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Tag: Big Walter Horton

2013

Saturday, September 14th

old school

Charlie Musselwhite (1944-; vocals, harmonica) with Big Walter Horton (1918-1981; vocals, harmonica), live, Chicago, 1981

Charlie’s playing is wonderful: it both swings and sings. And he’s got great presence. But listen to Walter, whom I had the chance to work with in the ’70s when I was with Alligator Records. He’s not onstage long; this was only months before his death. But there are moments, when Walter’s playing, where time seems to stop (16:11, 18:03, 18:22, 19:57, etc.).

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lagniappe

reading table

You can fall a long way in sunlight.
You can fall a long way in the rain.

The ones who don’t take the old white horse
take the morning train.

—Robert Hass (1941-), “August Notebook: A Death” (excerpt)

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2012

Sunday, 9/16/12

Sister Rosetta Tharpe with the Chicago Blues All-Stars (Big Walter Horton [harmonica], Willie Dixon [bass], et al.), “That’s All,” “Didn’t It Rain,” live, 1960s, Germany

What a treat to hear Walter, with whom I worked back in the ’70s while at Alligator Records, playing with Sister Rosetta.

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2012

Wednesday, 7/4/12

 rock ’n’ roll

 country

 gospel

 blues

 jazz

A world without American music: what would it sound like?

The Blasters, “American Music,” Champaign, Ill., 1985

(Originally posted 7/5/10.)

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Merle Haggard, “Lonesome Fugitive,” Buck Owens Ranch Show, 1966

(Originally posted 4/6/12.)

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Slim and the Victory Aires, “Alright Now,” Paducah, Ky., 2008

(Originally posted 3/11/12)

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Johnny Shines (1915-1992), vocals, guitar; David “Honeyboy” Edwards (1915-2011), guitar; Big Walter Horton (1917-1981), harmonica; “For The Love of Mike,” 1978

(Originally posted 10/4/11.)

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Von Freeman, tenor saxophone; Clifford Jordan, tenor saxophone (first solo); Willie Pickens, piano; Dan Shapera, bass; Robert Shy, drums; “Oleo” (S. Rollins), Chicago (Chicago Jazz Festival), 1988

(Originally posted 5/3/12.)

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lagniappe

radio

All Pops, all day:

Tune in on July 4th, Independence Day . . . as we celebrate the professed (although according to historians, not actual) birthday of Jazz great and American Hero, the trumpeter and vocalist Louis Armstrong, by playing 24 hours straight of his music, from midnight to midnight.

—WKCR-FM (broadcasting from Columbia University)

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encore*

Dave Alvin with the Blasters, “4th of July,” Berwyn, Ill. (Fitzgerald’s), 2010

*By popular demand (see Comments).

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2011

Tuesday, 10/4/11

Has anyone played blues harp more sweetly?

Johnny Shines (1915-1992), vocals, guitar; David “Honeyboy” Edwards (1915-2011), guitar; Big Walter Horton (1917-1981), harmonica; “For The Love of Mike,” live, 1978

Vodpod videos no longer available.

More Big Walter? Here.

More Honeyboy? Here.

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lagniappe

A belated Happy Birthday to MCOTD Hall of Famer Von Freeman, who turned 88 yesterday. Want to send birthday wishes? You can email them to info@jazzinchicago.org (subject line: Birthday Wishes for Von Freeman). Or you can do it the old-fashioned way: Birthday Wishes for Von Freeman, c/o The Jazz Institute of Chicago, 410 S. Michigan Ave., Chicago, IL 60605.

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2010

Friday, 6/18/10

No one’s played blues harmonica more delicately, more lyrically.

“Shakey,” “Mumbles”—no one’s had weirder nicknames.

No one else in my years at Alligator Records (back in the 1970s), where I worked with a lot of musicians who drank more in a day than most folks do in a month, managed to do this: trip over the drum set, right in the middle of a performance (at Notre Dame), and fall over onstage.

Big Walter Horton, live, Copenhagen, 1970

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