19 Facts About Harry Gibson

Harry "The Hipster" Gibson, born Harry Raab, was an American jazz pianist, singer, and songwriter.

Harry Gibson played New York style stride piano and boogie woogie while singing in a wild, unrestrained style.

Harry Gibson continued to perform there throughout the 1930s, adding the barrelhouse boogie of the time to his repertoire.

Harry Gibson came from a musical family that operated a player piano repair shop.

Harry Gibson began playing piano in the 1920s as a child, in the Bronx and Harlem.

Harry Gibson began playing boogie woogie and talking in a jive style.

Harry Gibson was invited into black speakeasies in Harlem to play piano while still a teenager.

Harry Gibson punctuated his piano stylings with a running line of jive patter, which can be traced directly to recordings of the late-1930s jazz personality Tempo King, who was described by columnist Walter Winchell as "the white Fats Waller".

Between 1939 and 1945, Harry Gibson played at Manhattan jazz clubs on 52nd Street, most notably the Three Deuces, run by Irving Alexander, and Leon and Eddie's run by Leon Enkin and Eddie Davis.

Harry Gibson was known for his unique, wild singing style, his energetic and unorthodox piano styles, and his intricate mixture of hardcore, gutbucket boogie rhythms with ragtime, stride and jazz piano styles.

Harry Gibson took the boogie woogie beat of his predecessors, but he made it frantic, similar to the rock and roll music of the 1950s.

Harry Gibson recorded often, but there are very few visual examples of his work.

Harry Gibson preceded white rock-and-rollers by a decade: the Soundies he recorded are similar to Jerry Lee Lewis's raucous piano numbers of the 1950s.

Harry Gibson grew up near Harlem in New York City, and his constant use of black jive talk was not an affectation; it was something he picked up from his fellow musicians.

Harry Gibson's wild-man theatrics belied the fact that he was a highly trained classical musician.

Harry Gibson was invited to perform at Carnegie Hall, for a jazz concert held on December 2,1944.

Harry Gibson performed a serious rendition of Bix Beiderbecke's piano piece "In a Mist".

Harry Gibson may have been the only jazz pianist of the 1930s and 1940s to go on to play in rock bands in the 1970s and 1980s.

Harry Gibson died from a self-inflicted gunshot on May 3,1991, after suffering from congestive heart failure.