The Clipper

A 1941 article by the screenwriting, piano playing novelist Eliot Paul (1891-1958) who put-forth a sincere effort to define that popular 1940s music known as Boogie-Woogie.

Paul went to great lengths explaining the roots of Boogie-Woogie, the origin of the term and the finest performers and composers of the music:

First, one can say that Boogie-Woogie is an authentic, soul-satisfying genre of piano music, native to America and for which America is indebted to the Negro people…If you ask Al Ammons (1907 — 1949), one of the foremost exponets of boogie-woogie, what boogie-woogie is, he would smile, his eyes would light up, and probably he would say:

‘Man! It scares you‘

-and it does. There are deep reasons why it tugs at our memories and slumbering instincts.