Kurt Vonnegut
Duo for Clarinet & Meade Lux Lewis
[Spoken]
Born in Louisville, Kentucky, in 1905, Meade Lux Lewis didn't turn to music until he had passed his 16th birthday and then the instrument provided by his father was the violin. A year later young Lewis chanced to hear Jimmy Yancey play the piano. 'This,' as Lewis recalls, 'was the real thing.'

Soon, Lewis was teaching himself to play the boogie-woogie piano, absorbing all that was possible from the older Yancey, who remained until his death a close friend and an idol to Mr. Lewis. Since his father was a Pullman portеr, the Lewis family lived nеar the railroad. The rhythm of the trains soon became a natural pattern to young Lewis and he composed the boogie-woogie solo, now a classic of its kind, which became known as 'Honky Tonk Train Blues.'