| "Beat Me Daddy, Eight to the Bar" | |
|---|---|
 Sheet music cover | |
| Single by Will Bradley and His Orchestra featuring Ray McKinley | |
| B-side | "Beat Me Daddy, Eight to the Bar Pt. 2" |
| Released | 1940 |
| Recorded | May 21, 1940 |
| Genre | Boogie woogie |
| Length | 2:39 |
| Label | Columbia (no. 35530) |
| Songwriter(s) |
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"Beat Me Daddy, Eight to the Bar" is a song written in 1940 by Don Raye, Hughie Prince, and Ray McKinley. It follows the American boogie-woogie tradition of syncopated piano music.
The title adopts 1940s' hipster slang coined by Raye's friend, Ray McKinley, a drummer and lead singer in the Jimmy Dorsey band in the 1930s. McKinley kicked off certain uptempo songs by asking pianist Freddie Slack (nicknamed "Daddy") to give him a boogie beat, or "eight to the bar". McKinley, in a discussion with the jazz writer George Simon relates, "We were playing one of them (a boogie, blues) one night at the Famous Door and two songwriters, Don Raye and Hughie Prince, were there. There was one part where I had a drum break, and for some reason or other that night, instead of playing the break, I sang out, "Oh, Beat Me, Daddy, Eight to the Bar." After the set, Hughie called me over to the table and asked if they could write a song using that break. I told him to go ahead and they offered to cut me in on the tune. That was fine with me." [1] For that reason Raye gave a partial songwriting credit to McKinley. The song was formally published under McKinley's wife's name, Eleanore Sheehy, because McKinley was under a songwriting contract with another publisher. The nickname "Daddy Slack" was also used in the 1941 recording by "Pig Foot Pete" with Don Raye singing in Slack's band. It is commonly accepted by jazz historians that this song is in reference and tribute to Peck Kelley, a 1920s jazz pianist. [2] However McKinley, talking to George Simon says, "A lot of people seem to think I was referring to Peck Kelley, and some years later Peck even thanked me for it. But, you know, I didn't have anybody - Peck or anybody else - in mind, just an imaginary piano player in an imaginary town." [1]
The song was first recorded in 1940 by the Will Bradley orchestra, featuring drummer McKinley on vocals and Freddie Slack on piano. [3]
The single placed in Billboard 's "Leading Music Box Records of 1941" at number ten. [4]
Joseph Vernon "Big Joe" Turner Jr. was an American blues shouter from Kansas City, Missouri. According to songwriter Doc Pomus, "Rock and roll would have never happened without him". Turner's greatest fame was due to his rock and roll recordings in the 1950s, particularly "Shake, Rattle and Roll", but his career as a performer endured from the 1920s into the 1980s.
The Andrews Sisters were an American close harmony singing group of the swing and boogie-woogie eras. The group consisted of three sisters: contralto LaVerne Sophia Andrews (1911–1967), soprano Maxene Anglyn Andrews (1916–1995), and mezzo-soprano Patricia Marie Andrews (1918–2013). The sisters have sold an estimated 80 million records. Their 1941 hit "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" can be considered an early example of jump blues. Other songs closely associated with the Andrews Sisters include their first major hit, "Bei Mir Bist Du Schön " (1937), "Beer Barrel Polka " (1939), "Beat Me Daddy, Eight to the Bar" (1940), "Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree " (1942), and "Rum and Coca-Cola" (1945), which helped introduce American audiences to calypso.
Boogie-woogie is a genre of blues music that became popular during the late 1920s, developed in African-American communities since 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 dance music. The genre had a significant influence on rhythm and blues and rock and roll.
Ella Mae Morse was an American singer of popular music whose 1940s and 1950s recordings mixing jazz, blues, and country styles influenced the development of rock and roll. Her 1942 recording of "Cow-Cow Boogie" with Freddie Slack and His Orchestra gave Capitol Records its first gold record. In 1943, her single "Get On Board, Little Chillun", also with Slack, charted in what would soon become the R&B charts, making her one of the first white singers to do so. Morse stopped recording in 1957 but continued to perform and tour into the 1990s. In 1960 she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Frederick Charles Slack was an American swing and boogie-woogie pianist and bandleader.
Wilbur Schwichtenberg, known professionally as Will Bradley, was an American trombonist and bandleader during the 1930s and 1940s. He performed swing, dance music, and boogie-woogie songs, many of them written or co-written by Don Raye.
Albert Clifton Ammons was an American pianist and player of boogie-woogie, a blues style popular from the late 1930s to the mid-1940s.
Clarence Smith, better known as Pinetop Smith or Pine Top Smith, was an American boogie-woogie style blues pianist. His hit tune "Pine Top's Boogie Woogie" featured rhythmic "breaks" that were an essential ingredient of ragtime music, but also a fundamental foreshadowing of rock and roll. The song was also the first known use of the term "boogie woogie" on a record, and cemented that term as the moniker for the genre.
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.
Ray McKinley was an American jazz drummer, singer, and bandleader. He played drums and later led the Major Glenn Miller Army Air Forces Orchestra in Europe. He also led the new Glenn Miller Orchestra in 1956.
Get Happy! is a 1959 album by the American jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald, recorded with various studio orchestras over a two-year period.
"Scrub Me Mama with a Boogie Beat" is a 1941 hit boogie-woogie popular song written by Don Raye. A bawdy, jazzy tune, the song describes a laundry woman from Harlem, New York, United States, whose technique is so unusual that people come from all around just to watch her scrub. The Andrews Sisters and Will Bradley & His Orchestra recorded the most successful pop versions of the song, but it is today best recognized as the centerpiece of an eponymous and controversial Walter Lantz Studio cartoon from 1941.
"Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" is a World War II jump blues song written by Don Raye and Hughie Prince which was introduced by The Andrews Sisters in the Abbott and Costello comedy film, Buck Privates (1941). The Andrews Sisters' Decca recording reached number six on the U.S. pop singles chart in the spring of 1941 when the film was in release. The song is ranked No. 6 on Songs of the Century. Bette Midler's 1972 recording of the song also reached the top ten on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100.
Buck Privates is a 1941 musical military comedy film that turned Bud Abbott and Lou Costello into bona fide movie stars. It was the first service comedy based on the peacetime draft of 1940. The comedy team made two more service comedies before the United States entered the war. A sequel to this movie, Buck Privates Come Home, was released in 1947. Buck Privates is one of three Abbott and Costello films featuring The Andrews Sisters, who were also under contract to Universal Pictures at the time.
Don Raye was an American songwriter, best known for his songs for The Andrews Sisters such as "Beat Me Daddy, Eight to the Bar", "The House of Blue Lights", "Just for a Thrill" and "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy." The latter was co-written with Hughie Prince.
Lost in the Ozone is an album by American rock band Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen. Their first album, it was released in 1971. it contains their hit cover version of "Hot Rod Lincoln" as well as the band's live staples "Lost in the Ozone" and "Seeds and Stems (Again)".
"Down the Road a Piece" is a boogie-woogie song written by Don Raye. In 1940, it was recorded by the Will Bradley Trio and became a top 10 hit in the closing months of the year. Called "a neat little amalgam of bluesy rhythm and vivid, catchy lyrics", the song was subsequently recorded by a variety of jazz, blues, and rock artists.
"The House of Blue Lights" is a boogie woogie-style popular song written by Don Raye and Freddie Slack. Published in 1946, it was first recorded by Slack with singer Ella Mae Morse and Raye.
Hugh Durham Prince, also known as Hughie Prince, was an American film composer and songwriter. He composed "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" with lyricist Don Raye for the movie comedy, Buck Privates, which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Song in 1942.
