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A man who played the blues with flair, sophistication, technical brilliance and a sense of humour, Aaron Thibeaux Walker was born in Linden, Cass County, Texas on May 10, 1910 and is of Cherokee Indian descent. His trademark was the cool, telling West Coast licks which emanated from his guitar and in my opinion there have been few who have done the job better. Throughout his career, he was backed by bands of excellent quality, bands which included players of the stature of tenor players 'Bumps' Meyers and Jack McVea and the bassist Billy Hadnott, who was good enough to tutor Mingus.
T-Bone was a tremendous influence on B.B. King who has been quoted as saying that hearing 'Stormy Monday' on record was the inspiration for him getting his first guitar. Walker himself spanned the generations. As he once said - "When I was a kid growing up in Dallas I met the great Blind Lemon Jefferson........he played the guitar while my uncle he played the mandolin and my father played the bass. A sort of big family band, you know".
Walker received some early tuition from Chuck Richardson in Oklahoma City, learning his trade alongside another great player, the jazz guitarist Charlie Christian. During the 30s, he started to develop his own musical personality and veered towards big band jazz sophistication and away from the rural blues of his formative years. 1942 saw his first venture into the studio of Capitol records, recording amongst others two soon to be standards 'I Got A Break Baby' and 'Mean Old World'.
In the mid 40s T-Bone went back to the West Coast and recorded what many (most??) pundits consider are some of his best sides for Black and White Records (later bought out by Capitol). He had tremendous support in these sessions from predominantly jazz players playing in a blues setting. The recordings showcased his ability to play anything, from straight blues (the classic 'Stormy Monday'), shuffles ('T-Bone Shuffle'), jives('Hypin' Woman') and jump blues (such as 'T-Bone Jumps Again'). All of these recordings are available on the Charly release "Low Down Blues" (CD Charly 7 in the UK) and it's a compilation I would urge everybody to seek out for its style, the quality of the songs and its technical brilliance. Alternatively, get the 2CD compilation "Complete Black and White Recordings" - just as good, but more of it!!
In the early 1950s he recorded for Imperial Records and explored a harder, funkier sound, sometimes utilising Dave Bartholomew's band as backup. He switched to Atlantic for four years from 1955, playing with the jazz guitarist Barney Kessel among others.
There is no doubt that T-Bone was a truly great player. His music is timeless in its appeal and fans of jazz, blues, r'n'b and ballads will all find music to admire and enjoy. Walker once summed it up as "The songs have stories behind them and the stories are of some person or somebody who have lived that life of it". And all with the humour of a person who wrote and recorded a song called 'I Know Your Wig Has Gone'.
Peter Dean
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