Eddie Charles My Kansas City Blues (2013)

Taking inspiration from Charlie Christian and Lonnie Johnson, T-Bone Walker plays with an exceptionally elegant and relaxed style, the perfect foil for Charles Brown's piano. An innovator of this caliber could only spark emulation. T-Bone Walker's influence can be heard in B.B. King, Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown or Buddy Guy. Even Jimi Hendrix confessed his indebtedness. Today guitarists, like Duke Robillard, Pete Mayes or Otis Grand, still perpetuate his legacy. In 1962 he toured with the very first American Folk Blues Festival (with John Lee Hooker). T-Bone Walker subsequently performed in Europe on a regular basis, with a marked preference for France. In November 1968, Black & Blue took advantage of one of his tours to have him record the album "Feelin’ The Blues," rightly considered to be one of the best he made at the end of his career. We thought it appropriate to add a few titles from his sessions with Jay McShann and Eddie Vinson, recorded a few months later while T-Bone was doing a stint at the Trois Mailletz club in Paris. T-Bone Walker is surely the most jazzy blues musician, while McShann and Vinson are among the most bluesy jazz musicians! It was impossible for this confrontation to produce anything but success.

This CD, recorded solo during his first European visit in 1980 as member of the San Francisco Blues Festival, ideally captures all the emotion of his intense voice, and the remarkable charm and sensitivity of his powerful piano.
Before he was 21 years old, Texas-born pianist Little Willie Littlefield had etched an all-time classic into the blues lexicon. Only trouble was, his original 1952 waxing of "Kansas City" (here titled "K.C. Loving") didn't sell sufficiently to show up on the charts (thus leaving the door open for Wilbert Harrison to invade the airwaves with the ubiquitous Jerry Leiber/Mike Stoller composition seven years later)…