Chicago Blues All Stars
Biographie Chicago Blues All Stars
Sunnyland Slim
Albert Luandrew (Sunnyland Slim) was born on a farm in Vance, Mississippi on September 5, 1907. He worked on the farm from earliest childhood and, in the evenings, taught himself piano and organ. Though his father was a preacher, he listened to the blues at every opportunity. The Mississippi musicians he heard were the first generation of bluesmen, players who were there when the blues were being formed at the turn of the century. By the time Albert was eleven, he was already playing parties and barrelhouses whenever he could slip away. He had his first steady gig at Hot Shot's Club in Vance when he was 15. For the next three years he drifted around the South, working joints and house parties. Around this time he picked up the name Sunnyland Slim because he always sang Sunnyland Train, an early blues favorite.
In 1925 he made Memphis his home base. For the next seventeen years, he toured the South and played Memphis clubs such as Pee Wee's and the Hole in the Wall. He often played with other blues greats of his and the preceding generation, including Sonny Boy Williamson, Memphis Slim, Blind Boy Fuller, Roosevelt Sykes, Little Brother Montgomery, Blind Blake and Ma Rainey's Arkansas Swift Foot Revue.
In 1942, as he put it, "Memphis got a little rough and they closed the joints...." —so he moved to Chicago. Soon he was in demand with the earliest urban blues bands, the pioneers of the electric blues such as Tampa Red, Jump Jackson, Little Walter and Muddy Waters. He first recorded with Jump Jackson in 1946, then started leading his own recording dates in 1947. In toto, he appeared on more than 40 records and wrote nearly 60 blues originals, many of which became standards.
Sunnyland toured Europe and the U.S.S.R., as well as blues festivals throughout the U.S. and Canada. He did major tours with both Otis Rush and Howlin' Wolf—and continued to make concert appearances until his death at 88, in 1995.
Over the years, Sunnyland became one of the pillars of Chicago blues, both because his "roots" style of piano playing influenced so many great bluesmen, including Walter Horton, Muddy Waters, B.B. King and Mose Allison—and because he helped so many young blues players get a start. In 1988 the National Endowment for the Arts recognized his major contribution to the art of the blues by awarding him the prestigious National Heritage Fellowship.
Big Walter Horton
Blues harmonica virtuoso Big Walter Horton was renowned for his innovative contributions to the music of Memphis and Chicago. Horton was born in Horn Lake on April 6, 1918, and began his career as a child working for tips on the streets of Memphis. He performed and recorded with Muddy Waters, Jimmy Rogers, Willie Dixon, Fleetwood Mac, Johnny Winter, and many others. His technique and tone continue to be studied and emulated by harmonica players around the world.
Walter Horton was heralded as one of the most brilliant and creative musicians ever to play the harmonica. Born on a plantation near this site, as a child he blew into tin cans to create sounds. His birth date is usually cited as April 6, 1918, although some sources give the year as 1917 or 1921. Nicknamed “Shakey” due to nystagmus, an affliction related to eye movement that can result in involuntary head shaking and learning disabilities, Horton quit school in the first grade. He made his way doing odd jobs and playing harmonica with local veterans such as Jack Kelly, Garfield Akers, and Little Buddy Doyle as well as young friends Johnny Shines, Floyd Jones, and Honeyboy Edwards. They performed in Church Park, Handy Park, hotel lobbies, and anywhere else they could earn tips, including nearby areas of Arkansas, Mississippi, Missouri, and Tennessee.
Horton began recording for legendary Memphis producer Sam Phillips in 1951. The first record on Phillips’s Sun label in 1952 was assigned to “Jackie Boy and Little Walter” (Jack Kelly and Horton). While Sun never officially released the Kelly-Horton disc, other Horton tracks from Phillips’s studio appeared on the Modern and RPM labels under the name of “Mumbles.” On later recordings, Walter was usually billed as “Shakey Horton” or “Big Walter.”
Horton joined the Muddy Waters band in Chicago in 1953. Chicago’s foremost blues producer/ songwriter, Willie Dixon, who called Horton “the greatest harmonica player in the world,” began recording him for labels including States, Cobra, and Argo, and hired him to play harmonica on sessions by Otis Rush, Koko Taylor, Jimmy Rogers, Sunnyland Slim, and others. Horton also toured and recorded with Willie Dixon’s Chicago Blues All Stars, and played on the Fleetwood Mac album Blues Jam in Chicago. Full albums of his work appeared on several labels, including Alligator, Chess, and Blind Pig. Horton toured internationally, but in Chicago most of his work was in small clubs. He also resumed playing the streets for tips at Chicago’s Maxwell Street market.
Horton’s playing–sometimes powerful and dramatic, other times delicate and sensitive–left an influence on harmonica masters Little Walter (Jacobs) and Sonny Boy Williamson No. 2 (Rice Miller) and on the generations to follow. His shy, gentle nature, often hidden beneath a gruff or glum exterior, endeared him to many. The uplifting beauty of Horton’s music contrasted with the sorrows and tragedies of his personal life. He died of heart failure on December 8, 1981. His death certificate also cited acute alcoholism. Horton was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1982.
