Wayne Schmidt's Boogie Woogie Page: Its history, explanation, list of the top-charted songs, and piano samples.
(Click here to browse 70 topics on my main site ranging from exotic kaleidoscope designs to the strange world of lucid dreaming.)
Boogie
Woogie is the easiest music style in the world to recognize. Heard
once, its simple, lively, driving rhythm will be remembered a
lifetime. This page provides .mid
samples of it, an explanation of what it is, where it came from, its
long range impact, a listing all the boogie woogie hits that made it
into the top 30 charts, and why it disappeared.
Boogie
Woogie Defined:
Nothing defines boogie woogie better than hearing it. Take the link below for a midi sample of pure boogie woogie on piano. (Samples take 10-seconds to load on dial-up.)
UPDATE!!!
Believe
it or not, this page was written before Youtube became the
entertainment juggernaut it is,
which
is why I had to resort to midi files. Here's a
Youtube video that provides a
much
better idea of what Boogie Woogie sounds like.
This
is Boogie Woogie Stomp:
Dictionaries define "Boogie Woogie" as: A style of blues piano playing with an up-tempo rhythm, a repeating melodic pattern in the bass, and a series of improvised variations in the treble.
While correct in a mathematical sense I have several problems with this definition.
First, while boogie woogie certainly does belong under the enormous umbrella definition of blues music, the term "blues" carries with it the connotation of slow and sad. Boogie woogie is the opposite of this. It is one of the most exuberant of all music forms.
Second, defining the base rhythm as "up-tempo" doesn't convey the perky, bouncing beat of the base. It also fails to emphasize that boogies are almost always played very fast, even more so than their eighth note pattern in 4/4 time suggests. The slowest boogie will easily outrun the average rock and roll song.
But for me the greatest shortcoming of the textbook definition is that it fails to mention that the most significant feature of boogie woogie music is that the base rhythm, which in most songs is restrained and only noticeable with effort, has been brought to the front and and given the same strength as the treble line. For the piano this means that for the first time the left hand is getting as much attention as the right. The bass line isn't just a time keeper or "fill" for the right hand.
Also, referring to the base line as having a "repeated melodic pattern" fails to clarify that the base follows a unique rising/falling sequence of notes called a "walking base." This "walk" can have as many as three components: steps consisting of two-note alterations, short walks consisting of one-bar rises followed by one-bar falls, and longer walks where the pitch of the shorter two-bar walks moves up and down the scale. (Triple walks, as in Pure Boogie Woogie, are more common to piano. Songs with the base line carried by a bass fiddle, as in Choo Choo Ch'Boogie, only have double walks.) This triple walk, when coupled with the base's loud presence, makes the base rhyme a dominate factor in the song. It's what puts the woogie in the boogie.
Vary the powerful base sound just a little and it just won't sound like boogie.
Some references group boogie woogie with ragtime. I disagree. Listen again to Pure Boogie Woogie for the break from the boogie rhythm to a ragtime rhythm 30 seconds into the song. Although they have similar pacings, they are clearly two distinct forms.
Finally, boogie woogie is quintessentially piano music. While arrangements for other instruments have been made, nothing matches the essence of boogie better than a piano. Even in orchestral productions, it's the piano that makes the song.
How do you know for sure if you're listening to boogie woogie? Simple. If you feel an uncontrollable itch to smile... it's boogie. Try it yourself. Listen to Louis Jordan's 1941 hit Choo Choo Ch'Boogie and see if you don't feel the urge to grin.
History
and Origins:
The term "boogie" was used as slang for rent parties in the opening of the 20th century. A group of apartment tenants would pool their meager resources and rent a musician or small band to play at their building. A hat would be passed around in the hope that people coming to listen to the music would donate enough money to not only pay for the band but have enough left over to pay the tenant's rent. Such parties were sometimes referred to as "boogies." The term got applied to the fast, honky tonk style music commonly featured and from this to the boogie woogie style. (This was the most common theory about where the name came from. Several references stated that there is no clear source for it.)
The earliest record of boogie woogie was Texas pianist George W. Thomas' release of New Orleans Hop Scop Blues as sheet music in 1916, though observers of the time have stated that he played versions of it as early as 1910. The Fives was released in 1923 and was the first jazz band boogie woogie. Up to this this boogie woogie was played as just part of a song. This changed in 1924 when the piano solo recording Chicago Stomps was released as the first song to be completely boogie woogie. Swanee River Boogie was also released in the late 1920s. Boogie achieved its first top-30 charted hit in Pine Top Smith's Pine Top's Boogie, released in 1929. It made it to the number 20 position. (Tragically, Pine Top Smith died in a jazz club shooting just a few months after his hit made it on the charts. He was only 24.)
Boogie woogie slowly gained in popularity but was never an mainline music form until it was featured in two Carnegie Hall concerts in 1937 and 1938. After that it exploded into the popular music venue. Major swing bands, like Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey, and Louis Jordan to name a few, all had boogie hits. Though no boogie woogie made it to the number one spot on the top-30 charts, it was an important and omnipresence influence during the 1940s.
The hot years for boogie were 1940 and 1941. During the later 1040s and early 50s it slowly lost its following. Finally, in the middle 1950 it was completely supplanted by rock and roll, a music form very similar to it.
Long
Range Music Impact:
As can be seen in the song title list below, the boogie woogie period only lasted a few years. Yet its impact echoes through the music scene even today. The reason is that its simple pounding rhythms opened the door to the derivative sounds of rock and roll, which took over the popular music scene shortly after boogie faded in popularity. Listen to the following sample of boogie woogie with the base slightly reduced in volume: (Please ignore the electronic opening.)
Ignoring the obvious melody borrowed from established rock and roll songs, the song as a whole is one of the purest forms of rock and roll, yet it's also boogie woogie. The soul of boogie woogie is still with us to lesser or greater degrees in every rock and roll song. Listen to Jerry Lee Lewis pounding out Great Balls of Fire and you'll hear the boogie in its rhythm.
Chronology
of Boogie Woogie Hits:
The following list is of the boogie woogie songs that made it onto the top-30 charts:
1929 Pine Top's Boogie Woogie by Pine Top Smith - #20
1938
Boogie Woogie
by Tommy Dorsey - #3
(Many
consider this the quintessential boogie woogie song. It was released
a total of four times and each time was a charted hit.)
1940
Boog It
by Glenn Miller - #7
1940
Boog It by
Gene Krupa - #13
1940
Rhumboogie by
The Andrews Sisters - #11
1940
Beat Me Daddy, Eight to the Bar The
Andrews Sisters - #2
(This
#2 hit was the highest charting boogie woogie song of all time.)
1941
Boogie Woogie Piggy Glenn
Miller - #7
1941
Drum Boogie
by Gene Krupa #26
(Featured
in the movie Ball of Fire with
Barbara Stanwyck. She sang the vocal.)
1941
Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy by
The Andrews Sisters - #6
(They
performed this song in the
Abbott and Costello comedy Buck Privates.
Although not the highest-charting boogie song, it has become the
icon for the style. Bette Midler successfully revived it in 1973 and
it soared to the #8 position on the top-40 chart, proof that boogie
can still grab people.)
1942 Cow
Cow Boogie by Freddie Slack - #9
1944
Hamp's Boogie Woogie
by Lionel Hampton - #25
1944
Boogie Woogie
by Tommy Dorsey - #5 (re-release)
1944
Boogie Woogie
by Tommy Dorsey - #21 (re-re-release)
1944
Cow Cow
Boogie by
Ella Fitzgerald - #10
1944
Cryin' the Boogie Blues Will
Bradley - #23
1945
Boogie Woogie
by Tommy Dorsey - #4 (one final release)
1945
Caldonia Boogie by
Louis Jordan - #6
1946
Choo Choo Ch'Boogie by
Louis Jordan - #7
1946
Mad Boogie by
Count Basie - #10
1947
One O'Clock Boogie Count
Basie - #8
1947
Boogie Woogie Blue Plate by
Louis Jordan - #21
1948
Guitar Boogie by
Arthur Smith - #25
1948
Rhumba Boogie by
Chuy Reyes - #27
1948
Sabre Dance Boogie by
Freddie Martin - #6
1948
Saxa-boogie by
Sam Donahue - #24
1951
Kissing Bug Boogie by
Jo Stafford - #20
1951
Shot Gun Boogie by
Tennessee Ernie Ford - #4
1952
Oakie Boogie by
Ella Mae Morse - #23
1953
Eight Beat Boogie by
Johnny Maddox - #21
1953
Swanee River Boogie by
The Commanders - #25 (re-release of the
1920s song)
1973 Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy - by Bette Midler - #8
Why
Boogie Woogie Faded Away:
Boogie woogie has such a sharply defined rhythm that it can be accurately, though perhaps unkindly, claimed that if you've heard one you've heard them all. The fact has to be acknowledged that the central base line is very similar in all boogies. A consequence of this is that originality is limited. For this reason I believe people's appetites became quickly sated. Additionally, by the mid-1950s rock and roll was taking over the charts and while its style had many elements in common with boogie woogie it wasn't nearly as constrained.
(For a comparison between boogie woogie, honky tonk, and ragtime, please see my Style Wars page.)
Free
Boogie Woogie Sheet Music for Piano:
Several Google searches turned up the following page as having a nice selection of boogie woogie sheet music that can be printed for free:
http://www.mljmusic.com/Transcriptions/tabid/96/Default.aspx
UPDATE!!!
Here's a beginner's guide of how to play boogie woogie on the piano:
References
used:
The data for this page came from Joel Whitburn's Pop Memories, by Joel Whitburn, 1986, published by Record Research, Inc., Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, Wikipedia.com, Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 11th Edition, and several dozen Internet sites.
I hope you found this page interesting. Please return to my homepage to browse 90 other pages dealing with music, gardening, science, medicine and many other topics.