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T-Bone Walker - The Electric Guitar Pioneer

The Best of T-Bone Walker
You could be forgiven for not looking into T-Bone Walker if you’re not a Texas Blues or early Chicago blues fan. The time of his appearance on the blues scene and name could easily have you lumping him in with others who you may have listened to and maybe not appreciated at the time. That’s what I did. But I was wrong and you would be too.

B.B. King himself has stated that T-Bone Walker was his primary influence. Even that only scratches the surface of what T-Bone Walker gave us. T-Bone popularized the lead electric guitar. His blues spanned jazz, swing, doo wop and early rock. His riffs echo in the playing of Freddie King, Chuck Berry and Jimmy Rogers. Make no mistake, T-Bone Walker changed the world of blues and left an indelible mark on many modern music genres. He also played his guitar in a way cool way horizontally out in front of his body. Here’s a great example.

T-Bone was a consummate musician who wrote musical scores. His blues do not sound like those handed down through the ages. I find it fascinating that one of my favorite blues songs of all time was “borrowed” by Jimmy Rogers and in fact was a T-Bone Walker tune. Check this out

Yeah, Jimmy Rogers “Walkin’ By Myself” is really different lyrics to a T-Bone Walker song called “Why Not”! In just those first few bars you can hear more music than most of us generate in a lifetime. Another great T-Bone tune is Stormy Monday. Stormy Monday has been covered by almost every blues and jazz musician as well as almost any rock band from the early 70’s. As a matter of fact if you search for an MP3 of Stormy Monday on Amazon.com you’ll get 645 hits.

OK so the list of T-Bone Walker recommended recordings is pretty long but here are just a few:
T-Bone Blues- 1959 (great coverage of his work in the 50’s and great sound too considering the vintage)
The Complete Recordings of T-bone Walker 1940-1954
- this is a 6 CD set that covers from 1940 to 1954.
Blues Masters: The Very Best of T-Bone Walker
- this is single CD collection for those wanting the abridged version of The Complete Recordings. It comes highly recommended by Club Koda co-author of Blues for Dummies.

Here is a real treat for blues fans - this video is 25 minutes of a TV concert featuring T-Bone Walker and a young B.B. King.
T-Bone Walker and B.B. King


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Albert King - King of the Blues Guitar

albertking580Musicians who were influenced by Albert King include Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, John Mayall and Mike Bloomfield but, no where is the influence more apparent than when listening to Stevie Ray Vaughn. As a matter of fact one of the most enjoyable CD’s to just lay back and give a listen to is the In Session album where SRV and Albert King play together (something Albert King was clearly enjoying).


Born Under a Bad Sign was actually King’s second album and is number 499 of Rolling Stone Magazine’s 500 Essential Recordings. The songs on it are short as was the requirement for commercial success in that era. Some blues fans considered it to be the greatest blues album ever. King of the Blues Guitar may be a better choice.
There are 59 Albert King albums out there and no shortage of great ones. Here are a few other picks.
Here are some mp3s available to preview and purchase on Amazon.com.


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Johnny Winter Interview

Thanks to Sean over at Livebluesworld.com for bringing this to my attention. I’m a big Johnny Winter fan. As a matter of fact Johnny Winter was the opening act at the first concert I ever went to. I’ll write more on Johnny later but for now here is a great 5 part video interview with Johnny.





Johnny looks better than ever and is still very active: Check out JohnnyWinter.net for the latest news.
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SRV - Stevie Ray Vaughan

Nobody, in my humble opinion, rocked the blues like Stevie Ray Vaughan! Thats all I really need to say about that. Check solo performance out and see if you don’t agree.

Best known for his performances on electric guitar with his band Double Trouble but it’s that acoustic performance above that always blows me away. That’s a 12 string he’s playing - man if I tried I’m sure my hands would hurt for a month.

There are a lot of greatest hits albums out there for SRV fans but in my opinion there are three actual albums that every SRV fan should have.
His debut album, Texas Flood, the follow up (and highest rated SRV album on Amazon.com) Couldn’t Stand the Weather and then the wonderful sessions album with Albert King featuring some great dialog as King marvel’s at SRV’s ability to play that guitar. Here they are:

Check out this Amazon widget in case you’d like to check out the previews or pick up some MP3s.


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My Johnny Winter Blues Experiment

In 1969 Johnny Winter released a blues album called “The Progressive Blues Experiment“. It was probably my first experience where I realized I was listening to a genre of music rather than just music. Later Johnny Winter, Edgar Winter and Rick Derringer came to town opening for Alice Cooper’s Eighteen tour. That was my first concert. I’ve a couple of other aha moments in my life that involve Johnny Winter too. So in honor of this great blues man I decided to do some programming and have my own progressive blues experiment. Here is the result: every Johnny Winter album cover I could get automatically downloaded (and I few I could not) with a script I wrote. I’d like to take this experiment further and would love your suggestions. For now just enjoy the art, maybe someday I’ll have a quilt made of it.


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