Walter Horton was born in Horn Lake, Mississippi, and was
playing a harmonica by the time he was five years old. In his early
teens, he lived in Memphis, Tennessee and claimed that his earliest
recordings were done there in the late 1920s with the Memphis Jug
Band,although there is no documentation of it, and some blues
researchers have stated that this story was most likely fabricated
by Horton. (He also claimed to have taught some harmonica to Little
Walter and the original Sonny Boy Williamson, although these claims
are unsubstantiated, and in the case of the older Williamson,
somewhat suspect).
As with many of his peers, he spent much of his career existing
on a meager income and living with constant discrimination in a
segregated United States of America. In the 1930s he played with
various blues performers across the Mississippi delta region. It is
generally accepted that his first recordings were made in Memphis
backing guitarist Little Buddy Doyle on Doyle's recordings for the
Okeh and Vocalion labels in 1939.These recordings were in the
acoustic duo format popularized by Sleepy John Estes with his
harmonicist Hammie Nixon, among others. On these recordings,
Horton's style is not yet fully realized, but there are clear hints
of what is to come. He eventually stopped playing the harp for a
living due to poor health, and worked mainly outside of the music
industry in the 1940s. By the early 1950s, he was playing music
again, and was among the first to record for Sam Phillips at Sun
Records in Memphis, who would later record Elvis Presley, Carl
Perkins, and Johnny Cash. The early Big Walter recordings from Sun
include performances from a young Phineas Newborn, Jr. on piano,
who later gained fame as a jazz pianist. His instrumental track
recorded around this time, "Easy", was based on Ivory Joe Hunter's
"I Almost Lost My Mind".
During the early 1950s he first appeared on the Chicago blues
scene, where he frequently played with fellow Memphis and Delta
musicians who had also moved north, including guitarists Eddie
Taylor and Johnny Shines.When Junior Wells left the Muddy Waters
band at the end of 1952, Horton replaced him for long enough to
play on one session with Waters in January 1953. Horton's style had
by then fully matured, and he was playing in the heavily amplified
style that became one of the trademarks of the Chicago blues sound.
He also made great use of techniques such as tongue-blocking. He
made an outstanding single as a leader for States in 1954. Horton's
solo on Jimmy Rogers' 1956 Chess recording "Walking By Myself" is
considered by many to be one of the high points of his career, and
of Chicago Blues of the 1950s.
Also known as "Mumbles", and "Shakey" because of his head motion
while playing the harmonica, Horton was active on the Chicago blues
scene during the 1960s as blues music gained popularity with white
audiences. From the early 1960s onward, he recorded and appeared
frequently as a sideman with Eddie Taylor, Johnny Shines, Johnny
Young, Sunnyland Slim, Willie Dixon and many others. He toured
extensively, usually as a backing musician, and in the 1970s he
performed at blues and folk music festivals in the U.S. and Europe,
frequently with Willie Dixon's Chicago Blues All-Stars. He has also
appeared as a guest on recordings by blues and rock stars such as
Fleetwood Mac and Johnny Winter.
In October 1968, while touring the United Kingdom, he recorded
the album Southern Comfort with the former Savoy Brown and future
Mighty Baby guitarist Martin Stone. In the late 1970s he toured the
U.S. with Homesick James Williamson, Guido Sinclair, Eddie Taylor,
Richard Molina, Bradley Pierce Smith and Paul Nebenzahl, and
appeared on National Public Radio broadcasts. Two of the best
compilation albums of his own work are Mouth-Harp Maestro and Fine
Cuts. Also notable is the Big Walter Horton and Carey Bell album,
released by Alligator Records in 1972.
He became a mainstay on the festival circuit, and often played
at the open-air market on Chicago's Maxwell Street. In 1977, he
joined Johnny Winter and Muddy Waters on Winter's album I'm Ready,
and during the same period recorded some material for Blind Pig
Records. Horton appeared in the Maxwell Street scene in the
1980 film The Blues Brothers, accompanying John Lee Hooker. His
final recordings were made in 1980.
Horton died from heart failure in Chicago in 1981 at the age of
64 and was buried in Restvale Cemetery in Alsip, Illinois.
He was posthumously inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in
1982.
The Cache: You will be looking for a small container that is
only big enough for the log. Please bring your own pen.