SPOTLIGHT ON LITTLE WALTER

Little Walter was an American blues harmonica player who holds the distinction of being the only artist ever to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame specifically for his work as a harmonica player. Born Marion Walter Jacobs in Marksville, Louisiana, in 1930, and raised in Alexandria, Louisiana, Jacobs quit school at the age of 12 to work at odd jobs in New Orleans, Memphis, Helena, Arkansas and St. Louis, before heading to Chicago in 1945.

Jacobs was one of several million blacks who migrated from the Mississippi Delta to Chicago, St. Louis, New York, L.A. and other northern cities in the period known as “The Great Migration”, roughly after the First World War through the 1950s.

Along the way to Chicago, Jacobs honed his musical skills with fellow Delta blues artists Sonny Boy Williamson (another harmonica blues player, from Tallahatchie County, MS), Sunnyland Slim (Quitman County, MS), Honeyboy Edwards (Shaw, MS), and others. In Chicago, Jacobs worked as a guitarist, but garnered more attention for his highly developed harmonica work.

Jacobs reportedly grew frustrated with having his harmonica drowned out by electric guitarists, and adopted a simple, but previously little-used method: He cupped a small microphone in his hands along with his harmonica, and plugged the microphone into a public address or guitar amplifier. He could thus compete with any guitarist's volume. Unlike other contemporary blues harp players, such as Sonny Boy Williamson I and Snooky Pryor, who had also begun using the then-new technology around the same time solely for added volume. Little Walter purposely pushed his amplifiers beyond their intended technical limitations, using the amplification to explore and develop radical new timbres and sonic effects previously unheard from a harmonica, or any other instrument. Madison Deniro wrote a small biographical piece on Little Walter stating that "He was the first musician of any kind to purposely use electronic distortion."

He backed other blues artists, including fellow Delta Bluesman, Muddy Waters, and was part of the Blues artists under the Chicago-based Chess Record label in the late 1940s. The story of Chess Records was the subject of the movie, Cadillac Records in 2008. Walter became a part of the fabled Maxwell Street scene that at one time or another included almost every postwar Chicago blues luminary. He first recorded that year behind singer Othum Brown on the Ora Nelle label, and also began playing in a trio with Jimmy Rogers and Muddy Waters, whom he had met on Maxwell Street. It was the core of what was to be the world’s most celebrated blues band.

For years after his departure from Muddy's band in 1952, Little Walter continued to be brought in to play on Muddy’s recording sessions, and as a result his harmonica is featured on most of Muddy's classic recordings from the 1950s.

In May 1952, Walter stepped back out front as a bandleader and was recording on the Chess subsidiary label, Checker Records. The first completed take on the first song attempted at his debut session became his first hit, spending eight weeks in the #1 position on the Billboard magazine R&B charts. The song was “Juke”, and it is still the only harmonica instrumental ever to become a #1 hit on the R&B charts. Three other harmonica instrumentals by Little Walter also reached the Billboard R&B top 10. Little Walter scored fourteen top-ten hits on the Billboard R&B charts between 1952 and 1958. His second #1 hit, “My Babe”, was released in 1955. Little Walter achieved a level of commercial success never achieved by his former boss, Muddy Waters, nor by his fellow Chess Delta blues artists Howlin’ Wolf and Sonny Boy Williamson II. In general his sound was more modern and uptempo than the popular Chicago blues of the day, with a jazzier conception than other conteporary blues harmonica players.

In February, 1968, a few months after returning from his second European tour, he was involved in a fight while taking a break from a performance at a nightclub on the South Side of Chicago. While his injuries were fairly minor, the compounded damage he had suffered in previous encounters along with the effects of his frequent bouts with alcoholism, Walter died in his sleep at the apartment of a girlfriend the following morning. He was 37 years old.

Walter’s legacy has been enormous: he is credited by blues historians as being primarily responsible for establishing the standard vocabulary for modern blues and blues rock harmonica players. His influence can be heard in varying degrees in virtually every modern blues harp player who came along in his wake. His recordings during his lifetime were all as singles, usually an instrumental on one side and a vocal performance on the other. In 1967 Chess released a studio album featuring Little Walter with Bo diddley and Muddy Waters titled, “Super Blues”.

Little Walter - Induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
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Little Walter Induction into Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 2008

Little Walter - "My Babe"


Little Walter - "Juke"