Little Walter
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Little Walter (born Marion Walter Jacobs) (May 1 1930 - February 15 1968) was a blues singer and harmonica player.
Career and life
Born in Marksville, Louisiana, Jacobs is generally included among blues music greats: Ry Cooder 's opinion is that Jacobs was the single greatest blues musician ever. His revolutionary harmonica technique has earned comparisons to Charlie Parker and Jimi Hendrix in its impact: There were great musicians before and after, but Jacobs' startling virtuosity and innovations reached heights of expression never previously imagined, and fundamentally altered many listeners' expectations of what was possible in blues music.After quitting school by the age of 12, Jacobs left Louisiana and travelled wherever he chose, working odd jobs, busking and honing his musical skills with Sonny Boy Williamson and Big Bill Broonzy, among others.
Arriving in Chicago c. 1945, he fell into the thriving Blues scene. Jacobs grew tired of being drowned out by electric guitarists, and developed a simple, but previously unused method: He cupped a small microphone in his hand while he played harmonica, and plugged the microphone into a guitar or public address amplifier. He could thus compete with any guitarist's volume, and furthermore, he utilized amplification to explore radical new timbres. Little Walter is generally considered the first 'urban' blues musician. His sound was very modern, with a strong jazz feeling to it and he played mainly composition or modern songs.
Little Walter made his first recordings in 1947 for the tiny Ora-Nelle label in Chicago. He joined Muddy Waters' band c. 1948, and by 1950 he was playing on Muddy's recordings for Chess Records; Little Walter's harmonica is featured on most of Muddy's classic recordings from the 1950s. Jacobs' own career took off when he recorded as a bandleader for Chess' subsidiary label Checker Records in 1952; the first completed take of the first song attempted at his very first session spent eight weeks in the #1 position on the Billboard magazine R&B charts - the song was "Juke", and it was the first harmonica instrumental ever to become a hit on the R&B charts. He scored an impressive fourteen top-ten hits on the R&B charts between 1952 and 1958, including two #1 hits (the second being "My Babe" in 1955.) A lot of these numbers were originals which he or Chess A&R man Willie Dixon wrote.
Jacobs suffered from alcoholism, and had a notoriously short fuse, which led to a decline in his fame and fortunes in the 1960s. He died of injuries sustained in a fight.
His legacy has been enormous: He established the standard vocabulary for blues and blues rock harmonica players for more than 50 years, from Paul Butterfield to John Popper of Blues Traveler.
His 1952 instrumental Juke was selected as one of The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll.
External links
- A website by the authors of the award-winning biography "Blues With A Feeling - The Little Walter Story" (Routledge Press, 2002): [Little Walter website]
- http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:e1uf6jah71e0~T1
- http://www.bluesharp.ca/legends/lwalter.html
- [link] [note: an opinion piece which contains numerous factual errors.]
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