The jive is hip, don't say hep, That's a slip of the lip, let me give you a tip - Don't you ever say hep, it ain't hip, NO, IT AIN'T!

December 16, 2011 9:31 AM

Three Soundies and one collage:
Handsome Harry The Hipster - Harry "The Hipster" Gibson
4-F Ferdinand - Harry "The Hipster" Gibson
Opus 12EEE - Harry "The Hipster" Gibson
Who Put the Benzedrine in Mrs Murphys Ovaltine ? - Harry "The Hipster" Gibson
That last song would prove to be his undoing.

''...But Harry Gibson still needed a nickname. At the time, jazz musicians were using the words "hep" and "hepcat," but too many squares were beginning to use those words, so some people started saying "hip" instead. Gibson coined the word "hipster" and started addressing his audience that way. "Gather round, all you hipsters," he would say from the piano. Fellow musicians picked up on the new word and began to kid him about it, calling him "The Hipster." The name stuck, especially after he wrote the song "Handsome Harry, The Hipster," in the early 40's, and recorded it in 1944...

From Hyzercreek's most granularly encyclopedic Harry "The Hipster" Gibson, which is a font of information. One thing is certain -- his cognomen was well earned, well earned indeed.

posted by y2karl (14 comments total)

How about a little love for Reg Kehoe and his Marimba Queens?
posted by timsteil at 9:36 AM on December 16, 2011

Gold.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 9:38 AM on December 16, 2011

See also
posted by y2karl at 9:39 AM on December 16, 2011

Nice! Who put the nembutals in Mr. Murphy's overalls?
posted by OmieWise at 9:39 AM on December 16, 2011 [2 favorites]

Man, HE'LL never marry yer sister.
posted by koeselitz at 9:45 AM on December 16, 2011

MOP!
posted by Jon_Evil at 9:55 AM on December 16, 2011

Favoriting x 1,000,000...my Dad had the album Boogie Woogie in Blue with its jive talk lexicon on the inside cover. I've got the album now, and a 78rpm turntable, but I haven't gotten around to digitizing it yet. And now I guess I may not have to. Awesome, thanks for the post!
posted by foonly at 10:59 AM on December 16, 2011 [1 favorite]

Why was it his undoing?
posted by stbalbach at 11:18 AM on December 16, 2011

Hover over the song title in question or, if your tags are turned off, follow the links.
posted by y2karl at 11:27 AM on December 16, 2011

Slightly surprised this is the only post on MeFi tagged with Benzadrine and Ovaltine.
posted by Perko at 11:51 AM on December 16, 2011 [1 favorite]

Boogie in Blue, the documentary mentioned in the last link, is on YouTube.
posted by OmieWise at 12:21 PM on December 16, 2011 [1 favorite]

Who Put the Benzadrine has found its way onto almost every mix I have ever made in the past 15 years.
posted by loriginedumonde at 12:59 PM on December 16, 2011

I'm pretty sure I heard "Who Put the Benzedrine in Mrs. Murphy's Ovaltine?" on WAAL while driving along Rt. 17 in NY's Southern Tier in the late 70s/early 80s.
posted by tommasz at 1:01 PM on December 16, 2011

Why was it his undoing?

According to the movie Boogie in Blue, about Harry, it caused him to be blacklisted.

Great film by the way. Made by his daughter and granddaughter.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 3:58 PM on December 16, 2011 [1 favorite]