T-Bone Walker

The roots of today's amplified blues guitar stretch straight to a groundbreaking figure born in Texas. Around 1940 this innovator began boosting his rich solo lines for live audiences, setting off a sweeping upheaval whose aftershocks continue to register. Virtually every significant postwar blues guitarist carries an enduring obligation to T-Bone Walker. B.B. King has repeatedly named him a chief inspiration, especially admiring the way Walker extended the guitar body outward during performances. Gatemouth Brown, Pee Wee Crayton, Goree Carter, Pete Mayes, and numerous other leading Texas guitarists drew their approach directly from Walker in the late 1940s and early 1950s. His nephew R.S. Rankin even performed under the name T-Bone Walker, Jr. for a 1962 Dot single titled "Midnight Bells Are Ringing," an act fully endorsed by his uncle, with whom he had previously developed a father-and-son-style routine.

Aaron Thibeault Walker emerged from the early Dallas blues environment. His stepfather Marco Washington played bass fiddle in the Dallas String Band, and the young Walker absorbed the basics of every stringed instrument within reach. One frequent participant at the group's sessions was the renowned Blind Lemon Jefferson. Throughout the early 1920s Walker guided the blind guitarist between venues while Jefferson performed for tips.

Walker entered the studio for the first time in 1929, cutting the Columbia 78 "Wichita Falls Blues"/"Trinity River Blues" under the billing Oak Cliff T-Bone, accompanied by pianist Douglas Fernell. During his developmental period he crossed paths with exceptional guitarists; alongside Jefferson, Charlie Christian, who would revolutionize jazz guitar through electrification much as Walker would transform blues, shared stages with him around 1933.

In the mid-1930s T-Bone Walker relocated from the Southwest to Los Angeles, where he worked as a dancer rather than a guitarist in saxophonist Big Jim Wynn's ensemble. Band leader Les Hite engaged him as vocalist in 1939. Walker delivered "T-Bone Blues" with Hite's group for Varsity Records in 1940, though he did not play guitar on that date. It was during this same period that his experiments with amplification began to take shape; after forming his own combo he performed in Los Angeles clubs using the new electrified instrument and incorporated acrobatic stage maneuvers, including splits and playing behind his back, to heighten the spectacle.

When Capitol Records was still a fledgling Hollywood label in 1942, Walker joined its roster and recorded "Mean Old World" and "I Got a Break Baby" with boogie specialist Freddie Slack at the piano. These sides first revealed the fluid, elegant phrasing and warm vocal tone that would become Walker's signature and the benchmark for generations of blues guitarists.

During much of the war years Chicago's Rhumboogie Club functioned as Walker's primary base. He cut several sides for the club's own imprint in 1945 under pianist Marl Young's direction. After an additional 1945 session for Old Swingmaster that soon appeared on the newly formed Mercury label, Walker signed with Los Angeles-based Black & White Records in 1946 and began building an extraordinary body of work.

The classic "Call It Stormy Monday (But Tuesday Is Just as Bad)" emerged from a 1947 Black & White session featuring trumpeter Teddy Buckner and pianist Lloyd Glenn within the supporting quintet. Although many of Walker's recordings from this era were introspective after-hours blues, occasional up-tempo numbers such as the instrumental "T-Bone Jumps Again," also from that date, demonstrated his agility at quicker tempos.

Walker remained prolific for Black & White through the end of 1947, producing enduring pieces including the frequently covered "T-Bone Shuffle" and "West Side Baby," even though numerous tracks were ultimately issued on Capitol following Black & White's closure. In 1950 he moved to Imperial Records. His initial session for the Los Angeles independent yielded the late-night standout "Glamour Girl" and the definitive jumping instrumental "Strollin' With Bones," propelled by Snake Sims's crisp drumming behind Walker's precise lines.

Walker's Imperial tenure from 1950 to 1954 yielded further landmarks such as "The Hustle Is On," "Cold Cold Feeling," "Blue Mood," "Vida Lee" (titled after his wife), "Party Girl," and, recorded during a 1952 New Orleans trip under Dave Bartholomew's supervision, "Railroad Station Blues." In 1955 Walker joined Atlantic Records; his debut session there paired him with several Chicago stalwarts, among them harpist Junior Wells, guitarist Jimmy Rogers, and bassist Ransom Knowling. Rogers later adapted Walker's composition "Why Not" into his own Chess hit "Walking by Myself." Two subsequent Atlantic dates in 1956–57, supported by a more compatible Los Angeles ensemble, produced striking instrumentals including "Two Bones and a Pick," "Blues Rock," and "Shufflin' the Blues," in which Walker traded solos with his nephew, jazz guitarist Barney Kessel, and prevailed in each exchange.

Thereafter Walker's recorded output largely lacked the same consistent excellence. As occurred with many contemporaries from the postwar R&B period, the ascendancy of rock rendered his refined approach unfashionable for much of the 1960s. He traveled to Europe for the inaugural American Folk Blues Festival in 1962, appearing alongside Memphis Slim, Willie Dixon, and other American figures on the Lippmann & Rau tour. A 1964 single for Modern and an obscure Brunswick LP preceded two BluesWay albums in 1967–68 that returned this foundational artist to domestic catalogs.

Overseas engagements remained frequent. A 1968 trip to Paris produced one of his strongest later recordings, I Want a Little Girl, issued by Black & Blue and subsequently released in the United States on Delmark. With expatriate tenor saxophonist Hal "Cornbread" Singer and Chicago drummer S.P. Leary providing sympathetic support, Walker delivered a distinguished program of material.

The 1970 Polydor album Good Feelin' earned Walker a Grammy, although it does not stand among his finest achievements. A five-song contribution to the 1973 Reprise collection Very Rare likewise proved underwhelming. Chronic stomach ailments and a stroke in 1974 curtailed his activities, and he passed away in 1975.

No written tributes can adequately capture the full magnitude of T-Bone Walker's contribution to blues. He was the idiom's first authentic lead guitarist and remains one of its most accomplished.