T-Bone Walker invented electric blues guitar. It's as simple as that. Before T-Bone other guitarists had plugged in, mainly in the jazz domain, but no one had sounded anything like this. Proper's lovingly produced box set takes T-Bone from the beginning, way, way back in 1929 up to 1951 when he was part way through his Imperial period. On the way it picks up everything he did at Black & White. To many critics, the music he produced at both Black & White and Imperial represents much of his very best output.
OK, the rest of us aren't "some critics" so what's it really like? Well the man himself is a consummate guitarist. He may have all the stage tricks, playing his axe behind his head etc. but he didn't really need any of that, his guitar work stood up so well. The accompaniment varies from small group, typically, piano, bass, drums and tenor sax to bigger bands with fuller horn section. Most of the tracks are slow blues (totally unlike modern blues albums where the default track is the up-tempo jumper and there's only the occasional slow blues) but this does make the faster numbers stand out more in contrast. There's the occasional ballad which will sound quite old-fashioned to today's ears. To be honest there is an old-fashioned air about much of the material but given the recording dates it would be surprising if this weren't the case. In terms of vocals T-Bone is definitely Mr Cool. Even Hendrix may have taken something from him.
Early versions of several of his classics - "Call it Stormy Monday", "T-Bone Shuffle", "Mean old World", "Strolling with Bones", "Cold Cold Feeling" are contained here. He was to record some of these tracks again and again but there's nothing wrong with the first cuts.
This isn't a set for the casual listener but don't let me put anyone off - you could fall for it immediately. For someone who's not really heard the man before I'd recommend starting with his Atlantic material collected on the Sequel album "T-Bone Blues" - this also has recordings of his classic numbers but has a much more up to date sound. However for the serious blues fan, particularly of the Texan variety of electric blues, it's an absolute must have - for that reason I`m going for five stars. Any collection of T-Bone's music should have this set, it's that important. This is where the likes of Gatemouth Brown, Phillip Walker and Long John Hunter learned their blues (not forgetting BB King).