Boogie Woogie

GoodSpeak · May-27th-2003, 11:35 PM

There are several bands in the 70s who dabbled in Boogie Woogie/Blues. The single most recognizable song of that era might be Spirit in the Sky by Norman Greenbaum.

Another band, often unnoticed or forgotten, would be Canned Heat. These are the guys that brought us Going Up the Country, Let's Work Together, Time Was and On the Road Again.

Then, in the late 70s the genre made a come back with Hollywood Fats Band and Jimmy Witherspoon...and BB King became popular amongst the rock and rollie crowd.

There are others, of course, but which band do you most fondly recall? Why?

What do you think is the greatest contribution to modern music these bands had/have? To Blues?

Your thoughts?

TimMc

Ron Thorne · May-28th-2003, 12:34 AM

I must say that I've never heard of a genre known as Boogie Woogie/Blues. So, I'll likely need some help here.

Canned Heat, B.B. King and Jimmy Witherspoon = Boogie Woogie?

Dr Dave · May-28th-2003, 12:41 AM

Goodie: Go out and find yourself a copy of R.L. Burnside's "A Ass Pocket Of Whiskey"
Then find a "T-Bone Ford" recording. The music is alive and kicking.

Tom Storer · May-28th-2003, 04:02 AM

Goodie, I think "boogie" by itself is a better name for the style you're referring to. "Boogie woogie" usually refers to a (mostly solo) piano style, exemplified by, for example, Albert Ammons, Meade Lux Lewis and Pete Johnson.

moneyp · May-28th-2003, 04:04 AM

How the heck is "Spirit in the Sky" either boogie woogie or blues?

May-28th-2003, 05:58 AM

If its boogie woogie you seek, aside from the masters Tom Storer suggests, try a little Mary Lou Williams and "Roll 'Em"

Douglas · May-28th-2003, 06:20 AM

I caught an exuberant Little Willie Littlefield a few years ago. Worth seeing if you have the chance.

Tanager · May-28th-2003, 08:17 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by FredC
If its boogie woogie you seek, aside from the masters Tom Storer suggests, try a little Mary Lou Williams and "Roll 'Em"

Amen to Tom's suggestion and this one - MLW's album with this track is on eMusic, too (or it was last I looked). I grew up with Pete Johnson and Albert Ammons - Dad had a slew of their records, thank God. Great, great stuff.

I also agree that "Boogie Woogie" is pretty much applied to solo piano of the sort listed above. Yes, John Lee Hooker spawned a whole generation (or two or three) of guitar boogie players, and he practically invented the boogie shuffle rhythm (maybe he really did invent it, am I far off the mark here?), I'd include as the main proponents in the boogie-blues-rock arena:

Billy Gibbons/ZZ Top

George Thoroughgood (never met a song he didn't think should be reworked as guitar boogie - buy Move It On Over and skip the other albums, b/c that's the best one, everything else is identical in flavor, IMHO - but Move is simply great beer-drankin' and party music, no question)

Canned Heat

I would NEVER include B.B. King as a boogie player.

bluenoter · May-28th-2003, 08:23 AM

Edit: My post crossed with Tanager's post above.

I think that the kind of boogie that GoodSpeak is talking about is a very specific rhythmic riff that rock musicians picked up from John Lee Hooker (and no doubt from others).

Hate to say it, but I'd rather listen to John Lee Hooker doing anything else.

Quote:

I would NEVER include B.B. King as a boogie player.

If I know the Goodster, he'll come back with "I said blues, too!" But Goodie, you can't, or shouldn't, throw a vast genre full of nonboogie into a discussion about boogie.

Pete C · May-28th-2003, 08:44 AM

There is a certain elemental hypnotic appeal to John Lee Hooker's "boogie" style, and it may have had some influence on several generations of Malian musicians.

clinthopson · May-28th-2003, 11:27 AM

The "boogie" term that blues and rockers use has very little to do with the original "boogie woogie" which was a pretty limited musical style. But to play it well, the pianist had to be a master of his instrument.

Albert Ammons, Pete Johnson, Meade Lux Lewis and Freddie Slack did very well with the style in the early 40's but I don't think it ever went further than that.

Lionel Hampton had a big hit with "Hamp's Boogie" and Ella Mae Morse with Freddie Slack (I LOVE THAT NAME!) with "Down the Road A Piece."

Ray McKinley and Will Bradley had a few boogie woogie successes.

Hooker's "boogie" is basically the blues with maybe a few b-w progressions thrown in.

shrugs · May-28th-2003, 11:33 AM

wouldn't a true boogie woogie thread belong in Speak Out?

Twos and Fews, baby

Tanager · May-28th-2003, 12:12 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by clinthopson
Hooker's "boogie" is basically the blues with maybe a few b-w progressions thrown in.

With all due respect, I don't think JLH-style boogie has much at all to do with progressions - it's basically a vamp - I've heard boogies which never come within shouting distance of a I-IV-V or any other blues turnaround. The boogie part is really a rhythmic feel, IMHO, and it's distinctive enough to set it apart from the "blues" at large - it's a subset, sure, but it's unmistakeable when you hear it.

Nathaniel Catchpole · May-28th-2003, 01:24 PM

FWIW, last years Pop Stars runner up is currently in the UK charts with a trash 70's bollywood version of Spirit in the Sky.

Ron Thorne · May-28th-2003, 04:15 PM

Boogie/Woogie/Boogie Woogie is a rhythmic thang, not a melodic or harmonic one. It's essentially a shuffle rhythm, which is difficult to describe in words, but has almost a galloping feel. For those who read music, in it's simplest form in 4/4 time, it's alternating 8th notes followed by dotted 8th notes.

Tanager nailed it with this response:

"The boogie part is really a rhythmic feel, IMHO, and it's distinctive enough to set it apart from the "blues" at large - it's a subset, sure, but it's unmistakeable when you hear it."

Sergio Zamora · May-28th-2003, 04:27 PM

It seems that in the 70's, the use of a boogie-woogie-like piano was ubiquitous in a lot of rock music, especially country or blues rock. It was a sort of very fast high note repetition. Maybe I'm incorrect in associating that sound with boogie-woogie, though.

Anyway, it sucked. When I think of that sound, I just get this image of a long-haired 17-year-old Goodspeak lighting up a doobie behind the local rec center, wearing a Grand Funk t-shirt.

Boris Badenov · May-28th-2003, 05:14 PM

Don't try to lay no boojie-woojie on the king of rock and roll.

May-28th-2003, 09:12 PM

Sergio, for shame!!!!! Our Goodie would NEVER be lighting up doobies!!!! Who do you think he is, Sisco???

Why Goodie never stoked up on anything heavier than cornsilk until he was 25!! :-)

Sergio Zamora · May-28th-2003, 09:14 PM

Good point, Fred.

GoodSpeak · May-28th-2003, 09:31 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by FredC
Sergio, for shame!!!!! Our Goodie would NEVER be lighting up doobies!!!! Who do you think he is, Sisco???

Why Goodie never stoked up on anything heavier than cornsilk until he was 25!! :-)

Au contrere.

I've sparked up more than a few o'dem funny looking cigarettes...that is, back in the day.

As to Boogie vs Boogie Woogie...not much of a difference, IMO. I'm talking influence not exactness.

Jesus Just Left Chicago and La Grange on TRES HOMBRES by ZZTop would be another couple fine examples, too.

Tanager · May-28th-2003, 10:58 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by GoodSpeak
As to Boogie vs Boogie Woogie...not much of a difference, IMO. I'm talking influence not exactness.

With all due respect, there's a world of difference, musically. And I don't think that Boogie Woogie piano was really the progenitor of guitar-based blues boogie at all.

And no, "Jesus Just Left Chicago" is not a boogie tune at all. "La Grange," on the other hand, is textbook boogie.

GoodSpeak · May-28th-2003, 11:02 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Tanager
With all due respect, there's a world of difference, musically. And I don't think that Boogie Woogie piano was really the progenitor of guitar-based blues boogie at all.

No more so than Big Band Jazz is from Straight Ahead Jazz.

The ROOT is the same.

Quote:

[i] And no, "Jesus Just Left Chicago" is not a boogie tune at all. "La Grange," on the other hand, is textbook boogie. [/B]

The first song is Blues...a root of Boogie.

C'mon, Tanager.

Don't you go Mone/HP on me, OK?

sheesh.

GoodSpeak · May-28th-2003, 11:07 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by GoodSpeak
There are several bands in the 70s who dabbled in Boogie Woogie/Blues. The single most recognizable song of that era might be Spirit in the Sky by Norman Greenbaum.

Another band, often unnoticed or forgotten, would be Canned Heat. These are the guys that brought us Going Up the Country, Let's Work Together, Time Was and On the Road Again.

Then, in the late 70s the genre made a come back with Hollywood Fats Band and Jimmy Witherspoon...and BB King became popular amongst the rock and rollie crowd.

There are others, of course, but which band do you most fondly recall? Why?

What do you think is the greatest contribution to modern music these bands had/have? To Blues?

Your thoughts?

TimMc

I think I WAS making a limited comparison of Boogie to Blues here, Tanager.

Some sympathy for the Goodster?

[My apologies to the Rolling Stones...WHO, BTW, started from the Blues]

Tanager · May-28th-2003, 11:07 PM

Well, Goody, if you're going to talk about Boogie and Boogie-Woogie having Blues as a common ancestor, then you've expanded both those terms to be so broad as to be meaningless. YOu can't just equate "Boogie", a la John Lee Hooker, with Boogie-woogie, which is a pretty well-defined and accepted term for a particular style of piano. Sure, they share the same roots, but then, what "blues-based" music doesn't?

Pete C · May-28th-2003, 11:09 PM

We're talking influence, not exactness.

Tanager · May-28th-2003, 11:14 PM

I guess I'm not even sure what you're asking, Good-man. If you're talking about the influence of guitar-based boogie blues on rock, then that's a good meaty topic, let's discuss it. Your first two examples (Norman Greenbaum and Canned Heat) are good ones, I'd certainly include "La Grange" as maybe an even better-known example of boogie in rock.

And then, as I said, you gotta include Thoroughgood.

As for comparing "Boogie" to blues, sure - it's a sub-style based on a particular rhythmic feel, and it often eschews any real harmonic progression in favor of extended vamps, especially in its rock incarnation.

Curiously enough, I can't think of a single Stones tune with a boogie feel to it. Keith Richards has always (AFAIK) cited Chuck Berry, rather than more pure blues players as his influence, but I think pretty much any British band of the 60s not named the Beatles came out of the blues at some level.

GoodSpeak · May-28th-2003, 11:15 PM

Indeed.

But music DOES evolve, does it not?

I think I can be forgiven if I make a case here for inclusiveness, don't you think?

TBH, I am attempting to jog the collective musical memory of the folks who post/lurk here in an effort to create a discussion.

B' BAH, duh, dit, dit, dit, dit, dit, B' Ba, da, BAH, duh...

bluenoter · May-28th-2003, 11:16 PM

GoodSpeak--Take a look at these two pages:

AMG online's page on Boogie Rock

AMG online's page on Boogie-Woogie

Don't miss the lists of artists.

See any overlap?

[edited--the second link works now]

GoodSpeak · May-28th-2003, 11:19 PM

Plenty.

Good reference, Blue' ...BTW, didja catch the list of related styles on that same page?

And I quote:

"Related Styles: R&B, Rock & Roll, Blues, Piano Blues, Acoustic New Orleans Blues, Skiffle, Swing, Jump Blues, Stride, Classic Jazz, New Orleans Jazz, Jazz Blues, East Coast Blues, New York Blues, St. Louis Blues."

Nope.

Didn't miss a thing ;-)

Tanager · May-28th-2003, 11:20 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by GoodSpeak
I think I can be forgiven if I make a case here for inclusiveness, don't you think?

I have no problem at all with inclusiveness, but it's better if you do it as the discussion progresses, rather than expanding a term from the getgo as to render it meaninglessly broad - that's really my main point. Good Lord, you could follow the Blues through 60s and 70s rock for literally weeks in a thread w/o ever hitting the same song twice.