Pinetop Smith
Clarence "Pinetop" Smith recorded just one session before he was killed in a Chicago dance-hall shooting at 24, but that session gave the entire genre its name. "Pine Top's Boogie Woogie," cut for Vocalion in December 1928, talks the listener through the dance over a rolling, eight-to-the-bar left hand — the first record to put the words "boogie woogie" in a title, and the direct root of everything that followed under that name.
the sound in question
1928
Pine Top's Boogie WoogiePinetop Smith
we haven’t charted Pinetop Smith yet
this stretch of the river isn’t mapped. we trace the watershed one artist at a time — and we’re always heading further upstream.