Electric Blues! T-Bone Walker & The Guitar That Started It All

Here’s a book that started with a guitar. Don’t they all, did you say? Well, this was a special one, and an unexpected one. Patrick Racz acquired a beautiful 1949 Gibson ES-5N that was long thought to be lost forever. How so? This was the guitar that the great T-Bone Walker used through most of his legendary career. And when Patrick asked me if I’d be interested in writing a book about the guitar and about T-Bone, it didn’t take me long to say yes.

Anyone picking up an electric guitar and playing the blues owes a massive debt to T-Bone, and that includes B.B. King, Duane Allman, Stevie Ray Vaughan, even Chuck Berry—in fact all the greats who recognise T-Bone’s importance and follow in his wake.

Born in Texas, T-Bone moved to Los Angeles seeking work and fame, soon drawing audiences from miles around to witness his astonishing guitar moves and spectacular performing style. He scored a sizeable hit in 1947 with his song ‘Call It Stormy Monday But Tuesday Is Just As Bad’, and the Allman Brothers’ cover in 1971 should have opened up yet more opportunities for T-Bone. But by then his health was failing, and he died a few years later at the age of just 64.

This book recounts how T-Bone invented the language of electric blues guitar playing, and it tells the full story of his remarkably influential career. There’s that guitar, as well, his gorgeous ES-5N that’s slowly revealing more of its eventful history. How exactly did T-Bone lose it on tour in 1968? Does it show the wounds from a bullet fired during an especially lively gig in North Carolina? And how can 3D computed tomography help by taking us on a unique journey right inside the instrument?

Electric Blues! T-Bone Walker & The Guitar That Started It All covers all this and more as it shines new light on a musician who deserves wider recognition for his achievements, not only as an innovative guitar player, but also as an engaging singer, a talented songwriter, and an unforgettable performer and entertainer.

B.B. King recalled in his autobiography the moment when, as a young wannabe, he first heard T-Bone. “I flat out lost my mind. Thought Jesus himself had returned to Earth playing electric guitar,” B.B. wrote. “I knew that nothing about guitar blues would ever be the same. I didn’t know this man—I wouldn’t meet him till years later—but I felt T-Bone Walker leading me into the future.

The slipcased book is available now in a numbered limited-edition sold exclusively by Regent Sounds in London. Avail yourself of buying info by emailing publishing at regentsounds.com, or see GibsonES5.com.