Re: Little Walter biography reviewed by Glenn Weiser for Metroland magazine

[Mojo Red <harplicks@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Glenn,

Nice synopsis of an awesome book! I thoroughly
enjoyed the Little Walter biography as well. 

As to your minor criticisms regarding Walter's
decline and lack of evidence in the book regarding
any efforts to resist that decline, perhaps there
simply wasn't any evidence available to the
chroniclers.

It may be that Walter ~made~ no sustained efforts.
The interviews with his sister and others point to
a broken man who seemed to have given up. The basic
factor being a change in popular musical taste
resulting in less prestigious bookings etc. And of
course, Walter's irratic temperment did not help
matters.

The book shows repeatedly Walter's deep
frustrations with Chess for not letting him record
amped harp in the studio late in his carreer due to
the accoustic blues revival going on. His
semi-successful trips to Europe for the burgeoning
blues movement in the UK in the 60s seemed to help,
but again he was (for the most part) not allowed to
play what he wanted (amped, Chicago style).

Excellent reading in any case.

Harpin' in Colorado,
- --Ken M.


- --- Glenn Weiser <glennw@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 
> Oh, I hate to break it to y'all, but LW was a
> real person. In fact, I reviewed the recent
> biography of him in Metroland, the Albany, NY,
> newsweekly I write for.
> This review appeared during the time harp-l was
> down, otherwise I would have posted it sooner. So
> as long as we're on the subject of LW, I'll post
> it for your considertion. Of course, comments are
> welcome, and maybe this will generate some cool
> discussion. Bear in mind it is very, very hard to
> write a book that will not turn out to have at
> least some minor flaw. This is really a very
> good, and important book
> 
> Glenn Weiser
> http://www.celticguitarmusic.com/harppage.htm
> 
>                    Blues With a Feeling: The
> Little Walter Story
>                    By Tony Glover, Scott Dirks
> and Ward Gaines
>                    Routledge, 315 pages, $24.95
>                    Reviewed by Glenn Weiser
> 
>           Along with jazz saxman Charlie Parker
> and rock guitarist Jimi Hendrix, postwar
> blues-harmonica great Marion ?Little Walter?
> Jacobs ranks as a groundbreaking American
> instrumentalist. His playing graced most of Muddy
> Waters? classic 1950s sides, and under his own
> name he also waxed some of the greatest
> recordings in blues. Innovative in his use of
> distorted amplified tone and jazzy phrasing,
> Jacobs was, like Parker and Hendrix, widely
> imitated, musically unrivaled, and dead at a
> young age. It may seem surprising that no book
> about him appeared before the well-researched
> Blues With a Feeling: The Little Walter Story,
> but Little Walter?s life is one of a meteoric
> rise followed by a long, painful decline and
> fall. Of any blues biography you could pick up,
> this has to be the most tragic.
> Many details of Walter?s earlier years were
> already available, although the book is not
> without fresh information on the subject. He was
> born to Creole parents in Louisiana in 1930, and
> began playing harmonica at age 8. By the time he
> was 12 he was on his own, performing waltzes,
> polkas and popular songs on the sidewalks of New
> Orleans for tips. A year later, the youngster
> learned blues harmonica in Memphis, absorbing the
> influences of virtuosos John Lee ?Sonny Boy?
> Williamson, Rice Miller and Big Walter Horton.
> Shortly thereafter, he began to listen to the
> ?jump? sound of saxophonist Louis Jordan, setting
> the stage for a synthesis of swing and electric
> blues that was not to crystallize until  the
> early 1950s.
>                    By the mid-?40s, Chicago had
> become a mecca for blues musicians, so Little
> Walter moved there looking for work. Performing
> on legendary Maxwell Street, he eventually came
> to the notice of Muddy Waters. Waters and Walter,
> along with Muddy?s backing guitarist, Jimmy
> Rogers, began working the clubs of the South
> Side. To be heard in the noisy taverns, Waters
> and Rogers adopted electric guitars, and Little
> Walter blew through cheap microphones and
> amplifiers. Waters, backed by stand-up bass only,
> recorded his first hits on Leonard Chess?
> Aristocrat label in 1948, and Walter
> was added in the mix in 1950.
>                    The next five years saw Little
> Walter rise to stardom. He stayed on as Waters?
> sideman until 1952, when his first single, the
> honking, saxlike instrumental ?Juke,? hit the top
> of the R&B charts, something even Muddy hadn?t
> been able to do. It is at this point that the
> book becomes based almost entirely on the
> authors? original research. Flush with success,
> Walter left Muddy, took over fellow harmonica
> player Junior Wells? band and struck out under
> his own name, although he continued to record
> with Muddy afterwards. The living was easy for
> the next few years: Walter had more than a dozen
> Top 10 R&B hits, played prestigious venues like
> New York?s Apollo a sack full of money in the
> trunk of his Cadillac. The book reveals that he
> loved chess, was a Mason, and?although he never
> recorded it?could play down-home blues well on
> the acoustic guitar.
>             In 1955, rock & roll swept the nation
> and eclipsed the popularity of blues in its
> hometown of Chicago. Seeing his record sales
> dwindle, an embittered Walter entered a long
> decline in the late ?50s marked by heavy
> drinking, an inability to keep a band together,
> and violent encounters both with the law and
> other blacks. Jacobs ultimately died, at age 37,
> from a head injury sustained in a 1968 street
> fight.
>           This slow, inexorable slide to doom
> takes up the last half of the book, and both it
> and Walter?s personal failings are chronicled in
> unsparing detail. All this, unfortunately, makes
> for grim reading. And it is here, in the later
> chapters, that the book?s principal weakness
> becomes evident: We are forced to watch as a
> musical genius goes down the tubes, but little is
> said to answer the question of whether or not he
> ever tried to pull himself out of his tailspin,
> or if the people around him attempted to help
> him. All we learn is that he was aware of his
> plight, as evinced by passing references to his
> ?going down,? as he put it. Besides that
> shortcoming, there are also a few errors of fact:
> The harmonica was more than 100 years old when
> Walter picked it up, not less, as the authors
> state; and blues is usually played in a key a
> fifth above the key of the harmonica, rather than
> a fourth above. But none of these flaws is fatal.
>         All in all, ?Blues With a Feeling? is a
> major addition to our knowledge of American
> music, and a must-read for any blues or harmonica
> fan.
> 
> 
> 
> --
> Harp-l is sponsored by SPAH.
> Hosted by ValuePricehosting.com,
www.valuepricehosting.com


=====
"When you speak of Walter Horton, the first thing you think of is his tone, that big, fat tone."
- ---Li'l Ronnie Owens

__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now.
http://mailplus.yahoo.com