Customer Reviews

Confessin the Blues

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Only one man truly revolutionized blues harmonica and that was Little Walter.

He played "of the moment" and in such a unique, haunting, powerful way that his legacy lives on in every blues musician and especially every harmonica player desperately trying to figure out, emulate, analyze, copy his devastating harp licks!

This CD offers some beautiful songs, amazing instrumentals, with his vocal quality so understated yet honest.

From the deep reverb of "high temperature" to the rockin', driving rhythm of "my babe", this selection of cuts reveals Little Walters' breadth and command of the diatonic harp as well as the chromatic sticks. Little Walter was an innovator with the electronics-mic-amp-hallway combinations, great studio effects and as the lickin'-stick "maestro" produced the most full-bodied and extraordinary harp sounds and blues music of anyone--then or now. Contemporary harp players are still playing catch-up to this man. This CD is a must-have for fans of the "southside Chicago" 50's sound.

I think Little Walter stands right beside Sonny Boy Williamson in Talent.
I was a long time resident of the French Quarter of New Orleans. you know back in the days when the music was live, anything canned in those days was vegetables not music lol.
Those were the days when you walked to a new club and heard the like of Little Walter and then Sonny Boy and more variety of the best Blues and Jazz than can be imagined.
Little Walter is purely among the best ever.......
If you like the Blues Harp.. Get him...

This is a wonderful disc that gives the listener a sampling of the talents of Little Walter. Although he was a good singer, he is best remembered for his incredible harmonica playing. In fact, he revolutionized the way in which the harmonica is played. His playing has such force and command and he is so versatile with his instrument that he reminds one of a great saxophone player, like Coleman Hawkins, and not a rudimentary Blues harmonica man. This disc is missing "Juke", Walter's biggest hit, and "Key To The Highway", as well as "Mean Old World", but it's still a fantastic album with nice packaging.

Who's the king of all postwar blues harpists, Chicago division or otherwise? Why, the virtuosic Little Walter, without a solitary doubt. The fiery harmonica wizard took the humble mouth organ in dazzling amplified directions that were unimaginable prior to his ascendancy. His daring instrumental innovations were so fresh, startling, and ahead of their time that they sometimes sported a jazz sensibility, soaring and swooping in front of snarling guitars and swinging rhythms perfectly suited to Walter's pioneering flights of fancy.

Marion Walter Jacobs was by most accounts an unruly but vastly talented youth who abandoned his rural Louisiana home for the bright lights of New Orleans at age 12. Walter gradually journeyed north from there, pausing in Helena (where he hung out with the wizened Sonny Boy Williamson), Memphis, and St. Louis before arriving in Chicago in 1946.

The thriving Maxwell Street strip offered a spot for the still-teenaged phenom to hawk his wares. He fell in with local royalty -- Tampa Red and Big Bill Broonzy -- and debuted on wax that same year for the tiny Ora-Nelle logo ("I Just Keep Loving Her") in the company of Jimmy Rogers and guitarist Othum Brown. Walter joined forces with Muddy Waters in 1948; the resulting stylistic tremors of that coupling are still being felt today. Along with Rogers and Baby Face Leroy Foster, this super-confident young aggregation became informally known as the Headhunters. They would saunter into South side clubs, mount the stage, and proceed to calmly "cut the heads" of whomever was booked there that evening.

By 1950, Walter was firmly entrenched as Waters's studio harpist at Chess as well (long after Walter had split the Muddy Waters band, Leonard Chess insisted on his participation on waxings -- why split up an unbeatable combination?). That's how Walter came to record his breakthrough 1952 R&B chart-topper "Juke" -- the romping instrumental was laid down at the tail end of a Waters session. Suddenly Walter was a star on his own, combining his stunning talents with those of the Aces (guitarists Louis and David Myers and drummer Fred Below) and advancing the conception of blues harmonica another few light years with every session he made for Checker Records.

From 1952 to 1958, Walter notched 14 Top Ten R&B hits, including "Sad Hours," "Mean Old World," "Tell Me Mama," "Off the Wall," "Blues with a Feeling," "You're So Fine," a threatening "You Better Watch Yourself," the mournful "Last Night," and a rocking "My Babe" that was Willie Dixon's secularized treatment of the traditional gospel lament "This Train." Throughout his Checker tenure, Walter alternated spine-chilling instrumentals with gritty vocals (he's always been underrated in that department; he wasn't Muddy Waters or the Wolf, but who was?).

Walter utilized the chromatic harp in ways never before envisioned (check out his 1956 free-form instrumental "Teenage Beat," with Robert Jr. Lockwood and Luther Tucker manning the guitars, for proof positive). 1959's determined "Everything Gonna Be Alright" was Walter's last trip to the hit lists; Chicago blues had faded to a commercial non-entity by then unless your name was Jimmy Reed.

Tragically, the '60s saw the harp genius slide steadily into an alcohol-hastened state of unreliability, his once-handsome face becoming a roadmap of scars. In 1964, he toured Great Britain with the Rolling Stones, who clearly had their priorities in order, but his once-prodigious skills were faltering badly. That sad fact was never more obvious than on 1967's disastrous summit meeting of Waters, Bo Diddley, and Walter for Chess as the Super Blues Band; there was nothing super whatsoever about Walter's lame remakes of "My Babe" and "You Don't Love Me."

Walter's eternally vicious temper led to his violent undoing in 1968. He was involved in a street fight (apparently on the losing end, judging from the outcome) and died from the incident's after-effects at age 37. His influence remains inescapable to this day -- it's unlikely that a blues harpist exists on the face of this earth who doesn't worship Little Walter.

1. It Ain't Right
2. Rocker
3. I Got To Find My Baby
4. Lights Out
5. One More Chance With You
6. Crazy Legs
7. Temperature
8. I Got To Go
9. Crazy Mixed Up World
10.Quarter To Twelve
11.Confessin' The Blues
12.The Toddle
13.Up The Line
14.Rock Bottom
15.Mean Old Frisco
16.Too Late
17.Fast Large One
18.Boom Boom Out Goes the Light
19.Just A Feelin'
20.I Don't Play
21.Just Your Fool

Little Walter died on the third Tuesday in the month of February, 1968. It was a leap year. I heard it on the radio in my eleven year old Ford station wagon. A little shy of two months later Martin Luther King would be gunned down. Two months following that, another lone gunman would kill Bobby. Though RFK and MLK's deaths would affect me greatly and along with the war in Vietnam would overshadow everything else that happened in 1968, the passing of Little Walter, apparently from wounds suffered in a barroom brawl, pierced me to the soul. I didn't know why then and I still don't. Maybe because his music was so damned fine. Maybe because of the injustice of it all. Maybe because I was young and dumb and was just beginning to understand and worry about this thing called death. I don't know, but I missed him and it hurt to know he wouldn't be making any more music.

But back in 1963 I reveled in Little Walter and this record. It opens with "It Ain't All Right", a freight train of a song that rolls right over you. Then it seques right into "Rocker" with that blazing, bluesy harmonica cutting you to the quick. It's an instrumental like no other. I've played this song soft and I've played it loud and I've even played it medium and it's a train waiting to wreck that never does no matter what volume you play it at.

Every song on this record is superb. "Boom Boom Out Goes the Light" showcases LW's harmonica and a bit of bluesy humor. "Crazy Legs" is fast and furious and will make you want to jump up and move, really move. "Confessin' the Blues" is what the blues are all about and "Crazy Mixed-Up World" seemed to be a song about me. I couldn't get it out of my head, still can't. This record is like a freight train of souls all packed in tight, all seeking release though the magic voice and harmonica that is Little Walter.

Essential for anyone trying to play blues on any instrument or anyone interested in wonderful idiosyncratic music with strength.

Little Walter is a bad man. He is an essential buy for anyone that cares about good music, let alone harp playing or the blues. This music transcends more than the blues though. It's some rocking stuff, man. I truly can't imagine anyone hearing these authentic Little Walter records and not digging them. Unless you care more about Korn and Limp Bizkit. If that's the case, let ol' Walter bring you back to the real deal.

Little Walter is one of the originators of modern blues harp style. The most influential harpist ever, and the most creative man. This man bends the note like a hell just like the guitar. This man promoted harmonica to the leading instrument in blues. Essential recording.