Albert Ammons and Pete Johnson were two great boogie-woogie masters. Albert Clifton Ammons was born in Chicago, Illinois in March 1907. As a young man, he learned from Jimmy Yancey, who had a significant impact on Chicago blues pianists through his work at rent parties, social functions, and after-hours jobs.
Ammons came to know other pianists and the blues specialists gathered together in Chicago to create a coterie, echoing what was happening with the stride pianists in Harlem. Among the Chicago group, in addition to Yancey, were Clarence 'Pine Top' Smith, Jimmy Blythe, Cripple Clarence Lofton, Hersal Thomas and Ammons' close friend Meade 'Lux' Lewis. Ammons was the youngest of these men and he learned from all of them. He also drew inspiration from stride-piano great Fats Waller, a major star in black entertainment circles.
Lewis and Smith had recorded boogie in the 1920s, and among blues pianists boogie-woogie, with its eight-beats-to-the-bar pattern in the left hand, became an adjunct to the basic style.
Ammons' Big Break Ammons worked at jobs outside music, led his own swing combos and played with other bandleaders until his big break: a residency at the Club DeLisa, the most important nightspot on Chicago's South Side. This engagement, which began in 1935, led to his discovery by John Hammond and his first recordings, for Decca, in February 1936.
In 1938, Ammons was invited to appear in New York for Hammond's Spirituals To Swing concert at Carnegie Hall. He served as accompanist to Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Big Bill Broonzy, and had his own feature number, 'Boogie Woogie'.