From:   "Dik de Heer" 
Date:  Wed May 1, 2002  1:14 am
Subject:  Born To Be With You : Little Walter
 
LITTLE WALTER (By Shaun Mather)

Born Marion Walter Jacobs, 1 May 1930, Marksville, Louisiana
Died 15 February, 1968, Chicago, Illinois

Little Walter was the king of the blues harmonica, who took the instrument
to new areas that had not been considered by his contemporaries. Whereas
Walter was a nasty, vengeful guy, his amplified harp seemed to be
schizophrenic, one minute sharing his handlers violence, the next soaring
beautifully to some angelic note.
Born in rural Louisiana, he was naughty as a youth and left his country
home for New Orleans when he was twelve, before moving on to Helena,
Memphis, St. Louis and finally Chicago, where he arrived to make his mark in
1946. Within the year he'd released a single on the Ora-Nelle label, and
joined the Muddy Waters band two years later. Together with Jimmy Rogers
and Baby Face Leroy Foster they became known as the Headhunters, based on
their ability to stroll into a bar and get on stage and blow the booked band
off the stage - what a sight that must have been! At the end of one Muddy
Waters session, Walters cut the stomping instrumental Juke and watched it
top the R&B charts in 1952. He was off and running and over the next six
years hit the R&B Top Ten 14 times for Chess Records with the likes of Sad
Hours, Off The Wall, Blues With A Feeling, You Better Watch Yourself and
Last Night. My favourite is Mean Old World but pretty much everything he did
was top-notch, whether it be a driving instrumental or a vocal number (his
voice is very underrated IMHO). One hit, My Babe, has become something of
an anthem, most notably covered in rockabilly circles by Dale Hawkins and
Narvel Felts. The '60s saw his lack of social skills outweigh his musical
skills and he was becoming a troubled man. A tour of the UK in 1964 with
the Rolling Stones and a 1967 album with Muddy and Bo Diddley did little to
change his circumstances and he died later that year following a street
fight in Chicago. A sad end to a brilliant talent, whose playing is
unlikely to ever be topped.

Recommended listening:
Little Walter - His Best - Chess 50th Anniversary (MCA).
Forthcoming book: Tony Glover, Scott Dirks and Ward Gaines, Blues with
a feeling: the Little Walter story. New York : Routledge, August 2002.