Talk:Little Walter
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[edit] Uhh, how do I find a page...
Uhh, how do I find a page (if it exists...) on the Walter Jacobs who formed the first car rental agency in the U.S., in 1918, with 12 Model Ts? Trekphiler 23:07, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Sonny Boy Williamson
When either John Lee Williamson or Aleck Miller is mentioned, please specify which one. Sonny Boy Williamson leads to a redirect page for both of them.
[edit] Hidden text
There is a vast difference between being an influential harp player and 'the most influential' blues musician. Since Little Walter was not even half as influential a blues musician as Bo Didley, let alone Robert Johnson or even the two Sonny Boy Williamsons, the constant (unreferenced) quotation here of Ry Cooder's alleged opinion that Little Walter was "the single greatest blues musician ever" is highly problematic. The point of these pages is to provide information to readers that is as accurate as possible, not to present any one person's opininion no matter how self-important especially when it bears no agreement with widely established information and knowledge. For one, Rolling Stones seems to question the claim that Little Walter was the first musician to amplify the harp: see Rolling Stones biography of Little Walter; and there has been a challenge here to the claim that he was the first musician to apply "electronic" distortion. No blues scholar--and Ry Cooder is not a blues scholar or an authority on the blues--has or would even vaguely consider Little Walter the "most influential" blues musician. Scholars would think of Muddy Waters who gave Walter his first regular band job, and Howlin' Wolf, and certainly T. Bone Walker, before Walter. In fact, most blues scholars, if they were to make a comparison, would consider Willie Dixon, author of Hoochie Coochie man and a half dozen other blues and rock 'n roll standards, far more influential than Little Walter. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.235.123.189 (talk • contribs)
- Distinction, he did not use electonic distortion. He used electric distortion. Electronic distortion wasn't invented for several more decades. Older valve amplifiers produce THD, total harmonic distortion, very different than electronic distortion.. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.235.123.189 (talk • contribs)
Excellent comment about the outsized claims made by some. Little Walter was without question extremely influential in the subculture of blues harmonica players, although I don't hear his influence at all in the playing of Butterfield or Popper--unless you're going to claim that anybody who blows amplified harp is, de facto, audibly influenced by Walter, which I don't. But you're quite right: Muddy, Wolf, T. Bone Walker, and, if you buy Elijah Wald's claim in ESCAPING THE DELTA, Leroy Carr, have been far more influential in the larger world of the blues than Walter. This is NOT to downgrade him. He was a genius on his chosen instrument, as Muddy was a genius in the matter of creating a small-ensemble blues band sound. His singing was, for my money, merely competent, where Muddy's was transcendent. (On the other hand, some might argue that he was far superior to either Muddy or Wolf, considered as a pure instrumentalist.) He surely makes the Top Ten all-time list. Well, does he? Muddy, Wolf, B.B., Bessie Smith, Robert Johnson, Sonny Boy (Rice Miller)....Sure. Top 10.74.229.164.106 (talk) 03:43, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
just a short note that as far as I know Walter was one of the very few bluesmen of that period to use a chromatic harmonica (almost everyone uses a diatonic harmonica which means you have tohave one in every key you are working in hence "ammo-belts" and other such) chromatic harmnica gives a very much fuller "organ/brass" type of sound but is much more difficult to "bend" (get quartertone notes). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.14.150.146 (talk) 15:04, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
