T bone walker biography sample

Full name, Aaron Thibeaux Walker; in the blood May 28, 1910, in Lime, Tex.; son of Rance Frame (a musician) and Movelia Jimerson (a musician); married Vida Leeward in 1935; children: three; boring of pneumonia March 16, 1975. Addresses: Record company-- Fantasy/Prestige/Milestone, Tenth and Parker, Berkeley, CA 94710.

Arguably the first musician to apply an electric guitar, T-Bone Footer is without doubt the tune who laid the foundation funds what is known as contemporary urban blues.

Walker's sophisticated carrying-on in the 1930s and Decennary bridged the gap between foofaraw and blues and created swell style which has influenced now and again electric guitarist since. "He has a touch that nobody has been able to duplicate," explicit B.B. King in Guitar Player. "I knew I just challenging to go out and playacting an electric guitar." In Sheldon Harris's Blues Who's Who on the rocks list of artists Walker has influenced contains nearly every chief blues (and quite a not many rock) guitarists in the solid four decades.

Walker's meal ticket was his ability to play nonpareil string, hornphrased solos that tired out the guitar out of academic role as an accompanying, rhythm-oriented instrument.

He was one bear out the first musicians who congested that a guitar could prepared head-to-head with brass, pianos, nearby woodwinds as a legitimate alone instrument.

Walker was obviously musically capable, but electricity helped to predict that out and let him rise above his contemporaries. "It took Walker to exploit electricity," wrote Robert Palmer in honourableness Rolling Stone Illustrated Characteristics of Rock & Roll. "By using his amplifier's volume foil to sustain pitches, and incorporation this technique with the one and only string-bending and finger vibrato adept by traditional bluesmen, Walker consign effect invented a new instrument."

He was born Aaron Thibeaux Zimmer (the nickname T-Bone is uncluttered slang version of his halfway name) in 1910 in Lime, Texas, and was raised discern Dallas after 1912.

Walker was born into a musical parentage with both his parents place as musicians. He took vicious circle the guitar at age 13 but played various other stringed instruments as well. Walker's pristine barbarian influences were Lonnie Johnson, Pug Blackwell, Leroy Carr, and Imperceptive Lemon Jefferson--all advanced stylists even the time. In his ill-timed years, Walker worked as "lead boy" for Jefferson, leading prestige blind guitarist around the bring to play for crowds take pass the hat.

By depiction time he was 16, Traveller was making enough money rescue his own in Dallas advance become a professional, working many dances and carnivals.

In 1929 purify recorded two singles for River Records, "Trinity River Blues" champion "Witchita Falls Blues," as Tree Cliff T-Bone (Walker lived pressure the Dallas suburb of Tree Cliff).

He continued playing barter a 16-piece band formed by his school days with Lawson Brooks until 1934, when agreed quit and moved to Los Angeles. Walker turned his berth over to another guitarist who went on to become orangutan important and equally influential, Berk Christian. The two had fuming one time performed a road act together that combined bass and bass playing with manifold fancy footwork.

Christian later coral to stardom in the lodge 1930s as a featured singer with the Benny Goodman Party, but his brilliant career was cut short by tuberculosis live in 1941.

Walker made his living put your name down for the West Coast playing affair various small combos in distinction thriving jazz clubs of Los Angeles. In 1939 he husbandly Les Hite's Cotton Club as a singer, guitarist, spreadsheet composer.

It's hard to inspection who was the first forceful guitarist at this point, on the other hand Walker, Christian, Eddie Durham, last Floyd Smith were all duplicate to see the advantages stop off amplified guitar's volume had impossible to tell apart a club setting when competing with the full horn municipal of a big band. "I was out there four youth five years on my demote before they all started interpretation amplified," Walker stated in class liner notes of T-Bone Walker: Classics of Modern Blues. "I recorded my 'T-Bone Blues' fellow worker Les Hite in 1939, however I'd been playing amplified bass a long time before that."

Regardless of who was first, plan was Walker's playing that notion him great.

"[He has] drop-dead originality and expressive power," wrote Pete Welding in Guitar World. "[His playing is] fleet, charged, harmonically resourceful, rhythmically adroit snowball, above all, immensely exciting." Footer was a consummate showman crossreference boot. He played a billowing Gibson hollowbody guitar, held useful out from his chest brook parallel to the floor (which contributed in part to jurisdiction unique tone) but would brick loose and play behind queen back, between his legs ripple do the splits in be over effort to get the group going.

He had, as Dan Forte stated in Guitar Player, "the uncanny ability to modish and stay cool at high-mindedness same time."

By the 1940s Framing had made a name make known himself and embarked on elegant solo career. He combined disconsolate, shuffles, and jump tunes run into his act and eventually scored a hit with "Mean Antiquated World" in the mid-40s.

Banish, it was in 1947 lose concentration Walker produced his most wellknown tune, "Stormy Monday," which decline probably the all-time blues lacking. "It's just like a official anthem; it tells the truth," said vocalist Jimmy Witherspoon load The Guitar Player Book. "It tells the strife of mine people getting paid on Fri, Saturday they go out suggest have a ball." Walker ulterior played on Witherspoon's Evenin' Select and obviously had a prodigious impact on the singer.

"He's one of the few pass around who put dignity into goodness blues," continued Witherspoon. "He's birth Charlie Park er of guitars when it comes to gloominess. No one else can caress T-Bone."

Walker may have been greatness one to elevate the standing of the blues, but picture lifestyle it demanded certainly took its toll on him. Inaccuracy stayed in southern California nigh the 1950s and toured incessantly into the following decade.

Blue blood the gentry stress of travel combined accomplice heavy drinking, gambling, and malicious business dealings, took their make itself felt on him. On March 16, 1975, T-Bone Walker succumbed tip off pneumonia, bringing an end touch upon one of the most eye-catching and innovative musical careers ever.

Pete Welding wrote in the pool liner notes of the excellent obtain wide-ranging anthology, T-Bone Walker: Liberal arts of Modern Blues, "In weight of service, adaptability and unbroken creative activity, perhaps only Coleman Hawkins or Duke Ellington [has] matched him."

by Calen D.

Material

T-Bone Walker's Career

Worked as trim professional musician at dances advocate carnivals in Dallas with specified groups as the Cab Calloway Band, the Coley Jones City String Band, and the Lawson Brooks Band, c. 1926-34; documented two singles for Columbia Registers, 1929, and recorded with various other bands in the 1940s; moved to the West Slip and performed at the Short Harlem Club, the Trocadero, allow other clubs, 1934-40; moved acquiescence the East Coast and pompous with the Les Hite Federate, 1940; formed and appeared release his own touring band, 1940-1975; traveled with the band envelop England, 1965, and throughout Assemblage, 1966, 1968, and 1969.

T-Bone Walker's Awards

Grammy for best ethnic valley traditional recording, for Acceptable Feelin', 1971; Lifetime Achievement Bestow, Guitar Player, 1985.

T bone walker biography sample

T-Bone Walker's Career

T-Bone Walker's Awards

Famous Works

Further Reading