Boogie-woogie is a genre of blues music that became popular during the late 1920s, developed in African-American communities in the 1870s. It was eventually extended from piano, to piano duo and trio, guitar, big band, country and western music, and gospel. While standard blues traditionally expresses a variety of emotions, boogie-woogie is mainly associated with dancing and Boogie-woogie dance. The genre had a significant influence on rhythm and blues and rock and roll.
Jump blues is an up-tempo style of blues, usually played by small groups and featuring horn instruments. It was popular in the 1940s and was a precursor of rhythm and blues and rock and roll. Appreciation of jump blues was renewed in the 1990s as part of the swing revival.
Albert Clifton Ammons was an American pianist and player of boogie-woogie, a bluesy jazz style popular from the late 1930s to the mid-1940s.
Pete Johnson was an American boogie-woogie and jazz pianist.
The origins of rock and roll are complex. Rock and roll emerged as a defined musical style in the United States in the early to mid-1950s. It derived most directly from the rhythm and blues music of the 1940s, which itself developed from earlier blues, the beat-heavy jump blues, boogie woogie, up-tempo jazz, and swing music. It was also influenced by gospel, country and western, and traditional folk music. Rock and roll in turn provided the main basis for the music that, since the mid-1960s, has been generally known simply as rock music.
George Washington Thomas Jr. was an American blues and jazz pianist and songwriter. He wrote several influential early boogie-woogie piano pieces including "The New Orleans Hop Scop Blues", "The Fives", and "The Rocks", which some believe he may have recorded himself under the name Clay Custer.
Joe Willie "Pinetop" Perkins was an American blues pianist. He played with some of the most influential blues and rock-and-roll performers of his time and received numerous honors, including a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and induction into the Blues Hall of Fame.
Katie Webster, born Kathryn Jewel Thorne, was an American boogie-woogie pianist.
Samuel Blythe Price was an American jazz, boogie-woogie and jump blues pianist and bandleader. Price's playing is dark, mellow, and relaxed rather than percussive, and he was a specialist at creating the appropriate mood and swing for blues and rhythm and blues recordings.
Jimmy Liggins was an American R&B guitarist and bandleader. His brother was the more commercially successful R&B/blues pianist, Joe Liggins.
Willie Littlefield, Jr., billed as Little Willie Littlefield, was an American R&B and boogie-woogie pianist and singer whose early recordings "formed a vital link between boogie-woogie and rock and roll". Littlefield was regarded as a teenage wonder and overnight sensation when in 1949, at the age of 18, he popularized the triplet piano style on his Modern Records debut single, "It's Midnight". He also recorded the first version of the song "Kansas City", in 1952.
Johnny Nicholas is an American blues musician. He is most noted for being a member of the Grammy Award winning group, Asleep at the Wheel.
Junior Watson is an American jump blues guitarist and singer.
Dave Alexander, also known as Omar Sharriff, Omar Shariff, Omar Hakim Khayam was an American West Coast blues singer and pianist.
Erwin Helfer is an American boogie-woogie, blues and jazz pianist.
Christian Dozzler is an Austrian blues, boogie woogie and zydeco multi-instrumentalist and singer, now based in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. He plays piano, harmonica, accordion and organ, and writes most of his recorded material. He has been nicknamed "Vienna Slim".
Kenny "Blues Boss" Wayne is an American blues, boogie-woogie and jazz pianist, singer and songwriter. Music journalist, Jeff Johnson, writing in the Chicago Sun-Times stated, "There's no boogie-woogie-blues piano man out there today who pounds the 88's with the conviction of Kenny "Blues Boss" Wayne."
Boogie Woogie Red was an American Detroit blues, boogie-woogie and jazz pianist, singer and songwriter. At different times he worked with Sonny Boy Williamson I, Washboard Willie, Baby Boy Warren, Lonnie Johnson, Tampa Red, John Lee Hooker and Memphis Slim.
"Rocket 88" is a 1951 rhythm and blues song recorded by "Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats"; the "Delta Cats" were actually Ike Turner and his Kings of Rhythm.
