T-bone walker
T-Bone Walker , actually Aaron Thibeaux Walker (born May 28, 1910 in Linden , Texas , † March 16, 1975 in Los Angeles , California ), was an American blues guitarist , singer and songwriter - He is considered one of the most influential blues musicians of the 20th century Century and pioneer of the electric guitar and Chicago blues . He had African American and Cherokee ancestry.
Life
Walker grew up in Dallas , where he learned to play the banjo , fiddle and guitar as a child . Based on his middle name Thibeaux, he soon received the nickname "T-Bone". In Dallas he met the blind guitarist Blind Lemon Jefferson , with whom he walked the streets of Dallas as a kind of guide for the blind and collected the money at his performances. Influenced by him, Walker performed as a blues singer and dancer himself at the age of 15 and learned at an early age to fascinate the audience with spectacular live performances (such as playing the banjo while jumping and dancing). In 1929, Walker recorded his first record, Wichita Falls Blues / Trinity River Blues ( Columbia Records ), but not under his own name, but as "Oak Cliff T-bone". He played in the mid-1930s territory band of Chester Boone and met in Oklahoma City on Charlie Christian .
Walker came to Los Angeles in 1936 , where he began his California career as a dancer. In 1939 he was hired as a singer by Les Hite for the band "Les Hite Cotton Club Orchestra". From then on he concentrated more and more on the guitar. So he used them more and more often for his singing until he was finally more in demand as a guitarist than as a singer. He impressed with his seemingly artistic stage interludes, where he played the guitar on his knees and behind his back.
In 1942, Walker had meanwhile moved to Chicago because of better earning opportunities, he recorded his first solo records with the newly founded Capitol label. He released I Got a Break Baby / Mean Old World , transferring popular music and blues to his now electrically amplified jazz guitar, thus triggering a revolution in the blues game .
T-Bone Walker's production Call it Stormy Monday (But Tuesday Is Just as Bad) for the Black & White label (# 122), which was made in Los Angeles on September 13, 1947 with producer Ralph Bass , is legendary . Aaron "T-Bone" Walker (vocals / guitar), John "Teddy" Buckner (trumpet), Bumps Myers (tenor saxophone), Lloyd Glenn (piano), Arthur Edwards (bass) and Oscar Lee Bradley (drums) took part in the recording. With. The title reached fifth place on the R&B charts and is considered not only one of the most influential songs in music history, but also the history of the guitar. Other classics followed, such as the T-Bone Shuffle .
Despite his success, Walker could not reach the teenage audience at that time, unlike Chuck Berry or Fats Domino, for example . He played mostly in nightclubs until he collapsed from stomach problems in 1955 and had to undergo an operation.
In the 1960s, Walker became internationally known when he was hired in 1962 for the American Folk Blues Festivals organized by Horst Lippmann in Europe and performed with Memphis Slim , among others ; however, his health was holding him back.
Musicians such as Teddy Buckner ( trumpet ), Lloyd Glenn ( piano ), Billy Hadnott ( bass ) and Jack McVea ( saxophone ) have accompanied him in his career .
In 1971 Walker received a Grammy for the record Good Feelin ' ( Polygram Records 1969). He played with Big Mama Thornton at the American Folk Blues Festival in 1972 . These concerts should be the last appearance of the two in Europe. In 1973 Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller produced a late homage to the great blues singer and guitarist Walker ("very rare", 2 LPs, Reprise Records) with him and musicians such as Dizzy Gillespie , Gerry Mulligan , Herbie Mann and David "Fathhead" Newman . It was there that T-Bone Walker also shared that his mother was a Cherokee and how he got his nickname.
death
T-Bone Walker died of a stroke in 1975. He was buried in Inglewood Park Cemetery in Inglewood near Los Angeles. In 1980 he was inducted posthumously into the Blues Hall of Fame .
Later guitarists, including Chuck Berry and Jimi Hendrix , took over descending ninth chord lines and other parts of his spectacular performances from Walker. Playing in artistic postures (on the knees, instrument behind the head, etc.) is attributed to Walker's influence.
The Rolling Stone posthumously listed Walker 67th of the 100 best guitarists of all time . In a list from 2003 he was ranked 47th.
Discography (selection)
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collection
- 1990 - The Complete Recordings of T-Bone Walker (1940–1954) ( Mosaic Records ) - 9 LPs or 6 CDs with Les Hite , Al Morgan , Freddie Slack , Jack McVea , Al Killian , Lloyd Glenn , Teddy Buckner , Billy Hadnott , Dave Bartholomew , Lee Allen , Herb Hardesty , Frank Fields , TJ Fowler
Web links
- Works by and about T-Bone Walker in the catalog of the German National Library
- T-Bone Walker in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Biography on the Pop Alphabet page
literature
- Stormy Monday: The T-Bone Walker Story , Helen Oakley Dance, Louisiana State UP 1987 (English)
Individual evidence
- ^ Guitarplayer.com: T-Bone Walker August 1995 .
- ^ Hannes Fricke: Myth guitar: history, interpreters, great hours. Reclam, Stuttgart 2013, ISBN 978-3-15-020279-1 , p. 37.
- ↑ 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time. Rolling Stone , December 18, 2015, accessed August 8, 2017 .
- ↑ 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time - David Fricke's Picks. Rolling Stone , December 2, 2010, accessed August 8, 2017 .
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Walker, T-Bone |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Walker, Aaron Thibeaux (real name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American blues musician |
| DATE OF BIRTH | May 28, 1910 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Linden , Texas, USA |
| DATE OF DEATH | March 16, 1975 |
| Place of death | Los Angeles , California, USA |