, Alberta Adams, Johnnie Bassett, Sir Mack Rice, and the Howling Diablos. It was the Saturday house, still packed, demanding yet another encore from the big band at 12:30  in the morning.

We don’t put our shows together the way most people do. We don’t book artists just because they'll provide the biggest draw, and we don’t measure success by how many tickets we sell. We don’t try to make as much money as we can by paying the artists as little as possible and charging as much as possible for tickets. Rather, at the AMRF the artists come first, and we try to keep ticket prices as low as practicable in order to encourage folks to come see and hear music and musicians that they might not otherwise experience.

Our rewards come in the form of comments like these from audience members:
 
“Thank you one & all for the ALL-TIME BEST BOOGIE WOOGIE FESTIVAL to date!”
 " AWESOME!"
"…the BEST concert I have ever been to in my life with major dance parties in the   balcony!"
"… the best night of my life!"
"I thought I was in heaven!"
"I never knew what Boogie Woogie was, but NOW I do!"
"I'll never be the same!"
"Why wasn't EVERYONE THERE???"

 And like this, from Big Band Boogie Woogie Music Director, Bassist and Band Leader Paul Keller:

 “…everything about the show was great. I loved every minute of it! Again, thank you for the opportunity and the means for us to participate in this glorious project! It was an epic saga of immense depth, breadth and magnitude! It was a lot of work by a lot of people. The final result was spectacular!!!”

By the end of the weekend, we had turned some audience members on to music they either didn’t know existed or didn’t think they really liked, and had given the artists a weekend that bore little resemblance to “just another gig.” And we made many, many new friends.

Like I said, it doesn’t get any better than this.

Photography by John Collier, shown at work above.
(c) 2006 American Music Research Foundation

WATCH FOR "BIG BAND BOOGIE WOOGIE" AND "DETROIT BLUES & BEYOND"
ON TV AND DVD IN 2007!

Sir Mack Rice works the crowd with Thornetta Davis up front

Watch the slideshow!

l-r, Charles Boles, Mr. B, Bob Seeley, George Bedard, Dave Bennett, and Red Holloway do the boogie woogie!

Watch the slideshow


Thanks to our Sponsors!

          

 

- John Penney  [ 10/24/2006 - 10:43 ]   #

 

Watch the trailer!

"Recorded at the Redford Theatre in October 2004, this program highlights 60 years in the history of American music. Maria Muldaur performs with James Dapogny's Chicago Jazz Band, recreating performances of the Classic Blues divas of the 20's and 30's. Butch Thompson, of "A Prairie Home Companion" fame, performs turn of the century ragtime and classic boogie woogie from Pinetop Smith. Detroit's Alma Smith performs mid-40's boogie woogie and blues, and the amazing Jason D. Williams performs Louis Jordan's "Caldonia," from the mid 40's, and the seminal rock and roll of Jerry Lee Lewis in the 50's.

56 minutes + 40 minutes of bonus material.
$25 includes shipping and handling

CALL: 1-866-270-5141 between 9am-6pm Eastern, or send a check to:

                                 The American Music Research Foundation
                                 30733 West Ten Mile Road
                                 Farmington Hills, MI 48336

  

- John Penney  [ 7/6/2006 - 16:46 ]   #

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

               Joe Weaver at the 6th Annual Motor City Blues & Boogie Woogie Festival in the Redford Theatre, 2004
(c) American Music Research Foundation

The loss of Joe Weaver hits particularly hard for us at the AMRF. He has been a friend for many years - one of my favorite memories is of Joe playing piano in President Ron Harwood's basement, with Alberta Adams singing along, at one of our post-festival barbeque's a few years ago. Joe was to be one of the featured performers in our"Detroit Blues Legends" program at the 2006 Motor City Blues & Boogie Woogie Festival. His passing reafirms the sense of urgency we feel about our mission.

Late last year Ron and I had a conversation about how to further that mission -  to promote, preserve, and document American music and the musicians who create it. Our festivals do serve all three elements. The live performances and resultant television programs promote the music and musicians, while the raw recordings of the performances and the on-camera interviews with the performers are documents that preserve their legacies. 

But this format is self-limiting because we can only document those artists who are still performing and can come to us. The urgent need is to document those artists who are close to the end of their careers, and even more urgently those who are no longer performing. I remember Ron saying that a bit of his soul dies every time another great one passes without his or her story being captured on camera.

At present we depend on outside personnel and equipment to record our Festivals. We determined that one of our goals should be to acquire equipment that would at least allow us to go to the musicians and get their stories, particularly those of the elder masters no longer performing. 

It is still a goal. Being an "arts and culture" non-profit, particularly in Michigan, presents a tough row to hoe.

In the meantime, we figured we should use this year's festival to present artists who may not perform much longer. This was the genesis of the "Detroit Blues Legends" program. When we all sat down to start considering specific artists for the event back in February, Joe was at the top of the list.  We knew at the time that he was ill, and determined that we would try to get his interview recorded before the festival.

For a variety of reasons, we didn't. And I know I can speak for all of us at the AMRF when I say that with Joe's passing, a bit of all our souls has died. Joe Weaver was a gentleman, and his role in the evolution of the Detroit music scene cannot be overstated. We will miss him.

Below is Susan Whitall's piece from the Detroit News.

 

July 6, 2006

Joe Weaver: 1934-2006

Musician pioneered R&B in Detroit

Susan Whitall / The Detroit News

Joe Weaver, one of the key figures of the 1950s Detroit R&B scene, died Monday in Providence Hospital in Southfield of complications from a stroke. He was 71.

Weaver, pianist and bandleader with his Blue Note Orchestra, was a human thread linking the 1940s big band era with the '50s R&B era, a musical mix that led directly to Motown.

First, he performed jump blues and jazz in the very early '50s, then throughout that decade performed as the Fortune Records house band, backing up the Fortune roster, including Andre Williams and Nolan Strong and the Diablos.

"Joe was playing some pioneering funk grooves and R&B, way back in the early '50s," said his friend and manager, R.J. Spangler, on Wednesday. "Joe had it all. He could play New Orleans-type beats, doo-wop, jump blues, soul and down and dirty, lowdown blues."

Later, Weaver and his band, the Blue Notes, worked for Berry Gordy Jr., playing on early Tamla sessions such as "Shop Around" for Smokey Robinson and the Miracles.

A lifelong Detroiter, Weaver was still a student at Northwestern High School when he met guitar player Johnnie Bassett. With several friends they formed the Blue Notes and started winning talent shows at the Warfield Theater on Hastings Street.

Bassett remembered his friend and colleague fondly as someone who didn't spend a lot of time analyzing his musical importance.

"Joe wasn't the type of person who was seeking to be a big name," Bassett said Wednesday. "He just liked to be in the limelight and have fun with what he was doing at the time. He was always laughing and joking. He was always upbeat, regardless of what was going on."

Weaver, Bassett and the Blue Notes would practice in the back room at Joe Von Battle's record store on Hastings, since they were friends with Von Battle's son.

Von Battle had a primitive recording machine in his back room, and he recorded one of those sessions and titled it "1540 Special" (alluding to the street address of King Records). The record, Weaver's first, was released on the Deluxe label, a subsidiary of Cincinnati-based King.

Weaver and the Blue Notes won "best band" so often at the Warfield Theater in the early '50s that they were made the permanent backing band. They performed that function for top Detroit acts such as Little Willie John and John Lee Hooker at the Warfield and at clubs around town such as Basin Street in Delray and the Phelps Lounge on Oakland.

Once at Fortune Records, the legendary Detroit record label located (later) on Third Avenue, Weaver cut many records as an artist with the (then) Blue Note Orchestra.

Several of the Funk Brothers, Motown's famed session band, have credited Weaver's early work for Tamla/Motown as being key in the formation of the Funks since many of them cycled in and out of Weaver's band.

Despite all his work, in the '60s Weaver packed in the precarious life of a musician to work on a Ford assembly line for 30 years.

It was at a backyard barbecue at Bassett's house in the early '90s that blues promoter/musician Spangler first met Weaver and persuaded him to play out again.

"He was still working at his day job, but he was getting ready (to play)," said Spangler. "It didn't take much persuasion."

Weaver was a bubbly raconteur, regaling friends and reporters with colorful tales from his long musical career.

He liked to tell of the time he and the Blue Notes were backing up the volatile Andre "Bacon Fat" Williams.

Williams was complaining all through his set about how badly he thought the band was playing, which wore on Weaver's nerves, so the bandleader instructed his musicians to stop playing. "Don't play another note, let Andre sing a cappella!"

In 2002, Weaver got together with two old friends, Stanley Mitchell of Stanley and the Hurricanes and solo singer Kenny Martin, both '50s hitmakers out of Detroit, to form the Motor City Rhythm and Blues Pioneers.

The R&B Pioneers released a self-titled CD that year. In May of this year, in one of his last public appearances, Weaver was honored at the Detroit Music Awards with a Distinguished Achievement Award.

Weaver is survived by three daughters; Zenobia, April and Belinda, and his girlfriend, Sue Williams. Funeral arrangements are pending.

- John Penney  [ 3/16/2006 - 11:44 ]   #

 The New Masses Presents
      AN EVENING OF AMERICAN NEGRO MUSIC
          “From Spirituals to Swing”
          (DEDICATED TO BESSIE SMITH)
      FRIDAY EVENING, DECEMBER 23, 1938
         Carnegie Hall

John Hammond conceived of this concert as a political statement set to music:  “...the Negro people have produced some of the most amazing musicians the world has ever known,” and they deserved better than the oppression and discrimination they were subjected to.

Hammond was born on December 15, 1910 in an eight-story mansion on New York’s upper east side, an heir to the Vanderbilt fortune. As a child he discovered a Columbia Grafanola in the servant’s quarters, and by the age of 12 was collecting recordings of “early Negro and country artists.” His grandmother had a player piano and he also began collecting jazz rolls. At the age of 17 he snuck up to Harlem to hear Bessie Smith, telling his parents he had to go out to play string quartets. For the rest of his high school days he inhabited the Harlem clubs, frequently the only white face in the room.

While a student at Yale Hammond returned to New York on weekends and spent his nights in Harlem. During his sophomore year a recurrence of jaundice forced him to drop out, but by then Hammond had determined that he wanted a career in the music business.

His father sent him to “The Millionaire’s Club” in Georgia to recuperate. As Hammond says in his autobiography, “I returned to New York physically recovered and emotionally enraged. The habit of discrimination was so encrusted by centuries of acceptance that both black and white knew no other way to act. I had walked through my first southern Nigger town, the son of the president of a private club for millionaires, many of them Southern, all of them white and Protestant. To know better was no longer enough. I had to do something.”

For Hammond doing something meant promoting the artists and music he loved. As an independently wealthy man he was able to pursue his passion as he saw fit. As a young man he wrote about jazz for music magazines, invested in concerts, produced his first records, and hosted the first ever radio program devoted to jazz. He traveled the country by car, seeking out new talent.

At the center of his vision was a concert that would “bring together for the first time, before a musically sophisticated audience, Negro music from its raw beginnings to the latest jazz,” but it took years to find a sponsor that would underwrite the talent search and Carnegie Hall production. In early 1938, the Marxist publication, “New Masses,” agreed to sign on.

Hammond contacted a talent scout in North Carolina and set out to find his performers. Robert Johnson was at the top of Hammond’s list but had been killed by his girlfriend earlier in the year. “Big Bill” Broonzy was signed instead. Hammond also signed many of the performers he had discovered in New York, Chicago, and Kansas City.

In the printed program for the event Hammond laid out the show, not in the order of performances, but in the order by which the music evolved. There were eight parts:

Introduction During which recordings made by the H. E. Tracy expedition to the Africa were played.

I. Spirituals and Holy Roller Hymns
Mitchell’s Christian Singers were a group of laborers from North Carolina that sang a cappella on Sundays. Hammond went to their home, a back country shack without water or electricity, to sign them up.Sister Rosetta Tharpe was a forerunner to Mahalia Jackson, a singer and guitarist who played a “Holy Roller” style of hymns that straddled gospel and the blues. She played mostly in churches but had done one night at The Cotton Club, which brought her to Hammond’s attention.

II. Soft Swing 
The Kansas City Six featured Lester Young (cl. tsax.), Buck Clayton (tr.), Eddie Durham (electric g.), Freddie Greene (g.), Walter Page (b.), and Joe Jones (dr.) Their music straddled swing and dixieland styles of jazz.
 
III. Harmonica Playing
Hammond went to North Carolina to sign Blind Boy Fuller, but Fuller was in jail. Living next door was blind harmonica player Sanford (Sonny) Terry, and upon hearing him Hammond signed him on the spot.

IV. Blues
It had been Hammond’s dream to feature Bessie Smith, but she had passed on by the time the concert was in production, so he signed Ruby Smith – no relation to Bessie – accompanied by James P. Johnson, one of the originators of the “stride” style of piano that straddled the transition from ragtime to jazz.Hammond discovered blues shouter Joe Turner and his colleague boogie-woogie pianist Pete Johnson in Kansas City, and first brought them to New York to perform at The Famous Door in 1936. In 1938 he brought them back for a guest appearance on Benny Goodman’s “Camel Caravan,” and they stayed to perform in Carnegie Hall. Bill Broonzy had moved from Arkansas to Chicago in 1924, where he had become a major figure in the blues scene. The Carnegie Hall performance marked the first time he had played for a white audience. Jimmy Rushing was the vocalist in Count Basie’s band, and Helen Humes was a volcalist Hammond had discovered in Louisville, Kentucky and recommended to Basie. They both performed with small groups at Carnegie Hall before performing with the orchestra.

V. Boogie-Woogie Piano Playing
Pianists Albert Ammons and Meade Lux Lewis had shared a rooming house with Pinetop Smith in Chicago from 1927 to 1930. Smith had a hit with the recording of “Boogie Woogie” in 1928. After he passed away in 1929, Ammons and Lewis continued to develop the form. At Carnegie Hall they played solo, duo, and six-handed with Pete Johnson. The Spirituals to Swing concert began the boogie-woogie craze in this country. Ammons and Lewis were recorded together at the very first session for Blue Note Records in January of 1939.

VI. Early New Orleans Jazz
 Sidney Bechet (cl. ssax.), Tommy Ladnier(tr.), James P. Johnson (p.), Dan Minor (trb.), Jo Jones (dr.)

VII. Swing
 Count Basie and His Orchestra

The concert was oversold to the extent that chairs for an additional 400 people had to be put on stage, and a second “From Spirituals to Swing” concert was staged on Christmas Day, 1939.

- Ryan Hertz  [ 2/13/2006 - 15:56 ]   #

St.Augustine Parish and its rich New Orleans history become victims of Hurricane Katrina

Called to manage a floodscape of devastated church parishes and hollowed-out neighborhoods, the Archdiocese of New Orleans Thursday said it could no longer afford to subsidize a treasure that counts as one of Hurricane Katrina's walking wounded: St. Augustine Parish, the cradle of black Catholicism in New Orleans.

Archbishop Alfred Hughes announced Thursday that he will close the parish, the third- or fourth-oldest in the archdiocese.

St. Augustine's historic church will remain open for weekly worship, now as one of two places of worship in the newly enlarged St. Peter Claver Parish next door.

But historic St. Augustine Parish will cease to exist in mid-March. Whatever future the community builds for itself, it will do so under another name and under a new pastor.

Founded in 1841 on a former plantation at the edge of the French Quarter, St. Augustine's roots are African, French, Haitian and Spanish.

Its story provides a window into the rich cultural ancestry of old New Orleans. ... [MORE]

- Ryan Hertz  [ 1/24/2006 - 10:45 ]   #

To answer the above question, the innovative folks at the Music Genome Project have developed an incredible web application that they call Pandora.  Pandora's easy to use interface allows you to quickly and easily create free customizable radio stations, exposing you to a wide range of music oriented around your aesthetic preferences.  Just type in a favorite song or artist and your journey begins.

I've thrown together an AMRF channel for fans of blues, jazz, and boogie woogie.  Click here to listen and enjoy!   -r. hertz

- Ryan Hertz  [ 1/9/2006 - 11:17 ]   #

David K. Mathews wears his musical passions on his sleeve. Well, not his sleeve exactly, more like his biceps, back and pecs.

Decked out in a tight, white muscle shirt, Mathews testifies to his wide-ranging keyboard pursuits with his numerous tattoos, starting with the Tower of Power logo on his burly right bicep that commemorates the years he spent playing organ with the great East Bay funk band in the mid-1980s. Just below that is a jaunty image of Fats Waller from his 1930s heyday, ink that served as motivation for Mathews to explore the demanding Harlem stride piano style.

"I really wanted to learn how to play some Fats Waller, so I thought maybe if I got a tattoo of him, I'd have to be able to back it up, and that's what happened," says Mathews, 46, during an interview at an Albany cafe. "I'm really a funk, soul, R&B guy, and I see the tattoos as kind of a rock 'n' roll thing. It's just like one of the guys in Def Leppard."

The aesthetic may be rock, but you'd have to look far and wide for a metal player capable of navigating intricate post-bop lines on the Hammond B3 organ. That's what Mathews will do at Yoshi's on Monday, when he celebrates the release of his excellent album "The Coltrane Connection" (Jesse's Dad Records). Featuring Bay Area saxophone great Mel Martin, the prodigious drummer Deszon X. Claiborne and Barry Finnerty, the first guitarist recruited by Miles Davis, the project focuses on another area of Mathews' investigation, the lithe, harmonically sophisticated jazz organ sound developed in the mid-1960s by Larry Young and Don Patterson. ... [MORE]

- Ronda Lee  [ 12/30/2005 - 09:39 ]   #

- Ryan Hertz  [ 12/16/2005 - 09:53 ]   #

                                

- Ronda Lee  [ 11/11/2005 - 15:22 ]   #

Please click on the "view slideshow" icon below to see a pictorial review of the 7th Annual Motor City Blues & Boogie Woogie Festival.

For those of you who did not attend the festival, the slide show will give you an opportunity to see what you missed and will give you a preview of what we hope you won't miss in the coming year.  For those of you who did attend, these photos will surely bring back the experience. 

After you watch the slide show we encourage you to register on our website so that you may add your thoughts and opinions to the dissussion board, enabling us to gauge your likes and dislikes or anything else you might wish to express about the festival. 

Enjoy the show...

 

- Ryan Hertz  [ 10/17/2005 - 11:59 ]   #

- Ryan Hertz  [ 10/17/2005 - 11:50 ]   #

By John Nova Lomax
Published: Thursday, October 13, 2005

- Ryan Hertz  [ 10/11/2005 - 13:57 ]   #

ANDREA LORENZ

Knight Ridder

A 78-year-old shouldn't be able to move like this. He gyrates and boogies, pausing every so often to wipe the sweat from his forehead with a cloth. But stage lights cause perspiration just as much as age.

No matter. His knees bend too well and support his weight too effortlessly for a man his age. Chuck Berry appears tickled when the crowd in St. Louis cheers each time he scoots across the stage in his signature duck walk.

It is a hometown crowd. He is one of the best-known pop guitarists of all time. And Chuck Berry has made St. Louis a key stop on the Road to Rock & Roll.

Berry hasn't been on the Billboard singles charts since the 1970s when he did "Reelin' and Rockin' " and "My Ding-A-Ling." The former was a remake of one of his '50s standards; the later a novelty song. No matter.  ...[MORE]

- Ryan Hertz  [ 10/6/2005 - 12:04 ]   #

By Patrik Jonsson | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

MEMPHIS, TENN – . - Ever since he played "When the Saints Come Marching In" as a 5-year-old, Stephen Rudolph has been happiest when his fingers are dancing across a keyboard.

But hurricane Katrina took away his gigs and his joie de vivre. That is, until the straw-hatted pianist landed on Beale Street here in Memphis, where the New Orleans standard "Poke Salad Annie" is replaced by the Memphis must-sing "Mustang Sally." Two days after he and his wife, Susan, arrived penniless and hungry, Mr. Rudolph found work for his fingers - and is now considering staying, if only to pay off the generosity of local musicians and club owners.

"This storm has scattered musicians all over the country," says Rudolph. "And that may not be a bad thing." ... [MORE]

- Ryan Hertz  [ 8/1/2005 - 14:36 ]   #

          This year, the American Music Research Foundation celebrates the centennial of one of the biggest names in Boogie history, Meade Anderson "Lux(embourg)" Lewis.  Born on September 3, 1905, Lewis was inspired by legendary Clarence "Pinetop" Smith and Jimmy Yancey.  Lewis shared a friendship with two of Boogie-Woogie's other cornerstone players, Pete Johnson and Albert Ammons.  With Johnson and Ammons, a fellow Chicago taxi driver, Lewis rocked many pianos in the mid-20's.
          In 1927, Lewis recorded his famous "Honky Tonk Train Blues", a classic that would be reproduced by nearly every Boogie player to follow.  The "Honky Tonk Train Blues" has a slow, rhythmic left hand that rests in one place, mimicking the sound of a train chugging along its tracks, while the right hand reproduces a starting whistle, bridge crossings, whistle conversations, and finally the slow descent of the train pulling into a station.
          When Lewis released the solo record two years later, a new name had been found for his style.  Clarence "Pinetop" Smith's 1928 "Pinetop's Boogie Woogie" was the first known coinage of the title "Boogie Woogie."  Smith's song was a faster-paced Boogie than Lewis's, and surpassed it in popularity.
          With the Great Depression came a great decline of Boogie-Woogie's popularity.  Lewis couldn't make enough money playing piano, and fell back onto side jobs to make ends meet.  In 1935, Lewis was found washing cars by the New York record producer and critic John Hammond.  Hammond, inspired by his discovery of the young Billie Holiday and his work with artists like Fletcher Henderson, Bessie Smith and Benny Goodman, was on a mission to bring black music into the limelight.  Hammond was gathering all of the best black American artists he could find to play in his "Spirituals to Swing" concert at Carnegie Hall.
          On December 23, 1938, Meade "Lux" Lewis joined his friends Albert Ammons and Pete Johnson on stage, along with shouter Big Joe Turner, the Count Basie Orchestra, the Bennie Goodman sextet, vocalist Rubie Smith (the recently deceased Bessie's niece), and Sister Rosetta Tharpe, among others.  The concert was an unmitigated success, blowing the minds of the white New Yorkers who came to see Carnegie Hall's first ever presentation of black American music.  The audience went wild for the three Boogie piano players, launching a huge nation-wide Boogie-Woogie craze that would last into the early 50's.
          After the 1938 concert, Lewis, Ammons and Johnson, along with Big Joe Turner, settled into an extended engagement at the Cafe Society in New York, often playing "train wrecks" with two and three pianos at once.  Lewis continued to tour and record into the early 60's, joining sessions sometimes on celeste and harpsichord.  Though Boogie-Woogie fell out of fashion, Lewis held his left-hand chords through the development of jump blues and rock and roll, living proof of his genre's foundational influence on later music.  Lewis died in a fatal car crash in Minnesota on June 7, 1964.

-Contributed by Britt Harwood

- Ryan Hertz  [ 7/28/2005 - 14:42 ]   #

- Ryan Hertz  [ 7/28/2005 - 11:48 ]   #