AARON T-Bone
WALKER

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


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T-Bone Walker must be given the credit for having one of the greatest single catalytic influences on the development of modern electric blues guitar playing. In fact from Walker came the electric blues guitar style. Born in 1910 in Linden, Texas, he was christened Aaron Thibeaux Walker and it has been claimed that the nickname which he adopted on stage, was a mispronunciation of his unusual middle name. He was a product of the early Dallas Blues scene and his earliest influence, his step-father Marco Washington, was also a musician, playing the fiddle. It was through his step-father that a teenage T-Bone met 'Blind' Lemon Jefferson, and he would lead the sightless guitarist around Dallas as the older man played for tips and in return the young man received his blues education. When he was 19 years old T-Bone  Walker made his first recording for Columbia "Wichita Falls Blues"/"Trinity River Blues", calling himself 'Oak Cliff T-Bone'.

When he was in his early 20's, Walker left Dallas for Los Angeles and this was to become his long time base. When he arrived in L.A.  he first worked as a dancer for saxophonist 'Big Jim Wynn', subsequently joining the 'Les Hite Orchestra' as a singer. Walker recorded the seminal "T-Bone Blues" as a vocalist with Hite and its success encouraged him to start his own band. Soon after that he began experimenting with an electric guitar prototype, integrating his singing and acrobatic dance moves with his guitar playing. For the first time guitar moves that are now relatively commonplace, such as playing the instrument behind the head, were seen on stage. In developing his act Walker contributed his single most important contribution to electric guitar playing by developing the single note finger-vibrato technique that enabled the amplified guitar to stand out as a lead instrument. When he was twenty two years old Walker signed with Capital Records and recorded the classic "Mean Old World", with Freddie Slack providing boogie woogie riffs on piano.

He then spent some time in Chicago before returning to L.A. in 1946 and signing with Black & White Records. It was for this label that he recorded hits such as "Call It Stormy Monday (But Tuesday Is Just As Bad)", "T-Bone Shuffle" and "West Side Baby". He had further success after signing for Imperial in 1950 and then signed to Atlantic, working with artists such as Junior Wells and Jimmy Rogers, and recorded the album. "T-Bone Blues" which ranks as one of the greatest modern blues albums. Walker got caught up with the blues revival period in the early 1960's and participated in the first American Folk Blues Festival in 1962, this leading to the first European tour along with Willie Dixon and Memphis Slim. However towards the end of the 1960's his health began to fail, his output declined, and he died in Los Angeles in 1975.