Rock n Roll changed everything. White kids playing rhythm and blues. How could this happen? This sound that had belonged only to the underprivileged black communities of America, suddenly broke through racial barriers and became a music revelation that not only took over the States, but the entire world. When Elvis sang Hound Dog and That’s All Right, two songs by Big Mama Thornton and Arthur Crudup, Afro American blues artists totally unknown to the greater world, he literally shook the foundations of the slave mentality and announced the emergence of a new world in which kids everywhere gave the finger to archaic prejudices.

Rock’n Roll also made the guitar the most popular musical instrument in history. The guitar was, and remains, the coolest instrument ever made. The guitar allowed all of us to become musicians, singers and composers. You didn’t need to take lessons or learn to read music; even know the names of the notes you were playing. All you had to do was just learn a few chords and you were on your way. In this regard, Rock n Roll, the new evolutionary step for the blues, remained, in a fundamental way, unchanged in its simplicity and accessibility to everyone. The guitar was perfect. It was light, portable and highly rhythmic. It was the ultimate “groove” instrument. Electric guitars could wail, scream and moan like no other instrument. As sound amplification technology improved, the guitar kept up with it until it could blow the roof off a building, fill vast stadiums with tsunamis of sound.

But before Elvis, his R & B moves, and his Jumbo Gibson, it was the piano that was the foremost musical instrument in both black and white America and it was on the piano that most ragtime, blues and jazz were created. Of course, the influence of the African and Caribbean stringed music of slavery as found in New Orleans contributed much, but almost every home in America had a piano in the parlor, as did every bar and brothel. There was no radio or phonograph records to provide musical entertainment. The first nationwide radio broadcasts did not begin until 1926. Music only existed in live performance. When he was still in knee pants, at the turn of the century in New Orleans, Jelly Roll Morton (a.k.a. Fred la Mothe), was playing blues piano in Storyville brothels. His tunes such as Winin’ Boy, Don’t You Leave Me Here, Maimie’s Blues, Buddy Bolden’s Blues and Michigan Water are, possibly the earliest (and some of the best) blues we have.

Jelly Roll, of course, was only one of the very many blues, ragtime and early jazz pianists employed in the red light districts of America’s cities. Around the same time in New York, Jimmy Durante wrote of performing at the age of fifteen in a secret homosexual club that was raided by the police. In St. Louis, the great Scott Joplin found similar employment. These were common stories. Unlike today, there weren’t many choices available for a young musician: you either belonged to the world of sin and shame or the world of church and goodness. America, a puritanical country, was forever vigilant in protecting what it considered to be Christian moral values. Yet, some musicians lived with a foot in each world, having grown up in church going families. A good example is Georgia Tom, the popular blues pianist, vocalist and composer who became Ma Rainey’s musical director. Having grown up in the church, he turned his back on the church to play blues and then later gave up the blues to return to the church and become the father of Gospel music as Tomas A. Dorsey. This struggle lived within many musicians.

How did piano blues differ from guitar blues? I would say that essentially, the piano was an urban or sophisticated instrument and the guitar, rural and primitive, although there are notable exceptions to this. Also, the guitar has evolved into a powerful force of many expressions and effects while the piano has basically remained the same – although it too, of course, can be modified electronically: It’s not a mistake that we don’t commonly find keyboards in rock type blues bands, the piano being better suited for solo or jazz based ensembles such as that of Ray Charles or Fats Domino.

I have often asked myself if blues piano influenced the development of blues guitar. I believe that it has – in many cases. Certainly, ragtime blues guitarists like Blind Blake and Gary Davis are basically playing piano on guitar, using their right hand thumbs as the pianist’s left hand to create a syncopated rhythm. Even some of Robert Johnson songs use piano substitution chords/voicings. It’s only with the “plantation” blues artists ranging from Son House to Charlie Patton to Muddy Waters that the piano is absent from ideas or technique. The early electric guitarists who most influenced the rock blues of the sixties such as T Bone Walker and B. B. King were sophisticated players using piano/jazz ideas. Lonnie Johnson, B.B. King’s early inspiration, moved effortlessly between complex chording and single note runs.

But what about the two together? Are they compatible? We rarely see piano – guitar combos today, but during the 1920’s and 1930s the two met and were commercially very successful. Georgia Tom and his partner the slide guitar master Tampa Red had hit songs with Hokum numbers such as Tight Like That, but for my money, the best piano – guitar combo of that era was LeRoy Carr and Scrapper Blackwell. These two recorded dozens of tunes including the classic Midnight Hour Blues, How Long Blues and Blues Before Sunrise songs that have been covered hundreds of times over the years. With both duos the piano plays the role of steady chording while the guitar plays fills and solos. Both Red and Blackwell were superb musicians with great rhythmic ability who set the standard for lead guitar work.

Perhaps surprisingly, blues pianists probably played a larger role in creating Rock n Roll than the guitarists. Blues piano reached the height of its popularity with the Boogie Woogie craze of the late 1930s – 40s. Boogie Woogie bass lines had been around for decades but it was pianists like Albert Ammons and Maude Lux Lewis who popularized the highly rhythmic sound. This was wild music that really got kids moving. Soon every jazz and dance band in America was boogying the night away.

From there to Fats Domino and Jerry Lee Lewis was a natural next step to take but by the 1950s the piano had pretty much disappeared from the American scene as the primary source of entertainment. TV sets were rapidly replacing pianos in millions of homes and kids began buying guitars that were much cheaper to buy and they could easily carry down the street to their friends houses, parties and jams. Playing guitar was the coolest thing in the world and still is. It’s difficult to imagine the guitar ever losing its universal popularity.

So, who to listen to in blues piano? Check this one and others will follow.

Here’s my top 10 choices and for the rest is the world of YouTube. Enjoy!

Big Maceo
Leroy Carr
Otis Spann
Dr. John
Little Brother Montgomery
Champion Jack Dupree
Memphis Slim
Roosevelt Sykes
Pine Top Perkins
Professor Long Hair

Author: Jeffrey Lewis Schucard
Editing: Bahar Kaya – Gürkan Özbek