A style of piano playing that originated among black American blues musicians in the early 20th century. It was first practised in the makeshift saloons of lumber camps in the South and is related to Boogie-woogie, which it may have preceded as a blues piano style (see Blues, §4). Barrelhouse was played in regular 4/4 metre, whereas boogie developed as fast music largely of eight beats to the bar. Ragtime bass figures or the heavy left-hand vamp known as ‘stomping’ were often employed with occasional walking bass variations. Characteristic early recordings are Barrel House Man (1927, Para.) by the Texas pianist Will Ezell, The Dirty Dozen by Speckled Red (Rufus Perryman) (1929, Bruns.) and Soon This Morning by Charlie Spand (1929, Para.); Perryman and Spand worked in Detroit after leaving the South. Diggin’ My Potatoes (1939, Bb), by Washboard Sam with Joshua Altheimer on piano, and Shack Bully Stomp (1938, Decca), by Peetie Wheatstraw, are examples of the persistence of the style. Many barrelhouse themes became standards, and were played by blues pianists after other styles had superseded the form. The term barrelhouse was also used to mean rough or crude, as in ‘Mooch’ Richardson’s Low Down Barrel House Blues (1928, OK), and several blues singers, among them Nolan Welch, Buck McFarland and Bukka White, were known by this nickname.
S. Calt, J. Epstein and N. Perls: disc notes, Barrelhouse Blues 1927–1936, Yazoo 1028 (1971)
E. Kriss: Barrelhouse and Boogie Piano (New York, 1974)
P. Oliver: ‘Piano Blues and Barrelhouse’, Blues off the Record (Tunbridge Wells and New York, 1984)
PAUL OLIVER