Skip to content

Little Walter

LITTLE WALTER

YEAR

2008

INDUCTED BY

Ben Harper

CATEGORY

Musical Excellence

Little Walter stretched the harmonica to its limits.

He could make the instrument sob, howl and roar, all the while masterfully filling in the spaces around Muddy Waters’ full-bodied vocals.

Little Walter

Little Walter

HALL OF FAME
ESSAY

By Ashley Kahn

“Little Walter,” they called him. Often, there would be a certain four-syllable epithet inserted in the middle, reflecting the height of respect his musical talent commanded – and the level his anger could reach.

Small in stature he may have been, but there was nothing diminutive about his influence or his attitude. Musically, Marion Walter Jacobs was a giant. The blues, of the electric Chicago variety, were his area of expertise. The harmonica, blown through a bullet-shaped microphone, was his instrument of choice. Jacobs drew from what he heard – the spontaneity and sophisticated swing of jazz, the distortion and raw majesty of electric blues to create a fluid and fiery vocabulary.

Read More
Class of 2008
More from the class of 2008
%post_title%

The Ventures