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I'll begin by saying, after writing all this, I ran across this song in an article. I've heard about this band, but didnt realize it was being recognized as 'bringing back boogie'. And apparently it's coming back. I'll bet its a safe guess that funk, disco and boogie will be the next trend, so how do you get on top of it? Issue a boogie themed NFT.
It has been said that history happens in cycles - the thirty-year cycle whereby the 80s were a recycling of the 50s in many regards. At the turn of our century, I think of whether we will in some way repeat history and anticipated the return of Vaudeville. Now, at 2021, I wonder if we'll repeat roaring twenties, ending prohibition and possibly old musical forms including dance. Hopefully we won't repeat any world wars or the depression. So, maybe boogie and swing.
This article speaks about what's happening with boogie-funk today and has some examples, but it limits 'boogie' to post-disco 80s which isn't what I'm talking about. Now, this article has some better examples of women, pretty fun!
So apparently boogie is currently dead, and that was something that was emphasized by all the rock greats as standard. If you think about it, it's true, guitar rock ain't doing that at all these days, it's all this tough guy bullshit and dissonant monster voice screaming. All the greats relied on boogie, and that's what made rock popular. Because you can fucking dance to it. That's why I might cringe when I think of the old phrase 'let's boogie' when people from the 70s referred to dancing and disco, but they weren't kidding. The root of disco and funk was boogie.
So, here's the paragraph that I actually began this writing:
I've been thinking about boogie songs and started poking around. Interesting to think that if boogie woogie was originally designed by africans for dancing and peaked in the 20s, of course DLR's idea for VH was to make music you can dance to as their core, and that's perhaps the very root that Eddie was onto, that was the hot poker that lit him and Alex up. No coincidence the Frankenstrat was sourced in part by Boogie Bodies. And as you read further, you'll see how my digging eventually bleeds into rock a billie, which is of course, swing. That's the other half of VH's real sound. Sammy understood 'party' but he didn't have Dave's main ingredients - soul - which is at least, boogie woogie and swing. If you really dig into the origins of african dance, you end up with jive. Though of course, the Van Halen family was no stranger to big band, so that was the magic link.
What if WVH focused on boogie and did it his own way? What would happen? Would he need Dave? But this is what all the British bands were doing, going after blues, but Dave went with boogie instead of blues, which I suppose was the later gospel period that influenced R&B and dancing, uplifting, not depressing. Hard to categorize 'Little Dreamer' what is that? Love that song. Not really blues, what is it? A Dave original - all I can find about it here, would love to know what he was thinking.
Examples of boogie rock I think of are ice cream man and I'm the one, satch boogie, i know a little (skynard), la grange, pride and joy (srv), Rock and Roll by zepplin, and then I looked up to see other examples because I was thinking it would be a fun mash up and history.
Or what would be really funny would be to mash up an really old boogie woogie piano song with 'I'm the one' or other rock god song. They map perfectly.
Of course if you were to list all of the boogie songs by VH, there are several and those are the ones I like a lot. Watching through some songs, you could actually put Cathedral to a boogie rhythm if you speed it up. Just forget the echo. Actually, you could map Cathedral on top of Full Bug. When you start thinking about boogie rhythms and chords, a ton of famous, energetic songs come to mind.
It's like every band of the 60s and 70s, any blues or rock band plays a boogie. its not just the rhythm, its the chord structure - the song i think of from our high school guitar class with Mr. Moody was 'cornbread peas and black molasses' which is a standard blues format, just E, A, E, and some higher weird blues chord, then E again.
Then, I found an Elvis song and noticed reference to Rock a Billie, and of course, that's so obvious. Stray Cats and all the music from that genre. Bill Haley and the Comets - Rock Around the Clock. Chuck Berry! That's who so many of these guitar players idolized, I think maybe Eddie too. Johnny B Goode, Roll over Beethoven.
A great example is 'on the road again' by willie nelson. throw that one in.
The ones that come up that I recognize are a lot of southern rock. of course it comes from blues. I'm sure there are tons of famous country boogie songs we know and don't think of. Jerry Lee Lewis - then you start tracing back into the 20s when it was on piano and that's the boogie woogie which goes back to the late 1800s.
Liberace
Zepplin
Eric Johnson
Here's Eddie's 'back pain boogie' with Tony Levin and Jan Hammer (I had to look that up)
and a cover of Eddie's 'As Is'
Here are some interesting finds - I searched Clapton and found this with jeff beck and jimmy page
jeff beck w/yardbirds
i found, some by SRV, rolling stones, and 2 by pink floyd but neither are even accesible, they're so old and weird.
here's a funny video matching the Charleston and Daft Punk
Jazz Steps
But first, here's a whole list with descriptions of popular dance steps we've all heard from an article below:
Stomp, Breakdown, Boogie, Ramble, Jump, Jubilee, Shuffle, Cakewalk, Swing, Strut, etc.
When I was collecting funk, there was a collection of different regions curated by the british labels - new orleans, mid west, and one other:
So, along with the swing, boogie we also have the strut. Again, this is music with rhythms designed to compel dancing. You can begin with ways of walking as with the strut and shuffle, walking bass, but SRV talked about letting it happen and songs that were written to describe a walking horse, the sound of a train, and going back to the roots of R&B, jive and soul, the slaves did dances to describe animal movement.
this guy does a good breakdown of swing and shuffle.
Boogie
https://youtu.be/r3IFGlsApAc
compare this drum track to hot for teacher
https://youtu.be/XoG5SqbxZWs
big bad bill
https://youtu.be/9RPx6A3gKiA
ice cream man
https://youtu.be/i2RKWJD5ops
Strut - this is a major feature of funk, both music and dance. Think of Jagger, totally strutting.
Mahavishnu
https://youtu.be/2ZO50qj0_1A
Dixie Dregs actually did a ton of struts, it's hilarious/embarrassing, but a big part of that time period.
VH - i swear this is a show tune rhythm, this is called a strut
https://youtu.be/9Vw6Qbn4TY8
check this out
https://youtu.be/MXI5Nuz6OHg
and here's fuck face
https://youtu.be/vEqZbDRj64U
and of course
https://youtu.be/vEtbfzMLVWU
and deejapien
https://youtu.be/fdIDiiGgXco
