I was reading through old issues of Living Blues this morning and came across a 1995 interview with Snooky Prior in which he made a (for me) shocking claim. Maybe it's news to you; certainly I haven't seen any talk of it in 99% of discussions about Little Walter and his best-known song.
My source, for the record, is an interview entitled, "I Started the Big Noise Around Chicago," in Living Blues 123 (Sept./Oct. 1995).
On pp. 14-15, Snooky says of Walter, "You see, later on in up the years, after Louis Jordan started puttin' out records, and then Little Walter picked up Louis Jordan's swing. Yeah, and then pickin' up with Louis Jordan's swing, he picked up 'Snooky and Moody's Boogie' and made 'Juke' out of it. I guess you know about that, too, huh?"
Interviewer: "All you have to do is listen."
SP: "Well, this is true! Ask Jimmy Rogers. He'll tell you. Oh, I know what's goin' down and know what went down."
Quite an accusation: that the best-known blues harmonica instrumental in the world, the game-changer, was actually Little Walter's ripoff of an earlier harp riff. "Snooky and Moody's Boogie" was released in 1948, and it was well-known in Chicago. Snooky was playing the Maxwell Street Market back then; he and Walter frequently crossed paths down there.
Well, I immediately went to iTunes and downloaded "Snooky and Moody's Boogie." And there's absolutely no question: the opening riff of the recording is the familiar "ba da-da-dah DAH-DAH" riff from "Juke." Except that Snooky's recording came first.
And--not insignificantly--the last four bars of the opening chorus of "Juke," and the remainder of LW's instrumental, are nothing like "Snooky's Boogie."
So the question is, what to make of it? At bare minimum, we should acknowledge that the opening bars of "Juke" are not Walter's original creation in any sense. Until somebody can find a recording that supersedes Snooky's, we have to acknowledge that he was the creator of the riff--or, at bare minimum, the guy who first put it on record--and Walter was the appropriator.
By the same token, when you play "Juke" after "Snooky and Moody's Boogie," it's hard not to be amazed at what LW ended up transforming that little bit of borrowed riff-material into. 96% of "Juke" is NOT borrowed from "Snooky and Moody's Boogie."
Just the opening 4%, which is a straight-up, flat-out, indisputable ripoff. Or borrowing. Or whatever you want to call it. It's clear that Snooky himself thinks it was a ripoff. Them's are fighting words, so I won't use them. I'll just say that every serious student of blues harmonica needs to make the A/B comparison.
I immediately went to Wikipedia to see what the "Juke" entry had to say about all of this. It mentioned Prior's song but downplayed the identical nature of the opening riff, so I tweaked it a little and cited the LB interview.
Last Edited by on May 28, 2009 11:28 AM
Walter was just riffing. If you listen to the alternate take of Juke, he starts it completely differently. Other "alternate takes" on the on the marvelous "The Complete Chess Masters" 5-CD collection of his stuff bear out the same story: He never played anything the same way twice.
If we look at 1 bar licks like this (yes, I know it's repeated several times), it's virtually impossible NOT to play something someone else played before. I'm not saying he wasn't aware of where that riff came from - just that I'm sure it was just one of the licks in his head at the time and he probably didn't think twice about it. I doubt he was interested in ripping anybody off - he didn't need to!
Excellent point about the alternate takes. I've only heard the one "official" alternate take, which is on a 2-CD Little Walter set, I believe, but I remember being startled by how different it was.
Great artists steal from so many directions and transform the materials in such interesting and sometimes unprecedented ways that they always transcend their sources. "Steal" is usually the wrong word to describe what they do.
Still, the take that was issued was the one we all know, and it's the one that became a Billboard #1 R&B hit in 1952, along with (I just checked) "Booted" by Roscoe Gordon, "Night Train" by Jimmy Forrest (a wonderful sax instrumental; Bob Porter's theme song on PORTRAITS IN BLUE), "Five Long Years" by Eddie Boyd, and "I Don't Know" by Willie Mabon. So the riff resonates, as does the fact of its (apparent, conscious or unconscious) borrowing from a previously released harmonica-heavy Chicago blues recording that Walter would clearly have known.
My own feeling, as I hope I've made clear, is that Little Walter's artistry is in no way diminished by the fact of this apparent borrowing. All that's diminished--as it was usefully diminished by Elijah Wald's careful archiving of all of Robert Johnson's borrowings--is our ability, if we're hero-worshippers, to imagine that Little Walter was sui generis, entirely self-created, rather than an active and enmeshed part of a vital blues scene that helped him become what he became. Even geniuses have milieux.
Last Edited by on May 28, 2009 1:29 PM
Big Band sound or Horn player used it previously? Perhaps. Did Snooky get it from some other blues man? Perhaps. Fact is that as Adam says, if the Harp version of that famous lick was Snooky's before it was LW's, we need to recognize that.
"ba da-da-dah DAH-DAH"
One of the best licks ever, if not the best lick ever, for sure.
I suspect that the riff may originate there, too. So track it down! Prior himself insists in the interview I quoted that Walter began as a "sloppy" harp player who then began listening to swing/jump sax and came up with a whole 'nother bag. I know that much of the "Evans Shuffle" is borrowed (LOL) from Joe Liggins 1946 hit sax instrumental, "The Honeydripper." At least two or three choruses, verbatim. No debate there. So I'd start with the recordings of Liggins and Louis Jordan, if I were looking for a "Juke" riff source that predated Snooky's Boogie in 1948.
Snooky also claims to be the original person to cup a mic with the harmonica- maybe Snooky was just a huge influence on Little Walter. Either way I don't think either one of them invented the riff, it sounds like a pretty classic sax riff to me. ---------- "Without music, life would be a mistake" -Nietzsche
Could be from a guitar as well ; the blues being a very delimited genre in terms of structures e.a., and having a long history, every combination of notes has probably been played and recorded at a time or other, mostly several times. And it's a long time practice to "borrow" licks, lyrics, songs that had some success and that people have still in mind, and make something their own out of it. That way, you get more attention from the audience, and get more people listening to your "real stuff" (I mean, great artists do that ; others just mimic the song without adding to it, and often not as good as the "original").
For instance : Kokomo Arnold got his nickname for his song "Old Original Kokomo Blues", which he borrowed from Scrapper Blackwell's "Kokomo Blues". Arnold played the song in a totally different style from Blackwell's, he just took the main lyrics "Baby don't you want to go to the eleven lights city, sweet old Kokomo".
Then Robert Johnson took it and recorded it as "Sweet Home Chicago". He kind of mixed the two prior versions : rythm and key were similar to Blacwell's, structure and lyrics to Arnold's. Johnson didn't invented that song, but he reinterpretated it with his own great playing and voice.
The Juke riff I think has been around as far back as the cave man days.
I'm a sax player mainly before other instruments including harp, the juke riff has been used as a lick on thousands of things.
At this point Sopwithcamels266 dives into vast CD and record collection searching for proof statements.
O man I get carried away when I dig in here this post should have been an hour ago.
There are endless examples but one that shouts at me is the great Sonny stitt, saxophone player. A change running player out of the bebop movement,yea, he uses that kind of thing alot. That particular phrase is a nice springboard into endless lick and head possibilities. Just checked I got LW a couple of takes on juke ,no correction 3 different ones.
My own idea on this and I have no evidence to support it here , that these blues guys were listening to jazz. They put themselves out for it or unwittingly due to the fact it was all around them back then. To my way of thinking thats where you should dig the deepest and then wipe some of the paint off and its yours.
A couple of guys went down the garden shed as teenages started writing some tunes. Looked at jazz (mixing of maj Minor chords, gershwin,porter) Once they discovered that the job was easy. Later they called themselves the Beetles.
Last Edited by on May 28, 2009 3:48 PM
I read in the book "Blues with a Feeling: The Little Walter Story" where Snooky Pryor made that claim but I don't consider a six-note riff to be a rip-off especially since there was so much borrowing and out right song stealing going on among bluesmen in that day and age. Yes, Snooky Pryor and Moody Jones recorded that riff before Walter did but didn't Snooky himself borrow it? In the above mentioned book, Dave Myers recalls the opening riff as coming from an early big-band arrangement-"Leap Frog" by Les Brown's swing band. The book goes on to quote Jimmy Rogers(the quote was sourced from a 1995 Living Blues article by Jim O'Neal): "Snooky had this thing that went on kind of the kick of 'Juke' was on now,'Snooky and Moody's Boogie'. And we heard this thing and Little Walter ran through the phrases of the harmonica part,and Sunnyland Slim used to have a little thing he'd play when he's going on, 'Get Up The Stairs Mademoiselle.' He'd do it on piano. So we put the two together and started jamming around with it. We used it and built that for our theme song." He was referring to the theme song of the early Muddy Waters Band 1947-1952.
Last Edited by on May 28, 2009 9:34 PM
Was just referring to various riffs that crop up wherever. Nothing much new in the music world ie only 12 notes to jumble up or borrow from someone. Works best when composer is long dead ie thats why bits of Bach, Beethoven & Mozart pop up regularly.
Aussiesucker: You are correct sir! There are only 12 notes of the chromatic scale which all Western music is based on. There may be more than that in Asian music or some exotic music somewhere, I don't know but one can find similar notes to any piece of music somewhere. The secret to songwriting use to be was to find a song that you really like, zero in on a riff that really appeals to you and build a song around that. If you wanted it to be a vocal, you added lyrics about your own life experiences. Unfortunately these days we live in a litigious society (at least here in America) and someone may say "I did that before!" especially if the song's a hit and makes a lot of money. G'day mate.
Now we're getting somewhere. In 1945, Les Brown and his Band of Reknown released "Leap Frog," and, according to Wikipedia, it was so popular that it became the band's theme song.
I went to iTunes and searched "Les Brown" and "Leap Frog." About 15 tracks came up. I downloaded the most popular. There's no question: the opening riff of "Snooky and Moody's Boogie" and "Juke" is right there. Since we know that Little Walter listened to Louis Jordan and other jazz stuff, there's every reason to think that he knew "Leap Frog." And there's no particular reason to assume that he's simply copying Snooky's version of the riff. For all we know, he said to himself, "That joker's version of 'Leap Frog' is lame. I'll show folks how it's REALLY done."
As it turns out, just yesterday somebody uploaded a YouTube video of Les Brown (or Les Brown Jr.?) and his band playing this very song. Enjoy this, guys! We've all learned something:
And here, at last, is THE Les Brown, with his band in 1985, playing the song that made him famous 40 years earlier. I'm tickled by the idea that Little Walter's "Juke" riff comes from a white big band. Impurism carries the day, once again...........
Now the trail gets even more interesting. Just out of curiosity, I googled "Little Walter" and "Leap Frog." Guess what came up? A missing link.
Buster Bennett, a.k.a. Buster "Leap Frog" Bennett, was an alto player who played a major role in the Chicago blues scene. He was on contract with Columbia from 1945 through 1948. He was billed as the next Louis Jordan, but he was more of a swing player--not as adventurous as Jordan.
Bennett's theme song was--you guessed it--"Leap Frog." His own adaptation of the Les Brown hit. He recorded it in 1945, same year as the original. Here's a link:
There's a long entry on Bennett in the All Music Guide to the Blues. It doesn't mention Little Walter, but I strongly suspect that Bennett was the conduit, or something like it, between Les Brown and Little Walter.
I'll check iTunes and see if I can find Bennett's version of the song.
Last Edited by on May 29, 2009 12:25 PM
Here's a link that will give you more information about Buster Bennett than you ever thought you wanted to know--and all of it fascinating, and much of it relevant to the world of Chicago blues and jazz that Little Walter entered in the late 1940s:
http://hubcap.clemson.edu/~campber/bennett.html
You have to scroll waaaaaaay down to come to the stuff about "Leap Frog." Here's most of it:
Before his first session as a leader, Buster adopted a tune called "Leap Frog" as his theme. He was still using it in 1950. The number is attributed to Bennett on his first release, but he didn't write it. "Leap Frog" was the opening theme for sets by the Les Brown big band, starting at some point during World War II (it is preserved on broadcasts from 1944). Les Brown did eventually record it in the studio, but his "official" version (also on Columbia, it turns out) was not cut till June 10, 1945--three and a half months after Buster's. No one at Columbia seems to have noticed the conflicting assertions of authorship!
Apparently, "Leap Frog" had garnered enough jukebox play by December of 1945 that Metronome took notice--or maybe Columbia encouraged the magazine to. The December 1945 review section, handled by "The Two Deuces" (Barry Ulanov and Leonard Feather), gave the disk what were pretty much typical reviews in Metronome, B (good) for "Reefer Head Woman," and B- (fairly good) for "Leap Frog Blues." This was before grade inflation at the jazz magazines: Metronome gave very few As and very few Cs.
The review demonstrates how a mainstream jazz publication such as Metronome was inclined to treat blues records with a combination of condescension and respect. It also lets us know where Buster got "Leap Frog" from:
Typical race record, with Buster singing good blues and blowing some jumping alto on the first side, which is less lurid than its title, dealing not so much with marijuana as with marital infidelity. Leap Frog, as the title implies, is nothing but an adaptation of the Les Brown theme, which was written by Joe Garland, though Bennett gets the credit here; also the "blues singing" mentioned on the label is inaudible to us; it's strictly instrumental, alto and rhythm.
Finally, here's a link to the homepage of the website that contains the long Bennett discography. It's a research foundation dedicated to Chicago blues and jazz of the 30s, 40s, and 50s. It's quite a remarkable site; if you go there, be prepared to emerged several hours later, blinking and shaking your head. A whole world of music most of us know virtually nothing about. If you fancy yourself an expert, please have a look. Scroll down for several links that lead to incredibly detailed histories of Chess Records, with list (and narrative discussions) of virtually every recording session.
Kudzurunner: Man what are you doing to me, ha ha I'm going to loose track of time. What a interesting site that last link is superb info.
Its 2358hrs here in Uk,everyone is asleep in the house but me. looks like I will be burning the midnight oil. I have got a long day tomorrow but I got to soak in that site. I'm an avid collector CD and record man, can't let anything escape, blues or jazz.
