The Lead Belly Songbook - Lead Belly, no stranger to the blues

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4, 5, and 9

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The score is an accurate transcription for the entire song, except for the first twelve measures. The Last Sessions version has a twenty-four bar instrumental intro.

When commenting about his extensive use of bass runs in this and other songs Lead Belly said:

Telling about the boogie woogie a long time ago. Before the writers wrote this up, people didn't know what they was doing down home. That was way back about nineteen-hundred and four, nineteen-three. Piano players were walking the basses. You walk up to a man and tell him "Walk the basses for me. Give him a drink of something.". He starts to walking them, it sounds good, the girls are jumping, in a barrelhouse. But the men didn't know what they was doing. I was walking 'em too.

I learned to play a guitar by a piano. When I plays - piano time, piano rhythm. That's the reason I like playing the bass around my music. I'd always sit on the bass side, by the piano, copy the jive the way the boy's playing, and that's the way I play.

And so, when the writers got hold to it, they written it up. There was Meade Lux Lewis. There was old James Pete Johnson, he used to walk the basses for a long time, he know what he's doing. But when the writers written it up and give it a name: The Boogie Woogie. Now everybody could boogie then, but (not) reading boogie, we was speeding at that time, we didn't take time to read, which we wouldn't. We didn't want to read, just speed. So now they got it written up, everybody is boogying.

I was doing this a long time ago, which I didn't know what I was doing, but I liked it mighty well. But I wasn't doing it as good as I can do it now. What I'm gonna do for you right now, entitled " I call my baby between four, five, and nine and meet me on Hollywood and Vine.". You ever been to California, in Hollywood, you know exactly where it is. Holly - Holly wood. (Starts playing 4,5,and 9.).