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Big Walter Horton & Alfred “Blues King” Harris -
Harmonica Blues Kings
Delmark DD 712 [United Series] CD

Some of the most exciting sounds on the Chicago blues scene during the 1950s feature the harmonica. Big Walter Horton’s “Hard-Hearted Woman”/”Back Home To Mama” was his first Chicago record under his own name. Willie Dixon produced and from then on Horton played on many Dixon-produced sessions and toured with Dixon’s band for many years. Big Walter was an internationally famous bluesman, who continued recording and touring until his death in 1981. Alfred Harris remains a mystery man. Born possibly in Mississippi, Alfred Harris (aka Blues King Harris or Johnny Harris) recorded on three separate occasions in the 50s, each time under a different name. The first, in 1950 or 1951, was during a field trip by the Bihari Brothers, in Mississippi, Arkansas or Tennessee, and featured Harris with a second guitarist, playing acoustic, in a very down-home style. A few years later there was a session in Chicago, with James Bannister and Earl Dranes, in a more electric, urban style. Neither of these two sessions was issued until many years later. Finally, there was a single, also recorded in Chicago, in 1956. The tunes included here come from those Chicago sessions.

1. Back Home To Mama 3:07
2. Hard Hearted Woman 3:00
3. Southern Women 2:38
4. Remember Me 2:27
5. Card Game 2:43
6. Nosey Neighbors 2:49
* 7. Hard Hearted Woman (alternate) 3:04
* 8. Back Home To Mama (alternate) 3:04
9. My Life Blues 3:01
10. Up Side The Wall 2:24
11. Gold Digger 3:25
12. Sundown Boogie Blues 3:07
13. Miss Ida 3:23
14. Great Lakes Boogie 3:03
15. Blues And Trouble 2:47
*16. Up Side The Wall (alternate) 2:04

*previously unissued

1,2,7,8
Big Walter Horton, harmonica, vocals; Red Holloway, John Cameron, tenor sax; Lafayette Leake, piano; Lee Cooper, guitar; Willie Dixon, bass; Fred Below, drums. November 1, 1954
3,4,5,6
Big Walter Horton, harmonica; Tommy Brown, vocals; Harold Ashby, tenor sax; Memphis Slim, piano; Lee Cooper, guitar; Willie Dixon, bass; unknown, drums. August 26, 1954
7 thru 16
Alfred Harris, harmonica, vocals except 11, 15; Earl Dranes, unknown, guitar; unknown, bass; James Bannister, drums, vocals on 11, 15. August 9, 1954

United Records was the first successful black-owned record company. Operated by Leonard Allen, tailor, retired policeman and obviously one of exceptionally wide taste in music, the two labels (United and States) issued some of the best performances in the jazz, blues, gospel and R&B idioms between 1951 and ’57. Delmark is proud to release this important body of masters, including many previously unissued, recorded in studios which pioneered high fidelity recording in the ’50s.

COMPLETE LINER NOTES

Some of the most exciting and popular sounds on the Chicago blues scene during the 1950s feature the harmonica. Chess Records led the way with Little Walter, Sonny Boy Williamson, Howlin’ Wolf and others; then Vee-Jay followed with Jimmy Reed, Snooky Pryer and Billy Boy Arnold. But United/States released only seven harmonica singles: four by Junior Wells (on Blues Hit Big Town, Delmark 640), one by Big Walter Horton, one by singer Tommy Brown with Horton on harp, and one rare coupling by singer-drummer James Bannister featuring the mysterious Alfred Harris.
States had some success with Wells in 1953-54, but Big Walter’s superb record failed to sell as well as United’s owner Leonard Allen had hoped, and the Tommy Brown and James Bannister releases barely made it onto the market at all. Chess’ dominance in the field discouraged further attempts so Allen continued to concentrate on more sophisticated urban blues, jazz and
R & B.
Big Walter's "Hard Hearted Woman"/"Back Home To Mama" was his first Chicago record under his own name, though he had recorded earlier sides in Memphis and played as a sideman on other Chicago sessions. Allen hired Willie Dixon to produce the two tracks (no others were recorded by Horton at the session). Dixon, who had seen Horton in Memphis in the ’40s, met him again at United’s office at 51st & Cottage Grove, and from then on Horton played on many Dixon-produced Chicago blues sessions for Chess, Cobra and other labels, and toured with Dixon's band for many years.
The States release was the first to bill Horton as "Big Walter" and clearly represented a major attempt by United to challenge Chess and Little Walter Jacobs - but Horton had in fact been known as "Little Walter" in Memphis. He asserted: "I am the original. The original Little Walter. But after this boy started out, I just gave it up, you know. It didn’t make no sense for two of us to be him." The two Walters, who both came to be acknowledged as geniuses of blues harmonica, had met in Memphis in 1942, according to Horton: "He was iust learnin’. I was teachin’ him how--me. After I got him started off pretty good then he left Memphis and come here and started with Muddy Waters. That's the way he got his start."
Prior to Big Walter’s own recording date, Dixon also put him on a session by Tommy Brown, who hadn’t worked with harmonica accompaniment on any of his Savoy, Regent, Acorn and King releases. "He came from Atlanta, Georgia," said Dixon. "He still lives in Atlanta. He was a comedian down there. Every time I see him, he’s talkin’ about that same song--'Southern Women'". United released "Southern Women"/"Remember Me", if only in a limited pressing, but two other songs from the session remained unissued. Brown made records for several other labels afterwards, both as a novelty blues singer and comedian, and was still in the nightclub business in Atlanta, in the late 1970s, according to Atlanta saxophonist Fats Jackson. Today Brown is reported to be working at a nursing home. Big Walter Horton, of course, is now an internationally famous bluesman, who continued recording and touring until his death in 1981.
James Bannister and Alfred Harris, on the other hand, have remained obscure. Their 1954 session was the most down-home of any recorded by United, and the only record released from that date, Bannister’s "Gold Digger" /"Blues and Trouble" is a rare collector’s item. Some Chicago bluesmen can remember Bannister, but few knew that he ever had a record. Even Bannister’s spelling is in doubt: it was spelled Banister on the States release, but Bannister in the session files.
Bannister had recorded twice--for Sun in Memphis and Chess in Chicago--before the States session, both times in the company of singer-pianist Dennis Binder, but the States sides were the only ones to be released. The fact that his only release was such an earthy blues, with harmonica backing, was almost a fluke, since Bannister preferred jump blues and normally used saxophonists, not harp blowers, on his gigs. Furthermore, Bannister said in a 1980 interview, the session was actually Blues King’s; Bannister had taken a job as Blues King’s drummer for a few months and ended up singing two songs in the studio to Harris’ five. Blues King’s singing efforts were rejected and are only now appearing for the first time with the release of this LP. His sides stand today as fine examples of down-home ’50s blues but perhaps at the time they were just too down-home for Allen’s tastes.
Bannister had been playing various South Side clubs as a sideman or with his own group. Blues King left town following the recording session, while Bannister began working in the Kankakee/Momence area south of Chicago with Eddie El or Evans Spencer on guitar and Willie "Long Time" Smith on piano. He also worked with Little Hudson, Lazv Bill Lucas, Floyd Jones, Willie Young, J.T. Brown, Magic Sam, Jimmy Reed, Hound Dog Taylor and others, but by the early ’60s both Bannister and Blues King Haris had vanished from the local club scene. Bannister was best remembered by other bluesmen for a blues classic he wrote but never recorded: "Roll Your Moneymaker", which became better known as "Shake Your Moneymaker" when recorded by Elmore James and many others since. Bannister’s disappearance from the blues world was divinely inspired. He had started to go into vacant, trancelike states on the bandstand, and took this as a signal from the Lord that he should find a new life in the church.
Harris’ name, origins, and whereabouts after 1959 remain the subjects of mystery and confusion in Chicago blues lore. He was known to most musicians simply as Blues King, with King thought to be his surname. He even claimed to be B.B. King’s brother, and could sing in the B.B. style. The sumame Harris, however, turned up whenever he recorded. Like Bannister, Harris had also made one recording in the south prior to his Chicago sessions. His version of "Miss Darlene" was one of several tracks listed in a Modern Records discography under "Unknown Artists" but was credited to Johnny Harris when it was released on the Kent/United LP Blues From The Deep South. (During the song, the singer refers to himself as "Mr. Harris", and before the harmonica break, someone urges, "Play it a long time, Alfred." The United/States files listed him only as Alfred Harris, while an obscure 1950s single on J. Mayo Williams’ Ebony label billed him as Harmonica "Blues King" Harris and His Mississippi Band, and this record is so rare that it is usually listed without the surname in discographies and wants lists.
He may then have come from Mississippi, or perhaps he was the Alfred Harris that the late Lee Jackson remembered from Marked Tree, Arkansas, or he might have been from St. Louis, according to harp player Nate Armstrong. Nate also remembers Big Walter Horton and Blues King teaming up as a harmonica duo in joints outside of Memphis with Garfield Akers on guitar. Good Rockin’ Charles last heard of Blues King in Champaign, Illinois, in the late ’50s, and since then the only reported sighting was in Los Angeles in the late ’70s by Shakey Jake Harris (who is presumably no relation to Alfred Harris but who is the man who first recorded James Bannister’s "Roll Your Moneymaker"). Alfred Harris may remain a mystery man, but at least he did show up at Universal Studios on Aug. 9, 1954. More than 45 years later, his lively, raw harmonica playing and singing will win him blues fans around the world.

--Jim O'Neal
Founding Editor, Living Blues magazine

(Thanks to Steve Wisner of Mr. Blues Records and Pete Lowry of Trix Records for assistance.)

1. Back Home To Mama (1497-4) (Leonard Allen, Embassy Music Corp., BMI) 3:07
2. Hard Hearted Woman (1496-3) (Leonard Allen, Embassy Music Corp., BMI) 3:00
3. Southern Women (1476-7) (Leonard Allen, Embassy Music Corp., BMI) 2:38
4. Remember Me (1477-2) (Tommy Brown, Embassy Music Corp., BMI) 2:27
5. Card Game (1478-1) 2:43
6. Nosey Neighbors (1479-1) 2:49
7. Hard Hearted Woman (alternate) (1496-1) 3:04
8. Back Home To Mama (alternate) (1497-2) 3:04
9. My Life Blues (1465-1) 3:01
10. Up Side The Wall (1463-5) 2:24
11. Gold Digger (1468-3) (James Bannister, Embassy Music Corp., BMI) 3:25
12. Sundown Boogie Blues (1467-1) 3:07
13. Miss Ida (1464-2) 3:23
14. Great Lakes Boogie (1466-1) 3:03
15. Blues And Trouble (1469-4) (James Bannister, Embassy Music Corp., BMI) 2:47
16. Up Side The Wall (alternate) (1463-3) 2:04

Album Production: Robert G. Koester
Original Supervision: Leonard Allen and Willie Dixon
Recording: Bill Putnam, Universal Recording Studios
Cover Photo: Bert Lek
Design: Kate Hoddinott

Special thanks to Victor Pearlin and George Paulus for providing information from original 78s.

Other Delmark albums containing United masters include:
Junior Wells, Blues Hit Big Town (640) with Muddy Waters,
Elmore James, Otis Spann...
Robert Nighthawk, Bricks In My Pillow (711)
Roosevelt Sykes, Raining In My Heart (642)
Jump ’n’ Shout (715) with Dave Bartholomew, Ernie K-Doe, Larry Darnell,
Erline Harris, Annie Laurie, Chubby "Hip Shakin" Newsome
Long Man Blues (717) with Eddie Boyd, Harold Burrage, Arbee Stidham
Honkers & Bar Walkers, Volume One (438) with Jimmy Forrest,
Tab Smith, Doc Sausage...
The Four Blazes, Mary Jo (704) with Tommy Braden, Floyd McDaniel
Working The Road - The Golden Age of Chicago Gospel (702) with
Robert Anderson & The Caravans, Lucy Smith Singers...
The Danderliers & Other Great Groups on States, Chop Chop Boom
(703) featuring Chicago doowop groups
J.T. Brown, Windy City Boogie (714)
Morris Pejoe/Arthur "Big Boy" Spires, Wrapped In My Baby (716)
Memphis Slim & His House Rockers featuring Matt "Guitar" Murphy,
Memphis Slim U.S.A. (710)
Jimmy Forrest, Night Train (435)
Tab Smith, Top 'n' Bottom (499)
Ace High (455)
Jump Time (447)
Paul Bascomb, Bad Bascomb (431)

Call or write for a free catalog of jazz and blues:
Delmark Records 1800 684 3480
4121 N. Rockwell
Chicago, IL 60618
C P 2000 Delmark Records
www.delmark.com