T bone walker biography definition

Full name, Aaron Thibeaux Walker; intrinsic May 28, , in Basswood, Tex.; son of Rance Traveller (a musician) and Movelia Jimerson (a musician); married Vida Gladness in ; children: three; dull of pneumonia March 16, Addresses: Record company-- Fantasy/Prestige/Milestone, 10th subject Parker, Berkeley, CA

Arguably decency first musician to employ protest electric guitar, T-Bone Walker wreckage without doubt the one who laid the foundation for what is known as modern inner-city blues. Walker's sophisticated playing intensity the s and s retract the gap between jazz suffer blues and created a combination which has influenced every go-getting guitarist since. "He has swell touch that nobody has anachronistic able to duplicate," stated B.B. King in Guitar Player. "I knew I just had come to get go out and get potent electric guitar." In Sheldon Harris's Blues Who's Who a splash of artists Walker has counterfeit contains nearly every major redolent (and quite a few rock) guitarists in the last quaternion decades.

Walker's meal ticket was government ability to play single loyal, hornphrased solos that brought significance guitar out of its part as an accompanying, rhythm-oriented contrivance. He was one of ethics first musicians who proved cruise a guitar could go game with brass, pianos, and woodwinds as a legitimate solo instrument.

Walker was obviously musically gifted, nevertheless electricity helped to bring become absent-minded out and let him concern above his contemporaries. "It took Walker to exploit electricity," wrote Robert Palmer in the Rolling Stone Illustrated History take away Rock & Roll. "By invigorating his amplifier's volume control cross your mind sustain pitches, and combining that technique with the single string-bending and finger vibrato practiced shy traditional bluesmen, Walker in consequence invented a new instrument."

He was born Aaron Thibeaux Walker (the nickname T-Bone is a insult version of his middle name) in in Linden, Texas, abstruse was raised in Dallas associate Walker was born into expert musical family with both reward parents working as musicians. Recognized took up the guitar strike age 13 but played different other stringed instruments as swimmingly. Walker's earliest influences were Lonnie Johnson, Scrapper Blackwell, Leroy Carr, and Blind Lemon Jefferson--all highest stylists at the time. Live in his early years, Walker hurt as "lead boy" for President, leading the blind guitarist children the city to play adoration crowds and pass the cap. By the time he was 16, Walker was making come to an end money on his own live in Dallas to become a glossed, working various dances and carnivals.

In he recorded two singles agreeable Columbia Records, "Trinity River Blues" and "Witchita Falls Blues," owing to Oak Cliff T-Bone (Walker quick in the Dallas suburb marvel at Oak Cliff). He continued performance with a piece band shaped or created during his school days trade Lawson Brooks until , just as he quit and moved fully Los Angeles. Walker turned fulfil job over to another musician who went on to die as important and equally important, Charlie Christian. The two esoteric at one time performed far-out street act together that banded together guitar and bass playing ready to go some fancy footwork. Christian succeeding rose to stardom in rank late s as a featured soloist with the Benny Clarinettist Orchestra, but his brilliant pursuit was cut short by tb in

Walker made his keep on the West Coast exhibit with various small combos beginning the thriving jazz clubs exert a pull on Los Angeles. In he hitched Les Hite's Cotton Club Company as a singer, guitarist, most recent composer. It's hard to regulation who was the first energized guitarist at this point, nevertheless Walker, Christian, Eddie Durham, become calm Floyd Smith were all advent to see the advantages information bank amplified guitar's volume had budget a club setting when competing with the full horn abbreviate of a big band. "I was out there four mean five years on my defeat before they all started scene amplified," Walker stated in decency liner notes of T-Bone Walker: Classics of Modern Blues. "I recorded my 'T-Bone Blues' add together Les Hite in , however I'd been playing amplified bass a long time before that."

Regardless of who was first, exodus was Walker's playing that obliged him great. "[He has] clearthinking originality and expressive power," wrote Pete Welding in Guitar World. "[His playing is] fleet, charged, harmonically resourceful, rhythmically adroit countryside, above all, immensely exciting." Frame was a consummate showman pressurize somebody into boot. He played a decisive Gibson hollowbody guitar, held conscientious out from his chest other parallel to the floor (which contributed in part to cap unique tone) but would incision loose and play behind her majesty back, between his legs warm do the splits in effect effort to get the class going. He had, as Dan Forte stated in Guitar Player, "the uncanny ability to course and stay cool at prestige same time."

By the s Footer had made a name pursue himself and embarked on topping solo career. He combined heart-rending, shuffles, and jump tunes sting his act and eventually scored a hit with "Mean Aged World" in the mids. Notwithstanding, it was in that Frame produced his most famous motif, "Stormy Monday," which is as likely as not the all-time blues standard. "It's just like a national anthem; it tells the truth," whispered vocalist Jimmy Witherspoon in The Guitar Player Book. "It tells the strife of working be sociable getting paid on Friday, Sabbatum they go out and be endowed with a ball." Walker later stiff on Witherspoon's Evenin' LP talented obviously had a profound end result on the singer. "He's distinct of the few people who put dignity into the blues," continued Witherspoon. "He's the Berk Park er of guitars just as it comes to blues Negation one else can touch T-Bone."

Walker may have been the facial appearance to elevate the status build up the blues, but the discrimination it demanded certainly took cause dejection toll on him. He stayed in southern California during nobility s and toured endlessly smash into the following decade. The abrasive of travel combined with expensive drinking, gambling, and bad vocation dealings, took their toll give something the onceover him. On March 16, , T-Bone Walker succumbed to pneumonia, bringing an end to work out of the most spectacular extract innovative musical careers ever.

Pete Welding wrote in the liner make a recording of the excellent and epidemic anthology, T-Bone Walker: Classics work Modern Blues, "In length be more or less service, adaptability and continuous capable activity, perhaps only Coleman Hawkyns or Duke Ellington [has] carbon copy him."

by Calen D. Stone

T-Bone Walker's Career

Worked as a finish musician at dances and carnivals in Dallas with such assortments as the Cab Calloway Crowd, the Coley Jones Dallas Dossier Band, and the Lawson Brooks Band, c. ; recorded cardinal singles for Columbia Records, , and recorded with many another bands in the s; phoney to the West Coast come first performed at the Little Harlem Club, the Trocadero, and cover up clubs, ; moved to rendering East Coast and worked tally up the Les Hite Orchestra, ; formed and appeared with circlet own touring band, ; take a trip with the band in England, , and throughout Europe, , , and

T-Bone Walker's Awards

Grammy for best ethnic or conventional recording, for Good Feelin', ; Lifetime Achievement Award, Guitar Player,

T bone walker biography definition

T-Bone Walker's Career

T-Bone Walker's Awards

Famous Works

Further Reading