Smokestack Lightnin’ Blues Hall Of Fame Inducts T-Bone Walker

T-Bone Walker/The Natural Blues/The Natural Blues/Charly
T-Bone Walker/Alimony Blues/The Complete Imperial Recordings/Imperial/EMI
T-Bone Walker/I’m In Love/American Blues Festival 1962-64/Evidence
T-Bone Walker/Call It Stormy Monday/The Ultimate Blues Album Vol. 1/Fuel 2000
T-Bone Walker/T-Bone Shuffle/T-Bone Blues 1955-57/Atlantic
T-Bone Walker/Strollin’ With Bones/Blues Masters presents T-Bone Walker/Rhino

Aaron Thibeaux Walker or T-Bone Walker or Oak Cliff T-Bone (May 26, 1910 — March 15, 1975) was an American blues guitarist, singer, pianist and songwriter who was one of the most important pioneers of the electric guitar. His electric guitar solos were among the first heard on modern blues recordings and helped set a standard that is still followed.

Life
Walker was born in Linden, Texas of African and Cherokee descent. His parents, Rance Walker and Movelia Jimerson were both musicians.

Walker married Vida Lee in 1935 and had three children with her. He died of pneumonia March 16, 1975.

Music
His distinctive sound developed in 1942 when Walker recorded "Mean Old World" for Capitol Records. Much of his output was recorded from 1946–1948 on Black & White Records, including 1947's "Call It Stormy Monday (But Tuesday Is Just As Bad)", with its famous opening line, "They call it stormy Monday, but Tuesday's just as bad". He followed up with his "T-Bone Shuffle" and "Let Your Hair Down, Baby, Let's Have a Natural Ball". Both are considered blues classics. B. B. King says "Stormy Monday" first inspired him to take up the guitar. The song was also a favorite live number for The Allman Brothers Band.

Throughout his career Walker worked with the top quality musicians, including Teddy Buckner (trumpet), Lloyd Glenn (piano), Billy Hadnott (bass), and Jack McVea (tenor sax).

Following his work with Black & White, he recorded from 1950-54 for Imperial Records (backed by Dave Bartholomew). Walker's only record in the next five years was T-Bone Blues, recorded over three widely separated sessions in 1955, 1956 and 1959, and finally released by Atlantic Records in 1960.

By the early 1960s, Walker's career had slowed down, in spite of a hyped appearance at the American Folk Blues Festival in 1962 with Memphis Slim and Willie Dixon, among others. A few critically acclaimed albums followed, such as I Want a Little Girl. Walker recorded in his last years, 1968 - 1975, for Robin Hemingway's Jitney Jane Songs music publishing company, and he won a Grammy Award in 1971 for Good Feelin' (Polydor), produced by Robin Hemingway. "Fly Walker Airlines", Polydor, also produced by Hemingway, was released in 1973.

Death
T-Bone Walker died of a stroke in 1975, at the age of 64. He is interred in the Inglewood Park Cemetery in Inglewood, California.

Legacy
Walker's influence extended beyond his music. Chuck Berry called Walker and Louis Jordan (as well as Jordan's guitarist, Carl Hogan) his main influences. T-Bone Walker was the childhood hero of Jimi Hendrix, and Hendrix imitated some of Walker's ways throughout his life. Years before Hendrix, Walker was playing guitar with his teeth or in strange positions.

Walker was posthumously inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1980, and into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987.