Roy Gaines

Born in Houston in 1934, electric blues guitarist Roy Gaines counted the legendary T-Bone Walker among his primary mentors. Raised in a musical household whose older brother Grady later performed saxophone with Little Richard's renowned backing unit the Upsetters, Gaines began on piano while modeling his style after Nat King Cole, only to switch to guitar as a teenager. A devoted fan of Walker's playing, he met his idol at a local gig at age 14, received an invitation to accompany him onstage, and was thereafter known as "T-Bone Jr." He worked Houston clubs regularly before heading to Los Angeles two years later. There he joined Roy Milton's band and subsequently backed Chuck Willis, while also sharing stages with Walker from time to time until the older guitarist's death in 1975. Though long prized as a sideman, Gaines appeared sparingly under his own name, issuing his first album Gaineling in 1982 and later releasing Lucille Work for Me in 1996, I Got the T-Bone Walker Blues in 1999, and New Frontier Lover in 2000.