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MEADE 'LUX' LEWIS

Meade Anderson Lewis was born as the oldest of five boys in Chicago, Illinois in September 1905. He spent his first lifetime in Louisville, Kentucky. After his family returned to Chicago he lived at a railroad line. He must have been very impressed by having a look at the trains which rumbled past his family's home as many as a hundred times a day. The impressions of steam trains should accompany big parts of his musical work.

He acquired the nickname 'Lux' because as a child he liked to imitate the exorbitant polite comic strip characters Alphonse and Gaston, calling himself the 'Duke of Luxembourg'. Meade’s father insisted he had to learn the violin as a child.
But his father’s early death and listening to the Chicago pianist Jimmy Yancey inspired Meade to switch to the piano. He was entirely a self-taught person on piano. A few years later he met Albert Ammons at junior high school where the boys became friends. Together they studied the music of Jimmy Yancey and other Chicago blues pianists. Albert's advantage was the piano at home. Lewis gained little odd jobs. Around 1925 he and Ammons worked as cab drivers in the same taxi company. At the end of the 1920s the two fellows shared an apartment together in the same building where another pianist, Clarence 'Pinetop' Smith, lived with his family. A time of sharing ideas, mutual influence and jamming together for rent parties followed.

In 1927 Lewis recorded his Honky Tonk Train Blues, an eight to the bar blues train imitation, for the first time. It was not until 1929, however, that the record was released but in difference to Clarence Smith's Pine Top's Boogie Woogie it sold very poorly. Disappointed he withdrew himself and was again working at non-playing odd jobs.
Four years later the jazz promoter and producer John Hammond obtained a copy of Lewis’ recording. He was so impressed with it that he started a two-year search for Lewis. Hammond found him in 1935 washing cars in a Chicago garage ... Hammond arranged a recording session to re-record Honky Tonk Train Blues. But the success remained again malfunctioned for it.
The following time Hammond supported Lewis to record Yancey Special, Lewis’ tribute to Jimmy Yancey, who influenced Lewis strongly years ago.
At that time appearances and recordings slowly increased. As a matter of security Lewis continued as a car washer until Hammond pulled him back into the musical limelight. Now Hammond arranged two concerts for Lewis in New York, but without success. Disappointed Lewis returned to Chicago.

In December 1938 John Hammond arranged his historical concert 'From Spirituals To Swing' at Carnegie Hall, New York (and another by popular demand one year later) and invited the boogie-woogie pianists Lewis, Albert Ammons, Pete Johnson and the blues shouter Joe Turner. The performance was an enormous hit, the boogie-woogie craze was on. A few days after Lewis recorded the first time together with Ammons and Johnson. Magazines wrote the pianist's story, their music was broadcast on radio and also Lewis’ recording of Honky Tonk Train Blues now became a best seller. Together with blues shouter Joe Turner the three pianists got a long-term engagement as "Boogie Woogie Boys" at the club Café Society, New York where they took the big city by storm.

Lewis could whistle the blues (Whistlin' Blues) excellently in a style remembering a cornet played by the young Louis Armstrong. In addition he was the first jazz pianist who experimented on celeste and harpsichord. Lewis had the most complex style of the three major boogie pianists. Until today he is still well-known for his power, fascinating polyrhythms and adventurous chord clusters.In 1941 Lewis was the first Boogie Woogie Boy who left Café Society to move to Los Angeles where most of his appearances were relatively low-paying solo gigs. At the beginning of 1943 Lewis did soundtrack work for Walt Lantz' cartoon Cow Cow Boogie.
After almost a year without commercial recording sessions he cut a number of his technical perfect and best known boogies and blues like Chicago Flyer, Randini’s Boogie, Lux’s Boogie, The Boogie Tidal, Glendale Glide, Meade’s Blues and once again Yancey Special. At that time he was hired to play boogie-woogie in a series of short films, where he also accompanied 'Big' Joe Turner's vocals, as he did in Roll 'Em and Low Down Dog: