New Orleans Shuffle
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New Orleans Shuffle is a local shuffle-blues rhythm with rolling piano triplets, syncopated drums, horn riffs, and a backbeat that leans rather than pounds. Compared with Chicago or Texas shuffle, it has more rumba, second-line, and Crescent City swing in the hips, making the groove feel circular and slightly tipsy.
History
The style developed in postwar New Orleans studios and clubs where blues, boogie, jazz, Caribbean rhythm, and R&B fed one another. Fats Domino’s triplet piano hits, Professor Longhair’s loping grooves, Smiley Lewis’s shuffles, Huey "Piano" Smith’s party records, Earl King’s guitar songs, and Lloyd Price’s early sides made the rhythm nationally familiar. New Orleans Shuffle became a key ingredient in early rock and roll, swamp pop, Jamaican musicians’ R&B listening, and modern New Orleans roots bands.
Defining artists
Essential listening
Sources
- John Broven, Rhythm and Blues in New Orleans
- Jeff Hannusch, I Hear You Knockin'
- AllMusic
- Specialty and Imperial Records discographies