T-Bone Walker

Induction Year: 1987

Induction Category: Early Influence

Aaron Walker pioneered the electric guitar sound that helped create the blues and thus influenced all popular music that followed.

He played one of the first electric guitars in the mid-‘30s, recording with it in 1939. His “T-Bone Blues,” recorded as a member of Les Hite’s Cotton Club Orchestra, and “Stormy Monday” both became blues classics, demonstrating his jazz-based blues style.

His single-string solos influenced blues players like B.B. King and such rockers as and Stevie Ray Vaughan.

Walker continued to perform through the ‘70s, dying of a stroke in 1975 after suffering ulcer and alcoholism problems most of his life.

Essential Recordings

Call It Stormy Monday (But Tuesday Is Just as Bad)
T- Bone Shuffle
West Side Baby
Mean Old World
Papa Ain’t Salty
T-Bone Blues
Shufflin’ the Blues
Strollin’ With Bones
Midnight Blues
Description Blues