Quilla Hugh "Porky" Freeman (June 29, 1916 in Vera Cruz,

Missouri Missouri is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee): Iowa to the north, Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee to the east, Arkansas t ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

– July 8, 2001) was an American

Western swing Western swing music is a subgenre of American country music that originated in the late 1920s in the West and South among the region's Western string bands. It is dance music, often with an up-tempo beat, which attracted huge crowds to dance ...

performer, bandleader, and

songwriter A songwriter is a musician who professionally composes musical compositions or writes lyrics for songs, or both. The writer of the music for a song can be called a composer, although this term tends to be used mainly in the classical music ...

. He was also an

electric guitar An electric guitar is a guitar that requires external amplification in order to be heard at typical performance volumes, unlike a standard acoustic guitar (however combinations of the two - a semi-acoustic guitar and an electric acoustic gu ...

pioneer and inventor. In the 1940s he led the

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

n based

band Band or BAND may refer to: Places *Bánd, a village in Hungary *Band, Iran, a village in Urmia County, West Azerbaijan Province, Iran * Band, Mureș, a commune in Romania *Band-e Majid Khan, a village in Bukan County, West Azerbaijan Province, I ...

, the 'Porky Freeman Trio'. One of his early hits, "Porky's Boogie Woogie on Strings", began

rock and roll Rock and roll (often written as rock & roll, rock 'n' roll, or rock 'n roll) is a genre of popular music that evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s. It originated from African-American music such as jazz, rhythm a ...

's evolution out of Western swing. As a session musician he backed many of the popular musicians of the time. His early experimentation with the electric guitar led to several patents for the instrument.. One of the patents, 'Single Pickup Frequency Control For String Instrument', led to legal wrangling with Fender.

Discography

note: racketed numbers= matrix numbers, (v) = vocal, (i) = instrumental track

Compilations

* ''The Boogie Woogie Boy'' (Cattle Compact ermanyCCD-294, 2000)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Freeman, Porky Songwriters from Missouri American bandleaders Guitarists from Missouri Western swing performers Apex Records artists Four Star Records artists 1916 births 2001 deaths 20th-century American guitarists