Too soon?
Probably, but that didn’t keep it from becoming a hit.
In 1957, the world was caught up in one of the worst pandemics in American history. The “Asian Flu” (so called because it originated in Singapore) was responsible for about two million deaths worldwide, and given the world’s population at the time, that wasn’t that far behind COVID-19’s toll.
New Orleans-based rock and roll pioneer Huey “Piano” Smith thought that sounded like a pretty great idea for a song.
And I suppose he was right, because “Rockin’ Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu” became a decent-sized hit that summer, even though Smith released it right when the pandemic reached the United States, and even though the highest death toll was among teenagers and young twenty-somethings, the primary audience for rock and roll.
“Rockin’ Pneumonia” (a play on “walking pneumonia”) peaked at #52 in sales but went all the way to #5 on the R&B radio play chart. The song became an even bigger hit in 1972 when Johnny Rivers covered it and took it to #6 on the Billboard Hot 100.
What makes “Rockin’ Pneumonia” so infectious? If you ask me, it’s all about the loose, good-time New Orleans sound. Listen to either Smith’s or Rivers’ version and you’ll hear performances so loose they’re almost a drunken stumble. One gets the sense that no two performances of “Rockin’ Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu” are ever the same, which makes it a perfect song for Bruce Springsteen to cover.
Bruce has covered “Rockin’ Pnemonia” three times only. Each of those three was (appropriately) at a bar, and each was (amazingly) captured on video.
His debut performance was a surprise appearance with Clarence Clemons and The Red Bank Rockers at Tradewinds in Sea Bright in the summer of 1993. Bruce had just wrapped his world tour with his new band only days before, and it was a thrill to see The Boss and The Big Man reunited on stage again. “Rockin’ Pneumonia” was the first song Bruce played with Clarence and his band that night, and you can feel the crowd’s excitement in the video of that performance below.
The other times Bruce covered “Rockin’ Pneumonia” were far more recent, and both were with Danny Clinch’s Tangiers Blues Band–first at the Asbury Lanes re-opening celebration in 2018…
…and again ten months later at the annual Kristen Ann Carr Fund benefit at Tribeca Grill in New York City.
Each of the three performances featured Bruce in fine improvisational form with top-notch bands, appreciative crowds, and perfect barroom settings.
Will we ever see him play it again? Let’s just hope we’ve put this pandemic behind us when we do.
Rockin’ Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu
First performed: June 28, 1993 (Sea Bright, NJ)
Last performed: April 13, 2019 (New York City, NY)
