T-Bone Walker

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  • Year:
    1987
  • Inducted by:
    Seymour Stein
  • Category:
    Early Influences
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Introduction

T-Bone Walker was the pioneer of the blues, shaping the genre with his trailblazing use of early electric guitars.

T-Bone Walker was the first to make a guitar wail, cry out and buckle under the weight of his emotion. He has influenced the likes of B.B. King, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Eric Clapton.

Hall of Fame Essay

1987

Michael Hill

lt was T-Bone Walker, B.B. King once said, who ‘‘really started me to want to play the blues. I can still hear T-Bone in my mind today from that first record I heard, ‘Stormy Monday.’ 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 I electric guitar.”

Walker was the godfather of the modern electric blues guitar. He transformed the prewar styles of Blind Lemon Jefferson and Lonnie Johnson into sophisticated, swinging electric music.

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Program 1987
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1987 Inductee T Bone Walker
a man who was really raised on the Blues
Seymour Stein