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Posts Tagged ‘Big Walter Horton’

Died On This Date (August 31, 2009) Jesse Fortune / Chicago Blues Singer

Posted by themusicsover on August 31, 2010

Jesse Fortune
February 28, 1930 – August 31, 2009

Jesse_FortuneSinger Jesse Fortune was a Chicago blues mainstay since the 1950s.  Known as “Fortune Tellin’ Man,” had a minor hit with “Too Many Cooks” in 1962.  Discovered by Willie Dixon, Fortune went on to record with such luminaries as Buddy Guy and Big Walter Horton.  While performing on a Chicago club stage on August 31, 2009, Jesse Fortune collapsed and later died at an area hospital.  Cause of death was coronary atherosclerosis.  He was 79 years old.



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Died On This Date (December 8, 1981) Big Walter Horton / Blues Icon

Posted by themusicsover on December 8, 2009

Walter Horton
April 6, 1917 – December 8, 1981

Big Walter Horton was a Mississippi-born blues harmonica player who is considered to be one of the blues’ most influential musicians.  Horton’s career began in the late ’20s and by 1939, he began making records, the first of which, backed by guitarist, Little Buddy Doyle.  He all but retired from the music business during the ’40s, but in the early ’50s, he became one of Sam Phillips’ first signings to his fledgling Sun Records.  Horton soon moved north to Chicago where he became a fixture over the next two decades.  There he performed or recorded with the likes of Muddy Waters, Johnny Shines, and Willie Dixon and was memorialized in the acclaimed Vanguard Records survey of Chicago blues, Chicago/The Blues/Today!.  He also lent his skills to early rock recordings by Fleetwood Mac and Johnny Winter.   Horton continued performing and recording throughout the ’70s and even appeared in a scene alongside John Lee Hooker in the 1980 film, The Blues Brothers, starring Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi.  Big Walter Horton was 64 when he died of heart failure on December 1, 1981.

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