History of the devil's piano music/ part 2

History of the devil's piano music/ part 2

fiction
edward w pritchard

Back 1847 down South of Old Mexico City A few very fat Black piano artists would travel about the American south and play a battered Wurlitzer organ while the other negro workers rolled Havana cigars. During the lunch break, there at the factory, the fat piano man wanting to eat too being the only music in the establishment would have to carry a boogie woogie tune with his tired left hand setting the beat 16 to the bar while the members of the proletariat relaxed before returning to the production line.

Although no recordings officially exist of these early Race music songs just prior to the American civil war a black piano artist is credited with an early barrelhouse tune called "be not dismayed God will take care of you" played in the strong left hand of god style and tempo on the Wurlitzer organ.

As a boy of six or seven I met an old man at a rent party in a speak easy up St Louis way who claimed to have heard a 138 year old negro man play the Wurlitzer in the Santa Fe boogie woogie style named Eubie who is usually now credited to be the originator of the first boogie. That old man never made a dime for his recordings having to work as a cab driver and washer of cars on Chicago's west side to earn his daily bread.

Now no matter how blue I get with life I always remember " be not dismayed God will take care of you".

That's my recollection of my first associations with the boogie woogie music of the American Negro.