Harry Gibson (musician)

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Harry Gibson at a performance in New York in July 1948.
Photograph by William P. Gottlieb

Harry "The Hipster" Gibson (born Harry Raab, born June 27, 1915 in the Bronx , New York City , † May 3, 1991 in Brawley , California ) was an American boogie pianist and singer whose style of music was in the 1940s was a forerunner of rock 'n' roll .

Live and act

Gibson grew up in a musical Jewish family in the Bronx (in the neighborhood of Billy Bauer , Flip Phillips ) and learned to play the piano as a child. He made his first appearance at the age of 13 in his uncle's band. As a teenager he played stride piano in Dixieland bands, speakeasies and nightclubs in Harlem . His role model was Fats Waller , who also listened to his playing incognito in 1939, brought him into the musicians' union and took him to the Yacht Club on 52nd Street as an intermittent pianist , where he performed for several years. Here he took his stage name Gibson (previously he appeared as Harry Raab), after the singer Ruth Gibson , with whom he appeared. He not only stood out for his energetic piano style, which mixed stride, boogie, ragtime , Dixieland jazz and classical music, but also for his original singing, with self-composed numbers such as "Who Put the Benzedrine in Mrs. Murphy's Ovaltine" , “Stop that Dancin Up There” , “Handsome Harry the Hipster” , “I Stay Brown All Year Around” , “Get Your Juices at the Deuces” , “Riot in Boogie” , “Barrelhouse Boogie” or “The Hipster's Blues " . In doing so, he used the “jive talk” of the African Americans, which he is familiar with from Harlem. He coined the word hipster (from the previously widespread hep and hip , used to describe popular music for jazz fans), and for himself the nickname “The Hipster”.

78er by Harry Gibson: "Who's Goin 'Steady with Who"

Both in piano style and in singing it sounded like an anticipation of rock'n roll by Jerry Lee Lewis or Little Richard of the 1950s and had temporary success in the mid-1940s (until around 1947) in the clubs of "Swing Street" . In 1944 he appeared in Eddie Condon's Town Hall concerts. In the same year he recorded a 4-single album “Boogie Woogie in Blue” for Musicraft in a trio with John Simmons and Sid Catlett , which made it to the top of the Billboard charts and got him an invitation to Hollywood, in Billy Berg's Club to perform. He performed there successfully with Slim Gaillard and Dizzy Gillespie, among others . He recorded V-Discs in Los Angeles in 1945 and other singles in 1946, before his Benzedrine song (recorded in Los Angeles in early 1947 with Al Hall and Morey Feld ) blacklisted him in the record industry in 1947. He was also briefly jailed for drug problems in the 1940s. In the 1950s he ran a club in Florida . From the 1970s he was rediscovered and performed again (with rock musicians) and released some records, e.g. B. Everybody's Crazy but Me at Progressive 1986 Who Put the Benzedrine in Mrs. Murphy's Ovaltine , Delmark 1989. In his new songs played a role drugs, and in one of his last songs he confessed that he Shirley McLaine hip place . Most recently he lived in Venice and performed in a band with his sons. In 1991, his family made a biographical film about him, which was also released on video. He committed suicide that same year.

There are four soundies of him from April 1944. He also appeared in the 1946 film "Junior Prom" with Mae West . Gibson went on tour with the Mae West Show for nine months.

literature

  • Scott Yanow: Jazz on Records, the first 60 years, Backbeat Books, 2003, p. 277 (short biography)
  • Arnold Shaw: 52nd Street- the street of Jazz, Da Capo (first 1971)

Web links

References

  1. ↑ Jürgen Wölfer Lexicon of Jazz , Hannibal 1993
  2. ^ The name of a club on 52nd Street, that joint is really jumpin . He mentions Ben Webster , Sid Catlett , John Simmons in the lyrics, in addition to his person who is not related to the cowboy actor Hoot Gibson .
  3. ↑ to the Yacht Club at Deuces, Downbeat, Onyx Club, Famous Door, Spotlite Club, Leon and Eddys
  4. ↑ The song followed the traditional Irish comedy song Who threw the Overalls in Mrs. Murphys Chowder , so the allusions to the old Irish lady who put the stimulant in her Ovaltine drink and couldn't get rid of it should be understood . Now she wants to swing, the Highland Fling. She says that Benzedrine's the thing that makes her spring.
  5. ↑ In 1947 he brought out the 3-single album "The Hipster" with Diamond Records in New York
  6. ↑ a line from Stop that Dancin up there : Some folks say that I'm insane, and just as goofy as can be, but they're all wrong, I'm all right, Everybody's crazy but me
  7. ↑ Opus 12, 4F Frederic the Frantic Freak, Barrelhouse Boogie, Handsome Harry the Hipster, and an animated film with the Benzedrine song
  8. ↑ In it he presents Keep the Beat in a school scene , accompanied by the Abe Lyman Orchestra.
personal data
SURNAME Gibson, Harry
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Raab, Harry (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American boogie pianist and singer
DATE OF BIRTH June 27, 1915
PLACE OF BIRTH Bronx , New York City
DATE OF DEATH May 3, 1991
Place of death Brawley , California