As far as
proto-rock & roll songs go, “Boogie Woogie
Blues” by the 15-year-old electric-guitarist Charlie Gracie, recorded back in 1951, sounds especially
prescient, both in the way he played his instrument and because of how young he was. However, the histories
of rock & roll that I’ve consulted don’t say very much about either the
record or its writer-performer.
Because I wanted to learn more about both, I thought that my best option
was to talk to the man himself.
Some
background: Born in the Italian-American section of Philadelphia in 1936,
Charlie Gracie started learning to play the guitar at ten-years old. By the time he was a teenager, he had
been entering and winning local talent competitions. While appearing on the local television and radio broadcast The
Paul Whiteman Show
in 1951, a 15-year-old Gracie was heard by Graham Prince, the owner of the
nearby independent label Cadillac Records. Prince signed Gracie to a recording contract, and it was for
Cadillac that Gracie recorded his own composition, “Boogie Woogie Blues” in
1951. Gracie followed that single
in 1952 with another self-penned proto-rocker “Rockin’ an’ Rollin’.”
As he got
older, Gracie moved from one independent label to another, landing at the
Philadelphia-based Cameo Records.
While he was with Cameo, Gracie had his biggest hit, the chart-topping
“Butterfly” in 1957. He became
especially popular in Britain and other parts of Europe.
The story
goes that Gracie was tricked out of some of his earnings at Cameo, and when he
initiated legal action to claim some of his lost money, Cameo, which was owned
in part by Philadelphia’s musical king maker Dick Clark, blackballed him from
the industry. Consequently, Gracie
never again rose to the heights of popularity that he achieved with
“Butterfly.” However, now
approaching the age of 80, he still performs in both the United States and
Europe to a devoted following.
Thanks to his son and manager, I was able to set up a telephone
interview with Charlie Gracie about the days of “Boogie Woogie Blues.”
Me: The reason I wanted to talk to you about “Boogie Woogie Blues” is
because I’ve been writing a series of articles about the idea of the first rock
& roll record. I just heard
about “Boogie Woogie Blues” last year, and it seems like it’s just one step
away from being a prime candidate for the title. I was very surprised that I hadn’t heard of it before. Do you remember when you wrote the song
“Boogie Woogie Blues”?
Charlie Gracie: Yes, I was just about to enter high school that year —
this is, like, late 1951, and I think it was finally released early in
1952. I was just about 15½, 16
years old.
What
kind of song were you trying to write?
Who did you think the audience for the song would be?
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| Appearing in the 1957 film ‘Jamboree!’ |
Well, at
that particular point in my career — I started playing when I was ten-years
old, so at this point, I was fairly accomplished as a musician — I wasn’t
great, but I knew my instrument.
And I never was much of a songwriter, but at that point, you have a lot
of dreams when you’re a kid. I
grew up during the big-band era, you know, the ’3os and ’40s, and my dad was
into swing and be-bop, and my mom loved country music. I listened to all of it. I also used to put on what they used to
call “race records” or [tune into] black [radio] stations or rhythm & blues
stations, in those days, and listen to whatever I could to get a mixture of
music.
So, I sat
down one day, and I put this tune together. It was no masterpiece, but for a kid that age, I thought it
was pretty good. So, when I first
got my recording contract from Cadillac Records, [label owner Graham Prince]
said to me, “Have you written anything, Charlie?” I said, “Well, I wrote this little song,” and I played it
for him. And he said, “Oh, that’s
terrific; that’s good. Let’s go
with that.” And the other side of
the record was an old Fats Waller tune called “I’m Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter.” That was
my first record released on Cadillac Records.
So,
you thought of “Boogie Woogie Blues” as a combination of swing, country, and
rhythm & blues.
Yes. You know, at that age, you’re very
susceptible to what you’re surrounded by.
And, of course, there was no rock & roll at that time. At least the
phrase wasn’t coined, “rock & roll.” But I used to listen to, I guess,
house-rocking music. That’s what
they called it in those days.
Did
you see rhythm & blues being a prime influence?
I would
say yes. I would say it was a
prime influence along with the old big-band, swing arrangements in my
head. And when you put the two
together, it came out like that.
For a kid at that particular point in my life, I think I did pretty good
with it. It was no masterpiece,
but it gave me a start.
“Boogie
Woogie Blues’s” flip side, “I’m Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter,”
is done in a more identifiably swing style. It’s something you can imagine Frank Sinatra singing
to. Did you feel obliged to put
something more conventional on the other side to balance out how unconventional
“Boogie Woogie Blues” sounded?
Well,
yes, we needed another side. When
I was a kid, I won $100 worth of records on a television show called The
Paul Whiteman Show,
and in that batch of records were some Fats Waller tunes. Fats Waller was a very famous
singer-pianist of his time, and I believe that was one of his first hits in
1936, a song called “I’m Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter.” So, I picked that, and we worked with
those two sides.
I tried
to adapt my own feel to [“I’m Gonna Sit Right Down”]. The fellow who recorded me at the time, his name was Graham
Prince, who owned the company, who found me as a recording artist. He said, “How would you like to do
this, Charlie?” I said, “I’ll just do it on the guitar.” [And I played it for him.] He said, “That’s pretty good. Let’s go with that type of
arrangement.” So, he put it all
together, and when we finished with it, I thought it was — well, it was a great
tune to begin with, so you couldn’t kill it. And then, we had a nice version of it. Don’t forget I’m only a kid at this
point. I was just about to enter
high school, my three last years of schooling.
When
you were learning to play the guitar, who were your role models? Who were the people that inspired you?
Well,
I’ll tell you, there weren’t too many guitar players around then that I knew of
as a kid. Of course, the guitar
was not that popular in 1946, when I began playing, when I was ten-years
old. I used to hear guys like
George Barnes and Barney Kessel, but they were more like jazz guitarists. But there was one guy who played with
the Bill Haley group; his name was Danny Cedrone, who played that very famous
lick on “Rock Around the Clock.” I
used to try to listen to his guitar playing as much as possible. I think he influenced me more than anybody
else.
The
recordings of Danny Cedrone that I’ve heard have been mostly to jazz arrangements,
fairly conventional stuff. Were
you aware of him playing less conventional stuff?
Well, I
thought his stuff was very unique.
Don’t forget, we’re on the verge of rock & roll at this point — when
they called it “rock & roll” — so everybody’s playing a combination of
musical styles. I used to listen
to people like Louis Jordan, Louis Prima; they were precursors to rock &
roll; they were right there. The
tempo was there. The lyrics had
that southern New Orleans sound.
Louis Armstrong influenced me, too.
I just
think that your guitar solo in “Boogie Woogie Blues” is unusual in that it has
more of a strumming attack than a usual single-string guitar solo.
Well, if
you listen closely, it was both. I
was playing the rhythm guitar — I played guitar on all my records, even up till
today — and whenever they wanted to give me a solo, I would go into the single
string and share it perhaps with Sax Thomas or the pianist. And it was just a style that I developed
by myself.
I
notice that your follow-up to “Boogie Woogie Blues” was called “Rockin’ an’
Rollin’.” That phrase at the time
was usually used to describe a kind of dancing or religious rapture. In your song, you simply mean it as
“traveling.” What inspired you to
call the song “Rockin’ an’ Rollin’” and to use that phrase?
Well, you
gotta remember once again I’m just a teenager, and when I wrote this song —
once again, it was no masterpiece, but the arrangement, it was put together by
Mr. Prince — it was pretty good, you know? And then, we weren’t far away from the phrase “rock &
roll” at that point. So, you never
know what’s coming in this business [laughs].
I know
that “Boogie Woogie Blues” and “Rockin’ an’ Rollin’” weren’t huge sellers, but
after “Rock Around the Clock” and after rock & roll became a big
phenomenon, did any rock stars say you influenced them back in the early ’50s?
Now that
you mention it, over the years — of course, at that point, I didn’t really have
many contacts with the outside world because I was just a kid — but as time went by and the years went
by, I’ve had guys come up to me and say when they bought that record, it
influenced them to play guitar and even copy my style of playing. So, I was very
astonished about that. I didn’t
think anybody thought that I was special in any particular way, but I think I
did [influence people] to a point.
Not that everybody emulated me, but you gotta remember, at that
particular point, we didn’t even have reverb units on the guitar; it was just a
flat-sounding guitar.
Well,
it’s good to learn more about “Boogie Woogie Blues.”
Good. Listen, you can always get more
information on my website. My son
has a Facebook [page]. I don’t get
involved in that because I’m a dinosaur [laughs]. When I was a kid, I didn’t even have a telephone in the
house; I had to go to the drug store.
But [my son] has everything under control. Anything you need like that, just contact him, and I’m sure
he’ll be very happy to take care of you in any possible way he can.
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| Charlie Gracie today |
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