Beat Me Daddy, Eight to the Bar

"Beat Me Daddy, Eight to the Bar"
Sheet music for "Beat Me Daddy, Eight to the Bar"
Single by Will Bradley and His Orchestra featuring Ray McKinley
B-side	"Beat Me Daddy, Eight to the Bar Pt. 2"
Released	1940 (1940)
Format	10" 78 rpm record
Recorded	May 21, 1940
Genre	Boogie woogie
Length	2:39
Label	Columbia (Cat. no. 35530)
Writer(s)	Don Raye, Hughie Prince, Eleanore Sheehy

"Beat Me Daddy, Eight to the Bar" is a song written in 1940 by Don Raye, with credit given to Ray McKinley. It follows the American boogie-woogie tradition of syncopated piano music. The song was first recorded in 1940 by the Will Bradley orchestra, featuring Ray McKinley and pianist Freddie Slack.^[1] The recording placed in Billboard's "Leading Music Box Records of 1941" at number ten.^[2]

The title adopts 1940s' hipster slang coined by Raye's friend, Ray McKinley, a drummer and lead singer in the Jimmy Dorsey band in the 1930s. McKinley kicked off certain uptempo songs by asking pianist Freddie Slack – nicknamed "Daddy" – to give him a boogie beat, or "eight to the bar". For that reason Raye gave partial songwriting credit to McKinley. (The song was formally published under McKinley's wife's name, Eleanore Sheehy, because McKinley was under a songwriting contract with another publisher.) The nickname "Daddy Slack" was also used in the 1941 recording by "Pig Foot Pete" with Don Raye singing in Slack's band.

The Will Bradley Columbia recording was also released on V-Disc as No. 489A by the U.S. War Department in August 1945.

Other recordings

Versions of this song have been hits for the Andrews Sisters. Their later hit, "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy", which praises a fictional trumpet player, resembles this hit.^[1] Both songs were written by Don Raye and Hughie Prince.
Glenn Miller and His Orchestra in 1940 on RCA Victor Bluebird.
Woody Herman in 1940 on Decca.
Commander Cody and his Lost Planet Airmen on their album Lost in the Ozone.
Ella Fitzgerald recorded this song with arrangements by Russell Garcia on her Verve release Get Happy! (1959).

References

1 2 Gilliland, John (1994). Pop Chronicles the 40s: The Lively Story of Pop Music in the 40s (audiobook). ISBN 978-1-55935-147-8. OCLC 31611854. Tape 2, side B.
↑ "Leading Music Box Records of 1941". Billboard. Nielsen Business Media, Inc. 54 (5): 66. January 31, 1941. ISSN 0006-2510.

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