Boogie
Encyclopedia
Boogie is a repetitive, swung note or shuffle rhythm, "groove" or pattern used in blues
which was originally played on the piano
in boogie-woogie music
. The characteristic rhythm
and feel of the boogie was then adapted to guitar
, double bass
, and other instruments. The earliest recorded boogie-woogie song was in 1916. By the 1930s, Swing bands such as Glenn Miller
, Tommy Dorsey
, and Louis Jordan
all had boogie hits. By the 1950s, boogie became incorporated into the emerging rockabilly
and rock and roll
styles. In the late 1980s and the early 1990s country bands released country boogies. Today, the term "boogie" usually refers to dancing to pop, disco, or rock music.
in boogie-woogie music
and adapted to guitar
. Boogie-woogie is a "style of blues piano playing characterized by an up-tempo rhythm, a repeated melodic pattern in the bass, and a series of improvised variations in the treble." Boogie woogie developed from a piano style that developed in the rough barrelhouse
bars in the Southern states, where a piano player performed for the hard-drinking patrons. Wayne Schmidt remarks that with boogie-woogie songs, the "bass line isn't just a time keeper or 'fill' for the right hand"; instead, the bassline has equal importance to the right hand's melodic line. He argues that many boogie-woogie basslines use a "rising/falling sequence of notes" called walking bass line.
The origin of the term boogie-woogie is unknown, according to Webster's Third New International Dictionary
. The Oxford English Dictionary
states that the word is a redoubling of boogie, which was used for rent parties
as early as 1913. Boogie has been thought to be ancient West African vernacular for prostitute and boogie-woogie to be a sexually transmitted disease. If this is the case, hundreds of R n B songs from the 20th century take on a new coonotation. The term may be derived from Black West African English, from the Sierra Leone term "bogi", which means "to dance"; as well, it may be akin to the phrase "hausa buga", which means "to beat drums." In the late 1920s and early 1930s, the term "could mean anything from a racy style of dance to a raucous party or to a sexually transmitted disease." In Peter Silvester’s book on boogie woogie, Left Hand Like God — the Story of Boogie Woogie he states that, in 1929, “boogie-woogie is used to mean either dancing or music in the city of Detroit.”
Schmidt claims that the "earliest record of boogie woogie was Texan pianist George W. Thomas' release of New Orleans Hop Scop Blues as sheet music in 1916." Boogie hit the charts with Pine Top Smith's Pine Top's Boogie in 1929, which garnered the number 20 spot. In the late 1930s, boogie became part of the then popular Swing style, as big bands such as "Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey, and Louis Jordan...all had boogie hits." Swing big band audiences expected to hear boogie tunes, because the beat could be used for the then-popular dances such as the jitterbug and the Lindy Hop
. As well, country artists began playing boogie woogie in the late 1930s, when Johnny Barfield
recorded "Boogie Woogie".
The Delmore Brothers "Freight Train Boogie" shows how country music and blues were being blended to form the genre which would become known as rockabilly
. The Sun Records
-era rockabilly
sound used "wild country boogie piano" as part of its sound.
However, by the early 1950s, boogie became less popular, and by the mid-1950s, its related form, rock & roll, became the most popular style. By the mid-1970s, the meaning of the term returned to its roots, in a certain sense, as during the disco
era, "to boogie" meant "to dance in a disco style". In the 1980s, country bands such as The Charlie Daniels Band used boogie woogie in songs such as the 1988 "Boogie Woogie Fiddle Country Blues". In 1991 Brooks & Dunn
released "Boot Scootin' Boogie
". http://www.cmt.com/artists/az/brooks_and_dunn/25957/album.jhtml
and country music
. A simple rhythm guitar
or accompaniment
boogie pattern, sometimes called country boogie, is as follows :
The "B" and "C" notes are played by stretching the fourth finger from the "A" two and three fret
s up to "B" and "C" respectively on the same string. This pattern is an elaboration or decoration
of the chord or level
and is the same on all the primary triad
s (I, IV, V), although the dominant
, or any chord, may include the seventh
on the third beat
(see also, degree (music)
).
A simple lead guitar
boogie pattern is as follows :
Boogie patterns are played with a swing or shuffle
rhythm and generally follow the "one finger per fret" rule, where, as in the case directly above, if the third finger always covers the notes on the third fret, the second finger going only on the second fret, etc.
The swung notes or shuffle note are a rhythm
ic device in which the duration of the initial note
in a pair is augmented
and that of the second is diminished
. Also known as "notes inégales
", swung notes are widely used in jazz music and other jazz-influenced music such as blues
and Western swing
. A swing or shuffle rhythm is the rhythm
produced by playing repeated pairs of notes in this way.
song "Boog It by" (#7) and The Andrews Sisters
' number two hit from that same year, "Beat Me Daddy, Eight to the Bar". In the mid-1940s, bandleader Tommy Dorsey
had a number five hit with "Boogie Woogie", jump blues
maestro Louis Jordan
had a number six hit with "Caldonia Boogie", and Count Basie
scored a number 10 hit with "Mad Boogie".
In 1948, Freddie Martin had a number six hit with "Sabre Dance Boogie" and three years later, Ernie Ford hit number four with his "Shot Gun Boogie". After several decades out of the hits catalogue, singer-actress Bette Midler
hit number eight in 1973 with her cover of the song Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy
; the original track, whose details Midler reproduced closely, was a 1941 national hit for the Andrews Sisters. Other well-known songs using a boogie rhythm or bass pattern include Chuck Berry's
"Johnny B. Goode
", Marvin Gaye's
"Can I Get a Witness
" and The Shadows
's "Shadoogie"; and Jerry Lee Lewis
playing "Great Balls of Fire
".
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
which was originally played on the piano
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
in boogie-woogie music
Boogie-woogie (music)
Boogie-woogie is a style of piano-based blues that became popular in the late 1930s and early 1940s, but originated much earlier, and was extended from piano, to three pianos at once, guitar, big band, and country and western music, and even gospel. Whilst the blues traditionally depicts a variety...
. The characteristic rhythm
Rhythm
Rhythm may be generally defined as a "movement marked by the regulated succession of strong and weak elements, or of opposite or different conditions." This general meaning of regular recurrence or pattern in time may be applied to a wide variety of cyclical natural phenomena having a periodicity or...
and feel of the boogie was then adapted to guitar
Guitar
The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
, double bass
Double bass
The double bass, also called the string bass, upright bass, standup bass or contrabass, is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra, with strings usually tuned to E1, A1, D2 and G2...
, and other instruments. The earliest recorded boogie-woogie song was in 1916. By the 1930s, Swing bands such as Glenn Miller
Glenn Miller
Alton Glenn Miller was an American jazz musician , arranger, composer, and bandleader in the swing era. He was one of the best-selling recording artists from 1939 to 1943, leading one of the best known "Big Bands"...
, Tommy Dorsey
Tommy Dorsey
Thomas Francis "Tommy" Dorsey, Jr. was an American jazz trombonist, trumpeter, composer, and bandleader of the Big Band era. He was known as "The Sentimental Gentleman of Swing", due to his smooth-toned trombone playing. He was the younger brother of bandleader Jimmy Dorsey...
, and Louis Jordan
Louis Jordan
Louis Thomas Jordan was a pioneering American jazz, blues and rhythm & blues musician, songwriter and bandleader who enjoyed his greatest popularity from the late 1930s to the early 1950s. Known as "The King of the Jukebox", Jordan was highly popular with both black and white audiences in the...
all had boogie hits. By the 1950s, boogie became incorporated into the emerging rockabilly
Rockabilly
Rockabilly is one of the earliest styles of rock and roll music, dating to the early 1950s.The term rockabilly is a portmanteau of rock and hillbilly, the latter a reference to the country music that contributed strongly to the style's development...
and rock and roll
Rock and roll
Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...
styles. In the late 1980s and the early 1990s country bands released country boogies. Today, the term "boogie" usually refers to dancing to pop, disco, or rock music.
History
The boogie was originally played on the pianoPiano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
in boogie-woogie music
Boogie-woogie (music)
Boogie-woogie is a style of piano-based blues that became popular in the late 1930s and early 1940s, but originated much earlier, and was extended from piano, to three pianos at once, guitar, big band, and country and western music, and even gospel. Whilst the blues traditionally depicts a variety...
and adapted to guitar
Guitar
The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
. Boogie-woogie is a "style of blues piano playing characterized by an up-tempo rhythm, a repeated melodic pattern in the bass, and a series of improvised variations in the treble." Boogie woogie developed from a piano style that developed in the rough barrelhouse
Barrelhouse
Barrelhouse can refer to:*A "juke joint", a bar or saloon. Originates from the storage of barrels of alcohol.*An early form of jazz with wild, improvised piano, and an accented two-beat rhythm ....
bars in the Southern states, where a piano player performed for the hard-drinking patrons. Wayne Schmidt remarks that with boogie-woogie songs, the "bass line isn't just a time keeper or 'fill' for the right hand"; instead, the bassline has equal importance to the right hand's melodic line. He argues that many boogie-woogie basslines use a "rising/falling sequence of notes" called walking bass line.
The origin of the term boogie-woogie is unknown, according to Webster's Third New International Dictionary
Webster's Dictionary
Webster's Dictionary refers to the line of dictionaries first developed by Noah Webster in the early 19th century, and also to numerous unrelated dictionaries that added Webster's name just to share his prestige. The term is a genericized trademark in the U.S.A...
. The Oxford English Dictionary
Oxford English Dictionary
The Oxford English Dictionary , published by the Oxford University Press, is the self-styled premier dictionary of the English language. Two fully bound print editions of the OED have been published under its current name, in 1928 and 1989. The first edition was published in twelve volumes , and...
states that the word is a redoubling of boogie, which was used for rent parties
Rent party
A rent party is a social occasion where tenants hire a musician or band to play and pass the hat to raise money to pay their rent, originating in Harlem during the 1920s. The rent party played a major role in the development of jazz and blues music...
as early as 1913. Boogie has been thought to be ancient West African vernacular for prostitute and boogie-woogie to be a sexually transmitted disease. If this is the case, hundreds of R n B songs from the 20th century take on a new coonotation. The term may be derived from Black West African English, from the Sierra Leone term "bogi", which means "to dance"; as well, it may be akin to the phrase "hausa buga", which means "to beat drums." In the late 1920s and early 1930s, the term "could mean anything from a racy style of dance to a raucous party or to a sexually transmitted disease." In Peter Silvester’s book on boogie woogie, Left Hand Like God — the Story of Boogie Woogie he states that, in 1929, “boogie-woogie is used to mean either dancing or music in the city of Detroit.”
Schmidt claims that the "earliest record of boogie woogie was Texan pianist George W. Thomas' release of New Orleans Hop Scop Blues as sheet music in 1916." Boogie hit the charts with Pine Top Smith's Pine Top's Boogie in 1929, which garnered the number 20 spot. In the late 1930s, boogie became part of the then popular Swing style, as big bands such as "Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey, and Louis Jordan...all had boogie hits." Swing big band audiences expected to hear boogie tunes, because the beat could be used for the then-popular dances such as the jitterbug and the Lindy Hop
Lindy Hop
The Lindy Hop is an American social dance, from the swing dance family. It evolved in Harlem, New York City in the 1920s and '30s and originally evolved with the jazz music of that time. Lindy was a fusion of many dances that preceded it or were popular during its development but is mainly based...
. As well, country artists began playing boogie woogie in the late 1930s, when Johnny Barfield
Johnny Barfield
John Alexander "Johnny" Barfield was an American country and old-time music performer, best known for his 1939 recording of "Boogie Woogie", the first country boogie....
recorded "Boogie Woogie".
The Delmore Brothers "Freight Train Boogie" shows how country music and blues were being blended to form the genre which would become known as rockabilly
Rockabilly
Rockabilly is one of the earliest styles of rock and roll music, dating to the early 1950s.The term rockabilly is a portmanteau of rock and hillbilly, the latter a reference to the country music that contributed strongly to the style's development...
. The Sun Records
Sun Records
Sun Records is a record label founded in Memphis, Tennessee, starting operations on March 27, 1952.Founded by Sam Phillips, Sun Records was known for giving notable musicians such as Elvis Presley , Carl Perkins, Roy Orbison, and Johnny Cash...
-era rockabilly
Rockabilly
Rockabilly is one of the earliest styles of rock and roll music, dating to the early 1950s.The term rockabilly is a portmanteau of rock and hillbilly, the latter a reference to the country music that contributed strongly to the style's development...
sound used "wild country boogie piano" as part of its sound.
However, by the early 1950s, boogie became less popular, and by the mid-1950s, its related form, rock & roll, became the most popular style. By the mid-1970s, the meaning of the term returned to its roots, in a certain sense, as during the disco
Disco
Disco is a genre of dance music. Disco acts charted high during the mid-1970s, and the genre's popularity peaked during the late 1970s. It had its roots in clubs that catered to African American, gay, psychedelic, and other communities in New York City and Philadelphia during the late 1960s and...
era, "to boogie" meant "to dance in a disco style". In the 1980s, country bands such as The Charlie Daniels Band used boogie woogie in songs such as the 1988 "Boogie Woogie Fiddle Country Blues". In 1991 Brooks & Dunn
Brooks & Dunn
Brooks & Dunn was an American country music duo consisting of Kix Brooks and Ronnie Dunn, who were both vocalists and songwriters. They were paired by record producer Tim DuBois in 1990. Before the duo's foundation, both members of the duo were solo recording artists...
released "Boot Scootin' Boogie
Boot Scootin' Boogie
"Boot Scootin' Boogie" is the title of a song written and recorded by the American country music duo Brooks & Dunn. Before its release, the band Asleep at the Wheel recorded it on their 1990 album Keepin' Me Up Nights...
". http://www.cmt.com/artists/az/brooks_and_dunn/25957/album.jhtml
Usage
The boogie groove is often used in rock and rollRock and roll
Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...
and country music
Country music
Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...
. A simple rhythm guitar
Rhythm guitar
Rhythm guitar is a technique and rôle that performs a combination of two functions: to provide all or part of the rhythmic pulse in conjunction with singers or other instruments; and to provide all or part of the harmony, ie. the chords, where a chord is a group of notes played together...
or accompaniment
Accompaniment
In music, accompaniment is the art of playing along with an instrumental or vocal soloist or ensemble, often known as the lead, in a supporting manner...
boogie pattern, sometimes called country boogie, is as follows :
Fret
A fret is a raised portion on the neck of a stringed instrument, that extends generally across the full width of the neck. On most modern western instruments, frets are metal strips inserted into the fingerboard...
s up to "B" and "C" respectively on the same string. This pattern is an elaboration or decoration
Ornament (music)
In music, ornaments or embellishments are musical flourishes that are not necessary to carry the overall line of the melody , but serve instead to decorate or "ornament" that line. Many ornaments are performed as "fast notes" around a central note...
of the chord or level
Level (music)
A level , also "tonality level", Gerhard Kubik's "tonal step", and John Blacking's "root progression") is a temporary modal frame contrasted with another temporary modal frame built on a different foundation note. It is more general and basic than a chord and is found in Asian, African, and Celtic...
and is the same on all the primary triad
Primary triad
In music, a primary triad is a one of the three triads, or three note chord built from thirds, most important in tonal and diatonic music, as opposed to an auxiliary triad or secondary triad....
s (I, IV, V), although the dominant
Dominant (music)
In music, the dominant is the fifth scale degree of the diatonic scale, called "dominant" because it is next in importance to the tonic,and a dominant chord is any chord built upon that pitch, using the notes of the same diatonic scale...
, or any chord, may include the seventh
Minor seventh
In classical music from Western culture, a seventh is a musical interval encompassing seven staff positions , and the minor seventh is one of two commonly occurring sevenths. The minor quality specification identifies it as being the smallest of the two: the minor seventh spans ten semitones, the...
on the third beat
Beat (music)
The beat is the basic unit of time in music, the pulse of the mensural level . In popular use, the beat can refer to a variety of related concepts including: tempo, meter, rhythm and groove...
(see also, degree (music)
Degree (music)
In music theory, a scale degree or scale step is the name of a particular note of a scale in relation to the tonic...
).
A simple lead guitar
Lead guitar
Lead guitar is a guitar part which plays melody lines, instrumental fill passages, guitar solos, and occasionally, some riffs within a song structure...
boogie pattern is as follows :
Boogie patterns are played with a swing or shuffle
Shuffle
Shuffling is a procedure used to randomize a deck of playing cards to provide an element of chance in card games. Shuffling is often followed by a cut, to help ensure that the shuffler has not manipulated the outcome.-Shuffling techniques:...
rhythm and generally follow the "one finger per fret" rule, where, as in the case directly above, if the third finger always covers the notes on the third fret, the second finger going only on the second fret, etc.
The swung notes or shuffle note are a rhythm
Rhythm
Rhythm may be generally defined as a "movement marked by the regulated succession of strong and weak elements, or of opposite or different conditions." This general meaning of regular recurrence or pattern in time may be applied to a wide variety of cyclical natural phenomena having a periodicity or...
ic device in which the duration of the initial note
Note
In music, the term note has two primary meanings:#A sign used in musical notation to represent the relative duration and pitch of a sound;#A pitched sound itself....
in a pair is augmented
Augmentation (music)
In Western music and music theory, the word augmentation has three distinct meanings. Augmentation is a compositional device where a melody, theme or motif is presented in longer note-values than were previously used...
and that of the second is diminished
Diminution
In Western music and music theory, diminution has four distinct meanings. Diminution may be a form of embellishment in which a long note is divided into a series of shorter, usually melodic, values...
. Also known as "notes inégales
Notes inégales
In music, notes inégales refers to a performance practice, mainly from the Baroque and Classical music eras, in which some notes with equal written time values are performed with unequal durations, usually as alternating long and short...
", swung notes are widely used in jazz music and other jazz-influenced music such as blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
and Western swing
Western swing
Western swing music is a subgenre of American country music that originated in the late 1920s in the West and South among the region's Western string bands...
. A swing or shuffle rhythm is the rhythm
Rhythm
Rhythm may be generally defined as a "movement marked by the regulated succession of strong and weak elements, or of opposite or different conditions." This general meaning of regular recurrence or pattern in time may be applied to a wide variety of cyclical natural phenomena having a periodicity or...
produced by playing repeated pairs of notes in this way.
Songs
Swing-era boogie hits include the 1940 Glenn MillerGlenn Miller
Alton Glenn Miller was an American jazz musician , arranger, composer, and bandleader in the swing era. He was one of the best-selling recording artists from 1939 to 1943, leading one of the best known "Big Bands"...
song "Boog It by" (#7) and The Andrews Sisters
The Andrews Sisters
The Andrews Sisters were a highly successful close harmony singing group of the swing and boogie-woogie eras. The group consisted of three sisters: contralto LaVerne Sophia Andrews , soprano Maxene Angelyn Andrews , and mezzo-soprano Patricia Marie "Patty" Andrews...
' number two hit from that same year, "Beat Me Daddy, Eight to the Bar". In the mid-1940s, bandleader Tommy Dorsey
Tommy Dorsey
Thomas Francis "Tommy" Dorsey, Jr. was an American jazz trombonist, trumpeter, composer, and bandleader of the Big Band era. He was known as "The Sentimental Gentleman of Swing", due to his smooth-toned trombone playing. He was the younger brother of bandleader Jimmy Dorsey...
had a number five hit with "Boogie Woogie", jump blues
Jump blues
Jump blues is an up-tempo blues usually played by small groups and featuring horns. It was very popular in the 1940s, and the movement was a precursor to the arrival of rhythm and blues and rock and roll...
maestro Louis Jordan
Louis Jordan
Louis Thomas Jordan was a pioneering American jazz, blues and rhythm & blues musician, songwriter and bandleader who enjoyed his greatest popularity from the late 1930s to the early 1950s. Known as "The King of the Jukebox", Jordan was highly popular with both black and white audiences in the...
had a number six hit with "Caldonia Boogie", and Count Basie
Count Basie
William "Count" Basie was an American jazz pianist, organist, bandleader, and composer. Basie led his jazz orchestra almost continuously for nearly 50 years...
scored a number 10 hit with "Mad Boogie".
In 1948, Freddie Martin had a number six hit with "Sabre Dance Boogie" and three years later, Ernie Ford hit number four with his "Shot Gun Boogie". After several decades out of the hits catalogue, singer-actress Bette Midler
Bette Midler
Bette Midler is an American singer, actress, and comedian, also known by her informal stage name, The Divine Miss M. She became famous as a cabaret and concert headliner, and went on to star in successful and acclaimed films such as The Rose, Ruthless People, Beaches, and For The Boys...
hit number eight in 1973 with her cover of the song Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy
Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy
"Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" was a major hit for The Andrews Sisters and an iconic World War II tune. This song can be considered an early jump blues recording...
; the original track, whose details Midler reproduced closely, was a 1941 national hit for the Andrews Sisters. Other well-known songs using a boogie rhythm or bass pattern include Chuck Berry's
Chuck Berry
Charles Edward Anderson "Chuck" Berry is an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter, and one of the pioneers of rock and roll music. With songs such as "Maybellene" , "Roll Over Beethoven" , "Rock and Roll Music" and "Johnny B...
"Johnny B. Goode
Johnny B. Goode
"Johnny B. Goode" is a 1958 rock and roll song written and originally performed by American musician Chuck Berry. The song was a major hit among both black and white audiences peaking at #2 on Billboard magazine's Hot R&B Sides chart and #8 on the Billboard Hot 100.The song is one of Chuck Berry's...
", Marvin Gaye's
Marvin Gaye
Marvin Pentz Gay, Jr. , better known by his stage name Marvin Gaye, was an American singer-songwriter and musician with a three-octave vocal range....
"Can I Get a Witness
Can I Get a Witness
"Can I Get a Witness" is a 1963 hit song by Marvin Gaye on the Tamla label. Written and produced by Motown songwriting and producing team Holland–Dozier–Holland, the song was built among gospel-styled music and heralded Gaye's beginnings in the church with a rhythm and blues/rock and roll setting...
" and The Shadows
The Shadows
The Shadows are a British pop group with a total of 69 UK hit-charted singles: 35 as 'The Shadows' and 34 as 'Cliff Richard and the Shadows', from the 1950s to the 2000s. Cliff Richard in casual conversation with the British rock press frequently refers to the Shadows by their nickname: 'The Shads'...
's "Shadoogie"; and Jerry Lee Lewis
Jerry Lee Lewis
Jerry Lee Lewis is an American rock and roll and country music singer-songwriter and pianist. An early pioneer of rock and roll music, Lewis's career faltered after he married his young cousin, and he afterwards made a career extension to country and western music. He is known by the nickname 'The...
playing "Great Balls of Fire
Great Balls of Fire
"Great Balls of Fire" is a 1957 song recorded by Jerry Lee Lewis on Sun Records and featured in the 1957 movie Jamboree. It was written by Otis Blackwell and Jack Hammer...
".