The Poor Boy Boogie
The following originally appeared in the GRAND JUNCTION FREE PRESS:
The long history of American pop has often seen white musicians adapt, borrow and co-opt the musical idioms of African-Americans.
From the 1820s when minstrel star Thomas “Daddy” Rice rose to fame singing the plaintive folk songs he “borrowed” from southern plantation slaves, to the 1950s when hot, sexy rhythm and blues hits by the likes of Little Richard and Etta James were bowdlerized and made safe by Pat Boone and Georgia Gibbs, the music created by and for blacks has eventually filtered out to white performers and audiences. And this trend has continued into the hip-hop era, which has seen acts like Blondie, Vanilla Ice and the Beastie Boys ride the beats and rhymes of urban black performers into the upper climes of the U.S. charts.
But every once in a great while, so-called “black music” is likewise influenced by Caucasian musical argots. Such is the case with the popular hip hop technique known as “beatboxing,” the roots of which can be traced back to a hillbilly practice called “hoodling” or “eefing.”
The history of beatboxing parallels that of hip hop itself, with its earliest practitioners — like Darren “Buffy the Human Beatbox” Robinson of the Fat Boys, “Original Human Beatbox” Doug E. Fresh and Biz Markie, who got his start beatboxing behind MC Shan — emerging in the early 1980s. The intention was to vocally reproduce the drum track, sampling and turntable effects then in vogue among rap acts, and the technique was further influenced by comedian Michael Winslow, whose mouth-originated sound effects are perhaps the only memorable feature of the POLICE ACADEMY series that stormed cineplexes starting in 1984.
But some of the huffing-and-chuffing techniques of beatboxing were pioneered by white “eefers” earlier in the century. The earliest known eefing record is Harmonica Frank’s “Swamp Root,” a primal hillbilly single cut for Memphis’ Sun Records label in 1951, although eefing is believed to have been practiced among Appalachian musicians for more than a century earlier.
The man who did more eefing into the ears of America than any other was Nashville sessions musician Jimmie Riddle, who played harmonica for well-established performers like Don Gibson and Roy Acuff. Riddle’s eefing talents came to the fore during Acuff’s regular shows at the Grand Ole Opry, and Riddle was soon eefing like mad on records by Roy Perkins (”Little Eefin’ Annie”), the Goodlettsville Five (”Eef”) and Billy Hutch (Eefin-Nanny Monkey”). Riddle eventually became a regular on HEE HAW during the 1970s, where he would often eef accompanied by “hamboner” Jackie Phelps.
Another performer who helped popularize eefing was singer-songwriter-actor Mac Davis, whose 1974 single “Poor Boy Boogie” overtly celebrated the bizarre art.
In recent years, beatboxing has risen again, propelled by talented mouth musicians like Rahzel of the Roots, British beatboxer Killa Kela and the Bronx’s Kenny Muhammed. But while these artists’ pops, wheezes and snorts may sound new and urban, they echo some of America’s past performers like few of their fans might imagine.