Released 1940 (1940) Recorded May 21, 1940 Length 2:39 | Format 10" 78 rpm record Genre Boogie woogie | |
B-side "Beat Me Daddy, Eight to the Bar Pt. 2" | ||
"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. The recording placed in Billboard's "Leading Music Box Records of 1941" at number ten.
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.