[Harp-L] Genius-- Here's One We All Know

[Wolf Kristiansen <wolfkristiansen@xxxxxxxx>]

I'm not saying anything new, but this needs to be restated.  Many of the posts regarding what defines genius and who is a genius are informed, as always, by writers' musical preferences.  My nomination, from a classic Chicago blues lover's perspective, is Little Walter.  

Here are the ways he was a genius, there are surely more:

1.  First and foremost, his creativity.  The endless ideas, the constant invention. He did not repeat himself from song to song; he didn't even repeat himself from verse to verse!  Compare that to Sonny Boy Williamson II and Big Walter.  Good as they were, they often repeated stock phrases, song to song and verse to verse.  

2.  His musicality.  He unerringly played something that fit the song, whether backing up another singer or playing on his own records.  His contributions to Muddy Waters' songs, long after he ceased to be a working member of Muddy's band, always fit, and always enhanced the message and mood of the song. He had the ability to channel just the right notes from the blues cosmos, time after time.

3.  On his own records, his firm conception of how a song should work; how it should sound.  I'm going by a quote from one of his sidemen.  He said that Little Walter always had firm ideas as to how a song should sound; ideas that the sidemen didn't necessarily understand or want to do but when executed made believers out of them.

4.  His groundbreaking use of electric amplification as an essential part of the harmonica's tone.  He may not have been the first, but he showed the world, more than any other harmonica player, what could be done with amplification.

Cheers,

wolf kristiansen