"Washboard Blues" is a popular jazz song written by

Hoagy Carmichael Hoagland Howard Carmichael (November 22, 1899 – December 27, 1981) was an American musician, composer, songwriter, actor and lawyer. Carmichael was one of the most successful Tin Pan Alley songwriters of the 1930s, and was among the first ...

, Fred B. Callahan and

Irving Mills Irving Harold Mills (born Isadore Minsky; January 16, 1894 – April 21, 1985) was an American music publisher, musician, lyricist, and jazz artist promoter. He sometimes used the pseudonyms Goody Goodwin and Joe Primrose. Personal Mills was ...

. It was first recorded for

Gennett Records Gennett (pronounced "jennett") was an American record company and label in Richmond, Indiana, United States, which flourished in the 1920s. Gennett produced some of the earliest recordings by Louis Armstrong, King Oliver, Bix Beiderbecke, and H ...

in May, 1925 by

Hitch's Happy Harmonists Hitch's Happy Harmonists (a.k.a. The Happy Harmonists, active 1922–27) was an early jazz band from Evansville, Indiana which played on the first recordings by Hoagy Carmichael: "Bone Yard Shuffle" and "Washboard Blues". The band was led by the p ...

with Carmichael on piano. It was subsequently recorded by jazz bands

Original Memphis Five The Original Memphis Five was an early jazz quintet founded in 1917 by trumpeter Phil Napoleon and pianist Frank Signorelli. Jimmy Lytell was a member from 1922 to 1925. The group made many recordings between 1921 and 1931, sometimes under diffe ...

(1925) and Red Nichols and his Five Pennies (1926). On November 18, 1927, it was recorded in Chicago by

Paul Whiteman Paul Samuel Whiteman (March 28, 1890 – December 29, 1967) was an American bandleader, composer, orchestral director, and violinist. As the leader of one of the most popular dance bands in the United States during the 1920s and early 1930s, ...

and his Concert Orchestra, featuring piano and lead vocals by Carmichael, and was released as Victor 35877-B (the B-side of "Among My Souvenirs") The song is an evocative washerwoman's lament. Though the verse, chorus, and bridge pattern is present, the effect of the song is of one long, cohesive melodic line with a dramatic shifting of

tempo In musical terminology, tempo (Italian, 'time'; plural ''tempos'', or ''tempi'' from the Italian plural) is the speed or pace of a given piece. In classical music, tempo is typically indicated with an instruction at the start of a piece (often ...

. The cohesiveness of the long

melody A melody (from Greek language, Greek μελῳδία, ''melōidía'', "singing, chanting"), also tune, voice or line, is a Linearity#Music, linear succession of musical tones that the listener perceives as a single entity. In its most liter ...

perfectly matches the lyrical description of the crushing fatigue resulting from the repetitious work of washing clothes under primitive conditions.

Credits

A copy of the lyrics from the Indiana University archives of the Hoagy Carmichael collection credits F. B. Callahan with the words to "Washboard Blues".

References

External links

"Washboard Blues"

(1927)&mdas
''Internet Archive''
* {{Authority control Songs with music by Hoagy Carmichael Blues songs 1925 songs Songs with lyrics by Irving Mills