Jimmy McCracklin

Even after five full decades in the blues world, Jimmy McCracklin kept touring, cutting new sides, and projecting the energy of a far younger performer. He firmly rejected the birth year most sources assigned him, yet the fact that he first entered a studio in 1945 lent weight to his claim. Raised in Missouri, McCracklin drew his chief piano inspiration from Walter Davis after his father arranged an introduction to the older musician. A promising boxer in his youth, he ultimately chose music over the ring. Following Navy service in World War II, he left St. Louis behind and headed for the West Coast, where he made his recording debut on the Globe label in 1945 with “Miss Mattie Left Me”; J.D. Nicholson handled piano on that date while McCracklin took over the 88s on most of his later sessions.

Before landing at Modern for 1949–1950, he worked for a long list of small Los Angeles and Oakland concerns, then moved to Swing Time in 1951 and Peacock in 1952–1954. Early on, Robert Kelton supplied guitar; by 1951 Lafayette “Thing” Thomas had joined McCracklin’s Blues Blasters as the incendiary guitarist and stayed with the group into the early 1960s. Returning to the Bihari Brothers’ Modern imprint in 1954, McCracklin developed a horn-driven approach. “Couldn’t Be a Dream” offered a darkly comic narrative of an evening spent with a woman straight from hell, and a 1955 date found him playing credible harp as well.

Sessions for Bay Area producer Bob Geddins’ Irma label in 1956, many of which later appeared on Imperial, set the stage for his breakthrough. Checker Records issued the unadorned dance groove “The Walk” in 1958; the single climbed to the Top Ten on both the R&B and pop charts, bringing McCracklin national television exposure alongside Dick Clark. After a handful of additional 45s for Chess he moved briefly to Mercury, where he recorded the fiery “Georgia Slop” in 1959—a number later revived by Big Al Downing—before scoring again with the hard-driving “Just Got to Know” on Art-Tone in 1961. A comparable follow-up, “Shame, Shame, Shame,” also fared well the next year.

Those tracks eventually resurfaced on Imperial, which yielded two more hits: “Every Night, Every Day” in 1965, later covered by Magic Sam, and the stark “Think” backed with “My Answer” in 1966. McCracklin’s songwriting contributed steadily to his longevity; he composed the funky “Tramp” for Lowell Fulson, whose version reached the upper reaches of the R&B charts in 1967, only to be surpassed months later by the brash Stax duet from Otis Redding and Carla Thomas. While at Imperial he also cut an album that included a version of “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’” in 1966 and transitioned smoothly into the soul era. Later releases on Bullseye Blues confirmed that McCracklin could still deliver a knockout blow from behind the piano regardless of the date on his birth certificate. He died in San Pablo, California, on December 20, 2012, at the age of 91.