When I was going to college in NYC, I hitchhiked up to Boston several times to see Walter Horton play at Joe’s Place, where he was backed up by Johnny Nicholas and his great band. Those shows were a total revelation to me—Horton’s sound was huge and gorgeous, and he greatly expanded my notion of what was possible on the harmonica. I also able to spend time with Walter at his table between sets. Walter was by nature a shy person, but after a few drinks he would let out with all kinds of outrageous statements. He gave me his address in Chicago and told me the amazing experience that would be mine if I ever showed up for a lesson. “I got a motherf----n’ x-ray machine, man, and I will slap that f----r up against my face and you will see EVERYTHING.”

A few years later I was back in my hometown of Seattle. Walter brought his band to town to play the Rainbow, a popular music venue. I had a day job downtown then and on the day of Walter’s show I dropped in at a nearby liquor store and there was Walter, standing in line at the checkout counter, wearing the fur hat that he often favored.

I was working a lot with at that time in a band led Brian Butler, a talented singer and guitarist, and the two of us went to the Rainbow to hear Horton. Walter and his band (Left Hand Frank on guitar, Rick Molina on bass, and Ted Harvey on drums) really raised the roof off the joint that night. Walter was in stellar form. When he was on, no one could touch him. He put more air in the harp than anyone, before or since.

At the end of the night, with the crowd going crazy for more, there was a quick huddle between the club owner and Walter on stage. Then the club owner grabbed the mic and let everyone know that they had just worked out a deal to have Walter play the club again the following evening.

Awesome! Except…wait a minute—Brian was booked that night. That was our gig! So another conversation happened with the club owner, Walter, and Brian and we quickly agreed that both bands would play the next night and alternate sets, with us starting out.

I thought a lot that day about sharing the stage with Walter, but by the time I got to the Rainbow I was feeling no pressure and was just determined to do a good show and savor every second of the thrill of sharing a stage with the best harmonica player on the planet. We jumped up and did a solid opening set, Walter and his guys got up and killed it, and we did another short set. I had some friends in the audience that night who had saved me a prime seat, and now it was time to have a couple of well-earned drinks and sit back and watch Walter work his magic.

I felt a tap on the shoulder. It was Rick Molina.

“Walter wants you to play the next set with him,” he was telling me. My brain went soft and I looked across the room to see Walter beckoning to me with a crooked finger. Somehow I floated across the room to him.

“You get on stage with the band and play through the amp,” Walter told me. “I’ll put a mic down on the floor and work that.”

I grabbed my harps and microphone, climbed onstage in a daze, took a place on stage between Left Hand Frank and Ted Harvey, and plugged in. Walter put a stand with a vocal mic a couple of feet below us on the dance floor and kicked us off. For the whole set I played fills around his vocals while he and Frank took all the solos. I could have cared less, as long as Walter Horton thought I belonged up there. I just stared down at the back of Walter’s head, listened to his amazing harmonica sound, and did the best I could.

And then it was over. I shook Walter’s hand, thanked him and Rick, and watched the band head off in their station wagon to the motel. I went home and bounced around the walls for a while and then headed out the door and paced the streets until dawn, trying to walk off my excitement, but that was a thrill that’s never worn off. Definitely my most memorable musical experience, bar none.

Today is the birthday of Walter Horton, one of the musicians who had the biggest influence on me. Walter grew up in Horn Lake, Mississippi and by the time he was a teenager he had moved a few miles north to Memphis. His childhood friend, bluesman Johnny Shines, told writer Peter Guralnick about meeting Horton when they were both youngsters in Mississippi:

“Walter would be sitting on the porch, blowing in tin cans, you know, he’d blow in tin cans, and he’d get sounds out of these things. You see, this harmonica blowing is really a mark for Walter, it’s not something he picked up—he was born to do it. And he’s gonna do that. I believe he’d crack tomorrow with a harp in his hand and he’d keep it in his hand. And probably you could never take that harp away from him.”

If you ever heard Horton blow the harp, you would have no problem believing that he could get music out of a tin can. Walter had a unique, very melodic approach to the blues harp that showed the strong influence of the amazing collection of great jug band harmonica players like Noah Lewis and Will Shade who were active in Memphis in the ‘20s and ‘30s. Walter claimed to have recorded with the Memphis Jug Band when he was nine years old; he definitely backed Little Buddy Doyle on that singer’s 1939 recordings. He worked outside of music through most of the 1940s, but in 1952 legendary producer Sam Phillips recorded several sides for Sun Records with Horton. One of them, “Easy,” is a bona fide blues harp masterpiece.

Horton moved to Chicago not long after and quickly became top harp man in a city loaded with harmonica players. Horton made many brilliant recordings of his own and contributed stellar harmonica work to sessions with Muddy Waters, Johnny Shines, Otis Rush, Jimmy Rogers, Sunnyland Slim, Otis Spann, and Robert Nighthawk, among others.

When I was going to college in NYC, I hitchhiked up to Boston several times to see Horton play at Joe’s Place, where he was backed up by Johnny Nicholas and his great band. Those shows were a total revelation to me—Horton’s sound was huge and gorgeous, and he greatly expanded my notion of what was possible on the harmonica. I also able to spend time with Walter at his table between sets. Walter was by nature a shy person, but after a few drinks he would let out with all kinds of outrageous statements. He gave me his address in Chicago and told me the amazing experience that would be mine if I ever showed up for a lesson. “I got a motherf----n’ x-ray machine, man, and I will slap that f----r up against my face and you will see EVERYTHING.” I did a show with him at the Rainbow Tavern in Seattle and he invited me to join him onstage for his last set, which no doubt will always stand as my most amazing musical experience. Walter was really something else.