Query: "book" = leave, run away

[Rick H Kennerly]

|o| Is this also where "boogie-woogie" comes from?  The "walking
|o| bass" was one
|o| of its features, IIRC. When I hear an expression like "boogie on outa
|o| here,"  it makes me think of movement propelled by that rhythm.

Music history is not my field, but I think you're on to something here.  One
source dates boogie-woogie back to 1928 as a piano style developed by
Clarence "Pinetop" Smith (who actually was the first to record a piece
called Pine Top's Boogie-Woogie and shout out a cry of "Hold it
now/Stop/Boogie Woogie!", two weeks before he was killed in a dancehall
fight in Pittsburgh by a stray bullet--don't shoot me, I'm just the...).
But Boogie-woogie certainly dates back at least as far as the Andrews
Sisters & the "Boogie-Woogie Bugle Boy of Company B".

Then, of course, there is the Boogaloo craze of the Disco era and it's
mention in the 60s in a song called "Nobody But Me" by the Isley Brothers in
62 but covered much better by the Human Beinz in 68.  And the 75 tune "Let's
Boogie".

Which is the long way around to saying that my unlearned but practiced
teenaged understanding of the word book as a verb, as well as let's book and
keep on bookin' when I was a kid (and, later, shake that booty) is as
slurry, shortened, hip plays on boogie.    The "keep on" in the phrase Keep
On Bookin', BTW, was derived in the 70s from a poster by R. Crumb called
Keep on Truckin', a deep perspective, cartoon featuring a Whimpy-type figure
with foot extended, sole of his shoe exposed
http://www.lambiek.net/artists/crumb/crumb_truckin1.jpg

I'd like to make the French Connection for bougez and actually think it's
there, but despite the large numbers of expats musicians in Paris, there is
no evidence Clarence "Pinetop" Smith ever left the states--which doesn't
prove much because music and language know no bounds.  I'll keep digging.

rhk