BW's only session with Muddy for Chess was Jan '53 - "Flood/Sad Sad Day/She's All Right/My Life is ruined". Players at sessions received union fees for doing so & there are records of such, Chess was paying the studio (Universal in late 40's/early 50's) a lot of money for their sessions ($250/6 hours), I don't know if they would have been keen on additional bodies, possibly interfering/slowing the process down. Leonard seemed to want control of all aspects, hence eventually building his own studios.
Of course, what happened outside of the studio is another matter.
I would Take this interview with a grain of salt. i dont think that this interview establishes that big walter horton was the father of the electrified blues sound. it established that big walter had contributed to little walters playing in that they hung out together and little walter learned some things from him , i think the playing of john lee williamson (sonny boy 1) was a greater influence . Little walter played that style almost note for note on his early recordings. there isnt too much of big walters style you can hear in little walters playing but you can definitely see alot of big band influence ie brass sections. snooky pyior claims that he is the first to amplify the harmonica and created juke." Snookies boogie" .That opening lick snooky probabaly got from big bands. hammy nixon sounds like he is playing pretty close to a mic on sleepy john estes "need more" 1938 although i dont think he is cupping it but he gets an almost amplified sound on that song.
Dixons songs included "Little Red Rooster", "Hoochie Coochie Man", "Evil", "Spoonful", "Back Door Man", "I Just Want to Make Love to You", "I Ain't Superstitious", "My Babe", "Wang Dang Doodle", and "Bring It On Home". They were written during the peak of Chess Records,
Dixon signed with Chess Records as a recording artist, but began performing less and became more involved with the record label. By 1951, he was a full time employee at Chess where he acted as producer, talent scout, session musician and staff songwriter. He was also a producer for Chess subsidiary Checker Records.
I had the pleasure of shaking hands with willie dixon at a concert he did on vanderbilt campus in nashville in about 1980 I am glad he gave credit to shakey horton as he took a back seat to no one when it came to legedary blues harp
Blown Out Reed - I think what is difficult to determine is what exactly is Dixon's "word" & what is just what the interviewer is wanting/leading him to say. As far as the influence of the 2 Walter's on each other...yes, Dixon was there and probably had some interesting insights. However the interviewer's assertion that Muddy "chose BW too", as far as recordings goes doesn't pan out. Dixon recorded with Muddy numerous times, Dixon recorded with Horton numerous times. Muddy & Horton only recorded together twice, once in Jan '53 (the only time for Chess) and again with Johnny Winter on "I'm Ready", long after Chess & LW had passed.
Both Walters were prodigious talents, but as far as Muddy & Chess specifically are concerned, Jacobs largely eclipsed Horton...for whatever reason.
Blown Out Reed - you're absolutely right that Willie Dixon was as 'there' as anyone could have been.
5F6H makes an interesting point about the 'leading' nature of the interview, but this appears to be an established opinion from Dixon (as Groyster1 suggests).
Testimony presents a problem for blues historians because memory is such a fickle thing, and perspective can be misleading. I recently finished the Howlin Wolf biography, Moanin' At Midnight, and one of the stand-out details of that book is how much testimony differs between interviewees. For example, some remember Wolf being a lousy guitarist, others remember him being a genius. Conversations and confrontations play out completely differently depending on who's telling the story.
Therefore, Willie's word is valuable, but is it golden? What other evidence do we have about this topic? 5F6H offers compelling evidence of payment records, for example, and good motivation for Chess to limit the number of session hires.
Willie Dixon doesn't seem to have a reputation for being a guy that told tall tales.
Big Walter had a reputation for being somewhat less than reliable. There was a story that circulated that when Big Walter was hired by Muddy, he no showed one of Muddy's gigs. He was playing his own gig. Bob Margolin wrote that Muddy wasn't too keen on working with Big Walter during the I'm Ready sessions. He didn't find him reliable.
With all of that being said, Willie Dixon hired Big Walter on numerous occasions as a recording artist during the 50's. He was also on at least one of the American Folk Blues Festivals in the 60's. Dixon produced Big Walter's recordings on Chess in the early 60's. Big Walter was also a member of Willie Dixon's Chicago Blues All Stars for a number of years. Based on all of this, one could say Willie Dixon was a fan on Big Walter's.
I wouldn't be surprised if Big Walter had been an influence on Little Walter. Big Walter influenced a lot of Blues harp players in and around Chicago. He was highly respected. I was at B.L.U.E.S. on Halsted on the first anniversary of his death. The place was packed with players that were active in the 1940's to present day. Many of them were harp players. Big Walter left an indelible mark on Blues players in Chicago.
the problem here is that the interviewer has a theory and puts word in dixons mouth to support it , he is leading the witness at the end of the interview the interviewer states that "as established in the interview, big walter played on many of little walters recordings and in fact sometimes he is actually playing and little walter is credited for it." he bases that on this "did he record all of his own harp work or was big walter or others called in to doctor up his work- thats when he had the jigs.dixon says sometimes he would and some times he wouldnt Interviewer "well clear up to that time yeah. he was doing it even then ( somebody help me what are they talking about) no where in the interview does willie dixon say that big walter played on little walters recordings to doctor them up if anything dixon says that little walter was doing it alone but when he wasnt there he was practicing with big walter. well its not unusual for harp players to hang out together and trade licks and since Big walter was probably the best harp player in chicago when walter was learning why not?there were not that many harp players in chicago at that time who could really play that amped mic style it seems natural that little walter would hang out with big walter . its ridiculous to think that big walter played any of the parts for little walter if you listen to any out takes you can clearly hear walter was doing it all by himself and was never playing the same thing twice. oh yeah! its very possible that sessions was misdocumented when big walter played that also happened when henry stong "potts" played on muddys stuff and theres also questions as to what junior was playing on but i doubt anyone was playing for for little walter. big walter might have been at some session giving some advice . But you can hear the difference between big walter and little walter. big walter is a very predictable player - little walter always throws a curve in there that you least expect it.Little walter had gone light years past big walter in technique and improvising skills but big walter still had a great tone. i can see early on little walter getting alot of tricks from big walter maybe when he first came to chicago playing on maxwell street -the "Oranelle" period but. the interviewer is leading the witness -how about this for a mouthful. this is his theory and he sounds like hes reading it- ex "now listen here you believe as i do that rock music is simply and purely when electricity meets the blues. although i know that there were other electrified instruments such as guitars. it was the harp ,electrified ,which first gave us truly innovative, original and unique sounds which have and are being emulated on all forms of electrical instruments comprising the musical sound called rock " do you agree with me . then he goes further to say that all the artists he mentioned and instrument of today come from the harp! Wow to start with, after the golden age of the blues came rock and roll, elvis, little richard, chuck berry etc this was very blues connected but not so much harp connected. after this came top 40 . now at the same there was a folk music revival which also led to an interest in blues and the english bands and a blues revival mostly spurred on by white bands playing black blues artists music. now when this happened they didnt quite get it right ( misreading of the blues licks led to blues rock at the same time there were interests in indian music and all sorts of sounds aigmented by mind altering drugs which led to what you could call psychydelic and classic rock- the harp played a part in this only to the extent that it was part of the blues revival and it coexisted with rocks development and was prevalent in many groups. from the rolling stones to beatles . as an influence on rock sound it is really clear of the connection between the harp and a wah wah pedal also synthesiser but so was a sitar its really an over statement to suppose that big walter fathered rock music and influenced all the artists that he mentions many of which i dont think ever even heard of big walter or his music. thats why i say take this interview with a grain of salt. in dixons own words nobody involved in any kind of musical arrangement want to be dealing with somebody hard to handle, that first stuff little walter was playing shaky horton was with him most of the time . i dont think hes refering to the muddy stuff i think hes talking about little walters first recordings and his maxwell street period when he came to chicago from the south.
Personally, I found that interview almost worthless from the standpoint that the guy wouldn't let Willie Dixon speak.
Don't forget that until the late 80's when MCA bought the Chess archives, there had been a lot of reissue packages where Big Walter Horton and Junior Wells had been credited with harp playing that was done by Little Walter. The people associated with the MCA reissue program had access to Chess bookkeeping records which weren't at the disposal of the people that previously reissued that material.
you are absolutly right if he would have asked what were the muddy sessions like and who was there i think you'd get a totally different slant on this and above all, none of the interviewers ever ask where did bill putnam place the mics in the blues sessions at universal. interviewers should let the person being interviewed talk maybe they'd learn something other than finding support of there preconceived notions. there was one interview of bill putnam that i read and the interviewer asks putnam where he placed the mics in the studio and what was the session like and before putnam has a chance to say anything the interviewer asks did anybody ever tell him where to put the mics ?. putnams awswer was about guy lombardo telling him to place a mic 22inces from this and another one 30 inches from that etc. but we never find out what putnam was doing because of that jackass interviewer. that was the best chance anybody ever had in finding the secret of bill putnams recording technique for the early chess stuff
my theories re most of this are pretty much conjecture , i wasnt there, but the music speaks for itself. Little walter doens't sound like big walter. little walter does sound like sonnyboy 1 on little walters early stuff. he never sounds like Big walter. you know honeyboy edwards recorded some stuff for library of congress and honeyboy says hes blowing the harp in a neck rack. the stuff hes playings sounds alot like the ensemble work muddy and walter were doing in the fifties and i know honeyboy recorded that stuff before that. coudld be a real sleeper influence.or maybe a bunch of peolple were playing like that that never got recorded (pure conjecture) Maybe i should interview honeyboy like this " muddy waters and little Walter stole that style fromi you I know that you started that style isnt that true?
IMHO It's apparent from BW's style that he would have had trouble (ie got bored) consistently playing the same tunes the same way over and over, as was required by Muddy's commercial needs. And a bandleader like Muddy would want his musicians to fall in with him, not have their own strong ideas. While LW was a liability as a person, as a player he could be relied upon (more than BW, IMO) to play ensemble, and to the crowd. Maybe that's how Big Walter got named 'Shakey'. As for Craig Steward...
when cotton joined muddy waters band muddy wanted cotton to play the stuff like little walter did on the records but the ideas and accompaniment that little walter provided on the records were Little Walters ideas not muddy waters . The arrangements were a joint effort between muddy,otis spann, little walter and jimmy rogers
big walter got the nickname "shaky" which was actually short for "shaky head walter" that's what alot of people called him in chicago . that was because sometimes after he played a hot lick he would shake his head. you can see this in some of the videos
The reason some called BW Shakey (but NEVER to his face) was because of his vocals, which sometimes could be way off key if he was really trashed enough.
When I was on the road with Jimmy Rogers, he used to tell me all the time that BW had shown LW stuff, but LW wouldn't admit it (there are plenty of guys like that) and some of the early stuff with the double stops and chording are clearly from BW's influence.
Having known BW personally, there were plenty of times he was constantly telling tons of BS stories.
I know for a fact, coming from both Jimmy Rogers as well as Muddy personally whenever I had spoken to them that the harp heard on the session that produced "Standing Around Crying," was definitely JW, and neither of them flinched, and they were both on that session and for me, the dead giveaway is the slow vibrato JW had and neither of the two Walters had one that slow at all, and Billy Boy Arnold and Cotton had both said that JW & LW sounded fairly close to each other in the early 50's, both saying that in Chicago back then, if you didn't sound like either of them, you weren't considered a harp player.
Willie Dixon in many interviews often said the best player was BW, but the challenge was getting it out of him, part of it being a bad drinking problem.
As far as playing as close as possible the same way each time in a recording, when I did a recording session for the MCA label in 1991 that was for the movie "Fried Green Tomatoes," that is what they told me that they wanted, tho I did just enough to make each take a tad different, and we recorded 2 tunes, with 5 takes of each and they tweaked EVERY track on EVERY take and tho the session was one dahy, it lasted from 12 noon to 3:00 the following morning and so I know all about that and the first order of business were the rhythm tracks with a reference vocal for EVERY take, which is the way major labels tend to record nearly every white music band because that's usually the weakest part of a white music band. ---------- Sincerely, Barbeque Bob Maglinte Boston, MA http://www.barbequebob.com CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
One correction concerning the Fried Green Tomatoes session. They were going to record the way most major labels record white music bands with the rhythm tracks done with a reference vocal first but producer Arthur Baker decided to record "live," meaning vocals and instruments recorded all at once, wheras the other way would be non stop overdubbing ---------- Sincerely, Barbeque Bob Maglinte Boston, MA http://www.barbequebob.com CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte.
But on "Last Night" Walter Horton plays beautifully. In fact, Fleetwood Mac in Chicago is a favoritem of mine. Probably because I also love the way Peter Greene sings and plays "watch out" and also "ooh baby".
I have awritten interview with Willie Dixon-he states Big Walter taught Rice Miller,Little Walter,Carey Bell and James Cottton-but could play rings around all of them in his prime. Certain techniques can be heard in each of these players derived directly from Big Walter. He states he first played amplified harp in 1940-and back in the 30's he was touring with Big Joe Williams,Floyd Jones and David Honeyboy Edwards.
madcat ruths interview talked about 3 harp lessons with walter horton he said do this after he demonstrated and he was not a good teacher atall
Last Edited by on Oct 01, 2011 6:26 AM
I've been rereading the Dirks/Glover Little Walter bio these past couple of days. Two things come through very loudly: 1) Little Walter was THE harp guy in Chicago; six or seven local harp players would show up at some gigs to basically sit at his feet; 2) Muddy was so gaga for LW's playing that he insisted that Cotton, Jr. Wells, Oscher, pretty much everybody who followed him in the harp chair, play JUST LIKE Little Walter. Muddy, who is known for urging his sidemen to make it on their own when the moment is right, pointedly suppressed the individuality of a series of great harp players because he was in thrall to LW.
That's how good LW was. That's what Muddy thought about him. Muddy didn't feel the same way about Big Walter.
LW and Big Walter hung out together and plainly enjoyed each other's company.
Honeyboy Edwards played with both. He preferred Little Walter and plainly states this in his autobio. He says, in fact, that LW was the deepest blues partnership of his life, and that "after that boy died," he missed him bad and would never have a partner like that. He enjoyed working Maxwell Street and Beale Street with Big Walter. But he thought LW was THE guy. He went back home to Alexandria with LW and played for LW's hometown crowd.
One more thing comes through: according to everybody who knew him, LW was constantly listening to and stealing stuff from the jazz guys of his time--notably, Ahmad Jamal, whose name recurs four or five times in the bio.
There's a wonderful sequence where LW brings somebody else along to the SBW II gig and say "Let's cut him!" But the old man pours down some booze the moment they walk in the door and cuts THEM. And LW is chuckling. "The old man can play!"
I think that Big Walter's importance has been slightly overstated because he lived longer and played into the era where he was able to influence a number of white players in a way that LW didn't. LW showed a lot of stuff to Butterfield--the Dirks/Glover book talks about their friendship--and some stuff to Joe Lee Bush, but that's about it as far as white harp players. Big Walter, by contrast, had a huge impact in both Chicago and New York in the late 70s and (I think) early 80s.
Last Edited by on Sep 30, 2011 9:07 PM
Wow Ahmad Jamal, really? I would have never thought that? He's one of my favorite pianists/composers!
I can't wait til I am finished reading the books I am on right now and can dig into the Little Walter Bio (when is the Big Walter bio coming out?)!
I can agree that Big Walter's importance has been slightly overstated because he lived longer and played into the era where he was able to influence a number of white players in a way that LW didn't, but I've also known black players from that era that were heavily influenced and awed by Big Walter as well.
I do believe that LW was more of an inventive and technical player, but I've always been a huge BW fan... maybe 'cuz he was the under dog or maybe 'cuz his playing was more/is more accessible to me as a fledgling harp player, or maybe 'cuz he had killer tone?
Also, as far as blues history goes, it seems almost nothing can be held as being gospel. I've known many a bluesman that had a hankering for stretching the truth just a little. In fact, I've heard Honeyboy tell the same story a couple different ways... And supposedly BW said he never tongue blocked?!? ----------
You can NEVER EVER overstate Walter Horton's importance and impact on blues harmonica-for what it's worth,he also gave lessons to Ray Norcia,Charlie Musslewhite,Kim Wilson and Jerry Portnoy. His instrumentals included "Easy"-taken form Ivory Joe Hunters "I Almost Lost My Mind"-"Walters Boogie", which was his harmonica treatment of Tommy Dorseys' "Boogie Woogie",which stemmed from Pinetop Smith's 1928 "Pinetops Boogie Woogie",and "In The Mood",which was a big band hit. Wells ,Cotton,Little Walter and Kim Wilson's instruemenatals are all structured around some dervitive of one or all of those hits. There is no doubt,Big Walter was a major influence on all those players-
Last Edited by on Oct 01, 2011 6:32 AM
As a person who spent a lot of time in blues bars in and around Chicago. I heard a lot of people talking about Big Walter. All of the musicians and fans spoke of him with a great deal of reverence. Harp players wanted to sound like him. Non-harp players respected him.
There was an annual event to commemorate his death in Chicago. There were a lot of harp players and musicians that came to the event. Damn near all of the musicians were African American. The only Caucasian musicians that I remember playing were Steve Freund and possibly Dave Waldman. If I remember correctly, that event ran for about eight hours with a multitude of different players gracing the stage.
I don't have any first-hand experience or knowledge to draw on here, but I know what I hear, and what I feel.
Big Walter was undoubtedly great, one of the greatest.
Little Walter was a truly special artist, one the likes of which we are only gifted every so often, if we're lucky. His playing is inventive, powerful, lots of things that I really can't be bothered listing right now as I'm prettyhungover. His voice through that harmonica was something special, even before we start talking about technicalities. Or even musicality.
It's the soul. God spoke through him. And it touched all of us.
I'm sure this doesn't clarify anything for anybody, but its what I feel. S'all about the magic.
