Boogie chilling '

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Boogie Chillen ' is the title of a 1948 blues standard and million seller by John Lee Hooker .

History of origin

John Lee Hooker had been a caretaker at Ford in Detroit since 1943 . In the evenings he played his typical Mississippi blues in the bars. He honed his style with local record store owner Elmer Barbee, who also owned a tape recorder and helped Hooker create Boogie Chillen. Barbee acted as Hooker's manager and took with him on June 12, 1948 a first demo recording ( Rocks ). "Chillen '" is the South - slang for "children," the title thus means "children of the Boogie" and also varies as Boogie Chillun . It is an adaptation of the old folk song Mama Don't Allow me to stay out all Night Long . Record store owner Barbee recommended Hooker to record label owner Bernard Besman of the Detroit independent label Sensation Records . Besman, in turn, arranged for a recording date at United Sound Studios in Detroit.

Boogie Chillen 'was written on September 3, 1948 in the first commercial recording session for John Lee Hooker at United Sound Studios' Studio B, produced by Bernard Besman. On the occasion of the subsequent termination of the contract, the producer Besman made Hooker the condition that Besman received half of the royalties by being registered as co-composer for all recorded titles - a business practice that was common in the music industry at the time. The sound engineer for the echo-heavy song with the typical guitar staccatos and the unusual stomping of feet was studio owner Joe Siracuse; Hooker only accompanies himself on a Stella acoustic guitar with an electric amplifier. In this session Sally May (or Sally Mae ; A-side), Highway Blues or Wednesday Evening Blues were also created , a total of 10 titles were immortalized. The first three tracks used up a large part of the scheduled recording time for 3 hours, so Boogie Chillen 'came about under time pressure.

The recording conditions were so technically flawless that you could hear Hooker's fingers touching the guitar strings. Pianist Todd Rhodes was still present during the session, playing a few boogie bars for Hooker. Inspired by this, Hooker developed the riffs for Boogie Chillen '; the rhythm itself is not boogie , but approximated to a shuffle . The riff-laden melody consists of just one chord , with the intro starting with a repetitive vamp and a rising bass line. The straight eighth note, on the other hand, is characteristic of the Mississippi blues with which Hooker grew up. He reads the fictional text in the style of Talking Blues (drawn speech in the so-called low drawl ) and recalls without rhymes about his first arrival in Detroit, where people were talking about Henry's Swing Club on Hastings Street. When Hooker was able to convince himself of the atmosphere in the club, he was enthusiastic about the boogie chill out there. The text reflects Hooker's impressions of a street full of entertainment and nightspots. Henry's Swing Club is also the title of an alternate take of Boogie Chillen '.

Publication and Success

John Lee Hooker - Boogie Chilling '(1948)
John Lee Hooker - Boogie Chilling '# 2 (Sensation Records, 1950)

Besman owned the record label Sensation Records, but he sold some of Hooker's master tapes to Modern Records. He brought out only 10 Hooker titles on Sensation Records. The single Sally Mae / Boogie Chillen ' ( Modern Records # 627) came on November 3, 1948 at the market, finished on February 19, 1949 for one week ranked first in the Rhythm & Blues - charts and was sold with a million plates the first success for the Detroit recording studio and also for John Lee Hooker. He subsequently recorded almost 20 other versions of Boogie Chillen ', for the first time the track that emerged on April 28, 1950 in Detroit as Boogie Chillen' # 2 (Sensation Records 34) and also together with Canned Heat for the album Hooker 'n Heat (January 1971). Boogie Chillen 'was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1985 and the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999 , and ranks 332 in Songs of the Century .

Copyright dispute

Against ZZ Top La Grange (from the album Tres Hombres , July 1973) is an action for copyright infringement, which was filed in June 1992 set up. Hooker's 1971 version of Canned Heat had most of the similarities with La Grange, especially the guitar pattern and "howl, howl, howl" vocals. However, the court came to the conclusion that the copyright under the American Copyright Law from 1909 had already expired for the song published in 1948, which is why it was in the public domain at the time of La Grange's creation and dismissed Besman's lawsuit. Because of the expired copyright protection, it no longer had to deal with the actual plagiarism issue. The boogie riff (not protected by copyright) occurs in particular in Norman Greenbaum's Spirit in the Sky (December 1969) and Led Zeppelin's Whole Lotta Love (November 1969), which was embroiled in another plagiarism battle.

Cover versions

There are at least 138 versions of the song that use the original title. There are also other cover versions under the titles Boogie Children or Boogie Chillun . The first cover version apparently only appeared in 1959 by Boy Blue on the Mississippi Fred McDowell -LP Downhome Blues as Boogie Children , followed by Boogie Chillun by Lovey Williams (December 1968). Canned Heat and John Lee Hooker released the album Hooker 'n Heat (January 1971), which contains an 11:33 minute version of Boogie Chillen' # 2.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Billboard Magazine, September 5, 1998, John Lee Hooker: 50 Anniversary , p. 80
  2. ↑ Lars Björn / Jim Gallert, Before Motown: A History of Jazz in Detroit , 2004, p. 145
  3. ↑ David A. Carson, Grit, Noise & Revolution: The Birth of Detroit Rock 'n Roll , 2006, p. 8
  4. ↑ Charles Shaar Murray: John Lee Hooker - The Boogie Man. Hannibal: Höfen 2000, pp. 168 and 170 ff.
  5. ^ Charles Shaar Murray, Boogie Man: The Adventures of John Lee Hooker in the American Twentieth Century , 2011, p. 126 ff.
  6. ↑ Larry Birnbaum, Before Elvis: The Prehistory of Rock 'n' Roll , 2013, p. 121
  7. ↑ Edward Komera / Peter Lee, The Blues Encyclopedia, Boogie Chillen , f 2006 S. 137th
  8. ^ Detroit Blues Society, Detroit Blues Magazine, Volume 3, 1997, p. 144
  9. ^ Joseph Murrells, Million Selling Records , 1985, p. 53
  10. ^ Music Copyright Infringement Resource via La Cienega Music Co. v. ZZ Top 53 F.3d 950 (9th Cir. 1995)
  11. ^ Mark J. Davis: Legal Issues in the Music Industry . BuzzGig, 2010, ISBN 978-0-615-33686-2 , pp. 134 f .