1. Marion Walter Jacobs, known as Little Walter, was an American blues musician, singer, and songwriter, whose revolutionary approach to the harmonica had a strong impact on succeeding generations, earning him comparisons to such seminal artists as Django Reinhardt, Charlie Parker and Jimi Hendrix.
Little Walter was inducted into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2008, the first and, to date, only artist to be inducted specifically as a harmonica player.
Little Walter was born without a birth certificate and when he applied for a Social Security card in 1940, his birthdate was listed as May 1,1923.
Little Walter was raised in Rapides Parish, Louisiana, where he learned to play the harmonica.
Little Walter quit school, and by the age of 12 had left rural Louisiana and travelled, working odd jobs and busking on the streets of New Orleans, Memphis, Helena and West Helena, Arkansas, and St Louis.
Little Walter honed his musical skills on harmonica and guitar, performing with older bluesmen including Sonny Boy Williamson II, Sunnyland Slim, Honeyboy Edwards, and others.
However, unlike other contemporary blues harp players, such as Sonny Boy Williamson I and Snooky Pryor, who had started using the newly available amplifier technology around the same time solely for added volume, Little Walter purposely pushed his amplifiers beyond their intended technical limitations, using the amplification to explore and develop radical new timbres and sonic effects previously unheard from a harmonica or any other instrument.
Little Walter joined Muddy Waters' band in 1948, and by 1950 he was playing acoustic harmonica on Waters's recordings for Chess Records.
The first appearance on record of Little Walter's amplified harmonica was on Waters' "Country Boy", recorded on July 11,1951.
Little Walter's guitar playing was occasionally featured on early Chess sessions with Waters and Jimmy Rogers.
Little Walter based it on Louis Jordan's saxophone playing which was jazzier and swinging and rhythmically less rigid than that of other, contemporary blues harmonica players.
Little Walter occasionally included saxophone players in his touring bands during this period, among them the young Albert Ayler, and Ray Charles on one early tour.
Little Walter played on recordings for other labels, backing Otis Rush, Johnny "Man" Young, and Robert Nighthawk.
Little Walter's body was buried at St Mary's Cemetery, in Evergreen Park, Illinois, on February 22,1968.
Little Walter is widely credited by blues historians as the artist primarily responsible for establishing the standard vocabulary for modern blues and blues rock harmonica players.
Biographer Tony Glover notes Little Walter directly influenced Junior Wells, James Cotton, George "Harmonica" Smith, and Carey Bell.