Blues-harp virtuoso Marion "Little Walter" Jacobs, born May 1, 1930

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Celebrating the life and legacy of Blues-harp virtuoso Marion "Little Walter" Jacobs, born May 1, 1930 ~

Harmonica virtuoso Little Walter was a key contributor to Bluesman Muddy Waters’ music through most of the 1950s. Both as a sideman and bandleader, Little Walter revolutionized the sound of blues harmonica through amplification, clasping a mike to the harp as he played. While he may not have been the first bluesman to play amplified harmonica, he explored its possibilities most fully. He was inarguably a musical genius. Little Walter could make an inexpensive, portable “mouth organ” moan and roar like a full horn section or produce an unearthly, haunting wail. Moreover, he was a tasteful and sympathetic accompanist. As journalist Robert Palmer wrote of Little Walter’s contribution to Waters’ music, “The harp lines wrapped themselves around Muddy’s vocals, now chording like an organ, now filling melodically like a horn.”

Little Walter was born Marion Walter Jacobs in rural Louisiana. Little Walter made his way north to Chicago via stops in New Orleans and Monroe, Louisiana; St. Helena, Arkansas; Memphis, Tennessee; and St. Louis, Missouri, arriving in the Windy City in 1947. That same year, he made his first recordings for the local Ora Nelle label. Little Walter and Muddy Waters first appeared on a session together when both backed Jimmy Rogers in 1949. Waters backed Little Walter on a session for Parkway Records in January 1950. That August, Little Walter first backed Muddy for the Chess label, and in October, they recorded the Waters classic “Louisiana Blues.” Nearly a year after Little Walter’s initial appearance on a Muddy Waters session for Chess, he used an amplified harmonica for the first time on a groundbreaking July 1951 session that yielded “She Moves Me.”

Waters was among the earliest to recognize that blues possessed
a formidable power when electrified, and with Jimmy Rogers on electric guitar and Little Walter on amplified harp, he had the hottest blues band in Chicago. Little Walter split from Waters’ band after an instrumental showcase of his that was popular with crowds – “Your Cat Will Play,” retitled “Juke” when he recorded it – became a huge solo hit. A classic juke-joint instrumental, “Juke” topped the R&B chart for eight weeks in the fall of 1952.

In addition to harmonica, Little Walter played guitar, sang and wrote songs. He recruited a backing band from the Chicago club scene (whom he rechristened the Jukes, after his big song), and they recorded and toured throughout the Fifties. On his own, Little Walter charted 14 Top Ten R&B hits for the Chess label’s Checker subsidiary. One of these, “My Babe” – written by Willie Dixon and featuring the melody from the spiritual “This Train” – went to Number One.

Other sizable hits from Little Walter included “Sad Hours,” “Mean Old World,” “Blues With a Feeling,” “You’re So Fine,” “Oh, Baby” and ‘Last Night.” At Leonard Chess’s behest, Little Walter continued recording with Muddy Waters, too, adding his unmistakable harmonica to such classics as “I’m Your Hoochie Coochie Man” and “Trouble No More.”
 

Little Walter’s had a pervasive influence on succeeding generations of harmonica players, especially in Britain, where he was revered by a rising generation of blues-smitten rock and rollers. Unfortunately, his predilection for drinking, fighting and self-destructive behavior caught up with him. Little Walter died in 1968, at the age of 37, from head injuries suffered in a street brawl.

Select Discography:

1952 - "Juke" / Checker
1952 - "Sad Hours" / Checker

1953 - "Mean Old World" / Checker
1953 - "Tell Me Mama" / Checker
1953 - "Off the Wall" / Checker
1953 - "Blues with a Feeling" / Checker

1954 - "You're So Fine" / Checker
1954 - "Oh, Baby" / Checker
1954 - "You Better Watch Yourself" / Checker
1954 - "Last Night" / Checker

1955 - "My Babe" / Checker
1955 - "Roller Coaster" / Checker

1956 - "Who" / Checker

1958 - "Key to the Highway" / Checker

1959 - "Everything Gonna Be Alright" / Checker

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Walter
http://rockhall.com/inductees/little-walter/bio/

Bluesman Reverend Gary Davis AKA Blind Gary Davis

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Celebrating the life and legacy of Bluesman Reverend Gary Davis (AKA Blind Gary Davis) born April 30, 1896

Reverend Gary Davis (aka Blind Gary Davis & Rev. Gary Davis & Reverend Blind Gary Davis) - 30 Apr 1896 to 5 May 1972, was an American blues & gospel singer, as well as a renowned practitioner of the East Coast school of ragtime guitar. Thirty-five years later, despite two decades spent playing on the streets of Harlem in
New York, he was still one of the giants in his field, playing before thousands, and an inspiration to dozens of modern guitarist/singers including Bob Dylan, Taj Mahal, and Donovan, and Jorma Kaukonen, David Bromberg, and Ry Cooder, who studied with Davis.

Davis was partially blind at birth, and lost what little sight he had before he was an adult. He was self-taught on the guitar, beginning at age six, and by the time he was in his 20s he had one of the most advanced guitar techniques of anyone in blues -- his only peers among ragtime-based players were Blind Arthur Blake, Blind Lemon Jefferson, and Blind Willie Johnson. Davis himself was a major influence on Blind Boy Fuller. Davis's influences included gospel, marches, ragtime, jazz, and minstrel hokum, and he integrated them into a style that was his own. In 1911, when Davis was a still teenager, the family moved to Greenville, SC, and he fell under the influence of such local guitar virtuosi as Willie Walker, Sam Brooks and Baby Brooks. Davis moved to Durham in the mid-'20s, by which time he was a full-time street musician, and celebrated not only for the diversity of styles that his playing embraced, but also for his skills with the guitar, which were already virtually unmatched in the blues field.

Davis went into the recording studio for the first time in the '30s with the backing of a local businessman. Davis cut a mixture of blues and spirituals for the American Record Company label, but there was never an equitable agreement about payment for the recordings, and following these sessions, it was 19 years before he entered the studio again. During that period, he went through many changes. Like many other street buskers, Davis always interspersed gospel songs amid his blues and ragtime numbers, to make it harder for the police to interrupt him. He began taking the gospel material more seriously, and in 1937 he became an ordained minister. After that, he usually refused to perform any blues. Davis moved to New York in the early '40s and began preaching and playing on streetcorners in Harlem. He recorded again at the end of the 1940s, with a pair of gospel songs, but it wasn't until the mid-'50s that a real following for his work began developing anew. His music, all of it now of a spiritual nature, began showing up on labels such as Stinson, Folkways, and Riverside, where he recorded seven songs in early 1956.

Davis was "rediscovered" by the folk revival movement, and after some initial reticence, he agreed to perform as part of the budding folk music revival, appearing at the Newport Folk Festival, where his raspy voiced sung sermons, most notably his transcendent "Samson and Delilah (If I Had My Way)" -- a song most closely associated with Blind Willie Johnson -- and "Twelve Gates to the City," were highlights of the procedings for several years. He also recorded a live album for the Vanguard label at one such concert, as well as appearing on several Newport live anthology collections.

He was also the subject of two television documentaries, one in 1967 and one in 1970. Davis became one of the most popular players on the folk revival and blues revival scenes, playing before large and enthusiastic audiences -- most of the songs that he performed were spirituals, but they weren't that far removed from the blues that he'd recorded in the 1930s, and his guitar technique was intact. Davis's skills as a player, on the jumbo Gibson acoustic models that he favored, were undiminished, and he was a startling figure to hear, picking and strumming complicated rhythms and countermelodies. Davis became a teacher during this period, and his students included some very prominent White guitar players, including David Bromberg and the Jefferson Airplane's Jorma Kaukonen (who later recorded Davis's "I'll Be Alright" on his acclaimed solo album Quah!).

The Reverend Gary Davis left behind a fairly large body of modern (i.e. post-World War II) recordings, well into the 1960s, taking the revival of his career in his stride as a way of carrying the message of the gospel to a new generation. He even recorded anew some of his blues and ragtime standards in the studio, for the benefit of his students. ~ Bruce Eder, All-Music Guide

Bo Diddley (December 30, 1928 - June 2, 2008) “The Originator,”

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Today we celebrate the life and music of the legendary Bo Diddley, born on December 30, 1928 ~

Bo Diddley (December 30, 1928 - June 2, 2008) “The Originator,” was an influential American rock and roll singer, songwriter, and guitarist. He is often cited as a key figure in the transition of blues into rock and roll, by introducing more insistent, driving rhythms and a harder-edged guitar sound.

Bo Diddley broke new ground in rock and roll’s formative years
with his unique guitar work, indelible African rhythms, inventive songwriting and larger-than-life persona. He will forever be known for popularizing one of the foundational rhythms of rock and roll: the Bo Diddley beat. He employed it in his namesake song, “Bo Diddley,” as well as other primal rockers like “Mona.” This African-based 4/4 rhythm pattern (which goes bomp-bomp-bomp bomp-bomp) was picked up from Diddley by other artists and has been a distinctive and recurring element in rock and roll through the decades. It can be heard on Buddy Holly’s “Not Fade Away” (later covered by the Rolling Stones), Johnny Otis’ “Willie and the Hand Jive,” the Strangeloves’ “I Want Candy,” the Who’s “Magic Bus” and Bruce Springsteen’s “She’s the One,” to name just several songs.

Diddley is the author of a body of songs, including “Who Do You Love?,” “Road Runner,” “Mona,” “Before You Accuse Me” and “I’m a Man,” that are among the earliest examples of rock and roll rising out of its source material in rhythm and blues. Diddley married two worlds he knew well – the Deep South and the streets of Chicago – in his music. Born Ellas Bates in McComb, Mississippi, Diddley was raised by his mother’s cousin, Gussie McDaniel, whose surname he legally adopted. The family moved to Chicago when Diddley was seven. His earliest exposure to music came via the church. The first instrument he learned to play was the violin, though hearing John Lee Hooker’s 1949 R&B hit, “Boogie Chillen” inspired him to pick up the guitar. Diddley claimed that playing the violin influenced his muted-string, choke-neck style of rhythm guitar – an early forerunner of funk that can be heard on songs like “Pretty Thing.” “It’s mixed up with spiritual, sanctified rhythms,” he explained, “and the feeling I have of making people [want to] shout.”

Diddley formed a band called the Hipsters (later the Langley Avenue Jive Cats) while in high school and landed a regular spot at the 708 Club on Chicago’s South Side in 1951. He signed with the Checker label, a Chess Records subsidiary, in 1955. Diddley’s earliest records were contemporaneous with those of labelmate Chuck Berry. His debut single was a two-sided classic that paired “Bo Diddley” with “I’m a Man.” It was the first in a string of groundbreaking sides that walked the fine line between rhythm & blues and rock & roll. Others included “Diddley Daddy,” “Pretty Thing” and “Road Runner,” which were all Top 20 R&B hits. One of Diddley’s crossover successes came with “Say Man,” a laugh-filled exchange of jive talk between Diddley and his maraca player, Jerome Green. Their verbal sparring derived from the African-American pastime of “signifying’ or “doing the dozens” and foreshadowed the battle rapping of the present day, minus the profanity.

Diddley was also an inventor, devising his own tremolo effect and playing a unique, rectangular “cigar box” guitar that he designed in 1958. His ever-fertile mind also inspired him to set up one of the first home studios. The prolific singer/guitarist released a string of albums whose titles – including Bo Diddley Is a Gunslinger and Have Guitar, Will Travel – bolstered his self-invented legend. Between 1958 and 1963, Checker released 11 full-length albums by Bo Diddley. Two Great Guitars, released in 1964, was jointly credited to Bo Diddley and Chuck Berry.



A regular at Harlem’s Apollo Theatre, Diddley also traveled with the rock and roll revues of the day. His exemplary touring band including fellow Chicagoans Jerome Green on bass and maracas, pianist Otis Spann, Billy Boy Arnold on harmonica and drummer Frank Kirkland. Diddley retained his iconic status as a rock and roll pioneer, steadily releasing albums on Checker through the mid-Seventies. Further releases, such as 1988’s Live at the Ritz (a concert recording with Rolling Stone Ron Wood) and 1996’s A Man Among Men (a studio album featuring a host of famous guests) came more intermittently in the ensuing decades. Meanwhile, Diddley continued to work the live circuit in tireless fashion. He was righteously outspoken on the subject of underpayment, bad contracts and other ripoffs that denied many early rock and rollers (himself among them) what was due them. Diddley passed away on June 2, 2008, age 79.

Source: http://rockhall.com/inductees/bo-diddley/bio/

Col. Bill Williams Blues Guitar, Greenup Co. Ky

Col. Bill williams Blues Guitar, Greenup Co. Ky