Hello John, T-Bone's birthday is this week. He's one of the first in a long line of Texas Bluesmen. It's said he was the first to plug in to an amp. Whatever, he left a helluva mark. Thousand thanks to those of you who came out to our annual Memorial Day fundraiser on Sunday. We had some of the best bands and music in the Valley. Thanks to the guys who volunteered their time and effort to help out. You guys never let PBS down. Next week it's the Flagstaff Blues & Brews festival. It has turned into a major show on the festival calendar and you will see and hear the best of the best!! Have a week!! Jim Crawford Phoenix Blues Society |
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Giant
by Calen D. Stone
Arguably the first musician to employ an electric guitar, T-Bone Walker is without doubt the one who laid the foundation for what is known as modern urban blues. Walker's sophisticated playing in the 1930s and 1940s bridged the gap between jazz and blues and created a style which has influenced every electric guitarist since. "He has a touch that nobody has been able to duplicate," stated B.B. King in Guitar Player. "I knew I just had to go out and get an electric guitar." In Sheldon Harris's Blues Who's Who a list of artists Walker has influenced contains nearly every major blues (and quite a few rock) guitarists in the last four decades. Walker's meal ticket was his ability to play single string, hornphrased solos that brought the guitar out of its role as an accompanying, rhythm-oriented instrument. He was one of the first musicians who proved that a guitar could go head-to-head with brass, pianos, and woodwinds as a legitimate solo instrument. Walker was obviously musically gifted, but electricity helped to bring that out and let him rise above his contemporaries. "It took Walker to exploit electricity," wrote Robert Palmer in the Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock & Roll. "By using his amplifier's volume control to sustain pitches, and combining this technique with the single string-bending and finger vibrato practiced by traditional bluesmen, Walker in effect invented a new instrument." He was born Aaron Thibeaux Walker (the nickname T-Bone is a slang version of his middle name) in 1910 in Linden, Texas, and was raised in Dallas after 1912. Walker was born into a musical family with both his parents working as musicians. He took up the guitar at age 13 but played various other stringed instruments as well. Walker's earliest influences were Lonnie Johnson, Scrapper Blackwell, Leroy Carr, and Blind Lemon Jefferson--all advanced stylists at the time. In his early years, Walker worked as "lead boy" for Jefferson, leading the blind guitarist around the city to play for crowds and pass the hat. By the time he was 16, Walker was making enough money on his own in Dallas to become a professional, working various dances and carnivals. In 1929 he recorded two singles for Columbia Records, "Trinity River Blues" and "Witchita Falls Blues," as Oak Cliff T-Bone (Walker lived in the Dallas suburb of Oak Cliff). He continued playing with a 16-piece band formed during his school days with Lawson Brooks until 1934, when he quit and moved to Los Angeles. Walker turned his job over to another guitarist who went on to become as important and equally influential, Charlie Christian. The two had at one time performed a street act together that combined guitar and bass playing with some fancy footwork. Christian later rose to stardom in the late 1930s as a featured soloist with the Benny Goodman Orchestra, but his brilliant career was cut short by tuberculosis in 1941. Walker made his living on the West Coast playing with various small combos in the thriving jazz clubs of Los Angeles. In 1939 he joined Les Hite's Cotton Club Orchestra as a singer, guitarist, and composer. It's hard to say who was the first electric guitarist at this point, but Walker, Christian, Eddie Durham, and Floyd Smith were all beginning to see the advantages an amplified guitar's volume had in a club setting when competing with the full horn section of a big band. "I was out there four or five years on my own before they all started playing amplified," Walker stated in the liner notes of T-Bone Walker: Classics of Modern Blues. "I recorded my 'T-Bone Blues' with Les Hite in 1939, but I'd been playing amplified guitar a long time before that." Regardless of who was first, it was Walker's playing that made him great. "[He has] striking originality and expressive power," wrote Pete Welding in Guitar World. "[His playing is] fleet, supercharged, harmonically resourceful, rhythmically adroit and, above all, immensely exciting." Walker was a consummate showman to boot. He played a large Gibson hollowbody guitar, held straight out from his chest and parallel to the floor (which contributed in part to his unique tone) but would cut loose and play behind his back, between his legs or do the splits in an effort to get the crowd going. He had, as Dan Forte stated in Guitar Player, "the uncanny ability to burn and stay cool at the same time." By the 1940s Walker had made a name for himself and embarked on a solo career. He combined blues, shuffles, and jump tunes into his act and eventually scored a hit with "Mean Old World" in the mid-40s. However, it was in 1947 that Walker produced his most famous tune, "Stormy Monday," which is probably the all-time blues standard. "It's just like a national anthem; it tells the truth," said vocalist Jimmy Witherspoon in The Guitar Player Book. "It tells the strife of working people getting paid on Friday, Saturday they go out and have a ball." Walker later played on Witherspoon's Evenin' LP and obviously had a profound impact on the singer. "He's one of the few people who put dignity into the blues," continued Witherspoon. "He's the Charlie Park er of guitars when it comes to blues.... No one else can touch T-Bone." Walker may have been the one to elevate the status of the blues, but the lifestyle it demanded certainly took its toll on him. He stayed in southern California during the 1950s and toured endlessly into the following decade. The stress of travel combined with heavy drinking, gambling, and bad business dealings, took their toll on him. On March 16, 1975, T-Bone Walker succumbed to pneumonia, bringing an end to one of the most spectacular and innovative musical careers ever. Pete Welding wrote in the liner notes of the excellent and wide-ranging anthology, T-Bone Walker: Classics of Modern Blues, "In length of service, adaptability and continuous creative activity, perhaps only Coleman Hawkins or Duke Ellington [has] matched him."
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Music Makers
COLD SHOTT and The Hurricane Horns The Sugar Thieves Gary Zak & The Outbacks Eric Ramsey
Hans Olson Rocket 88s JC& The Rockers
Smokestack Lightning Carvin Jones
Poppy Harpman & The Storm https://poppyharpman.com/ Hoodoo Casters RHYTHM ROOM WESTSIDE BLUES & JAZZ https://westsideblues.com/
Nina Curri Paris James Mother Road Trio Blues Review Band Reverbnationbluesmanmike Mike Eldred
Big Daddy D & The Dynamites Facebook www.bigdadddyd.com Cadillac Assembly Line Facebook https://cadillacassemblylineband.com/ Innocent Joe and the Hostile Witnesses Facebook
Dry Heat Chuck Hall Facebook Pop Top Facebook Tommy Grills Band Facebook Sweet Baby Ray SweetBabyRaysBlues.com Thermal Blues Express Thermal Blues Express.com Common Ground Blues Band Facebook Billy G & The Kids billgarvin.com
Backdoor Funk Facebook.com/backdoorfun
OUT & ABOUT Tuesday, May 31 Carvin Jones, 6 p.m., Florigino’s Pizza, Gilbert Gypsy & Hooter’s Blues JAM, 6 p.m., Pho Cao, Scottsdale Wednesday June 1 Ramsey/Roberson, 7:30 p.m., Janey’s, Cave Creek JC & The Rockers, 6:30 p.m., Fuego @ The Clarendon, Phoenix Carvin Jones, 6:30 p.m., Ole Brass Rail, Phoenix Tool Shed JAM, 7 p.m, Blooze Bar, Phoenix Johnny Miller JAM, 7 p.m., Hooper’s, Glendale Thursday, June 2 Hans Olson, 6 p.m., Handlebar Pub, Apache Junction Friday, June 3 Sugar Thieves, 8 p.m., Rhythm Room, Phoenix Cold Shott & The Hurricane Horns, 7:30 p.m., Westside Blues & Jazz, Glendale JC & The Rockers, 7 p.m., Handlebar Pub, Apache Junction Hoodoo Casters, 7 p.m., 1227 Tap Room, Phoenix Carvin Jones, 6 p.m., Volanti Restaurant, Scottsdale Saturday, June 4 Soul Junkies, 7 p.m., Rhythm Room, Phoenix Big Daddy D & The Dynam9ites, 7 p.m., Concert in the Park, Clarkdale Cadillac Assembly Line, 6 p.m., Local Jonny’s, Cave Creek Hans Olson, 6 p.m., Fatso’s Pizza, Phoenix Rocket 88s, 6 p,m., Rip’s Bar, Phoenix Sugar Thieves, 6 p.m., Kazamierz, Scottsdale Blues Review Band, 6 p.m., Dillon’s BBQ, Glendale Carvin Jones, 8 p.m., Twisted Chef Cantina, Gilbert Leon J, 12:30 p.m., Javelina Leap Winery, Cornville Sunday, June 5 Billy G & The Kids, Eric Ramsey, Poppy Harpman & The Storm, 4 p.m., Rhythm Room, Phoenix Eric Ramsey, 11 a.m., Short Leash Hot Dogs, Phoenix Hans Olson, 6 p.m., Fatso’s Pizza, Phoenix Carvin Jones, 2:30 p.m., Ground Control, Litchfield Park Leon J, 12:30 p.m., DA Ranch, Cornville Monday June 6
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