Horton, Walter

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Walter Horton

Harmonica player

For the Record

Hortons Music Appeals to the Masses

Selected discography

Sources

Big Walter Horton was a virtuoso blues harmonica player who, ironically, never achieved the fame of the renowned harpists he taught and inspiredincluding James Cotton, Little Walter Jacobs, and Rice Miller. Horton is remembered as a gentle man who never quite escaped poverty and poor health he was born into. Bruce Iglauer, who produced the 1972 record Big Walter Horton with Carey Bell, called him one of only four great creative geniuses of modern blues harmonica, ranking him alongside Jacob, Miller, and John Lee Sonny Boy Williamson. Those three harp players were recognized, honored and extensively recorded with their own bands, Iglauer wrote, but Horton remained relatively obscure at his death in 1981. Perhaps this shy, withdrawn man (was) never aggressive enough to hustle a contract with a major record label. Or perhaps his harmonica is so subtle, so delicate, that it requires hard, concentrated listening to appreciate.

Horton crafted a unique, fluid style that fused blues feeling with an uplifting jazzlike tone, wrote Chris Smith. The beauty that he created through his music was in striking contrast to the troubled life he lived. Walter Horton was a shy, sensitive man who had to deal with poverty and illness most of his life. Often uncommunicative in conversation, he spoke through his instrument, creating a world of lyric beauty, wit and energy. Writer Charles Shaar Murray offered a similar assessment in The Blues on CD, Despite the greater fame and popularity of Little Walter, James Cotton, Junior Wells, and Paul Butterfield, many connoisseurs regard Horton as the finest of all the great post-war harp men.

Horton was born in Horn Lake, Mississippi, on April 6, 1918. He was given his first harmonica at age five and soon was playing it on the street. The decision to opt for a career in music was essentially made for him, because he lacked both the physical strength for menial work and the education for anything else, Murray wrote. In his early teens, Horton moved to Arkansas and then to Memphis, where he played with the Memphis Lug Band and performed in Handy Park alongside JohnnyShines, Floyd Jones, Furry Lewis, and Eddie Taylor. I met Walter, really, in 1930, Shines once said, and he would be sitting on the porch, blowing in tin cans, you know, and hed get sounds out of those things.

In the 1940s, Horton met and taught harp players Little Walter and James Cotton, worked in Memphis as a cook and an iceman, and traveled briefly to Chicagowhere many Memphis bluesmen were settlingand played on Maxwell Street for tips. He also became a critical part of the post-World War II blues scene in Memphis. In 1951, the legendary Sam Phillips recorded Horton at his Sun studios, both as a sideman and occasionally as a

For the Record

Born April 6, 1918, in Horn Lake, MS; died: Dec. 8, 1981, in Chicago, IL.

Played harmonica with various artists throughout the decades, including Muddy Waters, Eddie Taylor, and Fleetwood Mac. Had a cameo appearance in the 1980 movie, The Blues Brothers.

featured artist. Those recordings later were collected by Ace Records on Mouth Harp Maestro. An early Horton instrumental song called Easy is still considered a masterpiece of amplified harmonica playing.

In 1953, Big Walter moved to Chicago for good and replaced Junior Wells in Muddy Waters band. Over the years, he worked in clubs, recording studios and on the road as both as a solo artist and a sideman for Waters, Otis Rush, Willie Dixon, Johnny Shines, Johnny Young, JimmyRogers, Jimmy Reed, Tampa Red, and Big Mama Thornton. Hortons erratic, mushmouth singing style garnered him the nicknames Mumbles and Shakey which he did not like. His harmonica virtuosity, however, kept him in demand.

Hortons Music Appeals to the Masses

During the 1960s, Hortons career prospered as white audiences discovered the blues. He toured the United States and Europe, performed with Willie Dixons Chicago Blues All-Stars, and recorded his first album as a bandleader. The record, The Soul of the Blues Harmonica, was issued by Argo Records in England in 1964 and later re-released by Chessbut it was largely unsuccessful. In the late 1960s, Horton performed with blues-influenced rockn rollers Johnny Winter and Fleetwood Mac.

The 1970s began with promise for Horton, but ended with deteriorating health and professional stature. He recorded his second album as lead artist in 1972, along with his protégé, harpist Carey Bell, with whom he toured and played South Side Chicago bars. That album and another, Cant Keep Lovin You, have been called the best recordings from Hortons later years. He also rejoined Muddy Waters on the blues legends 1978 album Im Ready. His reunion with Muddy Waters was one of the very few bright spots of the 70s, as far as the increasingly alcoholically-challenged Horton was concerned, Murray wrote. Late in his life, Horton was back playing for tips and drinks on Maxwell Streetas he had when he arrived in Chicago four decades before. In a street scene from the 1980 movie The Blues Brothers, in fact, he is seen doing exactly that, playing his harp behind John Lee Hooker on the song Boom Boom.

(Hortons) harmonica playing, both on his own records and in his uncompromisingly lyrical solos on just about everyone elses, is breathtaking, Peter Guralnick wrote in The Listeners Guide to the Blues. In a sense, he embodies the classic definition of a musicians musician, an artist universally recognized by his peers who has had an enormous impact on musicians who are much better known. Along with Little Walter Jacob, Guralnick wrote, Big Walter Horton raised blues harmonica playing to new heights and created a new role and a new standard for this once lowly instrument. Horton died in Chicago on Dec. 8, 1981.

Selected discography

Mouth Harp Maestro, Ace Records, 1951.

Sun Records Harmonica Classics. collection, Rounder.

Harmonica Genius, from recording sessions for Blind Pig records, Black Magic.

Fine Cuts, Blind Pig.

Cant Keep Lovin You, Blind Pig.

The Soul of the Blues Harmonica, Chess.

Johnny Shines with Big Walter Horton, Testament.

Harmonica Blues Kings, also featuring Alfred Harris, Pearl records.

An Offer You Cant Refus. (one side of the album is by Paul Butterfield), Red Lightnin records.

Big Walter Horton with Carey Bell, 1972, Alligator Records.

Big Walter Shakey Horton: Live at The El Mocambo, Red Lightnin, 1973.

Im Ready, with Muddy Waters, BGO, 1978.

Little Boy Blue, 1980 live recordings, JSP.

Sources

Books

Guralnick, Peter, The Listeners Guide to the Blues, Facts on File, Inc., 1982.

Murray, Charles Shaar, Blues on CD: The Essential Guide, Kyle Cathie Limited.

Scott, Frank, The Down Home Guide to the Blues, a capella books, 1991.

Online

http://www.island.net/-blues/big_walt.html

http://www.alligator.com/artists/35/AL4702.html

Additional information found in the liner notes from the album Big Walter Horton with Carey Bell, 1972, by Bruce Iglauer, copyright Alligator Records.

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