Little Walter, as I discussed in a thread last year, spoke French as his first language. He was from Francophone Louisiana: Marksville, LA, at the northern edge of that region.
That's about 50 miles (53, to be exact) from where Zydeco accordion master Clifton Chenier was born, in Opelousas.
I've heard many anecdotes through the years about how Walter was "Frenchy" and spoke that "Frenchy talk," but the continuum between his way of warbling and what Chenier does on accordion didn't hit me until the beginning of this particular track by Chenier.
I think that Walter had this sound in his head--this TYPE of sound, not this specific recording--when he pioneered his uniquely fluid way of warbling. If the first two choruses of the track below don't convince you that there's something worth pondering here, don't bother listening to the rest of the cut:
I'm sure that there were spot occasions on which country players and maybe even other Chicago players warbled before Walter came along, but I've always wondered what made Little Walter's warbling different. And it WAS different. He took warbling to places that it hadn't been. (I welcome push-back on that claim; I'm quite sure I'll get it, since the MBH forum is all-powerful and contains multitudes of knowledge.) I think it was zydeo: reaching for the zydeco accordion sound.
Chenier was five years older than Walter. His first recording was "Clifton's Blues," which came out in 1954, two years after "Juke."
Last Edited by kudzurunner on Mar 27, 2015 6:29 PM
Clifton plays piano accordion, not the diatonic push-pull button melodeon that's most often used in Acadian music. And while I heard Clifton live going way down in the swamp with just accordion, rub-board and alto sax, he was really more of blues/r&b accordionist than a Cajun traditionalist.
I've never heard a diatonic accordionist - which is likely the type of squeezebox Walter heard most directly growing up - play warbles. And according to Walter's bio, he discovered warbling while playing in Muddy's band, where it gave him something that allowed him to stay in the background while playing behind a vocal.
Could he have unconsciously remembered hearing it on a Clifton Chenier record? Sure. Or from a saxophone player. But you're right, he developed warbling into an art with many subtle and not-so-subtle shades that go far beyond any source that I know of. =========== Winslow
Little walter's French/Black/American roots surely informed his music. How could it be otherwise?
Thirty-five years ago, when I first read about Little Walter's French background, I thought about whether his music was flavored by that background, just as Jazz, originating in New Orleans, was flavored by its French connection. (Think Sidney Bechet, Midnight in Paris.) I concluded it was, and that it was something to be delved into more deeply. Thank you, Kudzurunner, for bringing this up again. It deserves further investigation.
About the connection between Walter's "uniquely fluid way of warbling" and Clifton's accordian, I'm not sure if that connection is there, though it seems plausible. They were both using a rapid switch between two notes as a musical tool, and were both from the same area and generation.
About Walter's "uniquely fluid way of warbling", have a listen to these songs:
Back Track
Back Track shows a virtuosic use of the 4/5 draw warble, especially in the 8th verse, where the warble is continuous but rhythmically varied in its emphasis.
Mean Old World
Mean Old World shows a beautiful continuous use of the 3/4 draw warble, so much so that I'd call this the "warble song". The 3rd verse is practically all warble, and shows Walter bending both warble notes down a half step, then back up. How many can do this?
Cheers,
wolf kristiansen
Last Edited by wolfkristiansen on Mar 28, 2015 3:42 AM
That's interesting, never really made that connection before and I have a lot of Chenier on vinyl. I just always thought the usual that Walter was influenced by other harp players and then Jazz, big band swing, horns and organs, but who knows because a lot these cat's never had the opportunity of decent schooling and were not very articulate in their speech but they obviously were above average in their intelligent approach and genius in their musical endeavours and ability, you can hear/read that in the Louis Myers/Little Walter interview and Walter highlights that the harmonica IS an instrument not a toy and his surety in knowing why he wanted to have his own amp and sound and how that was important to him! In fact that interview is a revelation that puts to bed many facts about Walter. Well spotted Adam would expect no less from you! ;-)
Last Edited by marine1896 on Mar 28, 2015 5:23 AM
It's an interesting idea, but I'm not hearing any clear Zydeco influence in any of Little Walter's playing on the recordings he left behind. I guess you'd have to show specific examples of where that influence is evident.
The trill (warble), I'm pretty sure he wasn't the first one to do that, was he?
Last Edited by Dr.Hoy on Mar 28, 2015 10:08 PM
Zydeco as it's played now is very different from traditional Cajun music, both black and white, as it would have been played in the 1930s (and still is played). It didn't exist in its current form when LW was growing up in Marksville.
Here's a collection of old 78s of Acadian music similar to what Walter would have heard while growing up:
Also, a warble is not a trill. A trill is dissonant, like alternating between Draw 6 and Draw 7, which are only one step apart in the scale. The dissonance creates tension and requires resolution. A warble, on the other hand, is not dissonant and you can just stay on it, either luxuriating in its sound or waiting to pounce. =========== Winslow
Interesting discussion and links, thanks Adam, Winslow and Wolf. The accordion influence could be subliminal but nonetheless significant.
Aside from specific licks or features like the warble, I'd say Little Walter's highly developed sense of melody could be partly attributed to growing up in an area where the 12 bar blues often has a more melodic 'happy' sound than other regional guitar-based styles. Because the accordion can't bend notes the Zydeco/Cajun players have to be more inventive with the straight notes they have, and I'm sure that melodic creativity in the blues he heard as a youngster would have helped shape Walter's fresh new sound on the harp. That plus Louis Jordan, another influence with a melodic 'hooky' take on the blues.
Winslow, I really appreciate your scholarly insights in this thread and the earlier thread. Excellent and needed push back. But your point about the difference between a warble and a trill doesn't help your case.
Any harmonica player with good ears--including you, certainly--can hear what Clifton Chenier is doing in the first few seconds of "Bayou Drive": he's rapidly alternating between the fifth and the flat seventh. He's doing the exact accordion equivalent of what we harp players do when we do the 45 draw warble. That's why I started this thread. That and the fact that his other warbly stuff also brings Little Walter to mind, plus the fact that he was slightly older than Walter, grew up 50 miles from Walter, and was an emergent master of his particular style of Francophone Louisiana blues at precisely the same moment that Francophone Walter was coming into HIS big new name.
Now, your arguments questioning my second claim--that there isn't merely a close audible resemblance between Chenier and Walter's "warbling" sound but some sort of relation-of-influence--are good and important, and deserve further research and reflection. But I trust that you're not trying to dispute the grounds on which I staked the claim, which is the audible resemblance. Trying to distinguish between a warble and a trill certainly doesn't undercut the specific argument I"m making.
I'll urge everybody to read the earlier thread, which I've posted above. It offers several relevant specific quotes from Honeyboy Edwards about Walter's debt to accordion music and Francophone culture.
I also need revise a claim that I made in my first post, since it's introduced confusion into this thread. We need to distinguish between cajun/creole accordion from the 1930s (the Amede Ardoin style); zydeco accordion; and the style of blues accordion played by Clifton Chenier in some of his early recordings. They are three different things. They overlap, but they're not entirely continuous with one another, and that has created confusion here.
Zydeco is indeed a blues-based style, but it's also a groove; Chenier was indeed a pioneer of zydeco accordion, but he also played straight-up blues on accordion that WEREN'T zydeco, really. His very first hit, "Clifton's Blues," posted above, is that kind of song. No frottoir! It's straight up blues, but with a Creole accordion twist.
I see Chenier and Walter as parallel modernizers. They'd both grown up in a place filled with Ardoin's kind of "old" sound, but they were also excited by the new blues (and R&B) flooding in after the war. They were both trying for a fusion sound. The difference is that Walter went up to Chicago. (It's probably also important to note that Chenier was a very good harmonica player--he doesn't some amazing first position Jimmy Reed style stuff.) The accordion style that surrounded both men when they were kids wasn't (as Winslow notes) the bluesy style that Chenier ended up pioneering on accordion; he, like Walter, was hearing in his head something that took that style to a new place.
Last Edited by kudzurunner on Mar 29, 2015 9:32 AM
I will concede that you might be on the trail to one of LW's influences, but I would put my money on that sound/technique, or a close variation, pre-dating both Little Walter and Clifton Chenier.
The research is definitely a valuable pursuit, I am just not comfortable with drawing any concrete conclusions. To say it started "HERE" might be short changing a few folks who happened to have been born prior to recorded music.
Thievin, I could have entitled this thread "Here is one place where Little Walter perhaps got one distinctive element of his sound," but I wanted to get attention and provoke discussion. If you read what I actually wrote in my first post, I'm not nearly as doctrinaire as you suggest. I said that I think LW had a particular kind of sound in his head (and I've qualified in my last post what kind of a fusion sound that was), and I suggest that there's "something worth pondering here." I stand by what I wrote. I don't think what I've written short-changes anybody.
Adam - I mention the distinction between a warble and a trill in response to Dr.Hoy and not to you. Likewise I commented on his apparently ill-informed reference to zydeco. He used the term trill to refer to a warble and I merely corrected him. Nothing to do with your central argument at all.
Both Walter and Clifton are playing warbles and not trills in the examples under discussion.
By the way, has anyone actually listened to the Cajun 78s at the site I gave? This is a rich source of recordings in the style that might have formed the backdrop to Walter's local listening and would therefore be indicative of the Acadian influence that we're talking about.
Listening to this music and comparing it to Chenier will give you an idea of distinctions Adam is talking about when he contrasts trad Cajun (Amedee Ardoin as he mentions), blues accordion, and zydeco. =========== Winslow
Winslow , thanks for posting the Cajun 78's link !
Having allot of fun going through the music there .. if there is an influential force on LW's style .. I intend to find it , might take a while though .. there is allot of material to go through :)
I have, for some reason always know that Little Walter was French speaking and from the Louisiana area. I've read Honeyboy Edward's autobiography so that's probably where I got it from.
I agree with Adam's original post and have always heard similarities in Walters and Clifton Chenier's approaches, but never know quite why.
Although maybe the note selections are different, and I'm sure Walter evolved after he went to Chicago, I personally still feel somethings in there in the intonation. A kind of laid back, slightly slurred thing (This is something I hear in Creole speech patterns too).
Here's LW's Quater to Twelve – for me, there's a huge amount in common with the sound of Clifton Chenier's Bayou Drive from Adams original post. Not just the warbles but something to do with the tone, phrasing and intonation – along with the heavy reverb.
