T-Bone Walker

Trace the arc of blues history from the country blues to big-band swing to postwar electrified urban blues to R&B to the dawn of soul music, and one name is everywhere: Aaron Thibeaux Walker, popularly known as T-Bone Walker. Through most of these eras, Walker was more than a mere participant -- he was doing much of the reshaping of the landscape around him before moving on to discover new worlds.

The Texas-born Walker was a protégé of Blind Lemon Jefferson, whose uncommonly individual guitar stylings and lyrical folk poetry left an indelible imprint on the budding artist. Jefferson's raw, emotional approach informed Walker's first recordings, "Trinity River Blues" b/w "Wichita Falls Blues," made in 1929 for Columbia. When that record didn't sell, Columbia elected to dispense with a followup. By that time Walker had a full schedule playing with a group of school friends in the Lawson-Brooks big band, an affiliation that continued until 1936, when he headed west to Los Angeles' thriving R&B scene; his place in Lawson-Brooks was assumed by a promising young guitarist named Charlie Christian.

Walker signed to the nascent Capitol label in 1942 and made a statement with his early release "I Got a Break, Baby." Nearly a minute passes at the outset with nothing but soloing from Walker, everything from frisky single-line runs to sustained bent notes, ostinato riffs morphing into screaming three-note chords, rich, legato phrases, and speed-picked single notes cartwheeling one over the other. Then Walker the vocalist enters, casual but confident, swinging his phrases with Joe Turner–like assurance. The whole package was there, and from that foundation he would move on to write his name large on virtually every succeeding trend in black music up to his death in 1975.

Walker jumped to another new label, Black & White, in 1946, after the lifting of wartime restrictions on materials used for recording. The 50-plus songs he recorded in a variety of contexts over the next five years are now considered among the most important body of blues work ever committed to tape. In it are contained signposts to B.B. King's warm, single-string lyricism, Albert Collins' blazing, hard-picked attacks, Albert King's hearty but unusually tender voicings -- the list goes on and on, encompassing about every important guitarist who came after him in the '50s, '60s, and '70s. Moreover, he had the vocal chops to work persuasively in a number of styles. A mid-1949 session produced "Don't Give Me the Runaround," a languorous jazz-pop fusion in the style of the King Cole Trio, singing in a silky, seductive voice that could easily be mistaken for the smoky gray crooning of Cole himself; a swinging bit of Louis Jordan–style small-band novelty, "I Know Your Wig Is Gone"; and Walker's self-penned Mount Rushmore of a blues song, "Call It Stormy Monday (but Tuesday's Just as Bad)." Walker was also a galvanic live performer; his club dates across the country invariably drew packed houses, and many of his '40s and '50s singles routinely peaked in the upper reaches of the R&B chart.

The Capitol Blues Collection's fine three-CD package, The Complete Capitol/Black & White Recordings, is, as its title suggests, the complete picture of Walker's early artistic breakthroughs, including "I Got a Break, Baby"; the first version of "Mean Old World" (which became a staple of his live shows and something of a signature song); two versions of "T-Bone Shuffle"; and the original and alternate versions of "Call It Stormy Monday (but Tuesday's Just as Bad)." An absence of personnel or other detailed sessionography information is puzzling given the scope of this project, but the music alone makes it an essential buy. This information is in abundance on The Complete Imperial Recordings, 1950–1954, along with all 52 songs Walker recorded for the label (minus six alternate versions excluded owing to space limitations), including four tracks cut in New Orleans with Dave Bartholomew and some of the same musicians who played on Bartholomew-produced Fats Domino recordings.

In 1955, with the rock & roll era dawning, Walker signed with Atlantic, and over the next four years cut 15 sides with producers Jerry Wexler, Ahmet Ertegun, and Nesuhi Ertegun. By the end of his Atlantic tenure, R&B, child of gospel and blues, was mutating into soul, child of gospel, blues, R&B, and pop, and bringing with it a broad-based young audience that regarded Walker's generation as yesterday's news, as these artists' declining sales figures indicated. Yet the Atlantic recordings, issued in 1960 as T-Bone Blues, were swept up in the folk and blues revival of that time, and jump-started Walker's career, albeit on a smaller scale than he had experienced in the previous two decades. Walker did some solid work for Atlantic, recording in 1955 in Chicago with Junior Wells and Jimmy Rogers and, toward the end of his tenure with the label, in Los Angeles with the likes of Barney Kessel, and, as the cuts on this disc attest, always rising to the occasion. Working small clubs, colleges, and festivals, he won a new following and gained recognition as an important jazz instrumentalist.

Although 1967's I Want a Little Girl, for the Delmark label, is interesting in showcasing Walker in a swinging mode that finds him putting some air into his sound in opting for a terse soloing approach remarkable for its understated eloquence, 1973's effort for the Home Cookin' label (now available on Col-lectables), Well-Done, is the gem of the later years. Walker energizes the place with his smoky, gritty vocals, and gets off some startling solos along the way. Both albums boast an intimate, after-hours club feel and offer periodic displays of vocal and instrumental prowess. As final testaments of a great artist, these are worthy additions to the catalogue.

Of the various single-disc compilations of Walker's music, Koch International's The Very Best of T-Bone Walker offers an excellent sampling of the Black & White and Imperial recordings from 1949 through 1954, including "T-Bone Shuffle," "They Call It Stormy Monday," "Midnight Blues," and 13 other choice cuts. A slightly broader overview -- 16 tracks -- is available on Rhino's well-considered Blues Masters: The Very Best of T-Bone Walker. All the obvious commercial highlights are here, including some not available on the Koch title (because the Rhino disc covers more territory, its tracks ranging from 1945 through 1957), such as "West Side Baby," a Top 10 R&B hit from 1948. Fuel 2000/Varèse Sarabande's Blue on Blues series release devotes six cuts to T-Bone and six to another distinctive blues guitarist, Lowell Fulson, but neither artist is represented by his best work. (DAVID MCGEE)

From 2004's The New Rolling Stone Album Guide