Search - T-Bone Walker :: Best of the Black & White & Imperial Years

Blues and stuff... from a real master!

Nikica Gilic | Zagreb, Croatia | 02/14/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Now, if writing "Stormy Monday Blues" was the only thing Aaron T-Bone Walker had done, he would still be very significant figure (the first version I heard was by Allman bros. band, the second by B.B.King; I've stopped counting the versions I've heard so far...).

But, T-bone was also a highly influential performer, guitar player who (apparently) liked to work with some fine, often quite jazzy horns so, if you like B.B.King you really SHOULD check out T-Bone, who OBVIOUSLY influenced B.B. quite a lot.



Great guitar player and composer, T-Bone Walker was also an expressive singer and, although I don't know how representative this compilation is (spanning from 1940 to 1953), I can tell you it's a joyful and extraordinary listening experience.

"T-Bone Blues" finds him only as a singer (with Les Hite's orchestra);

other tracks give the full T-Bone experience, fronting different, although often overlapping smaller groups (5-7 musicians), for instance trumpeters Al Killian or Teddy Buckner or Eddie Hutcherson; tenor-sax players Jack McVea or Bumps Myers or Eddie Davis or Maxwell Davis; pianists Lloyd Glenn or Willard McDaniel or Zell Kindred...BTW; more than half tracks have Oscar Lee Bradley on drums.



There are faster and slower blues tracks here, with satisfactory sound quality (except on the title track). Since this is my first T-Bone CD (I only have his guest appearance on a glorious JATP London gig),

I feel free to say this is a good intro to his art.

Liner notes are a bit breezy, but at least the musicians and the dates are listed..."