From:   "Dik de Heer" 
Date:  Wed Dec 18, 2002  6:19 am
Subject:  Born To Be With You : Pee Wee Crayton
 
PEE WEE CRAYTON (By Jean-Marc Pezet)

Born Connie Curtis Crayton, 18 December 1914, Liberty Hill, Texas
Died 25 June 1985, Los Angeles, California

Pee Wee was born in the rural town of Liberty Hill, near Rockdale, but
spent much of his childhood in Austin, TX. Like a good number of Texans,
he moved to the Bay Area around 1935 to work in the shipyards, just ahead
of the WW II defense industry boom. Pee Wee had already received guitar
lessons back in Texas, and was studying Charlie Christian's style. He
became friends with another Texas blues guitarist, T-Bone Walker, who
provided him with guidance and encouragement. Other influences came
also from Nat King Cole Trio's guitarist John Collins who refined Pee Wee's
chords knowledge. After the war, Pee Wee worked and recorded with Ivory
Joe Hunter for Pacific and recorded a handful of ballads and intrumentals
for 4 Star, Gilt Edge and GruVTone.
He began recording for the Biharis' Modern label in Los Angeles in 1948,
until 1951, for what is known as his most prolific period. He had success
with "Blues After Hours" (# 1 R&B), T-Bone Walker's "I'm Still In Love With
You" and the bouncy "Texas Hop" (on which Buddy Floyd played tenor).
A string of great records were issued, ranging from slow vocal blues,
instrumentals, uptempo boogies to ballads: "Rock Island Blues", Big Joe
Turner's "Miss Brown Blues" (including Ben Webster on tenor), "Pee Wee
Boogie" (with shades of both Christian & Walker) or the cooking "Pee Wee's
Wild". After having been dropped from Modern, the 1950s were spent trying
to rebuild a flagging career with releases on Aladdin (notably the smooth and
Walker-esque "When It Rains It Pours"), Recorded In Hollywood, Imperial,
Flair, Post, and Vee Jay. He tried his luck in Detroit and Des Moines in the
mid 1950s, before getting back to Los Angeles in 1960. He also toured with
Ray Charles, Big Maybelle and Dinah Washington in the late 1950s.
Besides taking non-musical jobs, he continued recording on an occasional
basis for Modern from 1960 onward (those sessions stayed unissued until
after his death), and had some LP releases on Crown, Vanguard, Blues
Spectrum and Murray Brothers. He also played shows with the Johnny Otis
Show at the Monterey Jazz Festival in 1970 (issued on Epic), Joe Turner and
Big Mama Thornton.
At the end of his life, Pee Wee was living a happy retirement with his
family, playing golf. He made a successful appearance at the June 1985
Chicago Blues Festival, but died a few days later on June 25.

Pee Wee Crayton is often overlooked but he is one of those great West Coast
blues guitarists and an essential link between T-Bone Walker and later
artists such as Lowell Fulson or Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown.

Web sites:
http://www.island.net/~blues/peeweec.htm
http://www.cascadeblues.org/History/PeeWeeCrayton.htm

Recommended listening:
"The Modern Legacy Vol 1" ACE CDCHD 632
"Blues Guitar Magic - The Modern Legacy Vol 2" ACE CDCHD 767
"The Complete Aladdin & Imperial Recordings" CAPITOL CDP 7243 8 36292 2.

Check http://www.island.net/~blues/peeweec.htm for a more complete
list of currently available CDs