Happy Birthday T-Bone Walker!

Blues guitar legend Aaron "T-Bone" Walker was born this day in 1910 in Linden, Texas. The flamboyant musician and showman was one of the first guitarists to play an electric instrument in public during the 1940s, thus helping pave the way for the electric, urbanized blues boom of the 1950s.

Walker successfully made the jump from acoustic-oriented country blues to the more urban form, his jazzy licks sprucing up original songs like "They Call It Stormy Monday" and "T-Bone Shuffle" that would later become blues standards. Walker's unique technique and dynamic performing style would influence every bluesman to follow, from B.B. King and Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown to Stevie Ray Vaughan, Dave Specter, and Ronnie Earl. Join us in wishing the great T-Bone a happy birthday!

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Photo courtesy Rhino Records