| If musicologists are to be believed, boogie-woogie as we know it emerged at the turnof the twentieth century in the loggingcamps,railroad construction sites and whore-houses of a Deep South in the throes of Reconstruction.Memphis Slim started out as one of those wandering ‘boogiemen’who spread the word about this riotous and exuberant,blues-inspired styling.To a hypnotic left hand striking eight notes to the bar in the low register,the pianist brought to life ostinato figures and melodic variations with his right hand,playing for a rough and rowdy public willing to forget their life of hardship on the dance floor In the barrelhouses of Louisiana and the juke joints of Mississippi,musicians enter-tained people in order to stop them from brawling.
By the end of the thirties, boogie-woogie outgrew Afro-American circles and took the dance floors of white America by storm when it was adopted by the popular bigbands of the day,even becoming a favorite among country singers who transposed it to the guitar.The boogie-woogie craze what at its peak during the war years,and the style’s raw energy eventually contributed to the rock and roll explosion a decade later.Through rock and roll,boogie-woogie was to resurface at the turn of the sixties when young white rock fans discovered blues music.One of the first to benefit from this resurrection was Memphis Slim who used boogie as a means to reach a wider audience whilst revisiting his early roots.In the eyes of Slim,one of the last great representatives of a tradition in danger of becoming extinct,this lesson in the art of boogie-woogie was something akin to a holy ceremony. A relentless defender of the Afro-American popular styles,the pianist was fully conscious of the fact that his music no longer had a place in his own community. |
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