“It’s Tight Like That” by Tampa Red & Georgia Tom (Vocalion 1928)

Guitarist Tampa Red and pianist Georgia Tom joined together in a playful vocal duet to rework a hot street slang phrase of the 1920s into a genre-crossing national hit. ‘It’s Tight Like That,’ a prime example of the good-time music known as hokum, was cut in Chicago on October 24, 1928 (Vocalion 1216), and was widely recorded by blues, jazz and country artists, including several sequels by Tampa Red (Hudson Whittaker) and Georgia Tom (Thomas A. Dorsey, who was later to be hailed as ‘the father of gospel music’).