Reported by Erik Smith Web produced by Rachel L. Miller Bob Seeley's fingers fly over the piano keys as he plays boogie woogie. His hands travel at the speed of sound, his fingers almost at the speed of light, touching down briefly to stroke an ivory or ebony key before speeding on to another. I like to play it fast and loud and furious. In milliseconds, the flying fingers create a rhapsody in rhythm and cascading notes that instantly separate the basics of Beethoven from the barrel house of boogie woogie.
Blues is, generally speaking, slow, but boogie woogie is usually much more up-tempo.
I call it happy blues. It is the music of the jazz age and the juke joint, a bawdy, rollicking excursion into our yellow-paged past, drenched in the aroma of cheap whiskey, steal cigars and dime store perfumes. This is boogie, and Bob Seeley is its acknowledged master. This is a time when sing-along music was very popular in the bars. He never ended up moving to California.