A repost by request:
To anyone with a more than a passing knowledge of the music being discussed here the magnitude of dealing with T-Bone can't be lost on you. If we are to accept his personal mythology that extends back to himself and Charlie Christian playing on the street as early Teens with himself as the primary innovator. His certainty that no-one records on electric guitar before himself. (Les Paul, Tiny Grimes and George Barnes were never on his map)....then clearly I have been a complete idiot for not starting this blog with the words "In The Beginning There Was T-Bone Walker"....Obviously I didn't go there!
All that taken into account it would still be impossible to deny that Walker influenced damn near everybody in one way or another.
Once again I had the giant Mosaic collection to distill here. I can promise you that approaching him via that avenue would leave most ears numb. This time my benefactor Cliff provided both the dilemma and the solution with two earlier compilations from Charley and Blue Note that provide solid foundation and enjoyable listening both.
As I did with Amos Milburn and Charles Brown, I have followed the format of the Charly and Blue Note compilations but I used the superior Mosaic remasters as source.
"T-Bone Walker, nė Aaron Thibeaux Walker was born in Linden, Texas, of African American and Cherokee descent. Walker's parents, Movelia Jimerson and Rance Walker, were both musicians. His stepfather, Marco Washington, taught him to play the guitar, ukulele, banjo, violin, mandolin, and piano.
Early in the 1900s, the teenage Walker learned his craft among the street-strolling string bands of Dallas. His mother and stepfather (a member of the Dallas String Band) were musicians, and family friend Blind Lemon Jefferson sometimes joined the family for dinner. Walker left school at age 10, and by 15, he was a professional performer on the blues circuit. Initially, he was Jefferson's protégé and would guide him around town for his gigs. In 1929, Walker made his recording debut with a single for Columbia Records, "Wichita Falls Blues"/"Trinity River Blues," billed as Oak Cliff T-Bone. Oak Cliff was the community he lived in at the time and T-Bone a corruption of his middle name. Pianist Douglas Fernell was his musical partner for the record.
Walker married Vida Lee in 1935; the couple had three children. By age 25 Walker was working and the clubs in Los Angeles' Central Avenue, sometimes as the featured singer and guitarist with Les Hite's orchestra.
By 1942, with his second album release, Walker's new-found musical maturity and ability had
advanced to the point that Rolling Stone claimed that he "shocked everyone" with his newly developed distinctive sound upon the release of his first single "Mean Old World", on the Capitol Records label. Much of his output was recorded from 1946–1948 on Black & White Records, including his most famous song, 1947's "Call It Stormy Monday (But Tuesday Is Just as Bad)". Other notable songs he recorded during this period were "Bobby Sox Blues" (a #3 R&B hit in 1946), and "West Side Baby" (#8 on the R&B singles charts in 1948).
Throughout his career Walker worked with top notch musicians, including trumpeter Teddy Buckner, pianist Lloyd Glenn, Billy Hadnott (bass), and tenor saxophonist Jack McVea.
Following his work with Black & White, he recorded from 1950-54 for Imperial Records (backed by Dave Bartholomew). Walker's only record in the next five years was T-Bone Blues, recorded over three widely separated sessions in 1955, 1956 and 1959, and finally released by Atlantic Records in 1960.
By the early 1960s, Walker's career had slowed down, in spite of a hyped appearance at the American Folk Blues Festival in 1962 with Memphis Slim and prolific writer and musician Willie Dixon, among others. However, several critically acclaimed albums followed, such as I Want a Little Girl (recorded for Delmark Records in 1968). Walker recorded in his last years, from 1968–1975, for Robin Hemingway's Jitney Jane Songs music publishing company, and he won a Grammy Award for Best Ethnic or Traditional Folk Recording in 1971 for Good Feelin', while signed by Polydor
Records, produced by Hemingway, followed by another album produced by Hemingway; Walker's Fly Walker Airlines which was released in 1973. T-Bone Walker at the American Folk Blues Festival in Hamburg, March 1972
Persistent stomach woes and a 1974 stroke slowed Walker's career down to a crawl. He died of bronchial pneumonia following another stroke in March 1975, at the age of 64. Walker was interred in the Inglewood Park Cemetery in Inglewood, California.
After a couple of years with Johnny Otis, Sugar Pie moves on as a solo singer. She is too much a class act to say it herself, but I would suggest that during this period Otis was just too focused on Etta, to Sugar's detriment. Bob Geddins steps in in 1957 and they have a sustained success (eventually Billboard R&B #4 after being leased to Chess) with 'I Want to Know', on which they share songwriter credit. Sugar Pie parlays the tours on her hit and her explosively acrobatic stage act into a slot with the James Brown Revue for 1959-60 and then moves to Chicago, signing with Chess, where.... Etta had signed the year before.
