THE HIPSTER

Harry ‘The Hipster’ Gibson is this week’s Phantom Dancer feature artist with Greg Poppleton. The stride and boogie pianist claimed to have invented the word ‘hipster’. His stellar career nosedived in 1946 after he released the drug song ‘Who Put The Benzedrine in Mrs Murphy’s Ovaltine?’. That same song brought him out of obscurity when ‘discovered’ by Dr Demento in 1985 after which he released three albums.

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HARRY ‘THE HIPSTER’ GIBSON

was a jazz songwriter, stride and boogie woogie pianist, who sang in a large style that pitched the story out to his audience.

Born Harry Raab, he began his musical career in the late 1920s playing stride piano in Dixieland jazz bands in Harlem. He added barrelhouse boogie to his repertoire in the 1930s, and was discovered by Fats Waller in 1939. Waller brought him down to 52nd Street Manhattan jazz clubs where he became famous and changed his surname to Gibson.

AHEAD

Gibson’s songwriting was considered ahead of its time in the early 1940s. His singing and piano was also unique, his piano in particular taking on a ‘frantic’ quality.

CLASSICAL

At the same time as playing in 52nd Swing Street clubs, Gibson attended the strictly classical Juilliard School of music where he excelled.

We missed out last week, but on this week’s Phantom Dancer Gibson will play live on a 1944 Blue Network Eddie Condon jazz concert, Bix Beidebeck’s difficult piano pieces ‘Candlelight’ and ‘In a Mist’.

HIPSTER

Gibson grew up near Harlem, New York City. So his use of black jive talk was not an affectation but his uptown New York dialect. In his autobiography, Gibson claimed he coined the term hipster between 1939 and 1945 when he was performing on Swing Street when he started using “Harry the Hipster” as his stage name.

NAUGHTY

On this week’s Phantom Dancer we hear the 1946 Musicraft recording that sent his career plunging – ‘Who Put the Benzedrine in Mrs. Murphy’s Ovaltine’. His own drug use didn’t help.

BEATLES

In the 1960s Gibson saw the huge success of the Beatles and switched to rock and roll. By the 1970s, he was playing hard rock, blues, bop, novelty songs and a few songs that mixed ragtime with rock and roll. His hipster act became a hippie act. His old records were revived on the Dr. Demento radio show, particularly ‘Who Put the Benzedrine in Mrs. Murphy’s Ovaltine’, which was included on the 1975 compilation album Dr. Demento’s Delights.

His comeback resulted in three more albums: Harry the Hipster Digs Christmas, Everybody’s Crazy but Me, and Who Put the Benzedrine in Mrs. Murphy’s Ovaltine (Delmark, 1989). Those two include some jazz, blues, ragtime, and rock and roll songs about reefer, nude bathing, hippie communes, strip clubs, male chauvinists, “rocking the 88s”, and Shirley MacLaine.

In 1991, shortly before his death, Gibson’s family made a biographical movie short on his life and music called Boogie in Blue, published as a VHS video that year.

VIDEO

This week’s Phantom Dancer video of the week has Harry ‘The Hipster’ Gibson give a school music lesson about how to ‘Keep the Beat’ in this 1944 soundie. Pay attention!

12 FEBRUARY PLAY LIST