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From: scott d
Date: Wed, 16 Oct 1996 02:09:07 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: Re: Chromatic/Big Walter

At 11:10 PM 10/15/96 EDT, Winslow Yerxa wrote:

>
>Scott D (Dirks by any chance?) writes:
>
> Big Walter never recorded on a chromatic. The only known
> example of his chromatic playing was a bootleg tape of him
> playing solo at a private party while on tour in Germany in
> the mid '60s, portions of which were released on a European
> label after BW's death. He seems to be trying to play in 1st
> position, but plays so poorly it's hard to tell.
>
>I would defer immediately to Scott's formidable expertise on the
>subject, except that I have a few Muddy Waters sides in my
>collection where the chromatic is credited to Walter Horton.
>Specifically, "I Don't Know Why" and "Ooh Wee," both from 1954.
>They sound like Little Walter to me, and it wouldn't be the first
>time that an album cover (in this case a British early '70's
>compilation titled "Back in the Early Days" on Syndicate) gave
>out wrong discographical information. I once had the opportunity
>to ask Muddy why so much of this stuuf seemed wrong. His reply:
>"They just guessin'." So maybe my picture of Walter Horton has
>been skewed all these years.


Winslow,

Your ears are correct; it is Little Walter on both the Muddy songs you
mentioned. I asked Jimmy Rogers once about the various harp players used on
Muddy's sessions in the '50s (Jimmy of course was Muddy's guitarist from the
late '40s until '56), and Jimmy said that on almost every session he was on
with Muddy, Little Walter was on harp, regardless of what the books say.
There was only one Muddy session from the '50s that featured Big Walter; it
produced one single, "Sad Sad Day" b/w "She's Alright". Junior Wells was
probably on two short sessions which produced a total of five songs. The
rest of the Muddy Waters recordings between 1950 and 1956 all feature Little
Walter on harp (when a harp is present, of course).

Scott