Abie "Boogaloo Ames" and Eden Brent 
Major Works and Awards
- Mississippi Governor's Award for Artist's Achievement Award Winner (2001)
- Recipient of Mississippi Folk Heritage Fellowship (2000)
- From Mississippi to Chicago (compilation of various artists, including Ames)
Hear and see Boogaloo Ames and Eden Brent at the Starkville Arts Festival in two short video clips.
Video 1
Video 2
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Abie "Boogaloo" Ames: A Biography
 Eighty-one year old Abie "Boogaloo" Ames, who died in February of 2002 in Greenville, Mississippi, was a master of the boogie-woogie piano style. Born in rural Georgia, he first taught himself to play the piano more than seventy-five years ago by listening to songs on the radio and playing with them. When he was fourteen, his family moved to Detroit, where he played gigs regularly in the 1940's at local clubs. He eventually led a popular local band in Detroit. He also worked as a session player in the Motown Studios when Motown was just beginning. In the 1960's Boogaloo returned to the South where he still lives today in Greenville. He began teaching Eden Brent, a young resident of Greenville, in the 1980's. They eventually began playing together and still continue this partnership, which was the focus of a 1999 award-winning documentary by Mississippi Educational Television called Boogaloo and Eden:Sustaining the Sound.
 Abie "Boogaloo" Ames was just recently named the 2001 Artist's Achievement Award Winner of the Governor's Awards for Excellence in the Arts in the state of Mississippi. He is also a recipient of a recent Folk Art Fellowship from the Mississippi Heritage Commission, from whom he also received an Apprenticeship in 1993. He has played many blues festivals and is a living library of jazz and blues songs. His photo will appear in a book to be called American Music. In addition, he and his partner Eden Brent performed on July 27, 2000 at the Kennedy Center Millennium Stage in Washington, D. C. on Mississippi Day.
His piano playing style earned him his nickname "Boogaloo" in the 1940's. The team of Ames and Brent, whose recent performance at Kennedy Center is available in its entirely online, have also performed at the Waldorf Astoria in New York and the Republican National Convention. A CD is in the works.
At the time of his death, Boogaloo was working on a CD with Mississippi jazz sensation Cassandra Wilson. They were working in a Clarksdale recording studio to produce Belly of the Sun, for which Ames wrote a song entitled Darkness in the Delta.
Note: Boogaloo Ames died-- February, 2002.
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Related Websites
Kennedy Center Millennium Stage Performance Archive of Abie "Boogaloo" Ames and Eden Brent on July 27, 2000, Mississippi State Day. The video/audio performance is an excellent performance and about 30 minutes.
The Hoka Theater hosted Boogaloo Ames and Charlie Love Jacobs of the Tangents in 1986.
MP3 audio of Ames and Jacobs playing together at Hoka, Alex Haley reception in 1986.
A resolution commending Mr. Abie "Boogaloo" Ames on being named the 2001 Artist's Achievement Award Winner the Governor's Awards for Excellence in the Arts is here.
Blues greats perform in Jackson, Mississippi, at Millsaps College and present blues program in February, 2001.
Mississippi Arts Commission names the 2001 winners of the Governor's Awards which includes photo and brief biography of Boogaloo Ames. 
Boogaloo Ames is a recipient of a recent Folk Art Fellowship from the Mississippi Heritage Program. Site has brief biography and photo.
Mississippi Artists Roster has photo and address of Eden Brent and Boogaloo Ames.
From Mississippi to Chicago album lists Boogaloo Ames as one of the artists on this compilation.
Boogaloo and Eden is a half hour documentary produced by Mississippi Educational TV about the musical and personal relationships between Eden Brent, a thirty-something year old white female, and her teacher and partner, 81 year old Boogaloo Ames.
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More photos from the April 29, 2001, performance
by Abie "Boogaloo" Ames and Eden Brent in Starkville, Mississippi.
 
 
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