T-Bone Walker
was a stunning guitarist who played the blues with a jazzman's soul, and while
Walker
wasn't a flashy singer, he got the job done with enough conviction that you can feel the country dust settling in behind his urbane delivery, and when he cut loose a little on guitar, the sparks flew with elegant tension.
was one of the first guitarists to amplify his instrument, which he did beginning in 1940, and he went on to have an influential place as a bandleader and as an in-demand session player. This generous five-disc, 129-track set collects essentially every track he recorded for the
Columbia
,
Black & White
Comet
Capitol
Mercury
, and
Imperial
record labels between 1929 and the end of the 1950s, and concludes with key tracks from his 1957
T-Bone Blues
album from
Atlantic Records
. Included are several versions of his signature song, "Stormy Monday." ~ Steve Leggett