Pete Johnson grew up around Kansas City and learned his trade the way most boogie-woogie pianists did back then — in bars, rent parties, and after-hours joints where the piano had to do the work of an entire band. That meant a rolling, repetitive bass line in the left hand that never let up, while the right hand took off into whatever variations the night demanded. Johnson had that left hand down cold, and it made him one of the most reliable dance-floor pianists of his era.

His biggest break came through John Hammond, who brought him to New York for the 1938 Spirituals to Swing concert at Carnegie Hall. That night put him on stage alongside Albert Ammons and Meade Lux Lewis, and the three of them performing together as the so-called Boogie Woogie Trio basically introduced the style to a national audience that had no idea this music existed outside the Midwest.

Johnson's most famous partnership was with the singer Big Joe Turner, a fellow Kansas City veteran. Together they recorded "Roll 'Em Pete," a tune that's about as close to proto-rock and roll as you'll find in the late 1930s — shouted blues over a pounding piano riff, no subtlety required. If you want to hear where rock and roll piano actually came from, this is a good place to start.

He never had Ammons' name recognition or Lewis's signature tune ("Honky Tonk Train Blues"), but Johnson was arguably the most technically assured of the three, and plenty of musicians who heard him at the time said as much. He kept playing through the 1940s and into the 50s, recording and touring, before his health declined. He died in Buffalo in 1967, a working musician to the end, not a legend reflecting on past glory.

Listen to Johnson if you want to understand boogie-woogie as dance music first and art music second — because that's exactly what it was built to be.