Re: [Harp-L] LW's Influence - sharing info w/the list

["Tom Muck" <tmuck@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> Walter certainly had an original mind, but it's a mistake to think that
> his music sprang full-blown from his own genius without influence.  For a 
> start, Walter didn't invent the blues form.

Well, nobody is uninfluenced. Even Robert Johnson can be heard in everyone 
that came before him.

> To take a more detailed example, on "I'm Just Your Fool," you can hear 
> Sonny Boy Williamson I (John Lee Williamson) all over the place, and 
> especially in the way Walter uses his hands to shape the tone. Similarly, 
> you can hear the influence of jump band sax players like Illinois Jacquet 
> in some of Walter's instrumentals when he alternates between the tonic 
> note on the draw 2 reed and the same note on the blow 3 reed, producing 
> the same effect that tenor sax players create through the use of alternate 
> fingerings.

Walter's first records made in 1947 when he was 17 sound like he was a Sonny 
Boy I clone, but yet went way beyond what Sonny Boy did.

> Standing on the shoulders of giants doesn't make Walter less of a genius. 
> He learned what his contemporaries had to teach him, and then he went 
> farther.  That's genius.

Sure, I agree with all that, but the man could put two notes together that 
can send chills up your spine. I don't hear musicians doing that these days, 
and haven't heard another harp player do that.