Something of a curiosity here - a "soundie" from 1944, featuring boogie-woogie piano legend Meade Lux Lewis, with Dudley Dickerson:
Comedian Dickerson is miming to a Big Joe Turner vocal. Here's the original "Roll 'Em Pete", recorded in 1938, with Big Joe and boogie pianist Pete Johnson. Meade's piano here is more rollicking, somehow. Presumably "Roll 'em Meade" wasn't considered to have quite the same feel, so it's just "Roll 'em".
The same cast feature in Low Down Dog, when our hard-working hero - Dickerson, again mimng to Big Joe Turner - comes home unexpectedly to find his sweetie sharing her favours with a local tradesman (iceman? postman?), with Meade Lux Lewis banging away on the keyboard in the front room. Quite a surprise.
Meade is best known for Honky Tonk Train Blues, one of the great boogie-woogie piano classics, recorded originally in 1927.
For Pete Johnson, you can't do better than this fabulous duet with Albert Ammons, Boogie Woogie Dream, introduced by a young Lena Horne.
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