Jimmy Walker, born in Memphis, Tennessee, on March 8, 1910, was a veteran of the Chicago blues scene from the rent-party days of the ’20s through to the postwar ’50s, although it wasn’t until 1964 that Jimmy’s forceful and hard-hitting boogie piano could be heard on record. An album, Rough & Ready Piano, with Erwin Helfer was recorded by Pete Welding for his Testament label (202). Walker recorded again with Helfer, Blues Boogie Woogie Piano Duets and Solos, for Flying Fish (001) in 1974. Walker was probably the last of Chicago’s rent-party pianists still working when BU had a chance to interview him in 1975. Walker remained a mainstay on the Chicago club circuit and, along with pianist Sunnyland Slim, served as an elder statesman on the scene until his death on October 16, 1997.
—Mike Rowe
Jimmy Walker Talking
Mike Rowe
Blues Unlimited #116 (Nov./Dec. 1975)
Well, see, I was born in Memphis. My mother brought me on when I was three years old and I never been back since. Then a Jewish fellow raised me right here, see. I left my mother when I was about seven years old and I’d stay with him and he’d always take me back, ya know what I mean, over there to see my mother. At that time my mother lived at 18th and Butterfield. Abe Holtzman was his name. So he sent me to school and I stayed right there at the house. He opened up a delicatessen store down on 30th Street—30th and Indiana. See, back at that time, colored people didn’t cross Wabash. And if you crossed Wabash, the police would get you. You wouldn’t cross there at all. But, see, me, I was always with him and he was a nice fellow until you made him mad. He’d take me everywhere, and you don’t act like you didn’t like it, ya know what I mean, ’cause he’d get pretty angry. And I just stayed right on with him. We lived at 53 E. 53rd Street. See, the synagogue was right across the street on the corner of 53rd and Michigan. Before he moved from there, I went back with my mother. I was about seventeen years old then. I started messing around then, trying to play.
Jimmy Walker.
This guy—I forgotten what this guy’s name is that played for Gloria Swanson. See, now, you’re too young to remember any of this. This was a female impersonator. She was the world’s greatest female impersonator. She was a man and he didn’t wear nothing but women’s clothes. He dressed like a woman and he looked like a woman. And this guy was playing piano for him and I was young. I couldn’t go in there. Down on 18th Street right off State Street—it was a kind of—it was a storefront, a club they had there. They had two stores and the piano was out right at the front like over to the side. They didn’t have no big showcase, ya know, window in there. They had—must have been, oh, I guess maybe 14 or 15 glasses. Just like, you know how they have those section glasses—and one of the glasses was broke, and I would always go around there and mess around with this guy. I always wanted to play. Well, he taken a liking to me and I was running around and, see, sometimes when he wasn’t playing, well, I go where he was at and I’d learn, too. Caught on a little bit, then I’d drop back. Then I’d run into another guy by name of Lorenzo Murphy and I got with him and I got a little tight, and I began to learn a little bit more from him. ’Cause his uncle was a piano player and he learned quite a bit from his uncle Harry, I think, Harry Murphy. Now, he was a old-timer. He plays a lot of blues—he plays blues, but he could play all those popular numbers, too, like “Sam the Accordion Man.” Something you don’t even hear now, and, ooh, he played quite a few numbers. Well, after a while, ya know what I mean, I had a piano where I could practice more.
See, we all used to hang out together. Curtis Jones and Lonnie Johnson, Porkchops (Lee Green), he used to run around, come and hang around us. We’d all just go around, we’d range, like, say, from 39th Street, Federal, and Dearborn all the way on out to 51st Street. In other words, we’d play for parties, see, and this time we’d get about 50 cents a night. We’d play for these house-rent parties. And sometimes you didn’t give me but 50 cents. This was alright, but if somebody else give me a dollar or dollar and a half, say, “I’ll give you a dollar and a half,” ya know what I mean, we’re going over here. In other words, like, if you were going to play somewhere, I’ll come in (and) I’ll help, you see? You wouldn’t have to give me anything—we’d all just get together and come on by. Curtis and Roosevelt (Sykes), which, let’s see now, Murphy and this guy named Booker—Booker Peebles. Now, you never heard of him, I imagine, but he was pretty good. He played mostly around Cleveland. See, he played here a little bit in Chicago, but he played mostly around Cleveland. Albert Ammons, I knew him pretty well, and what’s this other boy’s name … Art Tatum. See, I knew him pretty well, too. The onliest one I know that did play. I used to run around with him quite a bit when he was playing out here on 61st Street. See, now, one while I was almost playing to a certain extent like him, but I couldn’t, ya know what I mean. I couldn’t get the feeling, see, that I wanted, so what I did—I want to play like me. I don’t try to play like nobody else.
Leroy Carr, he used to be around with us, too. Around here fooling around. He used to sleep on pool tables down here at 43rd and State. Yeah, see, in that time, I was living down at 31st and Wentworth, so, I don’t know—when I knew anything he was dead. Pinetop Smith, I know him, too. I never fooled around with Pinetop too much, ’cause he—he was a kinda sarcastic guy, never fool around with him too much. This guy who put out this … I forgot the name of this piece, but don’t nobody play it—nobody fool with it. Nobody plays it, ’cause it’s just kinda tough—it’s a tough number—“Cow Cow Blues”! Cow Cow Davenport—yeah, he used to play around 29th and Dearborn between State and Dearborn. A club restaurant—I don’t know what that lady’s name was. Little ole restaurant right on the corner of the alley. See, back in those days, they didn’t have no names.
This guy that made that “44 Blues”—it wasn’t Lee Green. No, this guy made “44 Blues” before anybody. He was the one that composed it. We was over at Hop’s (Hop Johnson, Curtis Jones’s guitarist) house at 45th and Michigan. See, we down in his basement. He lived in the front, see, in other words, just like this was a partition here, ya see. Well, this here was his bedroom, and he had a kind of a kitchen off the side and in here was his piano. And we’d all go in here, ya know what I mean, and sit up here and just play. Different guys come in, I mean, and sit down and play. This guy what made the “44 Blues” keeps coming around—ya know what I mean, I’m trying to call … Shoot, Little Brother was probably a little boy back along that time. It was Johnny something, I done forgot now. Hop, he can tell you exactly. Punkin’ was the name of this guy that put out the “44 Blues.” Punkin’, yeah, that’s his name. No, that wasn’t the guy who got killed at 51st and Federal, because he used to come over there, too, see, and we always used to play at his woman’s house up on the second floor. And this guy killed him about his wife. His wife was sitting down beside him and he shot him with a .45. His wife run out the back door, he told him that’s why he couldn’t keep his wife at home and shoot him with that .45, and he jumped up and ran to the door and fell down the steps. Like the second floor, they run the steps up from the sidewalk right up to the second floor, and people lived on the first floor, they come in on the side here, go under the steps going up. And I can about remember that just as good where the house and everything was and how it was set up. See, the people didn’t—they didn’t have no whole lot of furniture. See, back in those times things was kinda rough. They didn’t have too much furniture—maybe, like a couch. Set a couch up in here and they’d have maybe two or three chairs and a piano, see, and anybody come here.
Clarence (Lofton), he was a pretty nice fellow. Kinda nice about getting around and you playing with him. He liked to fight—liked to drink, see. Before I run into him when we was doing this barn dance out there in Hopkins Park, see, we used to hang out down around 45th and State. Other words, a lady over there used to have a party pretty well every weekend, yeah, and we’d go over there. I forgot what her name was. We all used to go there, ’cause she had a son, see, and he played, too. I don’t know, I think her name was Rose and his name was Raymond. I don’t know what her second name was. See, what happen, it was kinda like a club outfit, ya know what I mean? It’s like you, for instance, you’ve got a group of people, see, and, uh, you take your group—you bring your group over and you give me a play this week, see. Next week you take your group and my group and we go over and we’ll give somebody else a play. This is to help them to get their rent together. See, now, it’s about your time, see, for your rent, so they will bring their group and my group and all and come over, ya understand, ’cause whiskey was only 15 cents a half pint. That was moonshine and, ya know, they made money and home brew was a quarter. Home brew is a beer, see. It’s made up like beer, but that home brew it was stronger than moonshine—you drink two bottles of it like this and you had it, yes, sir. See, but back in those days, nobody bothered you. You could have $10,000 in your pocket. Just like you come here, you got drunk, take your money off you, and you can drink all you want to, see, and maybe, oh, if you were too drunk, wouldn’t let you go home, make you sleep here all night. You get up and you might say, “Well, I’m going home.” Okay, well, you go ahead on home. Somebody’ll take you home. You still don’t have no money, see, and it may be two days later, three days later, say, “Listen, you tell so-and-so I want to see him.” You know you had money when you went there, but you haven’t got a quarter. You woke up, you’re broke. Well, here, here’s all your money, right? Now, they wanted to make the rent money, but they don’t want to take nothing from you. See, this is the good part, everybody was nice like that. Womens walk the streets with $50 gold belts around their waist, $25 gold necklace hanging down, walk the streets all night long, nobody bothered ’em. Shoot, you better not try it now!
This was in the ’20s and the ’30s. Now, see, take like people didn’t have no jobs that amount to nothing. You couldn’t even buy a job. But me, I had a job working in a drugstore on Elston Avenue. I learned how to read Latin, ya know what I mean, how to fill prescriptions, yeah.
They (house-rent parties) kinda died out, because things began to get a little bit better. People began to go to work a little bit. Well, before the war, see, things began to kinda get better even before Roosevelt’s time. I mean people, other words, was making whiskey, ’cause I made some myself, and I used to make as high as $300 a day and I’m not kidding you.
I run into a fellow—real estate. See, what happened, the real estate guy let me stay in a house out on 34th and Vernon to keep the people from tearing them up. Nobody would break out the windows if they see somebody living there, ya know what I mean. And I stayed in there until he rented it, and when he rented it he put me in another place. Well, I stayed on the first floor and I rented out a flat on the second floor. Then this fellow come along that was a bootlegger and he wanted to rent the third floor. Well, I didn’t want to let him have it, ya know, but he said, he told me, “Well, I’ll tell you what, see, if I can get it I’ll let you put a couple of barrels in there.” So I put me a couple of barrels in there, and the next thing I know I had these seven barrel vats. These vats was tall. You had to take a six-foot ladder to get up there to drop the sugar in. They’d hold 2,500 lbs. of sugar, see, and I had my stills downstairs. I’m telling you, and I lived right there on the first floor and you walk right in off the street in my house. Shoot, I never had no trouble. And just like we sitting down here now, the police used to come and sit down and do the same thing—sit down and drink. And if you came in for a gallon jug, I take the jug and fill a gallon jug—don’t put it in no bag—take it right out here just like you get it. Broad daylight and police ask you, “Where you got that?” “I got that over Walker’s.” “Well, hurry up and get off the street with it.” I tell you—I was a young man. Well, ya know, there was a long time I didn’t think that I would work. I didn’t have no overalls to go to work in. I had nineteen suits of clothes, twenty-eight pairs of shoes, and just so much shirts and ties and things, and that’s the way I stayed. I had six men working for me and just, like, I’d go out, let’s say, for instance, I’d come over your house, I’d get a cab—a yellow cab—and I’d have the cab to wait. And if I’m out on the street walking the street and I see a police, they’d pick me up, take me home. They didn’t want me on the street. Shoot, man, I’ve had it rough and I’ve had it good. Like, I have ate off a nickel a day—one nickel a day. Lorenzo and I were what you call real stiff buddies. Like, he made a nickel and I make a nickel. He wouldn’t spend his nickel and I wouldn’t spend my nickel until I saw him. We would go—there was a bakery at 44th and State, and the guy used to have, I guess he must have made it like day-old rolls. Sweet rolls and, ya know, donuts and stuff like that. And he made up a something, like—he call it “Washington Pies,” and they was about inch and a half, two inches thick, and he’d cut you off a chunk for a nickel and we’d cut that pie half in two. We’d go to the drugstore. At that time you could get two cigars for a nickel. We don’t know whether tomorrow we’re going to get a nickel to buy cigars and cakes with, so what we’d do, we’d take one cigar and cut it half in two and we’d smoke half of that cigar, see? Tomorrow we’d have a whole cigar, see. All we’d have to do is buy our cakes tomorrow. (laughs) Oh, boy, you talking about rough. We really had it rough, see, and, uh, then this is what happened when we run up on Hop, see. And we all got a nickel or dime, go round and give it to him, ya know what I mean, and he would make up a pot, see. You’d buy five pounds of neck bones for a dime, see, and, uh, if you bought a nickel’s worth of white potatoes, you had just more potatoes than you could use at one time. You’d have enough almost to make a meal tomorrow. So this is the way we’d eat then. We’d all go round there and play, eat, and drink—be full. We—we made it. It’s been a tough struggle, but I thank God we made it.
Jimmy Walker, Homesick James. Chicago, early 1950s.
The Square Deal on Division Street, Division and Wells, that was my first job. Homesick and I was there. It’s on the North Side. Then after I left Homesick and, ya know, I started fooling around. That must have been around ’39, early ’40s. I gave it up for a while, and then after I left—ya see what happened, I don’t know … what it seem like to me, I don’t know whether I have a different way of playing, whether it’s me or feeling I try to put to it, see? In other words, if I don’t feel it, you don’t feel it. Well, you know what I did? I used to play in church and they said I was playing blues, and I said, well, I just quit. They say they was going to throw me out of church, so I stopped going.
I think if I’m not mistaken the next guy I taken up with was Billy Boy … Arnold. See, him and I played out here at the Barrelhouse Lounge—51st and Michigan. We played out there about seven months. See, we went there behind Little Walter. We had Mighty Joe Young and, uh, Robert Whitehead, Billy Boy, and myself—’55. I had people coming in here all the way from Kansas City when we was out on 51st Street, and the guy that had the club, he came down there to 47th Street and he listened to Junior Wells, and meantime he didn’t stop to think that this club, 708, this man had the club there way before he had opened there, and he was more established, see? So he told Billy Boy we’ll get rid of the piano and we’ll get another guitar. So, okay, it’s alright, it’s alright with me, ’cause I always worked—construction work. See, I was making $550 a week, so when I went there I wasn’t looking for no job. So I went on and he said we’ll get rid of the piano. Okay, I got people coming in there from Kansas City, St. Louis, Memphis—every week. We start at 10 and at 1 o’clock he’d had to lock the door. And he had two stores bigger than this, and you couldn’t get in the first store to get to the bar. So after I, uh, left there, the stuff would begin to fall off, and he’d want to know why they couldn’t hold the crowd. So I told him, well, the people come here asking about the piano player. Three or four carloads of people coming in, then they ask, and Billy Boy say he didn’t know where I was at. They say, “Well, if he’s in Chicago we’ll find him.” I left there and went to 65th and State, 6500 State. It was a club right on the corner and I went there. I had Johnnie Temple with me, see. And when the people found out I was there, they started loading that up. So Kid (Riviera) told Billy Boy, after the peoples was asking where was I at and they wanted me. So he told Billy Boy to tell me to come back to come out there, ya know what I mean. I could bring my company and I could have a table and I could get my drinks free and everything was free, and every now and then I’d go up and play a number. I shouldn’t go up and play no number. I’m making you money and I ain’t going to get nothing. No, no, that don’t make no sense. So, I didn’t go out there the second week. The third week I goes out there, they sitting up playing pinochle! The band just playing and they playing pinochle—nobody in there! I wouldn’t bother with it. I just forgot about it, see. Then come along Elmore (James) when he come to Chicago, see, he was living with me then. See, I used to live right on the corner down here. I’ve been right here between 43rd and 47th Street over forty years. When he moved from me he moved to 4714 S. Evans. His cousin, she used to live about 728, no, 726 E. 45th Street, ’cause I had a store there. His cousin had a room in the back there. Him and I, our first job was at the Tuxedo Lounge. Yeah, that was our first job—left there come to 708. I done forgot now who this other fellow—who else was with us, but, anyway, we left there and went to the Square Deal at Damen and Madison, right on the corner. See, then he started to messing up with my money. Yeah, so I told him, man, you pay him, you pay each one of us our money, see, because here’s what happen. He had quite a few people that come in with him, ya know, and they come in and he’d have two or three tables, and what he’d do—he’d go up to the bar, ya understand. He’d get a fifth of whiskey and set it on each table and we’d have to pay for it, see, and we don’t even smell it. So I told the man, “Uh-uh, no, not me! Give me what I’m s’posed to get and we won’t have no trouble.” I had the same trouble with Little Walter when I played with him. See, well, I was going to cut his throat! Shoot, I stopped him right out there on the lake: “Give me mine and I’ll get out of here. I’ll get me a cab.” See, that’s me. Don’t play with my money! We’d played out here for a dance in Gary, and he thought maybe he figured the whiskey was enough. See, it was a big stage. This was when he came out with “Juke” and we’d been drinking, and, see, each man takes a solo and, ya know what I mean—you got time to go over here and get, ya know, yourself a shot. The man had a fifth sitting here and one sitting there and one sitting over there, see? So you could get up and go and come on back. And this is when we got kinda high. We started playing “Juke,” we didn’t quit! And the man come up and say, “That’s all, fellas, that’s all,” and started waving his hands like that and, “That’s all fellas, cut it down, that’s all.” And do you know they had to send the police up there to get us? Yeah, we just, ya know what I mean, I guess we just went berserk!
Then I used to broadcast on WLS Sunday afternoons. Forget the name of this guy—about 27th—2710 or 2705 Wentworth, something like that. Because—what’s this girl’s name—something Davis. Her band used to come in there behind us. Her old man’s got a garage at 40th and Cottage Grove now. Tiny Davis! She played down there, too. I done forgotten now who all we had with us, but they had one guy down there who played tenor sax. We’d always have to go get him from out of the street! Yeah, see, the bandstand was almost as high as that piano, and the bar was just about maybe a foot taller, and he walk—he step right off that stand and he’d walk right down that bar get blowing. He’d walk right down that bar and he’d have to get that drink. Walk right down that bar and go on and step right off that stool right on out to the street. And we’d go out there get him, turn him around, and he never stopped walking. Back along the bar right on back on the stand! He was natural crazy, but he could blow! Yeah, that guy could naturally blow.
I never did any recording before. I don’t know, I was always afraid of making a mistake. I don’t like to make mistakes, see? I do a lot of playing by myself, because I want to get this stuff down pat. I know what it is, see, and it’s no need to start off with me with something else, ya know what I mean? I won’t accept it. And if there’s no feeling with it, I can’t get no feeling to it—you can forget it.
I don’t ever try to copy no one’s style. I want to play like me. I have my own style. See, the thing about me, what I play today I don’t have to play it tomorrow. Another thing—I won’t play it the same way, because there’s something sounds a little different—sounds a little better, and when I play it tomorrow, ya understand, I done heard it. I done already heard it, see, so tomorrow when I play it, I play it a little different.”