Every Friday around 11 a.m. Central, it’s time for Classic Americana on Radio Heartland. We pull a special track from the archives or from deep in the shelves to spotlight a particular artist or song.

This week’s Classic Americana pick spotlights a massively influential blues guitarist: T-Bone Walker.

Born in Texas on May 28, 1910, his full name was Aaron Thibeaux Walker — and you can hear from that middle name how young Aaron quickly got the nickname T-Bone. Growing up in Dallas, Walker was first inspired to learn guitar by his mother, who was a guitar player. Family friends included none other than Blind Lemon Jefferson and Huddie Ledbetter (aka Lead Belly), who also influenced the young Walker, and through their teaching and influence, helped kick-start T-Bone Walker’s career.

As a teen, T-Bone Walker was already touring the South, and by the 1930s, he was sharing stages with the likes of Cab Calloway and Ma Rainey.

In 1935, Walker relocated to Los Angeles, and he became one of the first artists to experiment with electric guitar, combining elements of the country blues with the emerging genre of swing music. You can hear those influences coming together on our Classic Americana track, T-Bone Walker’s “I’m Gonna Find My Baby.”

Walker’s style would influence many artists to follow, including such luminaries as Buddy Guy, Albert Collins, Jimmy Page, and Jimi Hendrix. Also among the artists T-Bone Walker influenced was the legendary B.B. King, who said it was T-Bone Walker who “really started me to want to play the blues. ... He was the first electric guitar player I heard on record. He made me so that I knew I just had to go out and get an electric guitar.”

T-Bone Walker died at home in Los Angeles in 1975 at age 64 due to a stroke. He was posthumously inducted into the Blues Foundation Hall of Fame in 1980 and into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987.

External Links

T-Bone Walker – Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

T-Bone Walker – Texas State Historical Association