From whence came the shuffle?

Dave Birkett · From: Oxnard, CA, USA

Here’s a musicology question: Can we trace the shuffle back to its origin? First, it would necessary to define a shuffle which I cannot do. I can only apply the duck method and say I recognize one when I hear it. It’s obviously a variation of the swing beat. I think of it as in 12/8 time with a rather heavy emphasis on the third beat of each triplet group. And anyone who has fooled with drum machine knows that it doesn’t use pure triplets. Who was the first to use it? Ray Price? By the late 50s, he and Buck Owens were using it. And there are plenty of blues shuffles. As for early examples, I can think of Kansas City by Wilbur Harrison. Wasn’t Walking To New Orleans a shuffle? I don’t recall a Bob Wills piece that I would call a shuffle. What year did Count Basie do Night Train? He and the Kansas City blues scene might be a likely candidate. Any thoughts out there?

Dave Van Allen · From: Doylestown, PA , US , Earth

I asked a similar question a few months ago concerning the COUNTRY shuffle...
http://steelguitarforum.com/Forum10/HTML/001691.html

sounds like you'd like to trace it further back though

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Dave Birkett · From: Oxnard, CA, USA

I always heard that the country shuffle began with Crazy Arms in '56, combining honky tonk with swing. If you compare that to the beat in Invitation To The Blues two years later, you can really hear how the Ray Price beat developed into a full-blown shuffle. In the same year as Crazy Arms, Ray Charles did Lonely Avenue, which is, without question, a shuffle. In any case, I love shuffles. I think it's one of the great contributions to American culture.

Eddie Lange · From: Nashville, TN

The shuffle and the swing does not necesarily have a triplet feel. The swing feel is an altered eighth note, which is actually a triplet with the middle note taken out. The shuffle is just this eighth note repeated over and over in 4/4 time.

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The Young Steelkid

Ken Lang · From: Simi Valley, Ca

I'd have to take issue with the shuffle being just eighth notes. Think dotted eights and you'd be a lot closer.
Ken

Jussi Huhtakangas · From: Helsinki, Finland

If you wanted to trace the shuffle beat itself to it's origins, you'd probably had to go way back into the 30's ( or earlier ) blues and jazz. Many black country-blues players used it and later in the 40's and early 50's r&b piano players like Amos Milburn and Little Willie Littlefield developed it into a very popular style. Their technique emphasized a very heavy left hand shuffle beat usually alternating on just two notes of the chord, instead of the walking bass line.
As for what we know as country shuffle, Crazy Arms was the first recorded song using that formula. Or at least the one song, which made it popular.

Andy Volk · From: Boston, MA

According to The New Grove Dictionary of American Jazz:

"Shuffle (1) A dance step of indefinite southern black-American origin, perhaps dating from the 18th century, in which the feet are moved rhythmically acorss the floor without being lifted.
"(2) A rhythm derived from the dance step. The tern is onomatopoeic, "sh" describing its characteristic smoothness (and especially its sound when played on the snare drum). The alternation of long and short syllables (shuf-fle, shuf-fle,...) evokes its distinguishing rhythm, a subdivision of the beat into uneven triplets which is more specific than the fundamental swing or boogie-woogie rhythm only in that it is usually played legato and at a relaxed tempo. The shuffle rhythm is generally confined to earlier styles of jazz, up to and including swing..."

[This message was edited by Andy Volk on 01 March 2002 at 03:46 AM.]

Larry Miller · From: Dothan AL,USA

"Forget Me, You Don't Owe Me A Thing" By Marty Robbins when he was "MR. TEARDROP" had a slow shuffle beat, what year was that? '56??

c c johnson · From: killeen,tx usa * R.I.P.

When Wade Ray was with the the Uncle Dick Slabk show in St Louis in the early 40s I was lucky enough to play some dances with him in Granite City, Madison, Pontoon Beach, Taylorville, etc;. Wade used the 4/4 shuffle on all the numbers he sang. When he went to the west coast he still did although Spade and others did not use it much. Wade formrd his own band and used it like he did in the Ill and Mo area. Noel Boggs replaced me in the band and that is my best claim to fame. What a replacement!!!!!!!

c c johnson · From: killeen,tx usa * R.I.P.

My wife bless her, has pointed out some errors in the prev post. That is supposed to ne Uncle Dick SLACK and Wade only used the shuffle at his dances, not the radio broadcast.Skeets Yaney was the star at that time and he did not care for the shuffle but later changed his mind when he started playing dances. I said Wade used the shuffle on ALL the songs he sang: of course he did not use it on songs it did not fit. There,sugar pie, are you satisfied? Mi tieping and spell are xlint I donut car whut she saiys. CC

John Lacey · From: Black Diamond, Alberta, Canada

I'd like to hear a definitive analysis of the country shuffle, ala Ray Price yet more generic described by someone in the know. I'll ask some powers that be. All instruments included.

Dave Van Allen · From: Doylestown, PA , US , Earth

John... what kind of analysis?
an instrument by instrument breakdown with what beat/tick each is "hitting" on?

Dave Birkett · From: Oxnard, CA, USA

Thanks, Andy. The 18th Century! Wow! The description of the shuffle seems right on. An example would be the rhythm of Kansas City when it goes:
They got some cra-zy lit-tle wo-men there and I'm a gon-na get me one. I remember as a kid that just about every country band (in the night clubs of Phoenix, AZ) did this number, so there wasn't so much difference between the country and R&B forms of the shuffle to prevent cross fertilization.

Michael Johnstone · From: Sylmar,Ca. USA

Apart from the details between different kinds of shuffles - Ray Price,Blues shuffle,double shuffle,etc I'd be willing to bet that the basic elements of a shuffle rhythm are a lot older than that.To give you some idea what I'm talking about,most people trace the "shave and a haircut - two bits" or Bo Diddly rhythm back to 1930s Cab Calloway or maybe turn of the century minstrelsy,but it is in fact a thousand year old rhythm from Ghana.Likewise,the phrase "rock & roll" can be found in 18th century English sea chanties("rock & roll me Johnny Bowder")
I'd bet that considering the shuffle's apparent African lineage,it's probably at least hundreds of years old. -MJ-

Dave Birkett · From: Oxnard, CA, USA

Michael, I was thinking the same thing, that the slaves were probably very familiar to the rhythm. It seems that, in the the year 1956, the shuffle made a big impact on recorded popular music. Besides the aforementioned Crazy Arms and Lonely Avenue's appearance, Bill Doggett recorded the quintessential shuffle, Honky Tonk, a curiously coincidental title considering that Ray Price supposedly combined Honky Tonk music (the genre) with swing to come up with the rhythm to Crazy Arms. I think every bar band, no matter country, rock or R&B, did Honky Tonk and used Doggett's Hold It for their break song.

Gene Jones · From: Oklahoma City, OK USA, (deceased)

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(quote by Dave)

" I think every bar band, no matter country, rock or R&B, did Honky Tonk and used Doggett's Hold It for their break song."
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........and opened with "Big Bossman"!...

www.genejones.com

Manny Shuffles · From: st. louis, missouri, usa

Ill tell ya where shuffles come from...........they come from the heart

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swing it til' the wheels fall off! :)

Eddie Lange · From: Nashville, TN

An analysis of the shuffle(by no means definitive.) It starts with the kick drum playing 4 on the floor, add snare drum on 2 and 4, hi-hat playing swung eighth notes(not dotted eighth notes), then the bass player walks, add the piano doubling the bass line and the chord on the backbeats, the fiddles kick it off to the one chord, the steel player slides down to the five chord, back to one the one fiddle plays an eighth note lick and the steel player walks up to the one chord, and the singer comes in. Hopefully, the acoustic is in tune!

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The Young Steelkid

Michael Johnstone · From: Sylmar,Ca. USA

My favorite shuffle to play is the double shuffle like the aforementioned tune Honky Tonk.

John Steele · From: Renfrew, Ontario, Canada

Ok, question from the rhythm section:
I've heard people talk about how the bottom falls out of everything in a shuffle when the piano player takes a solo.
Well, when playing rhythm on the piano for a shuffle, it's a two-handed proposition. There's no left hand, up-to-and-including Art Tatum that could handle both alone. So, keeping in mind that the piano player has to abandon either the bass note, or the backbeat.... which would you prefer he/she did ?
Bobbe S, ? You've mentioned this before.... what's your verdict ? I tried dropping the bass note and keeping the backbeat with my left hand last week.. it was very "counter-intuitive" but i managed. Is that right ?
-John

John Lacey · From: Black Diamond, Alberta, Canada

The band analysis is what I am looking for, doesn't have to be a tick breakdown but small tips like, some guys say the drums should be on top of the beat and the bass player should lag a bit, that kind of thing.

Michael Johnstone · From: Sylmar,Ca. USA

I would say it depends on the type of shuffle.On fast rock double shuffles like Moby Grape used to play in the 60s,everybody was hangin' ten over the top.On more laid back pop country shuffles like Ray Price etc,I would say everybody is together but slightly back from "on top".On blusier things like Honky-Tonk or Milkcow Blues by Bob Wills it's even farther back from dead center with the soloists laying even further back.It drives me nuts though,when I'm trying to solo and play in the cracks of implied triplets,etc and the whole band is fighting over the back of the beat - and everybody wants to be the farthest one back.But one of my favorite shuffle grooves of all time is "Tanqueray" by Johnny Johnson(Chuck Berry's pianist)on his solo record "Johnny Be Bad" where the whole band is passing the back of the beat around between them like a great syncopated ballet of funk.When players can interact rhythmically with that level of detail,it can't even be analyzed.And speaking of Chuck Berry,his grooves are interesting because there's all kinds of implied shuffling w/the hi hat & snare going on over basically a straight 8th note rhythm guitar figure - I've heard that called a Chuck-a-billy shuffle.Everybody's heard bar bands who don't get that when playing Berry's tunes - don't that drive you nuts? -MJ-

KEVIN OWENS · From: OLD HICKORY TN USA

A kick drum playing 4 on the floor on a shuffle kills the swing feel. The bass drum should be played on 1 & 3 or not at all. Herb, what does Mr. Bush say about the drum pattern of a shuffle?

Kevin

Herb Steiner · From: Spicewood TX 78669

Herb Steiner · From: Spicewood TX 78669

John S.
I've played gigs with Randy Reinhardt on piano... perhaps more monstrous on piano than he is on steel, if you can believe that... and we've asked him to take a solo. He declines the honor because of the damage he'd do to the groove by dropping out of the rhythm section. So yes, shuffles on the piano are a two-handed affair.

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