Boogaloo Ames – Going Down Slow

Boogaloo Ames is a famous Blues – Jazz – Boogie Woogie piano player from Greenville MS. He was born 1918, in the 40´s, he had his own band where he played in the Detroit area and he also played with Nat King Cole and Erroll Garner.
In the 60´s he was Session-musician for the Motoron-Label. In the 70´s he played for the wealthy class in the Mississippi Area and played at different blues festivals like the Chicago Blues Festival.
He worked together with Mulgrew Miller and Eden Brent, other piano players, with them he toured to New York and Washington DC. Matt Block recorded Boogaloo 1997 in Greenville MS, where he recorded the songs Going Down Slow, Early In The Morning, Route 66 an 9 other great songs. 2 songs has already been published on the Wolf CD “The Story Of Piano Blues” – 120.106
He also received some Awards, like the Greenville Arts council Lifetime Achievement.
Boogaloo was one of the greatest Delta Blues piano players and this is his first CD recording ever!

A big thank you to Jim O’Neal, known as co-founder of the Living Blues Magazine for giving us Pictures of Boogaloo Ames from his collection.
The CD is a must have for every traditional blues fan.

Track Listing:
1. Going Down Slow - 2:56   2. Pinetop’s Boogie Woogie - 3:11   3. Early In The Mornin’ - 3:16   4. After Hours - 3:42   5. Everyday I Have The Blues - 3:13   6. Caldonia - 3:14   7. What’d I Say - 3:36   8. Route 66 - 3:08   9. Further On Up The Road - 2:51   10. Let The Good Times Roll - 2:57   11. Straighten Up And Fly Right - 2:51   12. Kiddio - 2:01

Personnel:
Boogaloo Ames (piano)

Reviews:

1. La Hora Del Blues - 2023.02 - ESSENTIAL
Unfortunately, barrelhouse piano style is nowadays out of fashion and practically off the grid. There are great jazz, blues and boogie-woogie piano players, but it is very difficult to find some of them who follow the path of Speckled Red, Cripple Clarence Lofton, Robert Shaw, Booker T. Laury, Montana Taylor or Curtis Jones to name a few representatives of that particular style.
Austrian record label Wolf Records has rescued one of those genuine exponents of the way blues was performed in juke-joints who, in his time, got a remarkable popularity among his southern fellows, but not as much among white blues fans. His name was Abie “Boogaloo” Ames. He was born in Cruger, Mississippi on May 23, 1918 or on May 6, 1921, although census documents say he was born in Georgia around 1920. When he was a teenager, he moved to Detroit with his family where he began a fruitful career, not only as barrelhouse piano player but also as a tasteful jazz and rhythm & blues performer, playing with T-Model Ford, Willie Foster, Sam Carr and even with Nat King Cole and Erroll Garner, also doing countless tours with Eden Brent. At the end of his life, he received some awards and recognitions and he passed away on February 4, 2002 in Greenville.
Few Boogaloo Ames’ recordings were known until the release of this album by Wolf Records. Thanks to their researching work, they have been able to find twelve songs belonging to a recording session held in August 1998, from which only two songs were previously released. Along the twelve songs Abie gives us a repertoire of the most classic blues, rhythm & blues and some jazz standards, where his voice and piano sound really warm and full of an intense feeling. Twenty years after his death, this dark but at the same time genuine and great piano player, can now be discovered and tasted by actual blues lovers.